Business case 1

BUSINESS CASE FOR ALLIANT HEALTHCARE [Name of the Writer] [Name of the Institution]

Business case 2

BUSINESS CASE FOR ALLIANT HEALTHCARE

Description of the Organization Alliant healthcare is a non-profit organization and it exists to provide exceptional care for special concern for the poor and underserved. Alliant Healthcare delivers hospital services inpatient, ambulatory surgery, outpatient and emergency room settings. The primary key services provided include, emergency care, neurology, oncology, cardiology, and rehabilitation. Alliant healthcare is a subsidiary of Alliant enterprises which was established in 2002. Purpose of this non-profit healthcare organization is to provide the health services to the patients with best quality and cost effectively. Alliant healthcare also have a product manufacturing division which is also aimed to provide high quality and cost effective products to the healthcare organizations which will result in the cost effectiveness for the overall healthcare sector. The company is owned by the Bob Taylor, he is also CEO of the Alliant healthcare. Bob served in the United States air force and also in the air force reserve veteran, he has track record of creating values in the medical device industry for partners and customers. Alliant healthcare has many employees who are veterans and the organization is determined to support the veteran community. Alliant healthcare product is veteran owned company; its a small business and believes that in healthcare industry customers health should be the first priority, profit should be the second consideration of any healthcare organization.

Business case 3

Alliant Healthcare Mission The mission of Alliant Healthcare is to continue the healing ministry of Jesus Christ by improving and providing regional, cost effective, quality health service for everyone, with special concern for the poor and vulnerable (Alliant Healthcare, [ca. 2000], p. 5).

Alliant Healthcare Vision The vision of Alliant Healthcare is to become the provider of choice by providing a comprehensive, regional network to quality service, allowing patients to receive a broad range of services close to home (Alliant Healthcare, [ca. 2000], p. 5).

Alliant Healthcare Strategic Goals 1) Alliant healthcare believes in exceptional commitment to its employees and physicians (Employee Satisfaction around the 99th percentile) 2) Alliant healthcare believes in exceptional Patient Care (Safety, Clinical Outcomes and Patient Satisfaction) 3) Alliant healthcare believes in exceptional Financial Performance and Growth. The word exception has very significant importance in Alliant healthcare because company considers its patients more than customers. As discussed earlier that profit is the secondary issue for the company that is why unlike other healthcare organizations Alliant first strategic goal is to remain committed with the employees and physicians because they are the one who take care of patients. Exceptional commitment is basically differentiating Alliant healthcare from other healthcare organizations, this word makes the company more determinant to its missions and

Business case 4 vision. Exceptional patients care refers to the commitment of the organization to its values and believes which are derived from the companys mission and vision. This is the second strategic goal of the Alliant healthcare organization in which the company is showing mire interest in finding the solutions for its patients. Alliant healthcare treats its patients exceptionally because this is the part of its strategic goal. Financial performance is also very important In order to run any business; same is the case with healthcare industry. Though the Alliant healthcare hospital is a non-profit organization but for the sake of growth and continuously providing quality services to its customers financial performance is really important, this is the reason why the company included he aspect of financial performance in its strategic goal. The company is determined to achieve the exceptional financial performance for the sake of continuously providing the quality and cost effective services to its patients who are more than customers for the Alliant healthcare organization. Alliant healthcare organization also believes in the customer satisfaction because in healthcare industry, customers or patients satisfaction is the main factor which can help to monitor the performance of healthcare organization.

Overview Description of Performance Problem The purpose of this business case is to identify the performance gap in employee satisfaction. Survey analyses, provided to the AC and LG, address a normative differential score that compares Allianzs scores with National Healthcare Normative Data (average scores only). The HR department also reviews the HR Scorecard monthly to monitor turnover, exit interviews, vacancies, and medical leave of absences in monitoring other indicators of well-being,

