An exploratory study on the facilitators of employee engagement in private healthcare
- Authors: Van Jaarsveld, Ryno
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Employee training personnel , Personnel management , Health services administration
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: vital:9416 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1020874
- Description: The modern workplace continues to transform at a radical and accelerated pace and successful and competitive organisations are able to turn their strategies into action faster, manage their processes more efficiently and maximise their employees’ contribution and commitment (Brewster, Carey, Grobler, Hollard and Wärnick, 2010:5). In addition, Vestal (2009:6) adds that one of the biggest challenges that managers face at the moment, is to find ways to engage employees in the organisation and build a sense of belonging that, hopefully, will support retention and long term commitment. This research study aimed to explore and describe the nature and extent of employee engagement among nursing employees working in private healthcare. This exploration also encompassed five facilitators which are considered to be crucial in the promotion of an engaged workforce. The identified facilitators include: leadership behaviour, working environment, communication, training and development and rewards and recognition. This was attained by using a quantitative, exploratory, descriptive and contextual research approach. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from nursing employees working in one of the private hospitals in the Nelson Mandela Metropole. From the data, the overall degree of employee engagement was established as well as the significance of the five identified facilitators in employee engagement. Based on the analysed data, guidelines for the advancement of employee engagement are proposed that can assist management in the development of employee engagement practices and strategy formulation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Van Jaarsveld, Ryno
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Employee training personnel , Personnel management , Health services administration
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: vital:9416 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1020874
- Description: The modern workplace continues to transform at a radical and accelerated pace and successful and competitive organisations are able to turn their strategies into action faster, manage their processes more efficiently and maximise their employees’ contribution and commitment (Brewster, Carey, Grobler, Hollard and Wärnick, 2010:5). In addition, Vestal (2009:6) adds that one of the biggest challenges that managers face at the moment, is to find ways to engage employees in the organisation and build a sense of belonging that, hopefully, will support retention and long term commitment. This research study aimed to explore and describe the nature and extent of employee engagement among nursing employees working in private healthcare. This exploration also encompassed five facilitators which are considered to be crucial in the promotion of an engaged workforce. The identified facilitators include: leadership behaviour, working environment, communication, training and development and rewards and recognition. This was attained by using a quantitative, exploratory, descriptive and contextual research approach. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from nursing employees working in one of the private hospitals in the Nelson Mandela Metropole. From the data, the overall degree of employee engagement was established as well as the significance of the five identified facilitators in employee engagement. Based on the analysed data, guidelines for the advancement of employee engagement are proposed that can assist management in the development of employee engagement practices and strategy formulation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
The experiences of employees utilizing an employee assistance programme in a psychiatric hospital
- Authors: Zonke, Phindiwe Princess
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Employee assistance programs -- South Africa , Health services administration , Job stress
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:10054 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1018571
- Description: Employer’s assistance to employees experiencing personal problems originated in the 19th century. The term Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) was however formulated in the 1970’s in the United States and, initially, only focused on alcohol dependence rehabilitation. EAPs have since seen a paradigm shift in their focus as they now deal with the full range of problems experienced by employees such as family life or relationship issues, work related stresses, financial pressures, depression or anxiety, alcohol and drug abuse. The researcher observed that some employees in the psychiatric institution, where they are employed as both professionals and non-professionals, were experiencing personal problems and very little if anything was done to provide assistance to them. It also seemed as if very few of them made use of the voluntary EAP service made available by the institution. The fact that a number of employees have problems can have serious negative consequences in that it causes a high rate of absenteeism and the institution’s core business, which is to provide care to its users, is compromised. The researcher undertook this study because EAP services fall within the realm of institutional development. This study could therefore make an invaluable contribution to the transformation discourse which has been taking place in the South African health systems in general and psychiatric institutions in particular. The purpose of this research is to determine employees’ experience of utilizing an EAP in a psychiatric hospital. The researcher is personally interested in employees’ experiences of utilizing the EAP in order to provide recommendations that will assist and strengthen the policy/guidelines for the Eastern Cape Department of Health on the use of EAPs. The workplace has an obligation to provide EAP services to employees so as to help them meet their contractual obligations in a holistic and healthy manner. The research goals are to explore the experiences of employees who have utilized an EAP. The findings will be used to make recommendations regarding the utilization of the EAP policy/guidelines that are currently used to assist the employees. The research methodology will be qualitative, descriptive, exploratory and contextual. The research population and sampling for this study will consist of the employees who have made use of an EAP. Participants will be selected using a purposive sampling approach. Data gathering will be done using semi-structured interviews, at a venue convenient to the participants. Open-ended questions will be asked to enable participants to express their perceptions on the topic. The data will be analyzed using Tesch’s method of data analysis. The identified themes will be used to describe employees’ experience of utilizing an EAP. Trustworthiness will be ensured by using Guba’s model of trustworthiness. The ethical principles of beneficence, self-determination and justice will be ensured by asking for each participant’s consent, by not coercing individuals to participate in the study and by ensuring permission from the Department of Health and from the University’s research committee to conduct the study.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Zonke, Phindiwe Princess
