Human Resource Management of Healthfirst International - Case Study Example

Established in 1997, Healthfirst International is a leading medical insurance provider offering a large range of local and international medical insurance products and services that provide extensive protection for our members and policyholders. Since establishment, Healthfirst has built a solid reputation for providing innovative and highly competitive health insurance products, offering medical security and piece of mind to individuals, families, and corporate groups. Our aim is to continue to grow market share while providing superior customer service to our members and business partners. Our focus is to provide a dedicated range of innovative and value for money products designed to meet the needs of the Kenyan market. As a company, we have chosen to compete on quality, and as always, there are cheaper alternatives, but you’ll find nothing better. Healthfirst was the first medical insurance provider on the African Continent to be ISO 9002 certified on February 8th 2001. This it-self is a testament to the fact that we believe in quality management systems and service. Strength: Healthfirst International’s greatest asset is its people. Staff by an experienced, professional and friendly team, our customer service is unbeatable. Security: All our local medical plans and international covers are 100% underwritten. Service: Healthfirst earns client confidence by delivering superior service round the clock. Healthfirst maintains a 24 hour emergency centre that provides day and night assistance in the event of a medical emergency or evacuation. Healthfirst has its own fleet of fully equipped Ambulances that responds to its members needs where necessary and is able to provide its members with a far more superior service. Product Range include , Inpatient covers, Outpatient covers, Dental Plans, Optical Plans, Maternity covers, Critical illness plans, Personal Accident covers, Last expense covers, Ambulance services, Evacuation services International Medical & Travel Insurance Services are allianze Worldwide Care Limited, Goodhealth Worldwide Limited, International Health Insurance Denmark a/s (Member of the BUPA Group). Product profile are hospitalisation, outpatient, ambulance services, maternity covers, optical covers, dental covers, critical illness covers: Hospitalisation: As a member of Healthfirst, your hospitalisation benefit entitles you to admission at any of our appointed hospitals in Kenya with no deposit or bills to pay. And in the case of a medical emergency, admission to hospital and essential treatment are automatic with your Healthfirst membership card. Upon notifying Healthfirst about the emergency, Healthfirst will monitor your progress and ensure further treatment where necessary. Outpatient: As an outpatient with Healthfirst International you need never worry about the cost of visiting a doctor. Healthfirst outpatient providers are open through out the day and a General Practitioner is always available to see you. Should your case need to be referred to a specialist, Healthfirst will ensure you are in good hands. Ambulance Services: In an emergency Healthfirst International is prepared for a rapid response. Should you, as a member, need immediate treatment for a life threatening condition and are unable to get to a hospital, just contact the Healthfirst 24-hour emergency numbers that will link you to our Emergency Medical Services division. The staff will dispatch or arrange for a fully equipped road ambulance to take you to hospital, and where necessary, air-evacuate you. Maternity Covers: This covers pre-natal hospital expenses, normal deliveries, pregnancy’ complications, post-natal expenses, elective and subsequent caesarean sections. Optical covers: The Healthfirst optical covers provide a tangible and highly valued benefit to its members. It covers ophthalmologist's consultation fees, prescribed eyeglasses and contact lenses, eye testing, treatment and medication. Dental Covers: Our dental covers will keep you smiling. They cover dentist's consultation fees, extractions, filling crowns, caps, and operating theatre costs, dental treatment to the teeth or damaged dentures as a result of an accident or disease. Critical Illness Covers: From our experience at Healthfirst we know that many people do not consider that some times recovery from a serious illness, assuming that they recover or survive, could leave them with some form of disability or long-term impairment. Our critical illness cover can help you take away some of that financial strain by paying a one off lump sum if during the period of your cover you suffer from or undergo any one of the specified illnesses or operations in the policy document. The lump sum can give you immediate assistance and help contribute towards various costs, day to day expenses, or even alterations to your home. Emergency Medical Services: The Healthfirst Emergency Centre service provides its members with fast and efficient emergency response services 24/7 by highly trained medical staff. This department has continued to progress & grow into a highly effective modern day rescue & evacuation unit and training division of Healthfirst