Please help With considerable advance notice the director of health information
ID: 375684 • Letter: P
Question
Please help
With considerable advance notice the director of health information management (HIM) resigned to take a similar position in a hospital in another state. Within the department it was commonly assumed that you, the assistant director, would be appointed director; however, a month after the former director’s departure the department was still running without a director. Day-to-day operations had apparently been left in your hands (“apparently,” because nothing had been said to you), but the hospital’s chief operating officer had begun to make some of the administrative decisions affecting the department.
After another month had passed you learned “through the grapevine” that the hospital had interviewed several candidates for the position of director of health information management. Nobody had been hired.
During the next few weeks you tried several times to discuss your uncertain status with the chief operating officer. Each time you tried you were told simply to “keep doing what you’re now doing.”
Four months after the previous director’s departure you were promoted to director of HIM. The first instruction you received from the chief operating officer was to abolish the position of assistant director.
Instructions
1. What is the likely state of your ability to “motivate” yourself in your new position? Be sure to thoroughly explain your reasoning and comment whether you feel confident in the stability of your position and explain how this might affect your performance. (This section should be two paragraphs).
2. Describe the most likely motivational state of your HIM staff at the time you assumed the director’s position. Then, discuss two or three steps you will take to improve morale. When relevant, be sure to cite to motivational theory.
Explanation / Answer
1) When the Chief Operating Office asked me to abolish the position of the Assistant Director, it means that the position is no more available. It also means that the next person who would occupy the position after me, would be someone from outside and there would not be a person below me who could get trained from me to take the position after me.
Well, this is quite depressing, because any person would think of having of an assistant who could be nurtured and trained to occupy the place after him/her. Such assistant position would actually help the boss to get the work done in a faster way. But in this case since there the position got abolished, i (director) need to look at in and out of the business. So, one thing that comes up in my mind is, who will look after the work in my absence or when i am on leave, and work would suffer.
So, i would certainly not like the idea of abolishing the assistant director position. Such decision will not alter my performance though, but it brings a sense of dissatisfaction for the new strategic decision of the Chief Operating officer.
2) The motivational state of HIM staff is very high when they assumed the director's position. I could also assume that they were really happy that i would take the position of the director. Employee morale describes the overall outlook, attitude, satisfaction, and confidence that employees feel at work.
When employees are positive about their work environment and believe that they can meet their most important career needs at work, employee morale will be relatively higher and positive. In order to increase the motivation levels and employee morale, i would do the following -
When employees have confidence in the capability of their company leadership they tend to have positive morale. When they share a vision for where the company is headed and are positive about the direction, employees have high morale. Feeling part of goals that are bigger than themselves and their job contributes to positive employee morale.
Many employees want to feel as if they are part of a larger picture and contributing to success for the greater good. A deep focus on serving the needs of their customers, their reason for existing at all, also promotes positive employee morale.