Monthly Archives: October 2015

Product and Positioning Project

By Costa Ndayisabye

MPH 588

Marketing Pubic Health

Lea Pounds

Product and Positioning

My aim is to conduct social change campaign among homeless populations to reduce tuberculosis incidences.

Positioning Statement

Public health professionals in the city of Texas that I refer in my assignment as “Home” noticed that homeless populations are at high risk to tuberculosis infection especially those who are infected by HIV. They plan to conduct a four-year-period campaign with a goal to increasing awareness on how HIV infected people are at high risk to tuberculosis infection. As objectives, the campaign plans to have 70% of the homeless population in the city of Home voluntarily go through both HIV and Tuberculosis tests within the four-year period.

Core Values/Core Product

Raising awareness of both HIV and TB infections is not a simple program and requires careful strategies especially when the campaign targets homeless populations. Promoters will identify the right product and ensure the right audience is represented. To ensure the appropriate audience is reached, the marketer will focus on individuals who are chronically homeless due to the critical health conditions that characterize their lives. The identification process will include the chronic homeless person’s name, age, sex and the place they frequently like to be. Behavioral change planners will have on hand the desired benefits of health the audience needs while designing the marketing process (Resnick and Siegel 2013). To promote behavior that benefits the homeless population within the city of Home in Texas, promoters will craft campaign strategies that fit with the target audience’s desire and freedom (core values); consequently, attract the audience’s attention to participate in the campaign.

Goods and Services

The product that the campaign targets (actual) is to have a high number of chronically homeless population within the city of Home tested with both HIV and tuberculosis infections. Framing strategies that will allow the chronic homeless population to keep their freedom while promoting behavioral change will be at high consideration. Safety is one of the biggest concerns to consider while promoting public health programs among homeless communities (Brenoff, 2014).

Public health practitioners will identify different activities that normally bring homeless populations together and once incorporated in the campaign development it can increase the desire and interest of participants. The campaign will host a “Barbeque for our Health Campaign,” which will involve volunteers from homeless populations who will be wearing the same t-shirts as the promoters during the event. The campaign will also focus on chronic homeless populations’ values to get their attention to a voluntarily commitment to the behavioral change program that is being offered to them. Onsite voluntarily HIV tests and tuberculosis sputum sample collections will be conducted to chronic homeless individuals. To ensure privacy, both health promoters and chronically homeless people will sign a discretion agreement before the actual tests. Furthermore the mobile clinic will be big enough with room to guarantee safety and privacy.

Focusing on people who are chronically homeless will not be enough to get the target audience to discover the benefits of the campaign and to encourage them to build a healthy environment. The campaign will, therefore, educate those who provide assistance to homeless communities on the risks of the tuberculosis threat among chronic homeless populations who can pose risks to those who interact with them such us peers and social workers unless healthy precautionary actions are considered. This strategy will increase the campaign effectiveness.

Actionable Information

Creating credible relationships between the target audience and public health practitioners has been a challenging fact to overcome for a long time. It has been proven that large numbers of people in these populations failed to value or believe in government intervention programs (Gerwin, 2012). With that said, the campaign will give many opportunities for chronic homeless populations to freely interact with promoters and peers during the event. Hospital professionals, caseworkers and the rest of the homeless populations not identified as chronically homeless, will act as secondary audience. Medical workers will be conducting onsite HIV tests and facilitate the collection of tuberculosis sputum. Homeless populations will be given brochures containing messages on tuberculosis prevention, TB symptoms, the usefulness of regular medical check ups and who to contact for a medical appointment. Each participant will get a t-shirt and reusable bottle of water labeled “My Health Counts,” the campaign slogan.

Conclusion

Low social status that characterizes chronic homeless populations can be a challenging point in promoting behavioral change. It is crucial for public health practitioners to design a participatory approach and request the views and perspectives from target audience members (UN Women, 2012). The Barbeque for our Health campaign will inform the audience that they have the primary responsibilities to protect themselves against tuberculosis infection and full freedom to adopt key strategies to stay healthy.

Recommendations

Campaign evaluation should be conducted to ensure the objectives are being attained. A product reframing process should be considered in case of low interest of the audience to the campaign. Possible further identification of elements that appeal the target audience emotions can be considered.

References

Brenoff, A. (2014). 7 myths about homeless people debunked. Retrieved from

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/03/7-things-homeless-people-not-true_n_5206475.html

Gerwin, L. (2012). The challenge of providing the public with actionable information

during a pandemic. Retrieved from http://www.ghd-net.org/sites/default/files/

HFPB%20-%20October%202012_0.pdf

Resnick, E.A. & Siegel, M. (2013). Marketing public health: Strategies to promote social     change. (3rd ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, Inc.

United Nations for Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment for Women (2012).

