Describe And Discuss Key Theories Concepts And Paradigms That Relate To The Discipline: Management Assignment, TCD, Ireland

Outcomes/Assessment Criteria Being Assessed:

MIMLO 1- Describe and discuss key theories, concepts, and paradigms that relate to the discipline of management and the nature of management in terms of its roles and functions.

MIMLO 3- Outline the potential impact of changes in the external environment on the management of an organization or enterprise.

Case Study –

Ruth Reed has been working at the County Medical Society Answering Service for 18 months when she received a promotion to Middle Management. Ruth was quite excited. She had worked very hard to develop the technical skills for answering calls and the interpersonal skills for communicating with patients and their doctors. Also, she had demonstrated her desire for the promotion by volunteering for overtime and holiday work. Finally, she has been promoted.

However now Ruth faced problems she had not anticipated. How could she be able to convince her friends to take her seriously in her new role as their boss? How was she going to maintain her friendships and still maintain the discipline needed in this workplace?

The Medical Society’s physicians were extremely disappointed with former county answering services companies, which not only handled physician’s calls but business and private accounts as well. Thus, the doctors had decided to start their answering service. Their call handlers would only handle medical calls, would be better trained to recognize urgent and emergency calls. Therefore these staff would receive better benefits and would be paid more than their competing answering service companies paid their call handlers. The doctors believed that this would allow them to attract and retain the best possible worker. This is where Ruth worked.

To oversee the day to day operations of the service, the physicians hired a professional manager and each shift had a supervisor whose responsibilities included, scheduling workers, handling complaints from doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, and patients concerning how their calls were handled, learning how to operate new equipment, and train all their call handlers to do the same and maintain the high level of service required by the physicians. These duties were in addition to the manager working their eight-hour shift.

Ruth was the fourth call handler hired by the organization and the first promoted from the ranks. When she was first hired, she was lucky to train with a very experienced and competent call handler. She modeled her skills on those of her trainer and worked diligently to handle the most calls with the fewest mistakes and even fewer complaints. Whereas the other call handlers worked only 60 to 70 individual incoming lines, Ruth routinely handled 100-120 lines, including some of those with the highest call volumes.

She not only cleared her calls but frequently assisted other call handlers in clearing backlogged messages. When extremely difficult calls came in, such as suicide calls or nuisance calls from patients to whom the doctors did not want to talk, often Ruth was asked to handle them. She was a great problem solver and rapidly developed excellent relationships with all of “her” doctors, their staff, and even their families. During her first year, she was named call handler of the month five times. In her second year, she learned how to schedule workers and received other advanced operations training.

Although the work was extremely fast-paced and required concentration, there was time to talk with employees, joke, and have fun. Strong friendships developed among the staff, who frequently socialized after hours and on their days off. Moreover, the high level of training and pay led to extremely low turnover rates, giving workers a sense of “family” of sorts.  There were always waiting lists of applicants for the positions.

If a call handler wished to leave he or she had no problem finding work at hospitals or for the phone company. Morale was generally high. Ruth’s friends at the answering service threw a party for her when she received the promotion. Everyone who wasn’t working attended. They were happy for her and sincerely wished her well. After all, it was proof that any one of them could be promoted. Ruth was anxious to assume her new responsibilities and even try some new procedures she had been devising.

Within a month Ruth was not nearly as happy with her promotion as she had thought she would be. Her friends, who were now her subordinates as well, did not seem to pay much attention to her suggestions, concerning their job performance. They ignored her instructions and frequently treated them as a joke. She worked many hours planning schedules only to have the call handlers switch shifts, leave early or arrive late, saying they were sure she wouldn’t mind because she understood all their complications. She was their friend after all and they knew she would cut them some slack; her best friends seemed to be the worst offenders.

Ruth soon realized that her new position was missing one thing- authority to go with her new responsibilities. She had no authority to sanction her subordinates, she could not dock their pay, make them work overtime, or cut back on their hours. She could not shorten their lunch breaks or eliminate their coffee breaks.  Only the overall Company Manager could impose sanctions of this sort.  If she insisted the staff use new procedures or work certain hours, they balked, she had no recourse. If she complained to the top manager about her situation, she would be viewed as unable to do her job, she couldn’t complain to her friends, because they were part of the problem. To combat her problems Ruth tried to act with a great deal of authority. For example, she insisted employees follow the new methods she had devised. As a result, she was met with hostility and her friends stopped talking to her. One day she had enough and berated a group of her friends about how they gave her no respect, were uncooperative, and were not doing their jobs. After all, she never asked them to do anything that she was not willing to do herself.

As a result, the culture of staff cooperation and morale was plummeting and productivity was falling. Ruth felt like a failure at the job she had worked so hard to get and even beyond that she was losing her friends. She knew something had to change. She needed to try something new and regain the respect of the subordinates. She needed to find a new way to inspire them and to improve their performances, efficiency, and operations. She was also worried about the developments in Covid 19 and how this would impact operations. This all had to be reviewed and accomplished while still maintaining friendships.