1. Would you have fired the Director of Dietary Services for this error of judgment? 2....

 

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1. Would you have fired the Director of Dietary Services for this error of judgment? 2. Would you have made a decision different than returning the Hispanic items to the breakfast menu? 3. Would you have instructed your Director of Dietary Services and his management team to go through cultural diversity training to prevent any future incidents? It did not deal with critical clinical or legal issues, but a problem of organizational culture. Because this hospital was located in the southwest, about half of our 3,000 employees were Hispanic. Likewise, half our physicians, half our patients, and half the local community were Hispanic. The Hispanic culture was very important, and we needed to value it. One day, our Director of Dietary Services, who happened to be one of the best Dietary Services Directors I ever had in all of my hospitals, made a bad decision. In our cafeteria, as in most large medical centers, breakfast was a big deal. A lot of employees coming off the night shift would stay for breakfast, and a lot of the first shift would come in early to eat breakfast. We had a large cafeteria, and we often had 400 to 600 people for breakfast. Because of the significant Hispanic influence, our breakfast menu always included tortillas, beans, rice, and other Hispanic foods. Well, for some reason-I never did get a good explanation from him-our Director of Dietary Services decided to change the menu one morning, and he removed all of the Hispanic items. Our employees responded quickly and with great dissatisfaction. We just about had a riot on our hands! Not only the Hispanic employees were upset, but the non-Hispanic employees were upset too because they enjoyed the Hispanic food as well. Although the Director didn't report to me directly, I decided that this situation required that I speak with him directly. When I asked him why he removed the Hispanic items, he answered that he had just wanted a menu change and had not realized it would cause such a big problem. He was not from that area, so perhaps he was not sensitive to the Hispanic culture and didn't realize the importance of providing Hispanic food items on the menu. I instructed him to return the tortillas, beans, rice, and other Hispanic food items to the menu and to never make that menu change again. I also told him that I wanted breakfast to be free for the next week for all employees so that we could cool down the atmosphere among our employees. I wanted to acknowledge their disappointment of this decision and show them that we did understand and value their culture. The basic message was, "We value you as employees, and we made a mistake, and breakfast is on us for a week." And this quickly settled this situation and effectively ended the issue. This might not seem like a big problem to many executives, but the concern I had was avoiding a decline in employee morale. When you have that many employees, a decline in morale will lead to a decline in productivity and an untrusting organization. Although this was not a huge problem, it was a problem that had to be dealt with. Content Link: Ledlow & Stephens, Leadership for Health Professionals: Theory, Skills, and Applications, 3rd Edition, Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2017 Chapter 5: Cultural Competence 1. Would you have fired the Director of Dietary Services for this error of judgment? 2. Would you have made a decision different than returning the Hispanic items to the breakfast menu? 3. Would you have instructed your Director of Dietary Services and his management team to go through cultural diversity training to prevent any future incidents? It did not deal with critical clinical or legal issues, but a problem of organizational culture. Because this hospital was located in the southwest, about half of our 3,000 employees were Hispanic. Likewise, half our physicians, half our patients, and half the local community were Hispanic. The Hispanic culture was very important, and we needed to value it. One day, our Director of Dietary Services, who happened to be one of the best Dietary Services Directors I ever had in all of my hospitals, made a bad decision. In our cafeteria, as in most large medical centers, breakfast was a big deal. A lot of employees coming off the night shift would stay for breakfast, and a lot of the first shift would come in early to eat breakfast. We had a large cafeteria, and we often had 400 to 600 people for breakfast. Because of the significant Hispanic influence, our breakfast menu always included tortillas, beans, rice, and other Hispanic foods. Well, for some reason-I never did get a good explanation from him-our Director of Dietary Services decided to change the menu one morning, and he removed all of the Hispanic items. Our employees responded quickly and with great dissatisfaction. We just about had a riot on our hands! Not only the Hispanic employees were upset, but the non-Hispanic employees were upset too because they enjoyed the Hispanic food as well. Although the Director didn't report to me directly, I decided that this situation required that I speak with him directly. When I asked him why he removed the Hispanic items, he answered that he had just wanted a menu change and had not realized it would cause such a big problem. He was not from that area, so perhaps he was not sensitive to the Hispanic culture and didn't realize the importance of providing Hispanic food items on the menu. I instructed him to return the tortillas, beans, rice, and other Hispanic food items to the menu and to never make that menu change again. I also told him that I wanted breakfast to be free for the next week for all employees so that we could cool down the atmosphere among our employees. I wanted to acknowledge their disappointment of this decision and show them that we did understand and value their culture. The basic message was, "We value you as employees, and we made a mistake, and breakfast is on us for a week." And this quickly settled this situation and effectively ended the issue. This might not seem like a big problem to many executives, but the concern I had was avoiding a decline in employee morale. When you have that many employees, a decline in morale will lead to a decline in productivity and an untrusting organization. Although this was not a huge problem, it was a problem that had to be dealt with. Content Link: Ledlow & Stephens, Leadership for Health Professionals: Theory, Skills, and Applications, 3rd Edition, Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2017 Chapter 5: Cultural Competence

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