Facilitating Organizational Change in an Admissions Department of a Mental Health Institure
Improving the Admissions Department
Change:
At Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division there’s a high turnover rate in the Admissions Department. Besides the issue with turnover, there seems to be a problem between the supervisor and his staff. The director has received numerous complaints from the staff members that the supervisor is abusing his power. Because of continuous problems in the admissions department, the area has a great deal of absentee. This in turns has caused a significant amount of overtime. The county is facing a shortfall and with the overtime the department is over budget. I’ve been called in as a consultant to rectify the problem. There has also been a lot of gossip going on in the department concerning other co-workers which has led to fighting amongst staff members. As an outside consultant, the first thing I decided to do was to give a confidential survey to the supervisor, the current staff, and former employees. I allowed the present supervisor and current staff a week to look over their surveys and send them back to me. For past employees, I allowed two weeks. The director has told me that the present supervisor has been through numerous leadership trainings. He’s also been written up for failing to adhere to his supervisor (the director) orders. The problems that I’ve run into are that the current staff was reluctant to complete the surveys for fear of retaliation from their boss. I let each of them know that the surveys were confidential and that they could type up their answers and leave them in a box in my temporary office. After reviewing the survey from the current and former staff, I discovered that there is a problem with the leadership, communication, co-workers felling harassed and therefore they don’t come to work, and the supervisor showing favoritism. Organization Diagnosis and Assessment Phase
The visible signs that there seems to be a problem in the admissions department are a high
Change:
At Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division there’s a high turnover rate in the Admissions Department. Besides the issue with turnover, there seems to be a problem between the supervisor and his staff. The director has received numerous complaints from the staff members that the supervisor is abusing his power. Because of continuous problems in the admissions department, the area has a great deal of absentee. This in turns has caused a significant amount of overtime. The county is facing a shortfall and with the overtime the department is over budget. I’ve been called in as a consultant to rectify the problem. There has also been a lot of gossip going on in the department concerning other co-workers which has led to fighting amongst staff members. As an outside consultant, the first thing I decided to do was to give a confidential survey to the supervisor, the current staff, and former employees. I allowed the present supervisor and current staff a week to look over their surveys and send them back to me. For past employees, I allowed two weeks. The director has told me that the present supervisor has been through numerous leadership trainings. He’s also been written up for failing to adhere to his supervisor (the director) orders. The problems that I’ve run into are that the current staff was reluctant to complete the surveys for fear of retaliation from their boss. I let each of them know that the surveys were confidential and that they could type up their answers and leave them in a box in my temporary office. After reviewing the survey from the current and former staff, I discovered that there is a problem with the leadership, communication, co-workers felling harassed and therefore they don’t come to work, and the supervisor showing favoritism. Organization Diagnosis and Assessment Phase
The visible signs that there seems to be a problem in the admissions department are a high
Bibliography: Quinn, Robert E., Deep Change, 1996, John Wiley and Sons Inc., San Francisco, CA