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Employee assistance programs -- South Africa , Health services administration , Job stress
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:10054 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1018571
- Description: Employer’s assistance to employees experiencing personal problems originated in the 19th century. The term Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) was however formulated in the 1970’s in the United States and, initially, only focused on alcohol dependence rehabilitation. EAPs have since seen a paradigm shift in their focus as they now deal with the full range of problems experienced by employees such as family life or relationship issues, work related stresses, financial pressures, depression or anxiety, alcohol and drug abuse. The researcher observed that some employees in the psychiatric institution, where they are employed as both professionals and non-professionals, were experiencing personal problems and very little if anything was done to provide assistance to them. It also seemed as if very few of them made use of the voluntary EAP service made available by the institution. The fact that a number of employees have problems can have serious negative consequences in that it causes a high rate of absenteeism and the institution’s core business, which is to provide care to its users, is compromised. The researcher undertook this study because EAP services fall within the realm of institutional development. This study could therefore make an invaluable contribution to the transformation discourse which has been taking place in the South African health systems in general and psychiatric institutions in particular. The purpose of this research is to determine employees’ experience of utilizing an EAP in a psychiatric hospital. The researcher is personally interested in employees’ experiences of utilizing the EAP in order to provide recommendations that will assist and strengthen the policy/guidelines for the Eastern Cape Department of Health on the use of EAPs. The workplace has an obligation to provide EAP services to employees so as to help them meet their contractual obligations in a holistic and healthy manner. The research goals are to explore the experiences of employees who have utilized an EAP. The findings will be used to make recommendations regarding the utilization of the EAP policy/guidelines that are currently used to assist the employees. The research methodology will be qualitative, descriptive, exploratory and contextual. The research population and sampling for this study will consist of the employees who have made use of an EAP. Participants will be selected using a purposive sampling approach. Data gathering will be done using semi-structured interviews, at a venue convenient to the participants. Open-ended questions will be asked to enable participants to express their perceptions on the topic. The data will be analyzed using Tesch’s method of data analysis. The identified themes will be used to describe employees’ experience of utilizing an EAP. Trustworthiness will be ensured by using Guba’s model of trustworthiness. The ethical principles of beneficence, self-determination and justice will be ensured by asking for each participant’s consent, by not coercing individuals to participate in the study and by ensuring permission from the Department of Health and from the University’s research committee to conduct the study.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
The impact of public health expenditure on health outcomes in South Africa
- Authors: Hlafa, Besuthu
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Health services administration
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MCom (Economics)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/13381 , vital:39639
- Description: Health holds an important position in maintainable economic development since it is both a prerequisite for and an outcome of economic development. This means that health contributes hugely to the attainment of sustainable development and health outcomes. The importance of health is demonstrated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) where three of the eight goals are aimed at improving health outcomes. Despite progress made by other middle-income countries in achieving health-related MDGs, South Africa still has worse health outcomes and experiences a challenge in attaining positive outcomes for these goals (Coovadia et al., 2009; Malaudzi 2016). This study’s main focus was to identify the association between public health expenditure and health outcomes in South Africa’s nine provinces from 2002 to 2016. The study implemented fixed effects and a random effects panel data estimation technique to control for time effects and individual province heterogeneity. This was followed by employing the Hausman specification test to identify the fixed effects model as the appropriate estimator for the study. The study also employed the seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) model and the least squares dummy variable (LSDV) model to examine the impact of public health expenditure on each province separately. The findings from the study elucidated that the relationship between public health expenditure and health outcomes in South Africa varied across provinces depending provincial management and infrastructure availability.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Hlafa, Besuthu
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Health services administration
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MCom (Economics)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/13381 , vital:39639