Business case 5 satisfaction, and motivation. Alliant healthcares strategic goal is to have employee satisfaction around 99th percentile to be considered as Exceptional healthcare provider. Employee surveys identified over the past 3 years averages the employee satisfaction around the 89th percentile. On the employee satisfaction surveys the top three identified are lack of communication to the staff, performance incentives, and education opportunities for the staff. It is argued that even after many years of progress that human being has achieved, even after the extensive initiatives taken for the performance enhancement, reengineering the business processes and downsizing most of the business are inefficient in their respective industry. The best possible way to increase the performance of business and the profit margin of the business is to increase the cumulative performance of the employees. Employee performance is a key issue for organizations from lower level of employee to the top level of management. Employees are considered as the most important and significant asset of a company. Employee performance gap occurs when there is a difference between strongest and weakest employees performing at the similar jobs in most organizations. This is also called as the performance differential. The healthcare organizations are supposed to do more with the limited available resources. Two approaches are lean for the performance gap analysis for healthcare industry; first approach is the bottom up approach. Bottom up approach will analyze the involvement of front line staff for the continuous improvement of the processes and second is to top down approach which will critically resolve the key performance issues which are considered as the main hurdle in employee performance. If the two approaches are combined, for the sake of improving the employee performance and minimizing the performance gaps, than a winning combination for all parties including administration, employee and patients can be achieved. It is also found that

Business case 6 patients cannot wait so long in many cases therefore such procedures must be adopted that are helpful in less hassle for patients and unnecessary waiting. Alliant healthcare hospital is facing the problem of high turnover of employees and less satisfaction level of employees since long time; some actions are suggested for the remedy of these performance problems for the healthcare organizations these actions will also help to close the performance gap of employees. The underline assumption behind the steps or action that can be taken for granted is the performance gap exists in the organization because without assuring this thing these steps are no valuable. Management of the organization is responsible for analyzing the employee performance gap and to take the several steps which are necessary for remedy. Managers needs to identify the success factors and are also responsible to identify the desired results for each job position, by finding the key success factors managers will be able to know the desired outcomes that an employee wants. Managers are also responsible to quantify and communicate the meaningful goals and performance levels for each individual position available in the organization. By communication the performance evaluation procedure to the employees, employee performance gap can be minimized. The communication of the performance criteria must followed by the guide behavior to achieve desired results which will ultimately close the employee performance goal. Regular measurement of performance of the employees according to the performance standards is another responsibility of the management. Alliant healthcare believes in the high customer satisfaction of the customers that is why it is also taken into account when making the performance standards for the employees of the organization. Job designing is another key issue when dealing with the employee performance gap, therefore in order to close the employee performance gap, management is supposed to design

Business case 7 jobs which are broad and flexible. This kind of job designing will be helpful to facilitate teamwork in the organization and enable the organization to get more work done with the same or less level of employees. It is also a responsibility of the management to provide the training to its employees because according to surveys usually employee performance gap occurs when employees are not properly trained which results in the bad form of performance. When analyzing the employee performance gap another thing which should be kept in mind is to make one thing very clear to the staff that the overall success of the organization is completely dependent on the individual performance and teamwork. Management must also consider the abilities of its employee before hiring, transferring or promoting the employees, they must assure this thing that the employee will be the best possible option for the particular position with the reasonable amount of training. The Alliant healthcare hospital believes in that employees are the asset of the company therefore they put their employee first then customers at the second level. In Alliant healthcare hospital compensations and wages is the main factor which is leading its employees towards the de-motivation which again results in the performance gap of employee. Therefore it is recommended to the Alliant healthcare that they must tie the compensation plan which is very close to the performance. Another remarkable thing about the Alliant healthcare hospital is that they put their employees first which is very helpful in closing the performance gap of employees.

Significance of the Performance Problem There is a direct correlation between employee satisfaction and financial success of the organization. In recognition of this fact, improving and maintaining employee satisfaction results in better staff retention, and productivity level of employees. Should Alliant Healthcare

Business case 8 receive a ranking below the desire percentile, it may negatively affect the business due to the linear effect on employee turn-over, patient safety, and patient satisfaction. Poor performance of the employees of every organization is the very important issue for its efficiency and growth, it makes managers frustrated but usually managers dont want to find out the root cause of the problem. It is very necessary for managers before finding the solutions, to increase the level of performance that they must know what the reasons are for that. The first thing that a manager determined in Alliant healthcare hospital is that whether it is a problem with ability or motivation. According to the recent survey of the Alliant healthcare more than 90% of its employees are properly in placed and are fully aligned with the concept of right person at the right job. This is a very basic question in measuring the performance issues, because if employee has ability problem or motivation problem, both needs to be treated differently. But as mentioned earlier that performance is not the issue with Alliant healthcare but it also cannot be concluded that this is the motivation problem. Recognitions, motivations and niceties are become less important when persons ability is questioned. However if the person is not motivated but have the ability to perform then training, coaching, mentoring and skills become useless. As mentioned earlier that the problem with the Alliant healthcare employees is the motivation because when questions on ability were asked, answers were satisfied. Alliant healthcare product division is also facing the performance issues, Job designing is another key issue when dealing with the employee performance gap, therefore in order to close the employee performance gap, management is supposed to design jobs which are broad and flexible. This kind of job designing will be helpful to facilitate teamwork in the organization and enable the organization to get more work done with the same or less level of employees. It is also a responsibility of the management to provide the training to its employees because according to surveys usually employee

