Gateway Hospital is a 500-bed tertiary-care hospital located in a busy metropolitan area. Arecent employee satisfaction survey scored well below the national norms on most scales. The hos-pital has been facing higher than average turnover and vacancy rates. Recruitment of profes-sional positions is very difficult because the hospital has gained a reputation as a bad place towork, especially if one is new; the term "eat their young" seems to be a prevalent description.Salaries are below the local market, as are annual pay increases. In many departments thereseems to be a critical shortage of staff, and closing services has been a recent topic of discussion.
Additionally, the financial picture of the organization is bleak. The payor mix has changed;Medicare cutbacks are impacting the bottom line, as are changes in private insurance funding.Key physicians are beginning to take their services elsewhere, as they sense the inefficiency of thehospital processes.
The various stresses appear to be having a significant impact on the overall morale of employ-ees. Poor teamwork is rampant, and communication breakdowns seem to be a normal occurrence.Several leaders have been let go in an effort to address issues.
The leadership of Gateway Hospital is extremely concerned about the organizational prognosisand has decided to begin to address the issues by enlisting the assistance of a consulting team.One member of the team is a financial expert who has been hired to address the significant finan-cial issues affecting the hospital.
The time frame on fixing the financial issues is one of a criticalneed; since the environment is rapidly changing, the consultant must get a handle on how to helpthe hospital operate successfully, given the current financial downslide.
A second member of the team is hired to address the morale and employee issues. A review ofthe employee opinion survey is conducted, and trends are identified in exit interviews. Employeeinterviews and focus groups are held in an attempt to determine the root cause of the moraleissues, as well as the breakdown in teamwork and communication.
The data collection is discussed with leadership; after a series of discussions, leadership admitsthat many of the financial pressures have created a "knee jerk" reaction to staffing issues, oftencutting back dramatically on employee hours. This would create a crisis mode and the need to askemployees to work harder. This cycle has created a significant lack of trust from the employee'sperspective, coupled with the fact that employees have not felt that they have been apprised of thereasons for the roller coaster changes and have not been offered any words of appreciation whenthey have either reduced their hours or worked in a crisis.
The consultant and the leadership agree that in order to fix the "people" issues of the organization, there will need to be a culture shift of leadership and employee interactions so that a trustcan be rebuilt.
Questions
1. On the basis of these issues, what OD interventions do you think should be utilized to address the problems this hospital is facing?
2. How would you proceed if you were the consultant in this case?
3. What skill set do you think the practitioner will need in order to be effective in this organization?
4. What type of a time line would you establish if you were this consultant?