Coffee cutting measures
Employees are getting a little more anxious with the smoking ban coming down to the last few days. Floyd will go completely smokeless as of July 1, 2006.
Directors are meeting with their departments and really putting some fear in the employees about the current financial situation at Floyd. They are looking for ways to cut costs and employees recognize this phraseology as employee cut-backs.
It has gotten to the point that employees are hearing they are considering eliminating the free coffee. They are reportedly surveying how many employees are drinking coffee and tea.
Employees are saying “they took away our smokes and now they’re taking away our coffee!”
As you can imagine, this is not a big morale booster.
The financials continue to slide and the number of heart cases is well below projections. Rather than cutting out the free coffee, how about a “no bonus” consideration for the administration. What are the odds of that happening?
Directors are meeting with their departments and really putting some fear in the employees about the current financial situation at Floyd. They are looking for ways to cut costs and employees recognize this phraseology as employee cut-backs.
It has gotten to the point that employees are hearing they are considering eliminating the free coffee. They are reportedly surveying how many employees are drinking coffee and tea.
Employees are saying “they took away our smokes and now they’re taking away our coffee!”
As you can imagine, this is not a big morale booster.
The financials continue to slide and the number of heart cases is well below projections. Rather than cutting out the free coffee, how about a “no bonus” consideration for the administration. What are the odds of that happening?
posted by Anonymous at 6:11 AM
14 Comments:
Another good cost cutting idea: Cut out free food provided to doctors who can easily afford to buy their own lunches.
If everybody would stop smoking and drinking coffee, what would that do to the number of heart cases?
From the musical, "How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying":
There's no coffee! No coffee! Oh!
If I can't take my coffee break,
My coffee break, my coffee break . . .
If I can't take my coffee break,
Something within me dies.
Lies down and something within me dies.
If I can't make three daily trips
Where shining shrine
Benignly drips
And taste cardboard between my lips,
Something within me dies.
Lies down and something within me dies.
No coffee! No coffee! No coffee!
No coffee! No coffee! No coffee!
No coffee! No coffee!
That office light doesn't have to be fluorescent;
I'll get no pains in the head.
That office chair doesn't have to be foam rubber;
So if I spread, so I spread;
But only one chemical substance
Gets out the lead--
Like she said:
If I can't take my coffee break,
My coffee break, my coffee break . . .
If I can't take my coffee break,
Gone is the sense of enterprise
All gone, and something within me dies.
No coffee! No coffee! No coffee!
No coffee! No coffee! No coffee!
No coffee! No coffee! No coffee!
No coffee!
If I can't take my coffee break,
Somehow the soul no longer tries;
Somewhere I don't metabolize;
Something within me . . .
Coffee or otherwise,
Coffee or otherwise,
Coffee or otherwise,
Something inside of me dies!
Excellent reference NAC,
Something in each of the employees is dying: their positive attitudes and morale.
To annonymous,
The physicians do pay for part of the food in the lounge out of their annual dues. It is either 5 or 10,000 dollars from what I remember.
From a business standpoint, even if the hospital paid the entire amount, it would be a small price as a busienss expense.
Other businesses spend a lot more to wine and dine their revenue-generating customers.
The hospital could not continue to operate without the revenue generated by physicians from admissions, orders, and referrals.
And just what is the employee turnover rate among those folks with such dying morale? Could it be that you see what you are predisposed (or hope) to see.
By the way, I don't remember seeing a comment from you about last week's article in the Courier-Journal (and other national publications) about the crisis in emergency rooms across the country. Several times you have condemned Floyd for the backups and wait times in its ER as if that were some unique failing at FMH. Turns out that it is a major problem everywhere.
As a member of a scientific profession, you really should be more careful about your selective use of facts to prove your points.
To the critic,
If administration would not try and convince everyone that we are so much better than every other hospital it would be different. If you tout you are the best, than you should be able to substantiate that with facts and numbers.
I only point out that the numbers at Floyd are average at best and many below average. They should not try and convince employees, physicians and patients that they are anything but average.
