Area of Business Practice
Human resource management is a logically consistent and strategic approach to managing the most significant asset of an enterprise: the organization’s personnel, who individually and collectively contribute to solving organizational tasks. The main goal of human resource management is to ensure the success of a particular organization through the activities of employees (Bratton & Gold, 2017). An important place in achieving the organization’s success is the selection of resources and their development. In order for an organization to maintain and provide the necessary qualified, purposeful, and highly motivated workforce, it is necessary to conduct a correct assessment and meet the company’s need for labor. Moreover, it is vital to strengthen and develop the innate abilities of employees, that is, contribution to the work of the enterprise, the possibility of using the work of employees, as well as their potential in the future.
Recently, there has been a significant interest in exploring the factors affecting employment equity and equality. These two similar but different concepts have become the cornerstone of work ethics (Bratton & Gold, 2017). Primarily, it concerns the field of healthcare services where inequality is tangible. In particular, gender inequality in the human resources of health care remains a serious problem: the number of women who make important decisions and perform leadership functions is too small.
Discrimination against specific categories of the population in the labor market, for example, women, ethnic or racial minorities, and migrants, seriously increases their exposure to the risk of exploitation and abuse, including in the form of forced labor. The problems of finding decent work often make parents from ethnic minorities use their children’s jobs to make ends meet (Hideg & Ferris, 2016; Luppi, 2017). Despite all its many manifestations, discrimination usually takes invisible, secret forms, undermining the dignity of people and depriving them of their future. This deprives them of the opportunity to express their opinion at work and fully participate in it (Hideg & Ferris, 2016). Discrimination suppresses human potential, uselessly wastes the talents necessary for economic progress, and exacerbates social tensions and inequality. In addition, it is the leading cause of social exclusion and poverty.
Specific Focus and Rationale
Employment equity and equality remain significant issues in healthcare organizations. Therefore, they present a great interest to modern researchers. In particular, it would be essential to pay attention to the gender inequalities within healthcare organizations since they are still debated. It is evaluated that women make up 70% of healthcare workers, but only 25% hold senior positions (Cotter, 2017). This means that women provide medical services globally, and men carry out the leadership. Stereotypes, discrimination, and inequality of opportunities cause this gender imbalance in leadership positions. Some women are further deprived of their rights on the basis of race or class.
Gender inequality in the human resources of health care indicates the presence of a broader problem in global health. Gender norms and stereotypes regarding official duties can often influence which positions women occupy. Cultural labels of “male” and “female” roles do not allow women to rise to a leader’s level (Galer, 2018: Williams et al., 2016). These stereotypes play a significant role in the existence of a gender pay gap. Women health workers also face the gender pay gap, which is, on average, about 25% higher in the global health sector than in other sectors (Ford et al., 2020). Women medical workers occupy a lower position and perform less paid (and often unpaid) work.
Furthermore, women often face prejudice, discrimination, and sexual harassment. This can affect their career and lead to severe stress and a drop in morale. Many countries lack legislation and social protection systems that ensure gender equality in the workplace – moreover, male medical workers are more likely to form trade unions that protect their rights than female medical workers (Ford et al., 2020). As a result, this research will focus on gender equity and equality among healthcare employees and disclose how recruiting managers can fix the problem.
Contribution to the Professional Practice
Personnel management is one of the most critical areas of organization management. People are the essential resource of any organization. They create new products, accumulate and use financial resources, and also control quality. Individuals are capable of continuous improvement and development. Their capabilities and initiative are limitless, while other resources are limited. As a result, they create a general impression of the organization and its level in the market.
A retrospective study of human resource management issues in healthcare in a comparative aspect with their modern perception shows a prolonged progressive movement involving these processes in contemporary reality. These processes are not systemic but relatively local in nature, which makes them difficult to trace. However, this study will primarily focus on human resources management in healthcare and employment equity and equality to disclose the factors contributing to developing proper working relations and conditions and hindrances.
