Reference no: EM133305273

Assignment: Case Narrative

Pauline Herrera, administrator for the senior living center, prepared for her meeting with the food service director. She was reviewing information obtained from employee satisfaction surveys. The information apparently came from center employees who worked in the food service area managed by the contract food service company. The survey results indicated low morale, potential turnover, and general dissatisfaction by employees in that department. She wondered about the working conditions in the food service department. What could be done for these employees to improve their morale and prevent turnover? A bigger concern was the capability of the management company and whether awarding them the food service management contract had been a mistake.

Introduction The food service management company, or contractor, was new to this account (nine months). The account was a senior living center operated as part of a large Catholic hospital, located just a block away. Prior to the arrival of the new contractor, the facility had been operated by a Jewish affiliated hospital. At that time, the hospital operated a kosher kitchen, and a rabbi was the overseer of food preparation. The center primarily catered to senior patients with rehabilitation needs and others with long-term illnesses. The change to the Catholic hospital affiliation and the hiring of the food service contractor had occurred in a nine-month period.

The food service at the hospital was self-operated and had a long and successful history. The food service director at the hospital had maintained that position for twenty years and was well respected in the community. Administrators for the hospital and the center were considering a change in the future that would coincide with the retirement of their long-term food service director. The senior living center was the test case for this experiment.

The center had fifty beds, and the food service department was responsible for providing meals to all patients three times per day, as well as a snack. These meals were prepared based on the dietary instructions of the doctors and nurses, working with the dietitian, an employee of the food service contractor. The food service operation also had a small retail outlet for center employees and visitors. The café, as it was referred to provide a mixture of sandwiches, drinks, salads, and complete meals. The two most active times in this facility were lunch and breakfast, respectively. Finally, catering was a fast growing part of the food service business for the contractor. Catered events were anything from coffee and pastries for a breakfast staff meeting to sit-down, white tablecloth dinners for the board of directors. The development of this segment of the business required a strong marketing effort by the managers. To increase catering sales, the food service contractor needed to be flexible, quick to respond, and able to provide high quality services and products. Inherently, this would mean a well-trained staff that could adjust and react to many situations quickly.

Current food service employees had extensive experience in this operation. They had worked for or with rabbis, nuns, independent food service directors, and other food service contractors. The new food service management team was composed of a director, an assistant director in charge of production, and a dietitian. All the other food service employees, including the diet technicians, were center employees. The hospital administrators were looking to the management company for high-quality products and services and, above all, their ability to save money.

The Employees

The fifteen employees in the food service department had a range of experience in the center from four to twenty-five years. The ages of employees ranged from their early twenties to late fifties, approximately half male and half female Interaction between and among employees was positive. Everyone appeared to get along well.

Generally, food service employees were skeptical of food service management companies and their managers. They felt that the food service management contractors did not care about their employees and were only concerned with the bottom line. The hospital food service employees considered themselves lucky that they were not employed by the management company but were employees of the hospital. The center food service employees also felt that the food service contractor was interested only in the bottom line; as long as the contractor made money, it did not care what happened to the employees. The employees complained that since the food service contractor had taken over the account, they were constantly being asked to do more with less. They were also expected to be cross-trained and be able to perform any task. They felt that being asked to do more and learn more meant more responsibility without additional compensation. However, the food service employees were not unionized, and they felt helpless. They had seen staff cutbacks before and were leery that they might happen again. The fifteen food service employees were composed of three catering employees, three service employees who worked in the retail area provided for the center's employees, three food prep employees including dishwashers, three cooks, and three food-line workers.

The food service employees at the main hospital were also watching the food service contractor. They wondered whether many of their jobs would be eliminated if the hospital hired a food service contractor for the entire facility. The main hospital food service employees monitored the smaller facility by staying in touch with the senior living center employees on a regular basis.

The Management

In the short time the food service management company had been at the facility, the food service director, Ralph Martin, had developed a routine. He completed all the opening paperwork, reviewed the logbook for any special notices, and then dealt with the production scheduling for the day in conjunction with dietary staff. Mr. Martin then supervised the production line for breakfast trays to ensure that all patients received their meals in a timely manner and in accordance with their prescribed diet. He then visited all floors in the facility, spoke to the charge nurses on each floor, and randomly spoke with a number of patients to solicit input on items such as food quality and adherence to specifications. His morning walks through the center were much appreciated by the staff and the patients and made his job easier. His relationship with the hospital staff was excellent. However, the director did find that he had to mediate the relationships between the dietitian and the nursing staff. These interactions had been troublesome in the past and continued to be so. The crux of the issues appeared to be communication problems concerning patient meals and changes made from original instructions.

Ralph Martin was confronted with the information that Pauline Herrera had concerning employee morale in his department. Ralph realized that he had a serious problem. He had not been aware that the problem was this serious, although he knew some of the employees were unhappy with the change in management. He had worked hard to communicate with the center staff, and this seemed to be working. He speculated that a big part of the problem was that the employees were blaming him and the food service management company for labor cutbacks that were initiated after they took over the account. Prior to the food service company's coming on board there had been twenty-nine food service employees. The manager wanted to explain to the employees that the cuts in staffing were part of a package of money-saving ideas that the center administrators wanted and that these cuts would have been made whether it was their company that won the contract or not. Ralph believed that the reason a contract food service company was brought in was its ability to save money and that the employees needed to understand that.

Shortly after Ralph Martin arrived, he had conducted employee performance evaluations. Ralph had examined the skills and abilities of all the employees, their past records, and their current performance and decided that some changes needed to be made. In addition to the fourteen employees who were terminated, one employee had been demoted or reassigned because of his poor reading skills. Employees who had been used to doing things on their own found themselves following written and enforced standards and procedures and were not happy about it. Despite the changes that were made, managers did feel that to provide some of the additional services being requested by the hospital staff more employees were necessary.

Conclusion

Ralph Martin knew that he and the food service management company that he worked for had a real opportunity to expand the account and his own responsibilities. If he was successful and delivered high-quality food service with a trimmed staff, the food service company might get the entire hospital food service account when the hospital food service director retired. That would increase the size of the account, and it would put Ralph in line for a bigger job with more responsibility. These things probably would not happen with employee morale problems and a center administrator concerned about employee morale and turnover. Ralph knew that he would have to deal with these problems, but he was not sure just how to do it.

What were the real issues here? The history of changes in management had placed Ralph in a tough situation. Were the issues communication, work environment, organizational change, team orientation, or company relations with the administrator? Was it a combination of all five? Ralph needed to act quickly and in a way that was responsive to the employees and the administration.

Question: The following questions in relation to the Decision Making Case Study

1. Identify and list problems facing new management team
2. Categorize the problems on your list as programed or non programmed
3. Fill in the Decision- Making Process flow chart for the problems on list.
4. Identify conditions of certainty, risk and uncertainty for the problem you identified
5. Which decision-making technique would you apply to one problem and why? (Slide 9)
6. When should a decision be made by a group rather than an individual?
7. Describe the communication process for your decision
8. Identify two potential barriers to your communication and how you can reduce them
9. Provide an example of internal communication; downward, upward, horizontal, diagonal for this food service facility
10. Describe the relationship between a client and a food service manager