One of the largest industries to be facing a Human Resources issue is the Health Care industry. The downsizing of the healthcare workforce that will result as Baby Boomers retire is upwards of 28%. There is a growing need for qualified, non-generalized employees in the medical field. Coming with the need for employees for the medical positions will be a need for additional HR and IT personnel.
The Healthcare field is constantly changing, and HR in this field is projected to fall behind in the coming future. One of the biggest concerns for in future HR trends is that the Baby Boomers are leaving the workforce. This is not an issue by itself, but when paired with the lack of skilled workers joining the field, it is a problem. While on the surface, the problem will effect the staffing; the problem could be more wide reaching and affect the cost and availability of healthcare to the general public.
While this trend isn’t specific to healthcare, and all industries are facing challenges, issues arise when organizations, in particular those in the healthcare realm, have skilled senior people as opposed to generalists. Retaining experience is crucial and the current generation is not filling the positions vacated by aging Baby Boomers. These Boomers will soon stop putting into the Medicare and Social Security taxes, yet will begin to draw from them and that money is projected to run out in about 15 years. HR managers face the task of filling the open positions, and what seems to be the trend for this an increase in pay for skilled workers in the medical field. However, incoming employees are drawn by the salary, and go for the higher paying positions of RN and LPN, leaving major deficiencies in the CNA and CMA positions still understaffed.

Human Resources in the Health Care field are working opposite of many HR departments in other fields. While many businesses are looking to downsize employees to meet budgetary needs, the Medical field is rapidly hiring to fill the needs. As a result of the recent emphasis placed on recruiting and retention, it has become evident that there is a renewed focus on HR Management and the need for better technology to manage human resources. A case can be made that healthcare institutions have lagged in this area relative to other industries. In order for the health care industry to meet the needs of the health workers, the will also need more skilled IT and HR personnel.

The Health Care industry needs to change the way it does business. It is important that emphasis is placed on creating a more patient friendly way to bill customers.
HR will play a role in this, as they will be tasked with finding the employees needed to implement the changes. Healthcare is notorious for being behind in the IT department. It will be critical to implement changes regarding IT for billing and payment option.
Finding Qualified HR employees will be critical to finding qualified medical workers.

Core competencies are another area that needs focus from HR. Within the healthcare industry, the ability to measure competencies of employees is critical in predicting if the healthcare staff and other professionals are able to provide quality services and the highest level of Patient care. Where as goals and objectives describe what you want from the staff, competencies take into account the actual behavior and how you want given tasks to be accomplished. Competencies should be clearly defined, and used consistently.

Healthcare will continue to face challenges into the future. With the rapid decrease in current workers from the baby boomer generation, the lack of graduating skilled workers coming into the healthcare field, the poor IT in the health care field, the need for additional HR to work with requisitioning new workers. While working to requisition new employees the HR team will have to ensure that the new employees share the core competencies of the company. When hiring it is very important for the recruitment personnel to disclose the company's core competencies, if employees are made aware what is expected, it will be more likely to prevent unforeseen turnover.

Reference

Pizzi, R. (n.d.). Facing down the challenges of healthcare HR. Retrieved May 10, 2015, from http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/facing-down-challenges-healthcare-hr

McNickle, M. (2012, February 17). 8 trends for a changing healthcare workforce. Retrieved May 10, 2015, from http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/8-trends-changing-healthcare-workforce?single-page=true

Martel, Y. (2013, September 26). Why healthcare HR needs to champion effective talent management practices. Retrieved May 10, 2015, from http://www.halogensoftware.com/blog/why-healthcare-hr-needs-to-champion-effective-talent-management-practices