The Case of the Disgruntled Nurses
Introduction:
At the board of directors’ meeting, board president received a letter from staff council of Oneida Home Health Agency (OHHA), highlighting various staff concerns and suggestions. Rachel Nelson, who had been hired as the executive director of OHHA, was shocked and angered to see the letter, since this was a clear violation of organizational hierarchy and brought her management skills into question. Rachel had replaced Chuck about two years ago, who left the agency in a bad financial position. Soon after her induction, she was joined by Annemarie as nursing director, replacing the previous director Dorothy who had resigned. Rachel and Annemarie had been trying hard to deal with the financial deficit and introduced systems to improve accountability, productivity, quality and efficiency of staff and their documentation. These systems and the intended changes were not viewed positively by some of the staff and started a conflict with the management. The differences grew and resulted in the above mentioned letter being sent directly to the board. Rachel recalled the events that had led to the current state of affairs.
Problems and their causes:
With a broad scope of problems at their hands, Rachel and Annemarie felt the need for changes in organization structure. They discussed the new organization with the staff and found a positive response. This demonstrates an important trait of an effective manager, who shares the information with the staff and welcomes their response. However, it also brings out the point that Rachel and Annemarie were unaware of the hidden negative reactions of their staff, which demonstrates a lacking on their part, since today’s gossip may be tomorrow’s fact.
The senior nurses, on the other hand, felt the new organization structure was bureaucratic and restricted their direct access to management for any favors. This behavior was caused by years of lenient supervision by Dorthy, who always...