Key elements of the campaign message. Retrieved from http://www.

endvawnow.org /en/articles/1238-key-elements-of-the-campaign-message. html?next=1239

Performance Appraisal and Retention Strategies

MPH 548:

By Costa Ndayisabye

Professor: Dr. Hollie Pavlica

August 16, 2015

Performance Appraisal and Retention Strategies

Ms. Viki Bailey is an educator of infectious disease prevention at the Highland Park Public Health Department. Her role is to plan and implement activities that involve providing briefing to middle schools students and strategies to prevent infectious diseases. Vicki is supervised by the District Public Health Manager, Mr. Costa Ndayisabye, to whom she is accountable. Every six months I conduct Ms. Viki’s performance appraisal following Texas public health guidelines. On June 30, 2015, I employed two performance appraisal formats to conduct Ms. Viki Bailey’s semi-annual evaluation. The first form (See Form 1) was a questionnaire to assess if Ms. Viki was still attached to her work expectations and to evaluate how she projected her future achievements. The second form (See Form 2) had a direct rate format that was conducted by the direct supervisor.

Employees are one of the most significant assets for an organization. Knowing how employees are executing their tasks, what challenges they might have, and where their strengths are, is a better way to keep the organization aligned with its mission and goals. It is, therefore, very important to managers within an organization to conduct employee performance assessments to whether or not employees are meeting their expectations in regard to the company’s priorities. Fried and Fottler (2011) state that, “the intensive use of labor and the variability in professional practice require that leaders in the healthcare field manage the performance of the people involved in the delivery of services” (p. 3).

Currently, the healthcare market is characterized as having a high shortage of healthcare professionals, while the demand of health services is tremendously increasing. The high number of complaints behind the quality of health services is alarming and has become major problem. One of strategies to increase productivity in healthcare institutions is to regularly conduct employee performance assessments, which can bring to the table an individual’s consideration on the aspect of work and revealemployees’ behaviors. In the article “Why Organizations Do Employee Performance Evaluation” Heathfield (2015) stated that performance appraisal serves as both an evaluation and communication tool between managers and employees. Effective performance management helps to protect employees from doing wrong; conversely, it protects the organization from failures.

Effective performance appraisal should include essential elements that regularly tackle employees’ work environment based on their job responsibilities and ethics. What an employee can do well today, can be different from what he or she can do tomorrow. Employees’ performance may be influenced with various factors within and without of the organization. Managers should routinely conduct assessments to ensure employees are getting what they expected from the first day of hire and, in return, the organization is meeting maximum expectations from its employees. The article “Performance Management” published by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) states that “Planning means setting performance expectations and goals for groups and individuals to channel their efforts toward achieving organizational objectives” (n.d.). It is very important to the human resource department to design a performance appraisal consist with the organization’s mission and goal. A reactive performance management should include a reasonable investigation, formal meeting, plan that gives employee the opportunity to improve within a determined period, review process and set alternative strategies (Flint, 2014).

Once an effective performance appraisal is conducted, managers can design strategies that would enhance employees’ expectations. Strategies may include rewarding employees for their performance and training those who drifted from their responsibilities due to insufficient skills or showing inadequate work performance. Outcomes from effective performance management can enhance employees’ attitudes toward the organization and reduce turnovers. According to Aylen (2015) employees’ performance appraisal helps managers to successfully implement employee retention within an organization. Therefore, it is essential for managers, to have in their priorities a systematic employee assessment plan to create a suitable environment conducive to organizational success.

Concisely, effective performance management is one that reflects the ideal purpose to motivate employees to exhibit their thoughts regarding work performance. Performance management is a tool for the organization to create an effective communication system between managers and employees on a regular basis. Furthermore, performance management is a vital review process to ensure both organization and employees’ expectations are successfully being achieved.

Due to the robust impact effective performance management has to organizational development, it is very important to involve everyone who contributes to the active life of the organization. I would recommend that the upper management team support the HR department in designing an organized performance plan. The organization should design a formal performance appraisal that will be conducted within a period of time preferably quarterly and day-to-day verbal performance appraisal, and to document the most sensitive findings to the organizational development team.

1. Form 1

Adapted from Sample Forms (2015)

References

Aylen, C. (2015). Employee retention strategies: What is performance profiling? Retrieved from

http://hub.talentchaser.com/

Flint, J. (2014). Seven steps to effective performance management. Retrieved from

http://www.shoosmiths.co.uk/client-resources/legal-updates/seven-steps-effective-performance-management-8818.aspx

Fried, B.J., and Fottler, M.D. (2011). Fundamentals of Human Resources in Healthcare.

Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press.

