Assignments Instruction:

Your lesson assignment responses should be evidenced from the course textbook and/or from peer-reviewed sources not more than 5 years old. In general, Wikipedia is not a professionally reviewed resource and should not be used as an assignment reference. You must cite your references so that readers can verify your conclusions, and easily determine what is your work, and what is paraphrased or taken directly from other sources.

Submit your responses to these questions in one WORD document. List the question first, and then your response. Your response must adequately cover the question without being wordy or relying on "yes" or "no" responses.

Case Study:

Becoming a Split-Department Manager Imagine that you are the manager of a department, the function of which is to provide service in your chosen profession. In other words, if your career is medical laboratory technology, you are a laboratory manager; if your field is physical therapy, you manage physical therapy or rehabilitation services, and so on. You are employed by a 60-bed rural hospital, an institution sufficiently small that you represent the only level of management within your function (unless your profession is nursing, in which case there will be perhaps two or three levels of management). This means that unless you are a first-line manager in nursing (for example, head nurse), you report directly to administration. You have been in your position for about two years. Following some stressful early months, you are beginning to feel that you have your job under control most of the time. A possibility that for years had been talked about and argued throughout the local community, the merger of your hospital with a similar but larger institution (90 beds) about 10 miles away, recently became a reality. One of the initial major changes undertaken by the new corporate entity was realignment of the management structure. In addition to placing the new corporate entity under a single chief executive officer, the realignment included, for most activities, bringing each function under a single manager. Between the merger date and the present, most department managers have been involved in the unpleasant process of competing against their counterparts for the single manager position. You are the successful candidate, the survivor. Effective next Monday, you will be running a combined department in two locations consisting of more than twice the number of employees you have been accustomed to supervising.

1. Generate a list of the ways in which you believe your responsibilities and the tasks you perform are likely to change because of the merger and your resulting new role. Hint: It may be helpful to make lists of what you imagine to be the circumstances before and after your appointment. For example, two obvious points of comparison involve the number of employees (which implies many necessary tasks) and travel inherent in the job. See how long a list you can generate.

2. What does this split-department situation do to your efficiency as a manager, and how can you compensate for this change?

3. On which specific management skill should the newly appointed split-department manager be concentrating?

Case Study:

In Need of Improvement? You are an administrative staff specialist newly employed by the hospital to act as a management engineer and address a number of issues relating to operating efficiency. Your first assignment is to analyze work methods and staffing in the central sterile supply division of materials management. The department was singled out for study because: The manager, a registered nurse who has held the job for more than 25 years, has requested two more processing aides although her staff is already one person larger than that of another area hospital of equivalent size. There has been a recent, seemingly unexplained, upturn in the consumption of disposables. A number of storage shelves appear to be stocked to overflowing with infrequently used items. The department issues frequent rush orders to obtain needed items that have completely run out. Observed conditions in the department include an overcrowded storage area, a seemingly inadequate decontamination area, and a grossly over-sized processing area referred to by most employees as "the ballroom." On your initial visit to the department the first thing the manager says to you is: "So you're the one who's going to tell us what we're doing wrong?" Her tone is none too friendly.

1. Develop a proposed approach to a complete study of the department, including the sales pitch you would use to try winning the manager's cooperation and support, specifying what should be done, why it should be done, and how you propose to address the inevitable resistance of both manager and staff.