Question

A large metropolitan hospital acquires a small community hospital, resulting in a total employee population of 1,000. As a result of the acquisition, the accounts receivable department from the small hospital, which has only five employees, is handling all outstanding patient accounts.

During a management workforce planning session, the HR director questions the accounts receivable manager about staffing requests for the following year. The manager informs the HR director that the department is adequately staffed and will not need more employees. Later the HR director learns that the manager has confessed to other managers that he hopes to be promoted to vice president by saving the hospital money from not hiring additional personnel.
Two accounts receivable employees terminate their hospital employment abruptly. When cleaning out the desks of these employees, the accounts receivable manager finds over 100 accounts that have not been processed; monies are still outstanding on these overdue accounts. The manager distributes these overdue invoices to the other three remaining department employees and tells them not to mention this to the controller. These employees come to the HR director in confidence to complain about the additional work, and they confide that they were instructed not to tell the controller about the incomplete work.
Since the accounts receivable manager is resistant to adding staff, which workforce strategy should the HR director encourage the manager to take for developing the accounts receivable department?

A. Suggest a plan to the accounts receivable manager for adding one new staff person to the accounts receivable department next year.
B. Plan to completely re-staff the accounts receivable department each year.
C. Encourage the manager to "buy or build" new workforce approaches to help the department meet the organizational demands in the immediate future.
D. Report the manager to the hospital's leadership team and inform them of the manager's refusal to add new staff, which is clearly a business need.

Answer 1

The correct answer is option C. The HR director should encourage the accounts receivable manager to adopt new workforce strategies that can help meet immediate departmental needs while providing flexibility and aligning with broader organizational goals.

Step-by-step explanation:

Given the circumstances of the accounts receivable department at a recently merged hospital, it is evident that the department is understaffed following an acquisition that increased the total number of employees to 1,000.

With the accounts receivable department handling all outstanding patient accounts and the discovery of over 100 unprocessed accounts after the abrupt termination of two employees, a strategic approach to workforce planning is required. The HR director should encourage the manager to "buy or build" new workforce approaches to help the department meet organizational demands in the immediate future.

This strategy, noted as option C, would allow the department to explore innovative solutions such as automation, efficient workflow processes, or hiring temporary staff, which could include part-time workers or contractors, to assist with the increased workload.

This would also provide the necessary flexibility to adapt to changes in the workload without committing to a full-time hire if the demand fluctuates. Encouraging the manager to pursue option C secures the future potential of the department to manage its workload effectively while aligning with the hospital’s operational and financial goals.