The Ph.D. thesis entitled “Efficient Manpower Planning at a Public Hospital” seeks to examine how the management at a Danish hospital has created and use their manpower planning for recruitment and maintenance among hospital nurses. I wish in my Ph.D. to examine which work values the management has compared to the work values of the nurses. If there is no agreement between the values it can indicate that the manpower planning is not working in correlation to the nurses and therefore the manpower planning should be evaluated and changed (strategy development). Work values can indicate what kind of human beings the nurses are – what they priorities in their lives and therefore what they priorities in their work.
In my Ph.D. I have described the staffing challenges that characterize the Danish labor market as a way to illustrate the relevance of the thesis. More specifically a clarification of the recruitment- and maintenance problems that have existed in the hospital organization in the recent years (despite the existing financial crisis) and will continue to influence the organization in the upcoming years. The focus will be on the shortage of the nurses that have influenced the Danish labor market (and as a result, the hospitals) in the recent years and will continue to do so in the future. Furthermore, the thesis will focus on the importance of an efficient manpower planning so these staffing challenges can be met and processed. These focus areas have the purpose to document and clarify that the challenges of the manpower planning in relation to nurses not only applies to the selected ward (Heart-Lung Surgical Ward) at a Danish hospital (Aalborg Hospital), but are issues that can and has affected the entire Danish healthcare system. Challenges, which must be taken seriously if the consequences in the future is not to be crucial. This has been chosen to demonstrate the thesis relevance both for society in general and for the chosen hospital.