Chapter 6 The Case of Westlake’s Problematic Office Manager

Westlake Clinic is an offsite division of Mercy Hospital. Jennifer Smith is its director. Jennifer answers to a vice president at Mercy Hospital but also to a board of directors.  Jennifer accesses human resources support through Mercy’s HR department. Times have become tough for Westlake Clinic and Mercy Hospital.  Great Lakes Health has bought Mercy Hospital and is requiring the organization to reduce FTEs to reduce the cost of labor and benefits. Mercy let go any staff who had poor performance ratings the previous year.  Employees who are leaving through gradual attrition are not being replaced.

While profitable for a time, Westlake Clinic is now running significantly in the red.  The executive director, Jennifer, is struggling.  Employees have known the situation is not good for the clinic and worry about its future.  Some have taken other positions.  Jennifer lost three staff members when the cuts were made due to poor performance.  She had two staff members find better positions and another has retired.  Jennifer is not allowed to replace anyone.  She has nurses acting as receptionists and has had to even do some of the housekeeping tasks herself.  To get her work done on top of the added duties, Jennifer has been working 12 hour days and Saturdays consistently for six months.  It’s getting to be too much for her.  She is exhausted and her family is suffering.  Jennifer cannot leave Westlake.  She feels a responsibility to her staff to see them through the tough times.  Mercy also paid for her master’s degree.  She must work for a period of three years or will be forced to pay the organization back for her education.  She can neither afford nor does she want to do that.

One thing Jennifer has been allowed to do in light of the hiring freeze is to promote from within Westlake.  When her office manager, Brad, resigned to take a better position, Jennifer was able to promote one of the receptionists, Autumn, to the role.  The duties of office manager include scheduling, billing, payroll approval, and the day to day accounting functions.  The billing and payroll functions require specific training and knowledge of the computer applications utilized in those functions.  The only two people in the organization who have the ability and clearance to manipulate this software is the office manager and Jennifer.  The upside to the role of office manager is that there is some flexibility with scheduling.  The downside is that if a receptionist does not show up for work, the office manager must step into the role.

Autumn, while intelligent and well-mannered with the patients, staff, and vendors, is a low energy type person.  She does what she needs to do, no more, no less.  She does not like to take on extra responsibilities.  Jennifer promoted her into the role of office manager for her strengths and hoped that she would see the needs at Westlake and step up to help.  Jennifer and Autumn, while not social friends, enjoyed an easy relationship.  Jennifer trusted Autumn.

Autumn began to have some bad personal problems.  Secretly, she was jealous of Jennifer and what she had accomplished in her career.  Rather than becoming an asset, Autumn started to become a problem.  She repeatedly lied to Jennifer.  She gossiped about Jennifer and other staff members.  She started to falsify her own timecards as she had the power to do so.  She began making billing errors.  Autumn even went as far as giving one of her friends a raise by doubling her hours on the timecards.  She was excessively calling off of work.

Jennifer was so busy doing multiple tasks that she did not see what was happening with Autumn until things had progressed too far.  She knew Autumn’s behavior warranted her termination but she struggled with this.  If she fired Autumn, she would have to assume her duties as well because of the hiring freeze.  Working 66 hour long weeks was taking a toll on Jennifer.  She knew she could handle no more than she already was.

One Friday afternoon when Jennifer’s payroll was due as well as the end of month financials, Autumn blew up at Jennifer in front of staff and patients.  She walked out of the reception area, slammed the door, went to her office, then slammed that door.  Jennifer had had enough.  She wrote a report of everything that was happening and emailed that to the HR specialist, Susan, at Mercy.    It was three days before Susan replied to Jennifer’s email.  Susan told Jennifer that yes, disciplinary action was necessary and asked Jennifer how she wanted it handled.  Jennifer stated that she wanted Autumn to stay but wanted to put her on a performance improvement plan (PIP).  Susan agreed and said she would need to consult Mike, the HR director.

Jennifer had been afraid to report her problems to HR. Mercy’s HR department was known for always finding the managers and directors at fault first.  Jennifer did not need the grief she knew would come her way if she reached out for help.  Autumn’s behavior had gone too far, though, Jennifer knew she needed help.  Jennifer was also afraid to write up Autumn.  She was concerned she might leave.  Jennifer knew she would not be allowed to replace her and she was already at saturation with her work load.

Jennifer patiently waited for Mike’s reply.  It finally came –one month later.  At that point, Autumn had calmed down.  She was still behaving badly but no more outbursts.  Mike required Jennifer to give Autumn a written warning, draw up a PIP, and report weekly on what was happening at Westlake.  Susan emailed chastising Jennifer for letting Autumn’s poor behavior to progress stating “what you permit you promote”.

Jennifer met with Autumn, wrote her up, and placed her on a PIP.  Autumn was furious.  Two months later, Autumn quit.  In her exit interview, Autumn shredded Jennifer.  She questioned all of her actions, called her a poor communicator, accused her of being unethical and committing illegal behaviors.  Despite know the issues, Susan reached out to Jennifer and made her answer every charge level against her by the disgruntled Autumn.  Fortunately, Jennifer had documented everything that had happened including Autumn’s reactions to being written up and placed on the PIP.