Personnel Administration

Several years ago I was loaned by my employer, Sears and Roebuck, to a neighboring urban hospital to assist in the complete revamping of the administration of one working unit of the hospital. This consulting arrangement arose from my membership in the local Chamber of Commerce. At a Chamber social event conversation took place between me and the administrator of the Radiology Department of the hospital during which we discussed the universal application of good management principles. He indicated difficulties in the transcribing area of his department, and I suggested some creative solutions gleaned from my years of work in personnel at Sears and Roebuck. Even though most of my work experience had been in retail, he decided to hire me for a few weeks to study that work section and make recommendations for improvement. The purpose of this paper is to describe that experience, the findings, and the results in terms of effective personnel administration principles.

The transcribing area of the Radiology Department handled all the computerized inputting of a dozen radiologists' dictated reports of various radiographic procedures. Two shifts of workers covered transcription work days, evenings, and weekends, and the entire group was supervised by one individual who had worked in transcribing her entire working career. The main difficulties in this area noted by the department head were low morale, frequent turnover, abs

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of feeling secure regardless of whether employees stayed or left. More importantly, she was able to embark on her own college education in her late fifties as a result of the tuition reimbursement program. Her supervisor and the department head worked out a flexible schedule allowing her to attend some daytime college classes as long as the transcribing unit's work flowed normally. This opportunity proved to be a crucial component in the positive solution of the unit's difficulties. Face-to-face communication proved highly successful with the transcribing supervisor, as usually is the case in most management situations. Phone calls, letters, newsletters, and electronic memo systems are useful, as well, but nothing surpasses the human element of one person honestly speaking with another. It was with this most effective form of communication that the transcribing supervisor was led to give up her rather old-fashioned autocratic type of supervision in favor of letting her workers be self-sufficient and autonomous. She learned to be more assertive in gleaning important departmental and hospital-wide information for herself and her unit, rather than passively waiting for the grapevine. Performance evaluations for the transcribe
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3490
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page)

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