Here's the situation. Everybody is under the same executive director. There are three directors/administrators that report to the same executive director. Everybody is in the same building, but the two main service areas (medical and counseling) use two separate reception/admissions areas that are connected. So yes, the two different reception staffs are not currently cross-trained and use different scheduling systems. Plus, the medical area charges for some services and has a complex scheduling computer system, while the counseling center never charges for services. Medical appointments are commonly 15-20 minutes in length, while counseling sessions are 1 hr. in length.
One building houses both the Student Medical and Counseling Centers at Central Washington University. Each center has a separate designated admissions/welcome desk (and corresponding waiting areas), where student patients/clients report for their appointments, schedule new appointments, fill out paperwork, and ask for information on billing. Both centers have separate entrances, with common hallways without barriers between center areas. Therefore, students could use either entrance to access both reception areas.
Historically (currently), the reception team at the Medical Center desk (two staff) reported to the Medical Director (Medical Doctor), while the team at the Counseling Center desk (two staff) reported to the Director of Counseling (Licensed Psychologist).
Additionally, a billing specialist (who helps out with reception duties during busy times) was also located in the medical reception area. Both the billing specialist and a medical records specialist (located in a different designated office suite) reported to the Business Manager of the combined Health & Counseling Services. The Business Manager also hired and supervised all student employees (10 +/-), who mostly worked at one or both of the respective center reception desks. The Business Manager’s supervisor is the Senior Director of Health & Counseling Services.
Therefore, the Medical Director, Director of Counseling, and the Business Manager all report to the Senior Director of Health & Counseling Services.
These four administrators compose the leadership team of the Health & Counseling Services.
It became apparent that cross-training of receptionists would be helpful during times of high student volume, unplanned staff absences (illnesses), and vacations, where counseling and medical reception staff could float between both desks to fill in and help with staffing gaps. Additionally, coordination of training and supervision of the respective staff, along with monitoring student staff, has proven inconsistent and cumbersome, as the respective directors employ different levels of accountability and concern for client satisfaction, while “under the same roof.”.
Furthermore, evidence of competitiveness and disenchantment, between the reception staff members, exists given the perceived workload differences between the two reception areas (counseling appointments are usually in one-hour increments, while medical appointments are in 10-15 minute increments).
Lastly, the counseling desk uses a very simple scheduling software program (given they do not have any ancillary charges posted to student accounts), while the medical desk is forced to use a very complicated billing and scheduling system due to the need for ancillary charges (X-rays, lab tests, medications) to be posted to students’ CWU financial accounts. This system is a technologically complex software program that interfaces with CWU’s PeopleSoft student financial management package. This situation represents one of the major cross-training issues.
You are the Senior Director of Student Health & Counseling Services. This situation is “coming to a head,” as reception staffs are engaging in infighting, while medical staff are forming allegiances with “their” receptionists against the counseling staff and “their” receptionists. You see a possible way to fix this situation.
You believe that the way to improve this situation is to reassign all staff, with any reception, billing, or transcription duties (including student staff), to the Business Manager who is risk tolerant to change (who just so happens to have a BS in Business Education/ITAM). The medical director and director of counseling are not as risk tolerant to change as the business manager.
You’re getting ready to have an unofficial and off-the-record discussion with the business manager to float the idea. But before you do this, you want to review what you would need to do to make this change, assuming the business manager agrees to the new responsibilities. Furthermore, you have the legitimate positional power to just make the change on your orders, but you want to take the “long view” in exploring the implications of this change, and what it would take to convince the reception people, and the three administrators, of the “reasonableness of your ways.”
Therefore, you want to put together a little document to outline and review the potential impact of your new proposed strategy.
Using Quinn’s seven factors, please prepare a document to predict, uncover, and prepare for any and all eventualities related to these seven factors. This includes getting clarification on questions where you do not yet know the answers.
Use the “Summary of Quinn’s Seven Factors” document as an outline for the order of the seven factors. Keep in mind that factor #6 could include the reaction of employee’s union representing the receptionists. Your perspective should be, what considerations and information do I need to collect, uncover and contend with, related to the impact of this decision and change process.
Feel free to use a bulleted format under each factor, double-spaced, and a minimum of two full pages. If it helps you, feel free to cross-reference the issues outlined within Quin’s seven factors with Bolman & Deals’ Four Frames, as the seven factors fit into the four frames quite nicely (especially the political and symbolic frames).
Lastly, read into this scenario. Contemplate what are the possible resistances from the respective desk staff (e.g. Is there more prestige in reporting to a medical doctor, vs. a business manager?).