Do you have data that suggest that Floyd is ONLY average? I have heard some horror stories about ER backups and diversions at hospitals across the river. And, in any case, do you build esprit de corps at your office? By touting your average successes or your best ones? Just what is wrong with management asking employees to identify with excellence?
Go back to the previous posts and look. The data has been posted many times showing below average numbers in multiple important areas such as ER satisfaction, outpatient satisfaction, outpatient surgery, employee satisfaction etc.
Currently the financial numbers are also below their progections and goals. The quarterly numbers were posted a few weeks ago.
The data is available and speaks for itself.
Nothing wrong with asking employees to strive for exellence as long as you provide the necessary tools to achieve it. Chronic understaffing and overworking your employees does not meet that criteria.
There you go again, using selective data and implying that Floyd intentionally understaffs and is doing something wrong.
First of all, the "negative" data you shared earlier tended to show that Floyd was not always meeting its target goals, but that those goals were set well above average and the results were also generally above industry averages. Employee turnover, for example (a key indicator of employee satisfaction), was unusually low.
Now regarding those accusations of "chronic understaffing and overworking...employees." Can you name a single hospital in the metropolitan area that is not in exactly the same or worse situation regarding staffing? You know fully well that several occupational professions are in short supply and that reimbursement levels have a huge impact on staffing levels. Every healthcare facility in the country struggles with that problem and there is no easy answer to a shortage of skilled resources and a reduced ability to fund them.
So, what would you suggest any hospital's management should do in this environment? Accept mediocrity and communicate that standard to employees? What do you do in the face of shrinking resources in your own practice? Do you tell your employees that things are tough and that you will accept a lower standard of performance and patient care? Or do you try to make the least harmful adjustments and ask yourself, and your staff, to suck it up and do the best they can for patients who need their help?
The stress among FMHHS appears to be at an all time high. While I do not condone smoking, I think a better plan could have been put into place. Many patients are smokers as well and nicotine patches aren't always the answer. The turnover rate is growing day by day. Several new staff aren't staying past 2 or 3 months. FMHHS used to be known as the premier of places to work around here. They took good care of their associates and staff retiring with 20, 30, or even 40 years was not uncommon. I wonder what would happen if a survey were done today about working at FMHHS? Would they be voted one of the best now?
Stress is very high and there are valid reasons which we will blog further about in the next few days.
What is being said by this anonymous supporter is the typical administrative spin and if they would identify themselves you would acknowledge the obvious bias.
You live in your own private, and very narrow, world. Talk to some of the folks working in hospitals across the river and learn what stress is really about. Talk to some of the folks at Ford making Explorers that aren't selling while Ford and GM continue to move assembly operations, vendor contracts and jobs south of the border. Talk to some people in companies going through layoffs to cope with budget and/or sales shortfalls (not hiring freezes--people actually losing their livelihoods).
This is a tough, competitive world we live in and it is harder to turn a profit or make a living in virtually all fields these days. You can whine and moan all you want about sub-optimal situations, but the hallmark of success can't be compared to how comfortable things were in the past, but rather against peer group realities today.
I can't help noting that your arrogance, condescension and desire for revenge toward those who disagree with you explains a lot about your lack of success in board work and political persuasion. You may know a lot about medicine, but you have a lot to learn about getting along in situations where you can't give orders.
I'd have to say that the comments from anonymous continue to show the discomfort that arises when the facts are made public.
Getting things out and having people discuss them openly is beneficial. I have strived for that both in and out of the board room.
Anonymous is very much like those who have continued to try and cover up what really goes on and those who fail to accept responsibility for their decisions.
We ask again to identify yourself so the readers can judge.
It would be a great idea if someone would actually look at all these situations from nurses perspectives but unfortunately nurses are too scared to voice their true opions. Surveys don't and will not do any good unless their totally anonymous. Nurses do have the ability to go somewhere else but that truly wont solve the problems that continue to grow in the medical industry.
I truly believe if a nurses views were put into play and taken seriously it would have a significant impact on the financial debt that continues to grow.
I am a nurse and I did work in another facility and it had similar problems. I am much happier here. No matter where you go it seems that nurses opinions are never asked or heard or incorporated.
Post a Comment
<< Home