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Cultivating Learning in the Modern Workplace

Cultivating Learning in the Modern Workplace

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The work environment constantly changes over the years, along with its workforce. With technology and social media surrounding their lives, this generation’s goals are becoming more of self-actualizing and empowerment. These people are yearning for experiences that will lead to more learning. In response to this need, companies are imploring a more intact approach to help their own grow in their own careers, social relationship and life.

A book called “Make More Money By Making Your Employees Happy” by Dr. Noelle Nelson, a clinical psychologist, explains how business owners should find what’s important to their employees and help them achieve it. “When employees feel that the company takes their interest to heart, then the employees will take company interests to heart.” says Dr. Nelson. Among the actions that a company does to make people more inspired are office renovations with upgrades meant for lounging, having fun and collaborating with others.

According to the Social Learning Theory of Albert Bandura (1977), behavior is learned from the environment through the process of observation learning. By applying this theory’s concepts in the workplace, the learning of each employee becomes apparent.

Learning through Observation

One of the most common training techniques that supervisors support is ‘shadowing’. A new employee (NE) is tasked to observe the regular employee on his regular work day: what he does and how he gets it done. One of the concepts in Social Learning Theory suggests that people can learn thru observation. For example, if the person the new employee is shadowing does his work in an efficient manner, the NE may be as enthused at work as the latter.

Reinforcement aids Learning

After a day of shadowing, the NE is given a light task that will show if he learned some things when he was shadowing. His progress may be slow or may make a few mistakes, remember that this employee is new to this environment and may take time in adjusting to his new job. When he gets his task/s done excellently, commend him by saying so and tell him that he may be ready to handle bigger tasks. This positive reinforcement acts as a reward and drives him to repeat the behavior. Employers and supervisors should do this to all their employees if they are looking to help employees in their own personal growths. Bandura mentions that intrinsic reinforcement is also a form of reward, like satisfaction and sense of accomplishment. Employees that feel appreciated are happier and are more productive than those who are not. “Be encouraging to your employees and offer praise when appropriate. Thank employees for doing a good job and let them know that you value them.” Dr. Donna LaMar (2009), director of the counseling center The Farm, noted in an article.

Make the Most of Reciprocal Determinism

Albert Bandura states that behavior is influenced by three factors: environment, cognition, behavior. If the goal is to develop an employee’s learnings and productivity, then the employer should control the environment he’s in and find out what his goals are (cognition) in order for it to have an effect on his behavior. Provide online classes that can be accessed easily through smartphones, adapt to different learning styles, make the training session fun and memorable. This can also help build rapport among your team and promote camaraderie among them. Involve them in planning and ask for their feedback so they know the supervisors value their opinions. A positive experience helps to retain the information to be learned thus affecting the cognition of the individual and his behavior.

Learning doesn’t end after training. Engaging experiences allow employees to retain more information that they can easily process and pull up for later instances.

 

Sources:

  • Cherry, K. (2014, November 24). Social learning theory: How people learn by observation. Retrieved from Psychology.About.
  • Cherry, K. (2015, May 18). What is reciprocal determinism? Retrieved from Psychology.About.
  • LaMar, D. HOw to Keep Your Employees Happy and Productive. Retrieved from Reliableplant.
  • Cooper, S. (2012, July 30). Make more money by making your employees happy. Retrieved from Forbes.
Leaving the Country

Where Are the Nurses? The Impact of Nurse Migration on Medical Tourism in the Philippines

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In the past few years, the Philippine government has been promoting the country as a major destination for medical tourism not just in Asia, but in the world. Yet eight years after the launch of the PMTP, has the country actually realized its full potential as a medical tourism hub?

A 2013 discussion paper, entitled “Medical Tourism in the Philippines: Market Profile, Benchmarking Exercise, and SWOT Analysis” by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) says otherwise. The paper, which studied data collated from online research, found that the Philippines lags behind Southeast Asian neighbors Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia. The data is based on visitor numbers for medical tourism in 2010. This, despite the country offering a similar suite of medical treatments as its ASEAN neighbors and at competitive prices.

The paper cites a number of reasons for this, including some of these woes shared by the greater tourism industry, such as insufficient infrastructure and security issues. However, one concern that the PIDS cites is related to the exodus of trained healthcare workers overseas.

The Global Competition for Talent

Filipinos comprise a sizeable chunk of the world’s healthcare workers. A Philippine Daily Inquirer article published last February 2014 quotes Health Secretary Enrique Ona as saying that around 177,414 Filipino nurses are employed overseas. This outnumbers those working locally by around 4 to 1, or a total of 38,488 nurses.