- Description: Health holds an important position in maintainable economic development since it is both a prerequisite for and an outcome of economic development. This means that health contributes hugely to the attainment of sustainable development and health outcomes. The importance of health is demonstrated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) where three of the eight goals are aimed at improving health outcomes. Despite progress made by other middle-income countries in achieving health-related MDGs, South Africa still has worse health outcomes and experiences a challenge in attaining positive outcomes for these goals (Coovadia et al., 2009; Malaudzi 2016). This study’s main focus was to identify the association between public health expenditure and health outcomes in South Africa’s nine provinces from 2002 to 2016. The study implemented fixed effects and a random effects panel data estimation technique to control for time effects and individual province heterogeneity. This was followed by employing the Hausman specification test to identify the fixed effects model as the appropriate estimator for the study. The study also employed the seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) model and the least squares dummy variable (LSDV) model to examine the impact of public health expenditure on each province separately. The findings from the study elucidated that the relationship between public health expenditure and health outcomes in South Africa varied across provinces depending provincial management and infrastructure availability.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
The sustainability of health committees in Nelson Mandela Bay
- Authors: Zhakata, Chikomborero
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Health services administration , Community health services
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:9151 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1019704
- Description: Primary health care is pivotal to the growth of a country’s economy by improving the health and social well-being of its people. Several efforts and structures have been put in place to ensure that all South Africans have access to health facilities as well as representation in the health facilities, just as community members are represented in schools and other boards. Health committees play an important and integral role to the community and health facilities by being mediators between the community and the health facility (Padarath &Friedman, 2008). The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces that has health committees that are fully functional and a number of factors including the collaboration of key stakeholders (facility managers, community members, clinic staff and ward councillors) contribute to why health committees have been operational in the Eastern Cape(Padarath &Friedman , 2008). It becomes critical to investigate factors that sustain health committees in Nelson Mandela Bay. This chapter introduces the research topic, purpose, rationale and background as well as the objectives of the study. The research focuses on investigating the sustainability of health committees in Nelson Mandela Bay therefore making it critical to define the term sustainability. Conceptualizing sustainability has been ongoing with various definitions from learners from different backgrounds. Sustainability as a concept emanates from different dimensions namely, scientific, political economic and indigenous dimension. Sustainability has been described by scholars as a state of well-being and as an evolutionary process (Dimitrov, 2010). Sustainability is regarded as a state of well being whereby humans can live in co-exist with the natural world, this definition takes into account issues to do with good health , cultural identity, personal security and freedom of choice. Sustainability- well being brings out a lot of questions and problems in identifying the fundamentals values of sustainability. It is continuously debated amoung scholars if sustainability of well being pertains only to the health conditions of human beings or it should be extended to others (Dimitrov, 2010) “Sustainability that is restricted to the well being of humans is related to Notions about security of individual/community health together with financial security together with financial security; the planet is regarded as a resource to further this end (Dimitrov, 2010:4) If however well-being definitions of sustainability are construed to preserving and protecting the environment as well as biodiversity of other species (plant and animals) then the normative definitions of sustainability from this viewpoint are tendered with notions of global Environmental stability, ecological considerations and security of ecosystems” (Dimitrov, 2010:4).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Zhakata, Chikomborero
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Health services administration , Community health services
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:9151 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1019704
- Description: Primary health care is pivotal to the growth of a country’s economy by improving the health and social well-being of its people. Several efforts and structures have been put in place to ensure that all South Africans have access to health facilities as well as representation in the health facilities, just as community members are represented in schools and other boards. Health committees play an important and integral role to the community and health facilities by being mediators between the community and the health facility (Padarath &Friedman, 2008). The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces that has health committees that are fully functional and a number of factors including the collaboration of key stakeholders (facility managers, community members, clinic staff and ward councillors) contribute to why health committees have been operational in the Eastern Cape(Padarath &Friedman , 2008). It becomes critical to investigate factors that sustain health committees in Nelson Mandela Bay. This chapter introduces the research topic, purpose, rationale and background as well as the objectives of the study. The research focuses on investigating the sustainability of health committees in Nelson Mandela Bay therefore making it critical to define the term sustainability. Conceptualizing sustainability has been ongoing with various definitions from learners from different backgrounds. Sustainability as a concept emanates from different dimensions namely, scientific, political economic and indigenous dimension. Sustainability