The Corniche Hospital is a premier maternity facility in United Arab Emirates, in Abu Dhabi, Corniche road, just behind the Sheraton hotels and resort to be precise. The joint Commission International accredited hospital is believed to be the UAE’s leading referral hospital for both neonatal care and obstetrics. The hospital boasts of specialty clinics that can handle fetal medicine, lactation, and obstetric medicine among others. It has a capacity of about two hundred thirty five inpatients and facilities enough for over fifty intensive care cases at any given time (http://www.cornichehospital.ae)
The hospital is owned and run by the Abu Dhabi Health services Company and, managed by the John Hopkins Medicine International network of hospitals. Over the past couple of years, the hospital management has completed the renovation of existing facilities as well as constructed an ultra modern Urgent care facility and ambulance services. The hospital is now in the process of expanding its outpatient department so as to increase its services provision to its clients. The hospital has made these strides and many others in a bid to live up to its motto of not only ensuring patient satisfaction but also ensuring patient safety (http://www.cornichehospital.ae).
Corniche hospital is the largest referral hospital in the United Arab Emirates and by extension the largest in the Middle East region. As earlier mentioned, the hospitals main focus is the maternity and neonatal case to the residents of this region and beyond.
The hospital has a number of departments that are run by department heads in order to ensure the smooth provision of medical services to its clients. These departments include the Obstetrics and gynecology department, anesthesiology department, and the neonatal departments. These departments work together to ensure the smooth provision of medical services to the deserving patients.
This paper seeks to establish the recruitment and selection process in the hospital. Recruitment and selection gives the structure of an organization. It’s a methodological way in which an organization attracts and places candidates in their respective career positions so as to attain maximum potential of these candidates at the most reasonable cost implication.
The objective of the recruitment and selection process is to ensure that an organization chooses a candidate who can most successfully perform the given task from a pool of similarly qualified candidates. The selection process starts with the initial interviews and ends with the hiring decision making.
Human capital or resources have been found to be the most valuable resources in any organization. This report is prepared based on the processes used to recruit and select candidates for any available positions at the Corniche hospital. Ideally, the purpose of recruitment is ensuring a sufficient pool of applicants for which the most qualified candidates could be selected. Selection on the other hand will involve the choosing of a qualified candidate from the applicant pool by the use of a given selection strategy. This report attempted to cover all the important sections of the recruitment and selection process at the Corniche hospital. While conducting this work, the researcher tried to find out how the hospital recruits and selects its employees in a bid to ensure a proper fit of skills.
PURPOSE OF THE PROCEDURES
Recruitment and selection of the right people is of paramount importance to the success of the hospital and its ability and capacity to retain the highest caliber of staff. The recruitment procedures that follow provide the policies and guidelines that ensure that supervisors and human resource managers hire the best people based on merit and that the recruitment process is free, fair and transparent. The recruitment policies and procures must also ensure that the hospital complies with the laws of the land with regard to labor laws and regulations.
The recruitment and selection framework at Corniche hospital
The framework is designed to meet the following objectives
Asses the necessity for the job and also consider sources and availability of funding
Review the job specifications and description so as to ensure that it meets the hospitals present and future requirements
Design the desirable selection process
Draft the advertisement and choose the desired advertization media
Shortlist candidates without any bias or prejudices
Interview the shortlisted candidates
Do a proper reference checks, qualification and background checks
Make the ultimate hiring and placement decision at the end of it allThe directors and supervisors who are responsible for hiring must ensure that these procedures are followed
The first step in the recruitment is the request for personnel. When a vacant position arises, or when the hospital management decides to add additional staff, the immediate supervisor must notify the human resources department so that the necessary steps towards re-staffing could be commenced.
The necessary job specifications, requirements and description must be provided by the immediate supervisor. The information is generally on the educational and technical level of training required, the physical demands of the job. The expected hours of work, and any other information that may be necessary depending on the level of staff. Naturally, the entry level salary is determined by the classification of the vacant positions in relation to other positions and the associated start up pay. This is however done in consultation with the human resources and development department
Job Posting.
Once the vacant position has been agreed, the human resources and development department posts the job advert in the bulletin board. It is also posted on the hospitals “vacancies” section of the website so as to widen the possible applicant scope. In some cases however, the hospital employs the services of recruitment agencies to assist in specialized hiring.
