Showing posts with label succession planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label succession planning. Show all posts

Saturday, September 27, 2014

'Tis the season...to retire

Not me (I wish!) but certainly a lot of people around the Hotel are retiring. More than a few messages have appeared in my mailbox for parties for people leaving at the beginning or the end of the month.

It's even happening at the Hotel. A couple of our folks are retiring. They are looking forward to lives where THEY dictate what the schedule looks like. I can't say that I blame them. Others, such as one of our NPs, can't wait to be a grandma (any minute really!).  What perfect timing...retire and spend as much time as you want with your grandchild. Another is working on his/her golf game and the travel associated with it.

Our boss really wants to retire, but since we can't find a replacement, he/she will have to set a date and retire and let the Manglement of the Hotel figure it all out. Waiting for years (yes, it's true) is really not fun.

It's too bad the Hotel only does lip service to succession planning. It might make the transition easier.

One of these days, they'll wake up...and someone will figure it out.

But I'm not sure if that will happen before I retire (many years down the road).

More to come...

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Ethical dilemmas

In rehab, we keep people for a long time, as long as they're progressing. In the Hotel, we keep people a long time, because we can for a variety of reasons.

Sometimes, we even have staff get entangled in the issues. Here are some that have come up since I arrived at the Hotel.

1. The infamous, "He said, she said". Someone overhears part of a conversation, and reports it. Patient and nurse have two different stories. Reporter decides to write it up and nurse, of course, gets in trouble, because, as in most service industries, "the customer is always right." Patient is mad at nurse for rest of stay, and nurse is in hot water.

2. Patient stays with us for protracted periods of time when they actually need to be somewhere else. Examples: 86 year old patient with metastatic cancer says, "I can be rehabbed." Oncologist says patient has six months max due to the nature of the mets. We lose a rehab spot, because our boss says, "Go ahead and try." Hospice case worker fortunately has his head on straight: "We'll keep a bed for whenever he's ready to cross that bridge."

3. Nurses get involved (financially, sexually, etc.) with patients. It's no help when said nurse is a favorite of your nursing administration. Nurses also abuse the kindness of patients by eating their snacks, etc. I counsel them to report to no avail, because they fear retribution while they're still here.

4. Boss trains two people for a specialty position over the  past year. Both people will be gone from Hotel by September, and boss knew this. WTH is the matter with the boss? Does he/she like training people for other companies? Obviously...training wheel starts over again in a few months.

5. Succession planning. What's that you ask? Well, it means that you train in advance for people moving, retiring or just quitting your organization. As usual, this is just another thing lacking at the Hotel.
Happily, this is not a bad thing. At least, it gives me a topic for my latest grad school paper to write about due this coming week.