Human resource management directly affects the capitalization (value) of the company; it is significant for healthcare organizations. The share of intangible assets such as brand, the intellectual potential of personnel, and personnel policy in the organization’s total assets is growing (Bratton & Gold, 2017). In addition, human resource management, as the most critical “internal competence” of the organization, is one of the factors that ensure leadership in the competitive struggle. It becomes a guarantee of its success and survival in the conditions of increased competition.
Human resource management is still understudied in terms of equity and equality in the workplace. The proposed research will contribute to professional practice by exploring the main drivers for employment equity and equality. The study will explore the factors affecting the functioning of these two phenomena within the healthcare facility. Additionally, it will establish the dependence between human resources, diversity, and working conditions.
Approach
The main feature of research design is to ensure that the evidence collected will allow a researcher to solve the problem directly and unambiguously. It is vital to select a proper research design in order to receive valid and reliable outcomes. Typically, the human resource management sphere requires thorough investigation in many fields related to human relationships. On the other hand, amounts of data need to be measured to establish correlations between variables. Therefore, it is necessary to combine both qualitative and quantitative approaches in this research.
This study will combine methods of qualitative research, including analysis of theoretical material primarily. Additionally, quantitative research methods will be used to conduct a statistical experiment regarding the posed questions. They also imply working with a matrix of digital data analyzed using statistical laws. As for categorization, the quantitative approach means a predefined system of categories in digital terms, while the qualitative approach allows for mobile verbal categories. An experimental plan or design is a project of research operations that includes strategies for selecting participants and forming groups of subjects, determining variables, variable impacts, scales for measuring variables, etc.
Considering that the study will include a combination of approaches, it may be stated that the most suitable would be a descriptive, experimental research design. The descriptive research design is used when there is enough knowledge about the object to put forward descriptive hypotheses. The purpose of such a plan is a strict description of the qualitative and quantitative features of social structures, processes, and phenomena. The experimental plan or design is a project of research operations that includes strategies for selecting participants and forming groups of subjects, determining variables, variable impacts, scales for measuring variables, and others. These two designs would provide the theoretical basis for employment equality and equity in healthcare organizations and identify what affects diversity and inclusion.
Timescale
Since Ph.D. dissertations should be profound in nature, the investigation process will take approximately three years. Writing my doctoral thesis will begin withdrawing up a preliminary plan, which will superficially divide the topic into separate sub-paragraphs. This section will also include the title, subject, object, hypothesis, problem statement, purpose, research questions, relevance, and novelty. These aspects will give a general impression of the dissertation and provide me with insights on how to compile the material.
The second step of writing the research would be compiling the theoretical materials. It presumes to investigate peer-reviewed literature in order to ensure my study will be based on solid scientific background. Once the literature review is accomplished, analyses and experiments will take place. Since their flow cannot be predicted yet, I would launch them six months before the thesis defense. Based on the results of the research, I will develop a conclusion, implications, and recommendations.
References
Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2017). Human resource management: Theory and practice. Macmillan Education UK.
Cotter, A. M. (2017). Gender injustice: An international comparative analysis of equality in employment. Taylor & Francis.
Ford, R. T., Han, S. Y., Oppenheimer, D. B., & Foster, S. R. (2020). Comparative equality and anti-discrimination law. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Galer, D. (2018). Working towards equity: Disability rights activism and employment in late twentieth-century Canada. University of Toronto Press.
Hideg, I., & Ferris, D. L. (2016). The compassionate sexist? How benevolent sexism promotes and undermines gender equality in the workplace. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111(5), 706-727.
Luppi, E. (2019) Fairness, equality and health: Towards a gender-oriented perspective. In: Tarricone I., Riecher-Rössler A. (eds) Health and gender (pp. 3-8). Springer.
Williams, J. S., Walker, R. J., & Egede, L. E. (2016). Achieving equity in an evolving healthcare system: opportunities and challenges. The American Journal of the medical sciences, 351(1), 33–43.