SELECTION PROCESS
Screening Applicants
The end of the recruitment process is characterized by the receipt of the applications from the candidate pool. Selecting team reads the applications that have been submitted. The selection of these candidates is majorly based on the job descriptions and specifications. The shortlisted candidates are selected on the basis of merit so as to ensure that the process is free and fair. This is done in consideration of the job requirements so as to ensure that the candidates who meet as closely as possible, the job specifics are selected (Gareth, 2005).
Arranging the Interview
The person responsible for the interview schedules the dates and times for the interview with the shortlisted candidate and notifies candidates of any selection tests that will be administered and any materials or documents that they may be required to carry. The venues for the interview will also be considered at this level.
The Interview
The interview is purposed to appoint the best suited person for the job based on suitability and merit. The selection and recruitment panel achieves this by ensuring a systematic, fair, unbiased and based on a rational criteria. The candidates in the interview are treated the same way. Here the panel ensures that all candidates are asked the same questions, are not harassed and are given a fair judgment in regard to decisions on hiring. In this section, candidates are also requested to provide their original academic documents and also verify their identity.
The hiring decision
The hiring decision is informed by the candidate’s performance at the interviews, the content of applications and both academic and professional qualifications, the outcome of selection tests if any. These factors are used to make decisions on the candidate’s merits and eligibility.
Reference Checks
In order to satisfy themselves that information given by a particular candidate can stand loser scrutiny, the interviewers do a reference check on the selected candidates on their information especially concerning the work history, educational qualifications and the evidence presented in the interviews. The referees availed by the candidate are called to verify the information presented by the candidates and are supposed to do so in utmost good faith.
Criminal Background Checks
In some cases, the candidates are expected to provide proof that they have not been involved in criminal activities. The interviewers sometimes contact the authorities with regard to the candidates in question. (Beardwell,J& Claydon,2007)
Disqualification of Applicants.
Any of the following reasons will lead to automatic disqualification of candidates.
Addiction to the use of drugs and or alcohol or both.
Any person that has been conviction of any serious crimes that in the opinion of the interviewers would be detrimental to the operations of the hospital and any person whose conduct would jeopardize the business of the hospital or any undercharged bankrupt among other reasons.
Employment Offer
After the interviewers have completed all their work and agreed on the right candidate, an offer letter is drafted and handed to the candidate stipulating the job description, salary, company rules, termination procedures, notice periods etc. The candidate is give the letter in duplicate and is supposed to sigh and return a copy of the employment letter to the human resources and development department for filing in the personal files. This marks the end of the recruitment and selection process at the hospital.
Problems
The above process however is not without a number of pitfalls. One of the most prominent problems is the vacant positions are rarely posted on the local dailies as the hospital concentrates majorly on online recruitment and the use of recruitment agencies. This effectively affects the quality of staff that is hired as not very many applicants get to hear of the job adverts
The use of department heads to design the job descriptions and specifications may overlook some key aspects of the job as the department heads are not experts in human resources management. A poorly developed job description may fail to attract the right candidates for the job.
The interviewers do not inform the unsuccessful candidates of the reason for their rejection, or even the mere fact that they have not been successful as should be the case.
The company does not engage the services of a solicitor in the recruitment process. This would help in ensuring that the hospital is in compliance with the applicable laws of the land so as to avoid possible litigation.
Conclusion and recommendations
Corniche hospital attempts to a great extend to follow the laid down procedures and guidelines so as to ensure that the best candidates are matched with the available positions. The procedure followed has been largely successful in ensuring a proper mix of skills in the hospital.
This notwithstanding, the hospital would benefit big-time if the following issues were addressed.
The human resource resources department should ensure that the available vacant positions are circulated far and wide so that a larger pool of resources can be generated for the best results.
Department heads could do with some training on the various aspects and requirements of the recruitment process so as to make the process more efficient and effective.
The hospital management should ensure that where necessary, legal opinion is sought concerning several aspects of the recruitment and selection process so as to mitigate the risk of possible litigation arising from the same.
In conclusion, Corniche hospital is in the right path in ensuring quality medical care to its patients as it aims at remaining at the top in its category in the Middle East. The strong recruitment procedures have also come in handy in ensuring that the hospital attracts and maintains a high level of staff.
References
Beardwell,J& Claydon,T (2007). Human resources management.A contemprrary approach.Prentice Hall financial times
Gareth, R(2005) Recruitment and selection, developing practice.Chartered institute of Personnel and development.
Taylor, S (2010). Resourcing and talent management.Mc Graw Hill Education
The Corniche hospital,(2012) adapted from http://www.cornichehospital.ae.