Business case 9 performance gap occurs when employees are not properly trained which results in the bad form of performance. When analyzing the employee performance gap another thing which should be kept in mind is to make one thing very clear to the staff that the overall success of the organization is completely dependent on the individual performance and teamwork. Management must also consider the abilities of its employee before hiring, transferring or promoting the employees, they must assure this thing that the employee will be the best possible option for the particular position with the reasonable amount of training. The Alliant healthcare hospital believes in that employees are the asset of the company therefore they put their employee first then customers at the second level. In Alliant healthcare hospital compensations and wages is the main factor which is leading its employees towards the de-motivation which again results in the performance gap of employee. Therefore it is recommended to the Alliant healthcare that they must tie the compensation plan which is very close to the performance. Another remarkable thing about the Alliant healthcare hospital is that they put their employees first which is very helpful in closing the performance gap of employees. When survey conducted on employee satisfaction and employee engagement, mangers only mentioned that they face problem when hiring the employees because they did not get the right person for the job. Alliant healthcare is facing another very important issue in resolving the performance issues, Alliant healthcare do not get the required support from human resource division of the organization. Alliant healthcare has the potential and ability to deal with the issues of performance and can achieve the financial stability as well by resolving the performance issue of the company. Closing the gap of employee performance is basically the first step toward the overall performance improvement of the company. With efficient human

Business case 10 resource it is possible to cater more patients with the same or even less number of employees. Customers are the ultimate authority who can better judge the performance of employees by comparing with other in the industry. Satisfied customers are the assets of organization, because when a customer will be satisfied he or she will buy more, recommend its products and services and will remain loyal to its product. Today in modern environment, companies are creating such environments in the industry in which poor performance can be highlighted and can be resolved as well; also they want to make all their employees as the top achievers or high performers. In todays very competitive environment only fittest can survive in the industry. Alliant healthcare make the standards according to the requirements and difficulty level of the task and they also consider the persons ability to perform the task, because unrealistic or unachievable tasks are always results in failure. Employee Objectives General standards and guidelines are geared towards healthcare providers that have direct contact with patients. Recruiting and maintain healthcare professionals based on the rigorous guidelines require a minimum of an Associates degree, a current license and certification, and tenure with Alliant Healthcare for a minimum of 6 months. The learners are working in a constantly changing environment. Due to the fact of and because they are working with a variety of people they constantly have to adopt their knowledge to meet expectations from a wide range of people. In Alliant healthcare hospital compensations and wages is the main factor which is leading its employees towards the de-motivation which again results in the performance gap of employee. Therefore it is recommended to the Alliant healthcare that they must tie the compensation plan which is very close to the performance. Another remarkable thing about the

Business case 11 Alliant healthcare hospital is that they put their employees first which is very helpful in closing the performance gap of employees One important thing that should be considered is that who do we evaluate the performance of employee? The reason can be that evaluation is helpful in determining that employee is going in the proper direction or not. If this evaluation is done properly Employers may wish to build up a diagram like the following, which can be finished alone by both worker and boss before the review. An assessment of the result gives an excellent basis for argument. Accuracy is rightness of work executed; a habit of precision makes normal errors careless; error horizontal in general true precise most of the time almost perfect Loyalty is established worry for the well-being of the corporation and its employees; caution, collaboration, fidelity, pride frequently unfaithful casual, unpredictable concern consistent loyalty notable loyalty absolute devoted loyalty. There are numerous reasons why employees of Alliant healthcare are underperforming because of which there is a huge performance gap. The analysis results suggest that this can be because of insufficient skills of the employees or can be because of the lack of confidence of the employees and lack of motivation as well. The complete analysis suggests there should be a proper time to time meeting with the employees of Alliant healthcare. There should be the evaluation on the regular basis as well as on weekly and monthly basis so that employees can also feel that someone is there who has eye on them and who is continuously monitoring the situation. He performance gap can only be closed or minimized through proper and honest conversation with the management and employees. Again the beginning is very important i.e. that what was the main reason of the gap in the performance of employees. It is also noted in the Alliant healthcare that the reason of performance gap is due to the lack of authority. This is a very critical situation for the company because in this case employees have

