[SOLUTION] Rural Acute Care Hospital

Director of human resources for a small rural acute care hospital. You’ve been on the job for just 3 months and have spent that time getting to know your organization and its employees. You have responsibility for all of the usual human resources functions, including the training and development functions. In addition, you have the additional departments of volunteers and the hospital chaplaincy services. You’ve identified a number of serious organizational issues and are beginning to get the picture as to why the hospital’s president was anxious for you to begin work as soon as possible and told you that you had your work cut out for you. Turnover is high, there are many vacant positions, and you have a very high number of positions that are considered hard-to-fill positions because of national workforce shortages. There is what you consider to be a very high number of EEOC complaints over the past 5 years for an organization of this size. Employees were blunt in their criticisms of the organization and its management in an employee survey conducted just prior to your coming. The board of directors and the president know that they have serious human resource issues that are affected by management practices that will have to change in order for them to compete in the local healthcare market as an employer of choice. As in any healthcare organization, fiscal resources are limited, but the board is firmly committed to investing in a well-developed human resources plan that will decrease the turnover and stem the ever-growing turnover and vacancy rates. The president has asked you to attend the next board of directors meeting to share your insights and assessment along with the first draft of your plan for addressing these serious issues. What will you tell them? Outline the focus of your presentation that you will speak from when you meet with the board in terms of the issues you have identified, as well as the initial focus of your plan for turning this around.