Option #1: Memorial’s Healthcare System: Organizational Change and Workforce Management for the

Future

Memorial Hospital System (MHS) has been facing many serious issues including leadership problems,

staffing deficiency, and financial hardship. Challenges include:

1. High staff turnover, which doubled to 20% in the past two years and is expected to rise;

2. Healthcare costs that continue to spiral out of control, with plummeting reimbursement (overall

margin is negative and working capital reserves are below industry standards); and

3. An inability to raise capital funding due to a bond rating that was lowered earlier this year to

“junk” status.

4. MHS is a union shop for non-managerial workforce staff and the contract between management

and the union is up for renewal this fiscal year.

5. MHS is in the process of implementing complex and expensive multi-year healthcare

information systems such as Electronic Health Record and other critical-need clinical

information systems.

6. MHS is facing significant competition from other local healthcare facilities.

Last year, a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) was hired. She identified the current organizational

culture as apathetic, leaderless, and resistant to change. She also noted that the staff was under stress,

resisting teamwork, accepting mediocrity, and compromising patient safety values and industry best

practices. The CEO noted that critical human resources functions were broken, and that financial

performance was suffering. She attributed this to a variety of process issues as well as to the lack of

focus on the core business of patient care.

In response, she decided to implement the following strategies:

• Change the organizational culture,

• Improve human resources and workforce practices and outcomes,

• Ensure the organization’s solvency and financial viability in the long run, and

• Cutting costs across the board including implementing a labor-reduction strategy (salary and

benefits) with an aggressive timeline to turn around the financial bottom line.

Within a few months after these strategies were implemented, the MHS started to show less of a

financial loss and seemed to stabilize financially. The morale of the staff, however, took a significant hit.

Staff turnover increased as the sense of job security decreased and as an increasing number of valued

and critical staff in all areas left. Soon, MHS experienced an increase in patient complaints and lowered

customer service with signs of impact on clinical patient outcomes.

Now the CEO, with approval and support from the MHS Board of Directors, wants to create a dynamic

long-term organization and human resources strategic plan to put MHS on the right track. To formulate

and implement this plan, the CEO hired a well-known consultant who is tasked with performing a

system-wide organization and human resources assessment.

Within the scope of this assessment is the development and formulation of a multilevel strategic

program. This new program is to be implemented system-wide with the goal to help MHS leaders to

understand the link among finances, employee morale, human resources functions, and patient

satis

SAMPLEfaction. The end result of this assessment is: to create a culture of accountability; to shift the

culture to one of services after two years; to attract, hire, and retain staff; and to implement best

practices in workforce management.

Instructions:

Assume that you are the consultant the CEO hired to do this assessment project. Your main task is to

identify the key components involved in changing the organizational culture and to identify the steps

needed to generate sustainable change.

Here are the deliverables that the Board of Directors and CEO want to see from you:

1. Develop a comprehensive organization and human resources strategic plan. The plan has two

major sections: Organization Development and Human Resources. The CEO and Board of

Directors expect you to create your plan using benchmarking and by integrating human

resources and organization development best practices from other healthcare organizations as

well as from other industries.

2. The Organization Development section will address the following items:

• Workplace communication,

• Motivation,

• Leadership,

• Employee stress,

• Decision making,

• Conflict management,

• Team building and group dynamics, and

• Embracing change and change management.

3. The Human Resources section will address the following items:

• Organizational and human resources systems that need to be in place to effect positive

organizational outcomes;

• The steps and decisions involved in recruitment, selection, and retention of staff;

• Performance management systems;

• Compensation and reward systems;

• Process of training and development and the contribution to the organization’s bottom

line;

• Relationship of organized labor and management in healthcare; and

• The resources, key staff/roles, and steps required to develop a safe workplace.

Your submission will be 10-12 pages in length. You must include title and reference pages and a table of

contents. These do not count toward total page count.

Incorporate 20 credible and current references. Ten of these must be peer-reviewed articles, preferably

no older than three years. The CSU-Global Library is a good place to find these references.

Format your paper according to the CSU-Global Guide to Writing and APA Requirements. Be sure to

discuss and reference concepts taken from the assigned textbook reading and relevant research. Review

the grading rubric to see how you will be graded for this assignment.

Option #2: Trends and Future of Human Resources in Healthcare

For the past 10 years, Methodist Hospital Health System (MHHS) celebrated the fact that 60% of its new

hires in management positions were women and minorities. The MHHS leadership assumed that with

SAMPLE

such a practice, women and minorities would eventually represent at least 50% of their top

management executives (vice president level and above).

But something unexpected happen. A few years ago, MHHS become concerned that its diversity

program was not producing results. Instead of seeing an increase in the number of women and

minorities in executive positions, the organization was observing a decline. Talented female and

minorities managers were leaving, draining the pool of capable and qualified staff.

To address this problem, MHHS founded the Task Force on Retention and Advancement of Women and

Minorities in Executive Positions (TFRA). This task force aimed to pinpoint the reasons that female and

minority executives were leaving by conducting a massive information-gathering initiative, interviewing

female and minorities at all levels as well as former employees. The team uncovered these main areas of

concern:

1. Limited opportunity for advancement;

2. Lack of mentoring, coaching, and networking;

3. Existing work and family issues;

4. Lack of succession planning;

5. Lack of positive culture and transparent communication about promotion and professional

development;

6. Lack of relevant and effective training, job development, and employee empowerment

opportunities;

7. Cultural bias toward women and minorities and “old boy” network system;

8. Organization’s resistance to embrace diversity; and

9. Uncompetitive salary and benefits.

In response to these findings, MHHS must retool the workplace.

Instructions:

You are the CEO of MHHS and have been asked to present a plan to the board of directors for retooling

the workplace to meet the goals to be a woman- and minority-friendly employer and to have women

and minorities eventually represent 50% of its top management.

The presentation must address strategies in the following areas:

1. Recruitment, selection, and retention;

2. Communication;

3. Research;

4. Performance management;

5. Technology and innovation;

6. Change management; and

7. Another area of healthcare management your choosing.

Be innovative; think creatively. Your submission will be 12-15 content slides. (You must also

include title and reference slides and a table of contents that do not count toward slide total.)

You must also include substantive speakers’ notes for each slide. Treat the speaker’s notes like

you would the full spoken

SAMPLEcontent of the slide. For a 12-15 slide presentation, this translates to

roughly 10 to 15 minutes of content. You should include roughly one minute’s worth of content

on each slide, or between 125 and 150 words of notes per slide.

Incorporate 20 credible and current references. Ten of these must be peer-reviewed articles.

The CSU-Global Library is a good place to find these references.

Format your presentation according to the CSU-Global Guide to Writing and APA Requirements. Be

sure to discuss and reference concepts taken from the assigned textbook reading and relevant

research. Review the grading rubric to see how you will be graded for this assignment