Evaluation of the current performance management system in the orthopaedic departments of the hospitals of Sialkot district, Pakistan
Creators: name: Iqbal, Amer
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024

description: In the present competitive environment, all organisations are striving to improve their performance through the most appropriate strategies for obtaining the business advantages. There was a time when only private organisations were concerned about the performance management (PM) but now the scenario has changed and public healthcare systems are also highly emphasizing the PM because of diversity of challenges, public demand, and shrinking resources. Despite the real need and importance of performance management in this sector, it has been observed that a little attention of researchers in terms of analysis of performance management has been paid. The past studies were mostly conducted in the developed countries whereas the developing countries have not been given due importance in the context of performance management System (PMS). To address this research gap, the present study is conducted on the health care sector of Pakistan. The major aim of this research is to examine the performance management system of the health care sector of Pakistan. The specific objectives planned for this research are; To review the existing performance management system, identify the factors contributing to it, and the challenges faced. The results and recommendations will contribute to help and support the stakeholders of the healthcare sector (Government, planners, managers, and project implementers), guiding the employees and practitioners, and strengthening the existing knowledge of the subject. The study approach is qualitative research methods (Creswell, 2005) involving four selected hospitals of Sialkot district. The structured interviews using open-ended questions (Blumberg, Cooper, and Schindler, 2014; Bernard, 2017) with 25 participants (purposive sampling; Bryman and Bell, 2015) were organized in orthopaedic department of selected hospitals. It was ensured that all categories of employees get representation and a fair male and female ratio (60:40) is maintained. The collected data has been analysed using thematic analysis technique (Marczyk, DeMatteo, and Festinger, 2005; Zikmund et al., 2013). These investigations have evaluated the system of performance management from the managerial and as well as employee perspective with a focus on performance assessment, training, employee commitment, organisational structure, and information technology. The challenges and deficiencies of the current performance management systems in hospitals have also been identified. The data and information of the research indicated that the health care sector of Pakistan has implemented a formal performance management system in all the studied hospitals with minor variations in assessment parameters and duration. The participants of the study were not very happy with the current PMS and its development level but still they are of the view that it is helping a lot and better than the conventional system employed before 1990. They agreed that performance assessment became better but there are certain weaknesses like biases, lack of training, overloading of work, centralized organisation structure, less effective communication, using a mix of paperwork and computer, likeness/unlikeness, and taking less care of guidelines and feedback while use of IT is still at the initial stage. The employees’ commitment has been acknowledged by the managers who are having complaints of lesser staff and poor resources. All the participants agreed that there is still a lot of room for improvement and there is need for a digitised-IT-based modern PMS. The recommendations for all the stakeholders have been formulated and future needs of research on the subject have been highlighted. The recommendations based on the opinions of participants are: The assessment and feedback system should be unbiased, the training system needs strengthening, the appreciation, awards, and rewards systems need enhancement, and the hospitals are facing shortage of resources, especially human resources. These are serious recommendations for the management to consider. On the other hand, employees need to refine their behaviour and performance byachieving assigned work, improving attendance, serving the patients better and showingengagement and commitment to their hospitals. The hospitals need increase in financial, human, and technical resources (Machinery and equipment), and finally the current PMS should be replaced with a modern IT-internet based PMS. The government may take a note ofthis suggestion. The results of the study have strengthened the knowledge base of the subject from this area. It is also required that future researchers should undertake their studies selecting hospitals from all the four provinces and the Federal capital Islamabad. They should also compare PMS of private and public sector hospitals for making a comparison. For more details, the appropriate sections (6.4.1 to 6.4.4) can be consulted.