International. The Emergency Control Centre is manned 24 hours a day by qualified Paramedics while ambulance response teams consist of highly trained and experienced medics. The Company plays an important role in responding to national disasters. A few examples are the City Gate Blast, collapse of a building under construction on Ronald Ngala Street (Nyamakima Disaster), and other mercy calls where ambulance services have been provided for free to road accident victims. Due to reliability and well-equipped ambulances, the emergency services department works closely with some very reputable security firms and medical insurance companies to provide ambulance services to their clientele. As part of our Company’s Corporate Social Responsibility, the company runs a free Emergency Aid Program for schools. This program is designed for the school’s teachers and their assistants, child care takers, the child’s parents and ayahs (house help for children). The program prepares the attendees on how to handle a medical emergency and what to do during the emergency. The course covers the basics such as incident management, unconsciousness, chocking, asthma, fainting, poisoning, bleeding, burns and fractures. Services offered under the Emergency Medical Services division are 24 hour critical care ambulance services, air ambulance & evacuation services, medical transport & inter hospital transfer services, mobile casualty services, medical coverage for events and programs, health & safety training and consultancy, first aid training courses, supply of first aid kits & equipment. Due to rapid growth Healthfirst has been looking for experienced dynamic professional to help it meet its objective it has a number of policies to guide it operations the include management ,staff personal ,procurements policies. All vacancies must be advertised in daily paper. A time frame is set buy which applications are to be received, that is there is opening and closing date. Applications are received through post office and hand delivery. Once closing date is due applications coming after the set date are rejected. Sorting application begin. Prospective or shortlisted candidate are conducted via telephone call. Depending on the number of application they are divided into groups and lots. Interviews are conducted by human resource. Best candidates are selected. Qualified candidate are given reporting date when to start work. Gap Analysis It is used to figure out what needs to happen to improve the current state 1. End state 2. Current State 3. What is currently missing between the end state and the current state END STATE CURRENT STATE GAP/ACTION 1 Job Advertisement done through the media Limits number of people to recruit and its not accurate more time is wasted work load is bulky Web data bases can be used .Its accurate less time is used or wasted 2 Application received through post office Many application large ,bulky time and space is wasted Can be done via Email through a web data base 3 Time frame set by which applications are to be received Wastes a lot of time Accurate and easy through mail and web applications 4 Sorting Application In accurate and time wasting Easy effective ,accurate 5 Prospective Candidate Conducted via Telephone One way media Through mail ,Fax 6 Interviews conducted by human resource One person and method used that is by CV Interviews following contents of CV/application form Competency-based interviews Structured interview (panel) Tests for specific skills Structured interviews (one-to-one and critical incident/behavioural) General ability tests Literacy and/or numeracy tests Personality questionnaires Employment reference (pre-interview) Assessment centres Telephone interviews Academic reference (pre-interview) Online tests (selection/self-selection) 7 Candidate given an appointment date Reports on a specific date any legal requirements (for example, some Health and Safety training is obligatory) any regulatory requirements (for example in the banking sector certain forms need to be completed) introduction to terms and conditions (for example, holiday entitlement, how to make expense claims, etc) a basic introduction to the company, and how the particular department fits in a guided tour of the building completion of government requirements set-up of payroll details introductions to key members of staff specific job-role training Some of the methods used to recruit are mostly traditional therefore for lager organization like healthfirst, it is recommended that a radical shift from these traditional method to digital .A large organisation like health first is capable of purchasing a large domain, in which data application can run to boost efficiency and accuracy. A human management system should be in place this refers to refers to the systems and processes at the intersection between human resource management (HRM) and information technology. It merges HRM as a discipline and in particular its basic HR activities and processes with the information technology field, whereas the programming of data processing systems evolved into standardised routines and packages of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. On the whole, these ERP systems have their