LEAD 6163 Module 5 Human Capital Plan Example

Ability, Motivation and Opportunity: A Five-Year Human Capital Plan That Ties a Rural Nursing Department's Recruitment, Development and Retention Into One System

Student Name

American College of Education

LEAD6163: Management of Human Capital

Module 5 Assignment

Instructor Name

November 9, 2026

Introduction

This course measured a faculty workforce gap of about 30 hires over five years in my nursing department, then designed a recruitment pipeline, a development and mentoring program and a performance and retention plan. Taken separately, each strategy could succeed and still leave the department short, for example if recruitment brings in faculty whom a weak first year then drives away. This paper integrates the strategies into one five-year human capital plan, organized by a framework from human resource research, with a budget, a timeline, governance and a single dashboard.

An Integrating Framework

Jiang et al. (2012) meta-analyzed research on how human resource practices affect organizations and grouped practices into three kinds: those that enhance employees' ability, such as recruitment, selection and training; those that enhance motivation, such as performance management, pay and incentives; and those that enhance opportunity to contribute, such as job design, teamwork and involvement in decisions. They found that these practices affect organizational outcomes largely through their effects on human capital and employee motivation, which in turn relate to lower voluntary turnover and better operational results. Earlier, Huselid (1995) had found that firms using more high-performance work practices kept more of their staff, got more done per employee and did better financially. The framework suits this plan because it explains why the strategies must work together: hiring able faculty helps little if motivation and opportunity are missing.

Ability-Enhancing Practices

From Modules 2 and 3: the grow-our-own teaching fellowship, four a year, which recruits local master's-prepared nurses who already hold firm-specific knowledge; targeted external recruitment for doctoral positions; a structured interview and teaching demonstration for every hire; a two-year development program with reduced first-semester load, observation cycles and seminars; doctoral tuition support with a teaching commitment; and adjunct workshops each semester. These practices build the human capital that Crook et al. (2011) found most valuable, the kind of capability that belongs to one workplace and cannot simply be hired in.

Motivation-Enhancing Practices

From Module 4: a developmental performance cycle with goals, peer observation and check-ins; recognition of mentoring and partnership work through stipends and course releases; a request for a market adjustment to close part of the salary gap with regional hospitals; and a summer teaching stipend. Together they answer a gap the exit interviews exposed: faculty seldom heard, in concrete terms, what their colleagues and leaders thought of their work.

Opportunity-Enhancing Practices

Opportunity practices are the least developed in the earlier modules and the plan strengthens them. Faculty will join course teams that make real curriculum decisions; second-year faculty will lead improvement projects; nurse practitioner faculty will keep a clinical practice day; and senior faculty will shape how their partnerships are handed on. Adjuncts will be invited to one curriculum meeting a semester, with pay, giving them a voice they have never had. Opportunity is where a small department can compete with a large one: here a second-year faculty member can change a course; elsewhere she might wait a decade.

How the Practices Reinforce Each Other

The plan's value lies in the connections. The fellowship recruits faculty who are already embedded in the region, which makes retention easier. Mentoring transfers partnership knowledge and creates links that keep new faculty. The performance cycle uses peer observation that the development program already provides, so the two do not compete for time. And opportunity practices give faculty reasons to stay that salary cannot. Each strategy alone addresses one part of the gap; together they address the cycle of hiring, struggling and leaving that has kept the department short. The reverse is also true: cutting one practice weakens the others, so a mentoring program without the fellowship would have fewer local hires to mentor, and a fellowship without mentoring would bring in nurses who then struggle through their first year alone.

Timeline

Year one, 2027: launch the fellowship and structured selection, start the development program with the first new hires, replace the annual evaluation with the performance cycle and request the salary adjustment. Year two: first fellows hired, first mentoring handovers of clinical partnerships completed, adjunct curriculum participation begins. Years three to five: full pipeline operating, doctoral support producing its first graduates and evaluation of the whole plan against its targets. Each year's work is sequenced so that later stages build on earlier ones: no partnership handover begins before the mentor and mentee have worked together for a semester, and no fellow is offered a permanent position before completing a full semester of teaching.

Budget

The plan's annual cost in its full form is about $260,000: fellowships, $96,000; development program and mentor stipends, $95,000; doctoral tuition support, $40,000; adjunct workshops and curriculum pay, $18,000; and recruitment travel and advertising, $11,000. The salary adjustment, if granted, would be funded separately by the university. The case for the cost rests on the department's own figures: each early departure costs about $45,000, unfilled positions cost the university the tuition of qualified applicants turned away and expanding to 160 seats depends on the faculty this plan produces.

Dependencies and Risks

Three dependencies could break the system. The fellowship depends on partner hospitals releasing master's-prepared nurses for part-time teaching; if a staffing crisis returns, as it did two winters ago, the pipeline could stall for a year. The development program depends on senior faculty staying long enough to mentor; if several retire earlier than planned, mentoring and partnership handovers will need to move to mid-career faculty sooner. And retention depends partly on the salary request, which the plan cannot guarantee. Each dependency has a fallback: a standing agreement with the two largest hospitals on fellow release, a list of mid-career faculty prepared to mentor and a set of non-salary retention measures that will continue even if the adjustment is denied.

If the Budget Is Cut

If the university funds only part of the plan, the priorities are clear from the earlier analysis. The development program and the mentoring handovers come first, because they protect firm-specific knowledge that cannot be bought later. The fellowship comes second, because it is the most reliable source of hires. Doctoral tuition support and recruitment travel would be reduced before either of those.

Governance and Dashboard

A faculty workforce committee, including two senior faculty, two new faculty, an adjunct and a partner hospital educator, will meet each semester to review a one-page dashboard: vacancy rate, hires by source, new-faculty retention through year three, voluntary turnover, doctorally prepared faculty, clinical partnerships with a second faculty contact and the annual embeddedness survey. Targets for year five are a vacancy rate below 5%, voluntary turnover below 7% and doctoral preparation restored to at least six faculty despite retirements.

Conclusion

The department's faculty gap grew from separate failures in recruitment, development and retention, and it will close only if those functions work as one system. The ability, motivation and opportunity framework gives the plan that structure, the budget makes its costs visible against the cost of doing nothing and the dashboard lets the people affected see whether it is working. Human capital, in a department like this one, is the difference between turning away 200 qualified applicants a year and admitting them.

References

Crook, T. R., Todd, S. Y., Combs, J. G., Woehr, D. J., & Ketchen, D. J., Jr. (2011). Does human capital matter? A meta-analysis of the relationship between human capital and firm performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(3), 443-456. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022147

Huselid, M. A. (1995). The impact of human resource management practices on turnover, productivity, and corporate financial performance. Academy of Management Journal, 38(3), 635-672. https://doi.org/10.2307/256741

Jiang, K., Lepak, D. P., Hu, J., & Baer, J. C. (2012). How does human resource management influence organizational outcomes? A meta-analytic investigation of mediating mechanisms. Academy of Management Journal, 55(6), 1264-1294. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2011.0088