Heathfield, S. (2015). Why organizations do employees performance evaluation. Retrieved from

http://humanresources.about.com/od/performancemanagement

/qt/employee_evaluation.htm

HR Florida International University (2007). Staff performance appraisal. Retrieved from

http://hr.fiu.edu/uploads/file/forms/elr/usps_appraisal.pdf

Office of Personnel Management (n.d.). Performance management. Retrieved from

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/performance-management/reference-materials/more-topics/effective-performance-management-doing-what-comes-naturally/

Sample Forms (2015). Performance appraisal form template. Retrieved from

http://www.sampleforms.org/performance-appraisal-form-template.html

Benefits/Total Rewards Plan

MPH 548: Human Resource Management:

By Costa Ndayisabye

Professor: Dr. Hollie Pavlica

Submitted: August 2, 2015 

                A well-organized company focuses to both successful recruitment to bring right person to its development and to strive on employees’ retention. The best strategy to retain employees is to have a well-designed benefit plan. Fried & Fottler (2011) stated that healthcare employer should explain to staff the module of “total compensation” which includes salary and other added benefit package (p 214). Attention should be paid to benefits that are mandated by both federal and state governments to avoid any future conflicts. Benefits should therefore be clearly details and written to enable employees to understand what is beneficial to them.

Salary itself does not provide sufficient security to employees unless it is supplemented by benefits to bring vital environment within organization. “Offering a competitive salary combined with benefits and perks can prove to be a win-win combination in promoting improved work habits and reducing employee turnover (Benz, 2014). Employees within organization have different needs, which means there should be different benefit options to enable employees to choose what fit with his or her needs. When designing for employees’ total compensation, I would specify different available benefits and what is included in each package.

Salary is the primary advantage that employee seeks while performing tasks, as it helps to cover human basic needs such as food, clothes and accommodation. Beside salary, benefits are important to secure for emergency needs such abrupt accident that may occur within or outside the organization, also to guarantee at least minimum support when employee does not have both physical and mental capacities to work. Benefits are therefore, securities to reduce turnover within organization and significant tool to promote uncertainty employees’ morale. According to the article “Compensation & Benefits” published by HR Council (2015), “Providing benefits to employees is seen as managing high-risk coverage at low costs and easing the company’s financial burden”.

Health coverage is among the most important benefits that employers should critically plan for. According to Harper (2012) “As work and family life absorb the bulk of an employee’s attention and finances, having medical costs defrayed by a generous benefit package can be both a comfort and an asset”. If I would be a human resource manager and were asked to design employees’ benefits I would focus on the following:

1. Inpatient care: This commitment can be costly to both employee and employer. It is very critical to analyze the cheap insurance market that will require reasonable premium and deductible.
2. Outpatient: This is a great motivation to every employee. It is therefore very important to the employer to insure employees are covered for inpatient care.
3. Eyes and dental care: Costs involved in eye and dental care are high and can put the employee to hard life situation. As a company’s benefit designer, this is not the point to ignore.
4. Drug prescription. With the current economic crisis, drugs are becoming expensive and employee should be supported to get insurance that will cover some percentage of the drug prescription cost.
5. Program to manage chronic illness: This is very important preventive strategy that needs to be included in benefit package. The more employee is healthy the less the number of hospital visits. Furthermore, a healthy employee is more productive than the one with medical condition. According to article published by Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU, 2012) chronic diseases exert a high toll on labor productivity.

The above 5 health benefits are among the ten published on “healthcare.gov” on August 22, 2013 to explicit essential insurance that marketplaces provide. Beside health coverage the employer benefits plan should also incorporate paid vacation, paid holidays, social security and Medicare, unemployment benefits, 401(k) contribution and tuition reimbursement as below benefits allocation table described.

I would allocate $129,358 each year for one employee to ensure the above benefits and rewards are covered while maintaining employee’s annual salary of $100,000.

With above computed benefits, if I had to cut benefit budget by 20% ($29,358*0.2=$5871.6) I would reduce the size of the following benefits.

As detailed discussed in this paper, employees’ benefits are pillars to the development of the organization. It is very important to the employer to design systematic benefit plan that enhance employees’ safety and credibility within and out of the organization. When employees are satisfied with the benefits they get from the company, they can be useful to attract other skilled employees to fill in positions.

To ensure benefit plan is designed in accordance to employees’ satisfaction, I will recommend the company’s executive team to enable a periodic survey performance that will determine the effective and efficient employees’ benefits plan basing on employees’ opinions. I would collect ideas from each employee that I can use as a clue to allocate benefits appropriately. There should also be a common understanding among company’s executive team members on the benefit system framework.

Reference

Benz, J. (2014). The Importance of Employee Benefits

Retrieved from http://www.paychex.com/articles/employee-benefits/importance-of-employee-benefits

Compensation & Benefits (2015). HR Council.

Retrieved from http://hrcouncil.ca/hr-toolkit/compensation-employee.cfm

Economist Intelligence Unit (2012). The role of employers: Workplace initiatives to tackle chronic disease.

Retrieved from http://digitalresearch.eiu.com/extending-healthy-life-years/report/section/the-role-of-employers-workplace-initiatives-to-tackle-chronic-disease

Fried, B., & Fottler, M. (2011). Fundamentals of human resources in healthcare. Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press

Harper, J. (2012). 7 Reasons to take advantage of employee healthcare benefits

http://money.usnews.com/money/careers/articles/2012/08/28/7-reasons-to-take-advantage-of-employee-healthcare-benefits