Defining HR Roles of Nursing Line Manager in
Workplace Learning
Mas Idayu Saidi*, Nur Naha Abu Mansor, Roya Anvari, Muhammad Ayyub
Hassan
Department of Human Resource Development, Faculty of Management,
University Technology Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor Bahru, Malaysia
Abstract
In this paper, HR roles of nursing line manager towards effective workplace learning in Malaysia are discussed.
Numerous researches had examined the devolving of the HR roles in various perspectives and general roles of line
managers in nursing. However, less study has been paid specific to the HR roles of nursing line manager towards
effective workplace learning, especially in the context of Malaysian public hospitals. This paper argues that line
managers play a vital role in the development of their employees. In Malaysian healthcare services, where Malaysian
nursing shortage is critical, it is essential that nursing line managers play pertinent roles in the development of their
nurses learning. In this paper, the researchers integrate HR Business Partnership Model by Conner and Ulrich into
HR roles of nursing line managers in Malaysian public hospitals. In particular, this paper attempts to explore the level
of nursing line managers’ involvement in HR roles in relation to strategic partner, change agent, administrative
expert, and employee champion roles. Several prepositions are highlighted and developed.
© 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Universiti Malaysia
Kelantan, Malaysia
Keywords: HR roles; line manager; workplace learning, nursing, health care
1. Introduction
Year 2013 witnessed several of Malaysia’s effort in becoming a key player in the healthcare industry.
From the recent 2013 Budget and 10th Malaysian Plan, Malaysia emphasized on developing the
healthcare industry. As in 2013 Budget, the Malaysian government focused on enhancing the well-being
of the public with total allocation of RM20 million especially in establishing 70 new 1Malaysia clinics
(Business Times, 8 October 2012). Unfortunately, skilled human capital shortage is one of the major problems in Malaysia (Barnett et al., 2010). A significant shortage of highly trained nurses in the
healthcare workforce is not a new issue. This issue urges medical professionals to arise with various plan
to fill up the shortage. By defining HR roles of nursing line managers towards effective workplace
learning will help the nursing sectors to minimize this shortage. The purpose of this paper is to define HR
roles of nursing line managers in Malaysian context. This paper hopes to provide a review to the
importance of HR roles of nursing line managers thus could promote better workplace learning within the
healthcare sector in Malaysia.
2. Literature Review
This section involved review of literature regarding HR roles and workplace learning.
2.1. HR roles
HR business partnership model was developed by Conner and Ulrich (1996). Ulrich claimed this
model will add value to the organization as a respond to cope with competitive business environment
(Lemmergaard, 2009). The four key roles of HR are strategic partner, change agent, administrative expert,
and employee champion.
The first key role is strategic partner which involved strategic focus and more processes oriented. This
key role is responsible in designing the organization to realize its purpose and direction. In addition, the
main expected outcome which is to execute intended corporate strategies need to execute this role thus,
leading the organization to achieve its goals. Ulrich and Brockbank (2005) claimed the main aim of HR
function is to deliver the “best fit” which focuses more on customizing HR strategies to organizational
goals instead of adopting a “best practice”. Against this background, Lemmergaard (2009) argued many
organizations are still unable to include HR managers in any strategic decision-making processes thus
minimizing HR managers’ roles.
Administrative expert is at the same column as strategic partner in processes but focus more on day-today
or operational level HR activities. At this point, the key person need to ensure traditional HR
processes such as recruitment and training are carried out efficiently and effectively. Ulrich (1997)
viewed employees as cost. He proclaimed administrative expert can manage to reduce the cost thus
increase organizational efficiency by making the right administrative decisions.
Following this is the role of employee champion. Employee champion is at a different column to
strategic partner but share the same day-to-day operational focus together with administrative expert. The
main tasks performed are based on day-to-day or operational focus and employees issues. While dealing
with the need of employees’ well-being, employee champion is responsible in increasing employees’
commitment and capabilities. Furthermore, this key role is basically closely related to training,
development, reward, commitment, retention, and employees’ competences. In 2005, Ulrich modified his
employee champion key role by dividing it into employee advocate and HR developer thus focusing more
into future focused process role.
In shifting from day-to-day or operational to future or strategic focus, the fourth role, the change agent
emphasize on people and aims in dealing with the change and transformation faced by the organization.
According to Ulrich (1997), this role is also responsible in assisting employees to cope with their attempts
to implement change. Delivery of organizational transformation and culture change are the main issues needed to manage which mean they themselves are able to change according to the conditions. They need
to be change promoter and are the ones responsible to initiate change. In general, there some criticisms
that arise from this HR role framework (Renwick, 2002; Antila, 2006; Harris, 2007; Watson et al., 2007).
They debated that “only the HR players who master these roles simultaneously truly add value and
contribute to an organization’s ability to compete in a significantly expanded playing field”. The HR
function, as per mentioned by Tracey and Nathan (2002), is often being separated from the rest of the
organization despite of its widely recognized importance thus enable the players to master its role. It
could be argued that Ulrich and Brockbank (2005) viewed what defines HR strategies as too simple
(Boxall and Purcell, 2003). Despite of some weaknesses and critics from other scholars, many researchers
are employing this model in considering today’s HR roles. The researchers such as Lemmargaard (2009)
believe that the roles of HR in promoting better execution of learning and development initiatives can be
improved through deploying these HR roles to line managers. An ideal line manager is hoped to fulfill
these HR roles with the intention to improve development and performance of employees within the
Malaysian healthcare industry. The researchers are concluding that most line managers’ focuses on HR
role as an employee champion. Some of these issues arise from the lack of managerial skills, reluctance in
accepting new roles, slow progress in coping with HR functions, and workload which results in negative
outcomes of HR’s involvement in strategy (Bennett et al., 1995). Otherwise, when line managers
flourished in doing their new tasks well, they managed to identify each of their subordinates that needed
to be sent for training in order to increase their professional development. Other opinions by Siugzdiniene
(2008) stated new role of line managers in performing HRD functions especially in learning initiatives
includes discussing on continuous learning and development needs of their subordinates, creating
partnerships with HR personnel in dealing with strategic HRD issues, training and coaching subordinates
and also participating in HRD strategy development process. All of these delegations can assist
organizations to excel in their business since line managers are the ones who knows the best for their
employees, clients, top management, and also stakeholders. According to Hay (2002), the main rationale
employees leave their jobs is due to discontent on how their competences are developed, usually due to
the poor quality of their relationship with their direct manager, or line managers. Therefore, even if HR
practices were believed to be effective, the HR system might still not be effective because line managers
do not know how to implement human resources practices successfully on the work floor. Therefore, line
manager’s roles in HR initiatives are eminent to ensure that proper goal of HR initiatives is reached.
Lemmargard (2009) also argued that HR functions do not always interact productively with line
management and line managers end up doing administrative work which later only bring little impact to
organizational effectiveness. Bates and Khasawneh (2005) used learning transfer climate as a mediator
between learning organization culture and innovation. They argued that with existence of learning
transfer climate, organization innovation will increase.
2.2. Workplace learning
Effective workplace learning in healthcare industry is crucially needed in ensuring better services are
provided to patients. The nature of this workplace demands a critical attention because even the slightest
mistakes, can jeopardize a person’s life. Thus, anyone involved in the health care industry especially
registered nurses must consistently equip themselves through continuous professional development in
their working space.
Learning in the healthcare industry can be challenging due to the nature of the job itself, lack of time,
excessive workload, and support from top management. During as early as 1990s, the issue of workplace
learning had received increasing attention from scholars and professionals (Poell and van Woerkom, 2011).