31st August, 2009
Despite rising attention to the acute shortage of health care workers, little attention has been paid to the role of those who have human resource management responsibilities and whose job is to transform health workers into a productive, motivated, and supported workforce capable of improving health and saving lives.
There is an urgent need to professionalise this role and develop a cadre of well-trained HR managers, especially in large public sector and private sector health institutions. This would include expanding both the number of HR managers and the organisational view of their role, as well as updating their skills. These changes would enable HR managers to be more effective in leading and implementing positive solutions that in turn would improve the performance and retention of staff.
To specifically document the needs of staff in HR management roles, Management Sciences for Health (MSH) and AMREF, with support from the Office of HIV/AIDS of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), undertook an exploratory study of managers with significant responsibility for human resource management in health institutions in four East African countries: Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya. This study was designed to:
- document the role and experience of health professionals with significant responsibility for HRM;
- identify the challenges that these health professionals face;
- identify additional skills and knowledge needed by these health professionals to address HRM challenges;
- solicit recommendations for changes in pre-service and in-service HRM training.
