Dietitians' human resource management skills enhanced by education and experience

The purpose of this project was to examine the influence of education and experience on the development of human resource management skills in dietitians. The performance of 58 experienced dietitians, 67 entry-level subjects, and 63 undergraduate students was compared using a case study about a personnel problem with a dietitian. Performance was scored by comparing subjects' answers with selections of a panel of seven experienced dietetic managers. Experienced and entry-level groups had higher proficiency scores than students. Experienced and entry-level groups scored highest and students lowest in efficiency, defined as the proportion of total information containing sections chosen that contained helpful information. Experienced dietitians examined few inappropriate sections and students the most. Overall, experienced and entry-level groups performed better in this human resource management problem than students. We conclude that supervised practice is important in the development of human resource management skills.