Business case 12 the ability and they are motivated as well but they dont have the authority to perform the task. When an employee is hired in Alliant healthcare, his ability is judged with the help of some key questions and at the time of analyzing the performance gap it needs to be determined that whether this gap is because of inability to perform the task or because of lack of motivation to perform the task. As mentioned earlier that if employee is capable of performing the task and is motivated as well then all you need to do is to analyze that whether the employee has the sufficient resources to perform the task, this concept comes under the lack of authority. Giving him the sufficient resources means that does the employee have the training, skills, time, money, equipment or whatever is necessary.

Conclusion There is strategic alignment with employee satisfaction and the financial success of the organization. Our organizations highest priority should be employee satisfaction. We believe by improving and maintaining employee satisfaction results is increased staff retention and employees productivity. It is these factors that are an important ingredient in the financial success of the organization. Alliant healthcare is a subsidiary of Alliant enterprises which was established in 2002. Purpose of this non-profit healthcare organization is to provide the health services to the patients with best quality and cost effectively. Alliant healthcare also have a product manufacturing division which is also aimed to provide high quality and cost effective products to the healthcare organizations which will result in the cost effectiveness for the overall healthcare sector. The company is owned by the Bob Taylor, he is also CEO of the Alliant healthcare. Bob served in the United States air force and also in the air force reserve veteran, he has track record of creating

Business case 13 values in the medical device industry for partners and customers. Alliant healthcare has many employees who are veterans and the organization is determined to support the veteran community. Alliant healthcare product is veteran owned company; its a small business and believes that in healthcare industry customers health should be the first priority, profit should be the second consideration of any healthcare organization. The main reason that is identified after the complete analysis of the performance gaps of employees in Alliant healthcare is that employees of the company are not self motivated for the job. Most of its physicians are even not agree with the policies and procedures of the organizations. Since this is a nonprofit organization therefore to remain in the budget organization pays less to its employees as compare to the industry average which is the biggest reason of the lack of motivation of employees. Alliant healthcare hospital is facing the problem of high turnover of employees and less satisfaction level of employees since long time; some actions are suggested for the remedy of these performance problems for the healthcare organizations these actions will also help to close the performance gap of employees. The underline assumption behind the steps or action that can be taken for granted is the performance gap exists in the organization because without assuring this thing these steps are no valuable. Management of the organization is responsible for analyzing the employee performance gap and to take the several steps which are necessary for remedy. Managers needs to identify the success factors and are also responsible to identify the desired results for each job position, by finding the key success factors managers will be able to know the desired outcomes that an employee wants. Managers are also responsible to quantify and communicate the meaningful goals and performance levels for each individual position available in the organization. By communication the performance evaluation procedure to the employees, employee performance gap can be

Business case 14 minimized. The communication of the performance criteria must followed by the guide behavior to achieve desired results which will ultimately close the employee performance goal. Regular measurement of performance of the employees according to the performance standards is another responsibility of the management. Alliant healthcare believes in the high customer satisfaction of the customers that is why it is also taken into account when making the performance standards for the employees of the organization.

Training Design for Performance Improvement Title and Description Improving Employee Satisfaction at Alliant Healthcare through Effective Employee Performance Management is the key to its success. Training plays a very important role in dealing with the performance gap analysis for employees. Organization need to train their employee before performing the task especially in the healthcare industry it is more important. It is also a responsibility of the management to provide the training to its employees because according to surveys usually employee performance gap occurs when employees are not properly trained which results in the bad form of performance. When analyzing the employee performance gap another thing which should be kept in mind is to make one thing very clear to the staff that the overall success of the organization is completely dependent on the individual performance and teamwork. Management must also consider the abilities of its employee before hiring, transferring or promoting the employees, they must assure this thing that the employee will be the best possible option for the particular position with the reasonable amount of training. The Alliant healthcare hospital believes in that employees are the asset of the company therefore they put their employee first then customers at the second level.

