CASE STUDY: MANAGING NON-MONETARY COMPENSATION I. OVERVIEW A respiratory therapy

Question

CASE STUDY: MANAGING NON-MONETARY COMPENSATION

I. OVERVIEW

A respiratory therapy department head, Drew Nelson, is employed by Breathing Care Associates (BCA), a health care company with headquarters in Rochester, MN. Drew lives in Owatonna, MN, about 50 miles from BCA's headquarters and works at the hospital there. His request to take a seven day vacation has been denied. Company policy urges employees to take personal time off from work to avoid becoming overly stressed. Despite this, Nelson's boss refused to allow him to take seven days off because the department would be understaffed and another employee in the department would have to be paid overtime. Nelson has been under pressure to control labor costs due to restructuring at the rural hospital.

II. CASE DISCUSSION

Restructuring may have precipitated problems in the Dunesbury case. When respiratory therapists found out the Waseca facility was going to close, it was in their best interests to seek employment elsewhere. Three therapists resigned and were not replaced, which led to inadequate staffing in the department. Though the Waseca facility would close in June,1985, it still had to be staffed until then. As often happens during restructuring, remaining employees became overburdened. Because they worked so many hours, they experienced stress bordering on burnout. This was particularly true for Nelson, who put in extra hours without added compensation. Stressful conditions may cause employee - management relations to deteriorate, as they did here. Stressed out employees could make mistakes that would jeopardize patients' well-being and reflect poorly on the hospital. Was Nelson really an exempt employee? Administrative employees must do nonmanual work related to general business operations or management policies. They also must use discretion and independent judgment regularly. An exempt professional's major work must require advanced knowledge or involve creative ability in an artistic field. That person also must exercise judgment and discretion. Certified medical technologists in large clinics or laboratories have been viewed as exempt, but X-ray technologists in small labs have not been. In this case, Nelson is a working supervisor who spends more than half his time on non-managerial duties. Therefore, he does not meet the tests for the executive or administrative exemptions. Determining whether Nelson meets the professional exemption is more difficult. He has a bachelor's degree, but that is not needed to do his job. His position does, however, 2 require advanced study beyond high school. Since paramedics performing routine tasks in small clinics and medical technicians with associate's degrees have been considered non-exempt, Nelson's position most likely would be non-exempt too. If employees have a fixed number of days per year for holidays, vacations, illness, and for personal reasons, they hurt only themselves by taking a sick day when well. Doing so will cut the number of vacation or personal days they are allowed. Though impossible to anticipate every situation that might occur, Breathing Care Associates could have expected employees to quit after they learned the Waseca facility would close. The firm could have developed contingency plans to deal with the resulting understaffing. Respiratory therapists who usually worked at St. Luke's in Rochester could have helped out at Owatonna. Perhaps therapists from other area hospitals would have been willing to work an extra day at Owatonna for extra pay. Breathing Care Associates should have used a proactive approach to meet staffing needs. Instead, the company reacted to a crisis situation. It is unethical to have a policy urging employees to use earned time when situations beyond their control prevent them from doing so. Perhaps BCA needs to develop two different earned time policies-one for St. Luke's and one for the Owatonna hospital. On paper, BCA's earned time policy seems generous. A gap between the stated policy and the time off employees actually can take may create resentment and frustration. Employees' morale may drop, contributing to excess absenteeism, turnover, or workplace tension.

1.     What are Nelson's alternatives?

2.     What do you think Nelson should do? Justify your answer.

Explanation / Answer

1. the first alternative to Nelson is searching for another job in the same field. he should try for other vacancy in the same field, if he find a position in anywhere, he just quit this position and joined there. if he does not get any opportunity, and wish to continue here, he need to gather all the employees in the hospital and prepare some plans to pressure management to decrease work burden on them. as already they are paying extra money for the visiting doctors and professionals, the same kind of procedure should apply for the over time employees too.

Nelson should gather and fight against over time burden, even if it is paid time, it is completely employee wish to carry over time or not. if it does not work and the management not responded to this, it is better to file a case against this hospital and proceed legally is better.

2. the better way is, interact with the management about working hours and payment. there should be fair pay structure to the employees, and overtime completely gives the freedom to employees to accept or reject. there must be a leave policy, specific working hours, holiday policy, and fair pay policy. all these will be discussed with Human Resource team in the hospital. and they should focus on fill the vacancies as early as possible, then only the burden of overtime will be reduced. there must be a policy related employee hire policies.

for find solutions for all these, it is better to negotiate with management. all the employees must go with Nelson for this and fight against this.

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