has been described by scholars as a state of well-being and as an evolutionary process (Dimitrov, 2010). Sustainability is regarded as a state of well being whereby humans can live in co-exist with the natural world, this definition takes into account issues to do with good health , cultural identity, personal security and freedom of choice. Sustainability- well being brings out a lot of questions and problems in identifying the fundamentals values of sustainability. It is continuously debated amoung scholars if sustainability of well being pertains only to the health conditions of human beings or it should be extended to others (Dimitrov, 2010) “Sustainability that is restricted to the well being of humans is related to Notions about security of individual/community health together with financial security together with financial security; the planet is regarded as a resource to further this end (Dimitrov, 2010:4) If however well-being definitions of sustainability are construed to preserving and protecting the environment as well as biodiversity of other species (plant and animals) then the normative definitions of sustainability from this viewpoint are tendered with notions of global Environmental stability, ecological considerations and security of ecosystems” (Dimitrov, 2010:4).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Motivation levels of tuberculosis healthcare staff at a district hospital in Kenya
- Authors: Busolo, Mellanda Isia
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Health services administration , Employee motivation , Tuberculosis -- Prevention
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:10135 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1008292 , Health services administration , Employee motivation , Tuberculosis -- Prevention
- Description: Background: The success of tuberculosis (TB) treatment largely depends on healthcare team factors within a healthcare system, as healthcare workers play a vital role in fostering patient adherence to TB treatment. Strengthening motivation amongst Kenya’s TB healthcare workers should thus be reinforced in order to improve on clinical outcomes of TB treatment in Kenya. Objectives: To determine motivational needs of TB healthcare staff at a district hospital in Kenya and to provide recommendations on how to enhance their motivation. Design: TB healthcare workers including nurses, doctors, pharmacists and community healthcare workers were purposively sampled from a district hospital in Kenya. Their motivational levels were measured using a questionnaire adapted from Bennet and colleagues (2000). Key Findings: A high level of job satisfaction was present in more than 50 percent of the employees, although the ‘extrinsic job satisfaction’ sub-scale stood out as scoring relatively poorly in comparison to the other ‘job satisfaction’ sub-scales. Cognitive motivation yielded mixed results with 44 percent of respondents rating themselves as being satisfied, and 56 percent between neutral and very dissatisfied. The overall organisational commitment was positive, with the majority (60 percent) of respondents rating themselves as being committed to their organisation. The majority (96 percent) of workers rated their performance at work as very high. Conclusion: Improvement in staff motivation can be attributed to how well a hospital's management organises and runs its hospital. It was recommended that hospitals should provide an environment where motivational strategies are continuously implemented and where change is positively rewarded. This may, in turn, have a positive impact on TB treatment outcomes. The study may be of interest to key decision makers in Kenya’s healthcare system as well as TB programme managers, hospital managers and health managers in general. Further investigations are needed in order to determine whether Kenya’s public healthcare system has a staff retention strategy that is up to date with the motivational needs of Kenya’s health workforce.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Busolo, Mellanda Isia
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Health services administration , Employee motivation , Tuberculosis -- Prevention
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:10135 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1008292 , Health services administration , Employee motivation , Tuberculosis -- Prevention
- Description: Background: The success of tuberculosis (TB) treatment largely depends on healthcare team factors within a healthcare system, as healthcare workers play a vital role in fostering patient adherence to TB treatment. Strengthening motivation amongst Kenya’s TB healthcare workers should thus be reinforced in order to improve on clinical outcomes of TB treatment in Kenya. Objectives: To determine motivational needs of TB healthcare staff at a district hospital in Kenya and to provide recommendations on how to enhance their motivation. Design: TB healthcare workers including nurses, doctors, pharmacists and community healthcare workers were purposively sampled from a district hospital in Kenya. Their motivational levels were measured using a questionnaire adapted from Bennet and colleagues (2000). Key Findings: A high level of job satisfaction was present in more than 50 percent of the employees, although the ‘extrinsic job satisfaction’ sub-scale stood out as scoring relatively poorly in comparison to the other ‘job satisfaction’ sub-scales. Cognitive motivation yielded mixed results with 44 percent of respondents rating themselves as being satisfied, and 56 percent between neutral and very dissatisfied. The overall organisational commitment was positive, with the majority (60 percent) of respondents rating themselves as being committed to their organisation. The majority (96 percent) of workers rated their performance at work as very high. Conclusion: Improvement in staff motivation can be attributed to how well a hospital's management organises and runs its hospital. It was recommended that hospitals should provide an environment where motivational strategies are continuously implemented and where change is positively rewarded. This may, in turn, have a positive impact on TB treatment outcomes. The study may be of interest to key decision makers in Kenya’s healthcare system as well as TB programme managers, hospital managers and health managers in general. Further investigations are needed in order to determine whether Kenya’s public healthcare system has a staff retention strategy that is up to date with the motivational needs of Kenya’s health workforce.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
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