HCM 3070 Module 3 Employee Success Discussion Example

Module 3 Discussion: Initial Post and Replies

The Technician Ladder: What It Takes for an Employee to Believe the Organization Is Invested in Them

At Cedar Ridge Regional Medical Center, the composite hospital I have been following, patient care technicians had the highest turnover of any job group last year, close to 40%. Exit interviews kept repeating one phrase: no future here. In response, the human resources director and two nurse managers built a three-step technician ladder. A new technician starts at Level 1; after six months and a skills checklist, they can move to Level 2 with a raise and additional duties such as phlebotomy and EKGs; Level 3 adds preceptor responsibilities for new hires and tuition support toward a nursing degree.

What interests me is why a program like this might work, because a raise alone had been tried before and did not change much. Eisenberger et al. (1986) argued that staff develop an overall sense of whether their employer appreciates their work and looks after them, a belief they named perceived organizational support, and found that this belief was associated with lower absenteeism. Saks (2006) later found that perceived organizational support predicted employees' engagement with both their jobs and the organization, and that engagement was in turn related to job satisfaction, commitment, intention to quit and helpful behavior beyond the job description. A ladder sends a message that a raise does not: the organization expects you to grow and will pay for it.

The manager's role is what makes the message believable. If technicians are promised Level 2 but the skills checklist is never scheduled, or if tuition support is approved but shifts cannot be arranged around classes, the program will confirm the original belief that there is no future here. So I would add two management responsibilities to the design: every technician gets a named mentor and a date for the checklist in their first month, and schedules for Level 3 students are built around class times before other requests are considered.

Reply to Tanya

Tanya, I like that your clinic gave medical assistants protected time to train on the new scheduling system before go-live. That is a good example of support people can see. One question: did the medical assistants have any say in how the system was set up? Kahn (1990) described engagement as depending on three conditions: meaningfulness, safety and availability, and having a say in how your own work is set up is one of the clearest sources of meaning. Training for decisions already made supports availability, but input builds the other two. If the clinic plans a second phase, asking two or three assistants to help test the templates could build on what you started.

Reply to Kevin

Kevin, you suggested that recognition programs like employee of the month are the easiest way to show support. They are easy, but I wonder whether they are enough on their own. If perceived support depends on whether staff feel the hospital notices their work and looks out for them, a monthly award reaches one person while the other ninety notice whether their breaks are covered and their requests are answered. I would see recognition as useful once the everyday basics are reliable, not as a substitute for them.

References

Eisenberger, R., Huntington, R., Hutchison, S., & Sowa, D. (1986). Perceived organizational support. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71(3), 500-507. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.71.3.500

Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33(4), 692-724. https://doi.org/10.5465/256287

Saks, A. M. (2006). Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21(7), 600-619. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940610690169