Review the fact pattern presented in "Becoming a Split Department Manager"
Imagine that you are the manager of a department, the function of which is to provide service in your chosen profession. In other words, if your career is med- ical laboratory technology, you are a laboratory manager; if your field is physical therapy, you manage physical therapy or rehabilitation services; and so on. You are employed by a 60-bed rural hospital, an institution sufficiently small that you rep- resent the only level of management within your function (unless your profession is nursing, in which case there will be perhaps two or three levels of management). This means that unless you are a first-line manager in nursing (for example, head nurse), you report directly to administration. You have been in your position for about two years. Following some stressful early months, you are beginning to feel that you have your job under control most of the time. A possibility that for years had been talked about and argued throughout the local community, the merger of your hospital with a similar but larger insti- tution (90 beds) about 10 miles away, recently became a reality. One of the initial major changes undertaken by the new corporate entity was realignment of the management structure. In addition to placing the new corporate entity under a single chief executive officer, the realignment included, for most activities, bringing each function under a single manager. Between the merger date and the present, most department managers have been involved in the unpleasant process of competing against their counterparts for the single manager position. You are the successful candidate, the survivor. Effective next Monday, you will be running a combined department in two locations consisting of more than twice the number of employees you have been accustomed to supervising.
Prepare a one page summary addressing the following:
(1) What department do you manage?
(2) List three circumstances that will be different in your new job as a split-department manager. (e.g., what is different about managing the merged department? what new challenges do you face?)
(3) What does this split-department situation do to your efficiency as a manager, and how can you compensate for this change?