PurposeThis study examines the management rostering systems that inform the ways medical scientists are allocated their work in the public healthcare sector in Australia. Promoting the contributions of medical scientists should be a priority given the important roles they are performing in relation to COVID-19 and the demand for medical testing doubling their workloads (COVID-19 National Incident Room Surveillance Team, 2020). This study examines the impact of work on medical scientists and rostering in a context of uncertain work conditions, budget restraints and technological change that ultimately affect the quality of patient care. This study utilises the Job-Demands-Resources theoretical framework (JD-R) to examine the various job demands on medical scientists and the resources available to them.Design/methodology/approachUsing a qualitative methodological approach, this study conducted 23 semi-structured interviews with managers and trade union officials and 9 focus groups with 53 medical scientists, making a total 76 participants from four large public hospitals.FindingsDue to increasing demands for pathology services, this study demonstrates that a lack of job resources, staff shortages, poor rostering practices such as increased workloads that lead to absenteeism, often illegible handwritten changes to rosters and ineffectual management lead to detrimental consequences for medical scientists’ job stress and well-being. Moreover, medical science work is hidden and not fully understood and often not respected by other clinicians, hospital management or the public. These factors have contributed to medical scientists’ lack of control over their work and causes job stress and burnout. Despite this, medical scientists use their personal resources to buffer the effects of excessive workloads and deliver high quality of patient care.Originality/valueFindings suggest that developing mechanisms to promote sustainable employment practices for medical scientists are critical for the escalating demands in pathology.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the rostering practices and work experiences of medical scientists at four health services in the Australian public healthcare sector. There are over 16,000 medical scientists (AIHW, 2019) in Australia responsible for carrying out pathology testing to help save the lives of thousands of patients every day. However, there are systemic shortages of medical scientists largely due to erratic rostering practices and workload issues. The purpose of this paper is to integrate evidence-based human resource management (EBHRM), the LAMP model and HR analytics to enhance line manager decision-making on rostering to support the wellbeing of medical scientists.Design/methodology/approachUsing a qualitative methodological approach, the authors conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with managers/directors and nine focus groups with 53 medical scientists, making a total 74 participants from four large public hospitals in Australia.FindingsAcross four health services, manual systems of rostering and management decisions do not meet the requirements of the enterprise agreement (EA) and impact negatively on the wellbeing of medical scientists in pathology services. The authors found no evidence of the systematic approach of the organisations and line managers to implement the LAMP model to understand the root causes of rostering challenges and negative impact on employees. Moreover, there was no evidence of sophisticated use of HR analytics or EBHRM to support line managers' decision-making regarding mitigation of rostering related challenges such as absenteeism and employee turnover.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to HRM theory by integrating EBHRM, the LAMP model (Boudreau and Ramstad, 2007) and HR analytics to inform line management decision-making. The authors advance understandings of how EBHRM incorporating the LAMP model and HR analytics can provide a systematic and robust process for line managers to make informed decisions underpinned by data.

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