This statistic is in stark contrast to the number of nursing graduates that the country produces every year. As quoted in a January 2013 article on GMA News Online, Dr. Marilyn Lorenzo of the UP Manila College of Public Health estimates that the country produces 100,000 nursing graduates every year.

So where are all the nurses?

Despite the high number of graduates, only 30.94% of examinees passed the Nurse Licensure Examinations (NLE) last December 2013. This is equivalent to 10,977 out of 35,475 who took the exam.

It is right in the neighborhood of previous years’ results: the December 2011 NLE only had a passing rate of 33.92%, while only 35.25% of examinees passed the December 2010 exam. This reflects how a good chunk of nursing schools are unable to truly prepare their graduates for the rigors of the nursing practice.

Underemployment or Unemployment?

And for those who do pass, local employment prospects are scarce. According to the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines (PHAPi), the country needs 100 new hospitals—equivalent to 100,000 beds—in the next three years to address the healthcare needs of the Philippine population alone. This brings home the reality that there are not enough facilities to accommodate medical tourists, and that there are also few opportunities for nurses to seek local employment.

The lack of hospital facilities reflects a vicious cycle. With a glut of candidates, local hospitals end up selecting nurses who already have the right skills and work experience. As such, nursing graduates either end up pursuing careers in the BPO sector or are forced to seek work experience in different ways.

An article published by BBC News in 2012 narrates how a nurse ended up working as an unpaid volunteer for years at a local hospital, despite having finished certifications in specialist areas, just to gain work experience.

Challenges in Employee Retention

However, the tight competition for local work opportunities does not automatically mean that hospitals get to keep the best and the brightest of their nursing staff. After gaining enough experience, many decide to move on to overseas jobs due to higher pay, a concern expressed by the PIDS paper.

This fear is echoed by PHAPi President Dr. Rusty Jimenez in a report by the Manila Bulletin. He notes that more experienced healthcare professionals choose to work overseas instead of locally due to pay disparities. This trend is expected to accelerate once the 2015 ASEAN integration relaxes employment restrictions in the region.

And it is a fear with sufficient basis: POEA reports that 16,404 professional nurses left the country as new hires in 2013. This is more than the number of the December 2013 NLE passers.

With more experienced nurses leaving for greener pastures, the country is left without experienced nurses. Not only are these nurses the first choice to provide expert care, they can also serve as mentors for the newer generation.

Accreditation as Top Draw

The inability to retain and train nurses is also a black mark against local hospitals who seek international accreditation. The PIDS paper shows that only three local hospitals have earned the coveted Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation, which places them on par with major hospitals around the world. For other hospitals who want to earn this accreditation, they must be able to meet several standards that require them to develop and implement processes for staff training and retention.

Another sought-after international accreditation, the Magnet Recognition Program by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, puts an emphasis on professional growth of and support for staff. It is also only awarded to facilities that have low turnover rates.

If existing Philippine healthcare facilities—especially public ones—are unable to train and retain nurses, they will be also unable to gain these accreditations that make them attractive options for medical tourists.

Lack of Marketing

But accreditation alone is not enough to attract medical tourists. The PIDS report also notes that local healthcare facilities are not able to properly market their skilled workforce. This, despite the fact that many of the healthcare institutions overseas that medical tourists patronize most probably employ Filipino nurses who gained experience here.

There is also a lack of marketing the soft skills that Filipino healthcare workers have, such as their touted ability to be caring.

It then creates another dangerous cycle: by not marketing the world-class skills and competency of their current healthcare staff, hospitals will not be able to attract medical tourists. Without medical tourists, hospitals will lose the chance to serve more clients and earn more. By losing the opportunity to earn more, hospitals then lose funds that can be used to train and retain staff, or even to upgrade facilities.

As these challenges show, there is more to developing the Philippine medical tourism industry than just ensuring the right infrastructure in place. Policy makers and private sector partners must also ensure that they also develop the human resources that power this industry. After all, patient care should still be the main focus of the healthcare industry, especially for medical tourists.

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This article is part of a series by Learning & Performance Partners, Inc. Here, we aim to examine how today’s talent economies impact everyone, from individual employers to entire industries. As such, we offer workshops to train and certify senior HR practitioners as Talent Economists. With this knowledge and certification, HR practitioners will be fully equipped to help their companies attract, train, and retain top professionals in today’s war for talent.