Study: Senior Management Visits Certain Hospital Departments More Than Others

March 15, 2012 - PRLog -- Chicago, IL – March 15, 2012 – HR Solutions International, Inc., an Avatar company, released the results today of a new study examining hospital employees’ perceptions of the visibility of senior management throughout their organization.  The highest-scoring department, Food and Nutrition, ranked 33 percentage points higher on the survey item “Senior managers frequently visit my department” than workers in the lowest-scoring department, Laboratory.  Since the concept of Management By Walking Around (MBWA) was discussed by Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman in their 1982 book, hospitals and health systems have used the practice of rounding to increase senior management’s awareness of operational problems and improve employee relations.

The chart below depicts the five highest-scoring hospital departments with regard to perceived visibility of senior management.  

Hospital Department - Perceived Visibility of Senior Management Percent Favorable Norm
Food and Nutrition - 50
Clinical Professional (Physical Therapist, Social Worker, etc.) - 45
Human Resources - 45
Hospice - 40
Quality-Performance Improvement - 40
Healthcare Norm – Benchmark - 43

In contrast, the chart below displays the five lowest-scoring hospital departments.

Hospital Department - Perceived Visibility of Senior Management Percent Favorable Norm
OB-GYN; Oncology (Tied) - 20
Post-Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) - 18
Coronary Care Unit/Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit (Cardiology) - 18
Critical Intensive Care - 18
Laboratory - 17
Healthcare Norm – Benchmark - 43

HR Solutions uses a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree, and 5 = Strongly Agree.  The percent favorable score consists of the aggregated “Agree” and “Strongly Agree” responses on the rating scale.

The three highest-scoring departments – Food and Nutrition, Clinical Professional, and Human Resources – perceive they are visited frequently by senior management we believe due to the in-person contact required for key administrative decisions and the increased amount of time spent in an office setting.  Coronary Care Unit/Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit (Cardiology), Critical Intensive Care, and Laboratory are the three lowest-scoring departments on perceived visibility of senior leaders.  Since employees within those departments are rarely in an office environment and frequently caring for critical patients, they may feel they see their senior managers less frequently than their colleagues in other departments.

“Following the Studer Group’s best practice of senior leadership visiting different departments allows organizations to quickly learn about problems and regularly recognize positive behaviors,” said Kevin Sheridan, Senior Vice President – HR Optimization of HR Solutions.  “It is extremely important for senior managers to build a personal connection with employees, uncover what is going well across the organization, and identify specific improvements that can be made.”

The study analyzed multi-year data from more than 40 departments within HR Solutions’ Healthcare Normative Database, which includes survey responses from more than 540,000 employees at over 525 organizations.

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About HR Solutions International, Inc.
HR Solutions International, an Avatar company, is a Chicago-based Human Capital Management Consulting Firm specializing in workplace survey design, implementation, analysis, and action planning. For more information, please visit http://www.hrsolutionsinc.com.

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