People Management in Hospitals: Where Doctors and HR Do (Not?) Meet

Objective: Although HR activities are known to enhance performance, this seems an often overlooked domain amongst physicians. Therefore, this cross-disciplinary interview study explores how physicians perceive high performance and what activities they find contributing to such performance. Methods: Drawing on HR and healthcare literature, we analysed in-depth interviews with 28 physicians and 7 HR professionals and hospital management representatives, following the grounded theory approach. Results: Our findings demonstrate physicians perceive high performance as a balance between quality of medical care and patient satisfaction and dedication and collaboration are indicated vital dimensions of high performance. Physicians offered suggestions regarding activities contributing to high performance. Conclusion: This cross-disciplinary study recognized dedication and collaboration as crucial elements for physicians to perform to the best of their abilities. These findings suggest that high performance can only flourish when doctors are seen as committed professionals, with strong humanistic values rather than just as providers of medical care. The results of this research furthermore indicate that people management is critical, it is recommended that this should be executed through close collaboration of all those responsible.