origin on software that integrates information from different applications into one universal database. The linkage of its financial and human resource modules through one database is the most important distinction to the individually and proprietary developed predecessors, which makes this software application both rigid and flexible. The function of Human Resources departments is generally administrative and common to all organizations. Organizations may have formalized selection, evaluation, and payroll processes. Efficient and effective management of "Human Capital" has progressed to an increasingly imperative and complex process. The HR function consists of tracking existing employee data which traditionally includes personal histories, skills, capabilities, accomplishments and salary. To reduce the manual workload of these administrative activities, organizations began to electronically automate many of these processes by introducing specialized Human Resource Management Systems. Due HR executives rely on internal or external IT professionals to develop and maintain an integrated HRMS. Before the "client-server" architecture evolved in the late 1980s, many HR automation processes were relegated to mainframe computers that could handle large amounts of data transactions. In consequence of the high capital investment necessary to purchase or program proprietary software, these internally-developed HRMS were limited to organizations that possessed a large amount of capital. The advent of client-server, Application Service Provider, and Software as a Service or SaaS Human Resource Management Systems enabled take increasingly higher administrative control of such systems. Currently Human Resource Management Systems encompass, Payroll ,Work Time ,Benefits Administration, HR management Information system ,Recruiting ,Training/ Learning Management System LMS, Performance Record The payroll module automates the pay process by gathering data on employee time and attendance, calculating various deductions and taxes, and generating periodic pay cheques and employee tax reports. Data is generally fed from the human resources and time keeping modules to calculate automatic deposit and manual cheque writing capabilities. This module can encompass all employee-related transactions as well as integrate with existing financial management systems. The work time gathers standardized time and work related efforts. The most advanced modules provide broad flexibility in data collection methods, labour distribution capabilities and data analysis features. Cost analysis and efficiency metrics are the primary functions. The benefits administration module provides a system for organizations to administer and track employee participation in benefits programs. These typically encompass insurance, compensation, profit sharing and retirement. The HR management module is a component covering many other HR aspects from application to retirement. The system records basic demographic and address data, selection, training and development, capabilities and skills management, compensation planning records and other related activities. Leading edge systems provide the ability to "read" applications and enter relevant data to applicable database fields, notify employers and provide position management and position control. Human resource management function involves the recruitment, placement, evaluation, compensation and development of the employees of an organisation. Initially, businesses used computer based information system to produce pay checks and payroll reports, maintain personnel records, pursue talent management. Online recruiting has become one of the primary methods employed by HR departments to garner potential candidates for available positions within an organization. Talent Management systems typically encompass, analyzing personnel usage within an organization, identifying potential applicants, recruiting through company-facing listings, recruiting through online recruiting sites or publications that market to both recruiters and applicants. The significant cost incurred in maintaining an organized recruitment effort, cross-posting within and across general or industry-specific job boards and maintaining a competitive exposure of availabilities has given rise to the development of a dedicated Applicant Tracking System, or 'ATS', module. References Robert L. Mathis and John H. Jackson (Sep 11, 2007) Human Resource Management Raymond Noe, John Hollenbeck, Barry Gerhart, and Patrick Wright (Nov 8, 2007) Human Resource Management Sharon Armstrong and Barbara Mitchell (Aug 1, 2008) The Essential HR Handbook: A Quick and Handy Resource for Any Manager or HR Professional David A. DeCenzo and Stephen P. Robbins (Aug 14, 2006) Fundamentals of Human Resource Management Dr. Michael J. Kavanagh and Dr. Mohan Thite (Paperback - Dec 11, 2008) Human Resource Information Systems: Basics, Applications, and Future Directions G. Florkowski (Paperback - Jul 7, 2006) Managing Global Legal Systems (Global Human Resource Management) Mike Losey, Dave Ulrich, and Sue Meisinger The Future of Human Resource Management: 64 Thought Leaders Explore the Critical HR Issues of Today and Tomorrow . Read More