Business case 15 In Alliant healthcare hospital compensations and wages is the main factor which is leading its employees towards the de-motivation which again results in the performance gap of employee. Therefore it is recommended to the Alliant healthcare that they must tie the compensation plan which is very close to the performance. Another remarkable thing about the Alliant healthcare hospital is that they put their employees first which is very helpful in closing the performance gap of employees.

Targeted Learners/Participants Education and training program will be targeted towards learners level 1 thru level 3. These will specifically target, patient care nurses, allied healthcare professionals, nursing support positions and new employees. In designing the training program, the author of this document has identified three objectives: 1. Explain and apply job specific functions and expectations. A major cause of employee dissatisfaction is lack of clarity about what is expect of them. We will provide up-to-date competency-based job descriptions for each employee via the intranet and explain where this can be found. 2. Explain Alliant Healthcares commitment to interpersonal communication and understand employee goals. Communication is a key link to employee and patient satisfaction. For a healthcare provider to implement change organizational goals must be set and these goals must be communicated to employees as employee goals. 3. Understand the Leadership development program. We are creating a lead mentor system by, pairing high performing managers with high performing employees.

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Training Design/Outline Alliant Healthcares commitment to improve employee satisfaction will conduct a 30 minutes training courses in the corporate classroom via a webinar. This will assist Alliant Healthcare employees in identifying the performance gap identified between employee satisfaction and employee partnership survey scores.

Evaluation & Measurement Plan After viewing the webinar, the trainer will conduct a question and answer(Q&A) session and followed by a Level 1 survey to determine whether the training is applicable This course will be set up as a on a quarterly session, Secondly, an employee survey will be distributed annually for a period of 3 years. This is part of a three-tier leadership development curriculum. Annual employee surveys will be conduct by Press Ganey Employee Satisfaction Survey. Following the 3 year period a review of employee satisfaction will be conducted to document the average employee satisfaction percentile. Project tasks Various tasks will be performed by the employees during the training. These tasks will help them gain the real time learining and satisfaction. Development phase The gap of the current problems being faced by the Alliant Healthcare employees, that ultimately affects their satisfaction, will be filled slowly and gradually. Delivery mode

Business case 17 The training mode will be a thirty minute corporate class room training. This training will be provided with the help of a webinar. Related training Additional training related to such satisfaction in employees will also help filling the gaps efficiently. Setup materials Webinars will be used for the training. Projected budget The budget cant be projected efficiently because it depends upon the needs of the employees and the level of learning taken place.

Business case 18

References Alliant Healthcare. [ca. 2010]. Alliant Healthcare: training manual. Retrieved from http://www.ipx1031.com/pdf/Literature/IPX1031BriefExchanges.pdf Chenet, P., Tynan, C., & Money, A. (1999). Service performance gap: re-evaluation and redevelopment. Journal of Business Research, 46(2), 133-147. Chenet, P., Tynan, C., & Money, A. (2000). The service performance gap: testing the redeveloped causal model. European Journal of Marketing, 34(3/4), 472-497. Ettlie, J. E. (1983). Performance gap theories of innovation. Engineering Management, IEEE Transactions on, (2), 39-52. Harmon, J., Scotti, D. J., Behson, S., Farias, G., Petzel, R., Neuman, J. H., & Keashly, L. (2003). Effects of high-involvement work systems on employee satisfaction and service costs in veterans healthcare. Journal of Healthcare Management, 48(6), 393-405. Henderson, G. E., & Cohen, M. S. (1982). Heatlh care in the People's Republic of China: a view from inside the system. American Journal of Public Health,72(11), 1238-1245. Izzo, J. B., & Withers, P. (2002). Winning employee-retention strategies for today's healthcare organizations. Healthcare financial management: journal of the Healthcare Financial Management Association, 56(6), 52. Lurie, A. (1977). SOCIAL WORK IN HEATLH CARE IN THE NEXT TEN YEARS. Social Work in Health Care, 2(4), 419-428. Proudfoot, J., Guest, D., Carson, J., Dunn, G., & Gray, J. (1997). Effect of cognitive-behavioural training on job-finding among long-term unemployed people. Lancet, 350(9071), 96-100.

Business case 19 Zarkin, G. A., Bray, J. W., & Qi, J. (2000). The effect of Employee Assistance Programs use on healthcare utilization. Health services research, 35(1 Pt 1), 77.