Blog

Read Unit 7 Discussion Scenarios, linked in the Resources, and choose one scenario to respond to for this unit’s discussion.

Unit 7 Discussion Scenarios

Read the following organizational scenarios and choose one to respond to for the Unit 7 discussion.

Scenario 1: Health Care Facilities Redesign Challenges

You are the HR business partner to a health care administrative executive of Care Now, a private sector urgent care provider in your state. Your supervisor is directly responsible for overseeing 52 facilities throughout the state. There are 9–30 employees in each Care Now medical facility. The largest facilities have three physicians, two physician assistants, eight registered nurses, and 17 allied health care professionals in assorted fields. These Type A organizations, as they are known at Care Now corporate headquarters, are flagships of the organization with extensive resources to enable them to provide non-emergency care to their communities. The testing done by Care Now headquarters only takes place in organizations of this size. Recently, headquarters came out with a continuous quality improvement program with extensive documentation and inspection requirements that will add more burdens to operations. The prototype new reorganized “quality” facility is a Type A organization across the street from the company’s headquarters in the capital city of another state.

There are two other types of Care Now facilities. Type B facilities are about half the size of Type A, with 11–15 employees. This smaller organization will be challenged by the new requirements but should be able to accomplish them with the recommended new organizational structure that the headquarters is directing you to make in all the Care Now facilities. In Type C facilities, there is one physician, one physician assistant, three nurses and four allied health care professionals. These smaller offices are spread in the rural areas of your state and there are seven of them.

During the planning for the quality reorganization, neither the Type B nor Type C organizations were pilot tested. While as the HR business partner you have had no problem getting the Type A and B organizations in your state to transition, all of your smaller organizations are failing to meet the milestones, complaining about too much work, and laughing about the reorganization where they have office sections with one person. Organizational performance is weakening, resignations are being threatened, and morale is very poor.

Please consider the following questions as you respond to the discussion situation described above.

• What are the major issues you are facing? Consider not just surface issues, but deeper concerns.
• What could the corporate headquarters do differently?
• What are the options to address the very complicated and messy organizational challenges you are facing? Which option will you choose to use to fix this problem?

Scenario 2: Lost Cubicles at American Autonomous Cars Incorporated

You are entering the headquarters of American Autonomous Cars Inc., and you notice that dozens of employees are walking around somewhat confused and talking to each other. You ask Mr. Higgins about what is going on, and he says all the cubicles and offices have been moved. Most people cannot seem to find where their cubicles were relocated. Also, it appears there are signs on offices telling people where to move their office materials, and IT is swarming everywhere with extra help from contractors. You run to your boss’s office, and there is a note on her door saying Ms. Walker has moved to Room 732. As you further look around, you see Ms. Wilkins in the corner crying. Mr. Rodriguez has taken his tablet out and is playing a video game. The accounting staff has gone up to the president’s office. The operations team has set up a bulletin board of the cubes they have been able to locate.

You finally find Ms. Walker, and she shares with you that Ted, the CEO, wanted to do a workplace disruption as an organizational development exercise to reframe how things get done and to dismantle silos and cultural cables. He hired several moving companies and only told the information technology section.

Please consider the following questions as you respond to the discussion situation described above:

• What are the major impacts of these actions?
• What would you tell employees?
• What are some of the disruptions that would occur under these conditions?
• How might you mediate this situation?