Veranderen in het ziekenhuis, Energiebronnen ter ondersteuning van adaptief vermogen binnen Gelre Ziekenhuizen

Abstract

In recent Dutch developments a few hospitals had to close their doors because they were unable to cope with changes in the hospital context. It appears that the ability to adapt is vital within this context. However, in research about adaptability and adaptive performance it is not clear how the adaptive performance of a hospital, or employees within a hospital can be improved. This article is taking a closer look into how employees are affected in their adaptive performance by the resources out of the Job Demands-Resources model (JD-R Model). By integrating the JD-R Model with adaptive performance it is possible to find out in which way employees are affected by resources and how their adaptive performance can be strengthened. This may help the HR-department to invent HR-practices to stimulate employees in their adaptability. To investigate how the JD-R Model can influence the adaptability of employees this resource was held among 16 respondents within Gelre Ziekenhuizen Apeldoorn/Zutphen. Five of these respondents are managers of their section, so five different sections have been investigated in this research. The respondents were questioned through a semi-structured interview. The results of this study showed that the social support on the work floor, the provision of information and participating in decision-making were the most important resources to improve the adaptive performance. This is because employees in the hospital work in a social context, so the social support is indispensable. By participating in the process of decision-making employees can see the whole picture of why they need to change and they are prepared for what is coming, the same as with the provision of information. This article provides insight in how adaptive performance can be increased among employees within a hospital context and which resources are the most important for this process.