Employability practices in the healthcare sector: an evidence from Poland

Topic and purposeHuman capital is considered as an essential driver of achieving competitive advantage in the healthcare sector. However, employment relationships in the Polish healthcare sector are changing and long-term relationships are replaced with more temporary relationships. Contrary to the situation in other sectors, this is favorable for employees of healthcare entities what stems from a growing demand for medical services. Healthcare entities attempt to attract and retain valuable employees. The possibility of employability enhancement becomes an important factor deciding about the attractiveness of the employer for many employees who look for opportunities for further career development. However, knowledge about competencies determining employability and practices of its enhancement in this sector is still poor. This paper tries to answer the questions: what are key employability competencies of employees in the healthcare sector and what are the conditions of their enhancement in healthcare organizations?MethodThe aims of the paper are realized by presenting the results of semi-structured interviews carried out with top management of 11 public healthcare entities*. Healthcare entities operating in Southern, Northern, Central, Eastern and Western Poland were targeted in order to get a more complete view of the situation. On the basis of the interviews carried out with managers of healthcare entities key employability competencies of employees and the practices of employability enhancement applied in healthcare entities are analyzed.Findings and implicationsDespite the fact that generally professional knowledge and skills were considered as the most important factor of employability in healthcare organizations the significance of some generic competences was also emphasized. It has been found that although the employees? employability enhancement is a vital concern of the management in the examined healthcare entities, activities undertaken in this area are rather limited and primarily focused on trainings. To conclude, assuming that people and their competences are the most important capital of healthcare organizations, activities aimed at employability enhancement acquire crucial importance in healthcare entities and they should become an inherent element of HRM policy. They have to focus not only on the development of employees? professional knowledge and skills but also generic competences which today become a significant factor determining employability in the healthcare sector.* The project was funded from the resources of the National Science Centre (Poland) granted by the decision no. DEC-2013/11/B/HS4/00561.