Name:

Course:

Lecturer:

Date:

Compensation and Performance Appraisal

            One of my most recent jobs is working as a nurse assistant with a home health agency. This job requires a lot of devotion and compassion for the sick. It is not surprising to do more work than nurses do at times. Some of the duties as a nurse assistant in home health include changing beddings, mopping floors, preparing dishes for the patients, helping patients out of bed, bathing, and dressing and among other duties to help their daily lives. This requires a lot of devotion and commitment as well. It is for such reasons that I feel the compensation was not fair enough. The compensation program was not fair and neither competitive. There were too many duties to perform while the pay was minimal. At the time, the middle salary for nursing assistants was ranging from $16,024 to $29,742 per year. As a new nursing assistant, one only received the lower side of the range.

Considering all the work one has to do as a nursing assistant, the compensation is not fair at all. For the job one is required to undertake as a nursing aide, the compensation is not enough. An assistant or nursing aide is supposed to provide patients with all the help they require for living their daily lives. One is supposed to be there when the patients needs them. Each patient varies in terms of needs. Patients requiring an assistant nurse are those with more needs, including assistant to move. Therefore, the quantity of work that one has to do as an assistant nurse is too many varying with each patient. Earning as low as $20000 or less per year for such a job is not adequate compensation. Worse still, is the lack of incentives in this job. There are hardly any incentives. After one is done with the training required for certification, there are minimal incentive programs.

Performance appraisal in the healthcare systems is quite complicated since results are supposed to show improvement of patients. Some patients might not improve from their conditions. For performance appraisal in the assistance nursing considers the satisfaction of the customers and facilities. The agency conducts satisfaction surveys from the facilities and customers. The agency will ask several questions each with a score, to find out the level of satisfaction with the care provided by the assistant nurse. The facility or home in which the patients are provides their feedback about the care provided by the nurse. This is quite valid considering the facilities are the ones held responsible with the wellness of their patients. On the other hand, I feel that customer surveys are more valid since the patients are the ones who receive the services directly. Additionally, a complaint survey is conducted to find out about the complaints filed in by the facility or patient. This provides for fair performance appraisal, where the customer appraises the work. However, this also provides some unfairness to patients since they might not know how they are supposed to be treated. Thus, the facility in which patients are placed should be active as well to help in performance appraisal.

The performance appraisal does allow feedback from the agency as well as the customers since they are the ones providing the feedback about ones performance. The agency provides the employees with feedback about their performance based on the satisfaction of the patients that one is serving. This is quite motivational especially when one learns that patients appreciate the job done by an assistant nurse. Many patients will sow their gratitude while others may show little. The agency supervisors find this system quite fair since once performance is based on the services they provide to the patients. They find it as a way of helping their patients improve by identifying areas in which they lack.