A632.3.3.RB – Framing Complex Decisions

I agree with Hoch & Kunreuther (2005) that today’s business environment has become a labyrinth of data information that is mostly driven by the internet or advance technology.  My current organization has been standardizing policies, procedures, and system technologies within the 52 hospitals.  In the East Florida Region where my company is located, we have struggled with the decision making of our Corporate Executives.  Our local Executive Officers, unfortunately, can only assure us that things will get better.

If I were to examine and assess the decision-making of our executive leaders, I could say that they have utilized three methodologies in dealing with our multiple current issues across the Adventist Health System campuses.  First, our organization built the information base across the board by deciding to change to a new business model called Shared Services utilizing PeopleSoft application.  Shared Services will be responsible for AHS’s Talent Acquisition, Payroll, Supply Chain, and Human Resources Administration.  Corporate decided to use Waterman Hospital as the Alpha campus to roll-out the new business model.  The go-live implementation did not meet the expectations of the Executive Leaders, employees, and its stakeholders.  At least 30% of the new system was not working appropriately.  There were issues with Payroll, Talent Acquisition, and Supply Chain.  Some of the technological problems discovered were, position requisitions were not posting on the website, candidates can’t complete their application submission, supervisors were not able to complete purchasing supplies request, paid days off were not recalculating accurately, and etc. 

Our campus at Memorial Medical Center was selected to be the Beta campus which meant, whatever did not work at Waterman, needed to be fixed before our go-live.  The announcement was made six months before the go-live and panic-stricken among the department heads and most specifically the clinical employees.  Yes, the “why” behind the system change was communicated, but I believe it was not 100% understood among hospital employees and its stakeholders.  For every change management, transparency and open communication are of utmost importance. 

I have always believed that useful communication and transparency from the executive leaders is the key element to the success of a leader and any change management within the organization.  Open communication is essential in strategic alignment and accountability that comes with change either in leadership or system technology to empower the employees and stakeholders in buying-in to leadership initiatives.  This is where the executive leaders were a little bit short.  The efficiency of the system should have been tested over and over until all possible technological problems were identified before going live with Shared Services & PeopleSoft application.  Shared Services were paid to make sure that our organization’s data mining and data warehousing were accurately and efficiently working before the go-live of Waterman and the Florida Hospital Memorial Medical Center. 

The second methodology that our organization uses to make decisions to improve and develop the standardization across the 52 campuses continuously is identifying constraints.  When the first and second go-live with Shared Services’ outcome was not to par or to every stakeholders’ expectations, Adventist Health System’s Executive Leadership sat down with Shared Services Executive to lay down expected results and timeline.  Aligning AHS’ mission of “Extending the Healing Ministries of Christ” cannot be in jeopardy due to systems failure or employees and stakeholders unable to perform their tasks due to data error or inability to hire skilled and able clinical or non-clinical team members. 

My two-cents with the Corporate Executive decisions regarding the implementation of Shared Services and utilization of PeopleSoft application should have been implemented at the Corporate level.  The primary constraints experienced by Waterman and the East Florida Region Hospitals’ employees and stakeholders’ perceived lack of confidence in the new business model by Corporate Executive Leaders.  From the employees’ standpoint, if Shared Services is that useful from a strategic point of view, then why did the new business model not implemented at the Corporate Office first to ensure that the model/system was working as expected before implementation to other AHS hospitals.  Shared Services business model is very efficient and effective in establishing governance and procedures, optimizing workforce within process improvement and work consolidation as long as all systems function as anticipated.

Lastly, the third methodology that AHS utilizes for implementing organizational decisions is strengthening our organizational capabilities.  After the challenges, we faced from the go-live of Shared Services and People Soft, Corporate Executive Leadership decided to enhance our PeopleSoft application.  With the enhanced PeopleSoft application we can efficiently manage the organizational workforce to lessen the loss of productivity and time by strategically tracking absences, work time, and appropriately schedule our workforce labor.  It gives us opportunities to forecast workload demand and work, and define the workforce schedules to meet our operational objectives and capture employees’ time worked and absences in adherence to federal and state labor and pay rules.  With the enhanced PeopleSoft Supplier Relationship Management systematically integrates procurement with Human Resources to administer full time, part time, per diem, and contingent workforce management.  The enhancement has been communicated to the hospitals’ leadership and employees on a regular basis to lessen if not avoid past confusion and misunderstanding.  Executive Leaders are more transparent and open with their line of communication at this time.

In today’s environment may it be personal or business, relenting development of technology is unstoppable which meant leaders will have to be more flexible with their decision-making approaches.  As Hoch & Kunreuther (2005) said, as the environment of decision-making complexities increases, working out with the specifics of the decision beforehand will not be practical nor prudent.  One thing I am sure though that for every leadership decisions to be successful, communicating organizational change, development, and uncertainties is of great importance.  In complex decision making, two-way and constant communication regarding change and risks throughout the process of leadership decision-making is essential to the logical decisions that are satisfactory to the organization’s workforce, vendors, and stakeholders. 

Reference:

Hoch, S. J., & Kunreuther, H. C. (2005). Wharton on making decisions. (1st edition.).

Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.