Assignment Task

This assessment focuses on the skills that healthcare services managers require to communicate the kinds of change initiatives that frequently occur in healthcare work and to persuade staff (or other stakeholders) to cooperate with the change. Your success will depend on the case you make for change, as well as the manner in which you communicate it. This assessment addresses face-to-face communication, such as in a presentation to staff, or perhaps a video shared on the staff intranet.

This assessment will give you the opportunity to:

• use your skills in finding and applying research literature to support a case for change;
• draw on the change management content learnt in this subject to analyse and identify potential enablers and barriers to this change;
• draw on the leadership and management theories presented in this subject to identify and apply an appropriate leadership style;
• practice communicating the case for change verbally, in a way that is engaging, persuasive and succinct.

Task

You will be provided with a case study describing a situation in which you, as a manager of a health or social care service, are asked to implement a change in practice.

Step one

Your tasks are to analyse the context for change using the content taught in this subject, supplemented by a review of the literature, to consider:

• what is the problem to be addressed?
• why does it need to be addressed (what is the case for change)?
• who are the stakeholders (who will influence and/or be impacted by the change)?
• what are the main factors that you anticipate will enable or hinder change in this context?
• what leadership/management style(s) is (are) most appropriate in this context?
• what change model(s) is (are) most appropriate given the type of change and the context in which it needs to occur?

Step two

• Pick one stakeholder group you wish to pitch to (address) (e.g. clinicians, administration staff, fellow managers, or patients and visitors, etc.).

Step three

• Develop a video (2-3 minutes) of yourself in your role as the manager in this situation
  communicating the need for change, and the vision for change, to your chosen stakeholder group. This video requires you to pitch why the change is important. The aim is to get the stakeholders on board with the need for change and the change initiative.

Step four

Compose an essay justifying what was said in your video,
using the literature on leadership and change management (with references)

More specifically it should contain:

• an introduction clearly outlining the problem you are trying to solve and the rationale for the change initiative/project (supported by literature), clearly articulating what success should look like (supported by literature)
• the rationale will include the strategic alignment of the change initiative to service/organisation plans
• evidence to justify the leadership style you have chosen
• evidence to justify the change model(s) you have chosen

proposed duration of the change initiative.
(The justification of the evidence for the change model and leadership should draw on the enablers and barriers identified in Step 1) 

Case Study

You are a newly-hired manager who reports directly to the Director of ‘People and Culture’, in a not-for-profit organization that provides community services- including residential aged care facilities, disability support services, and counselling and mediation services.

In this case study, the COVID-19 crisis is over, for now. There has been high uptake of a vaccine, and a range of somewhat effective treatments, although the elderly and those with chronic conditions are still most vulnerable. For most of the population, things are just starting to settle down again to a kind of ‘normality’. Luckily your organization was able to avoid an outbreak. in its facilities. You are still new to the organization, but you have met several employees on site visits to introduce yourself, and you get the sense that most of them are still feeling anxious and stressed as a result of the recent pandemic.

The Director has just received a report from human resources, showing that sick leave is still unusually high (compared to pre-COVID levels), and staff are feeling disengaged from the organization in the most recent staff engagement survey. She was particularly concerned about the results for the questions: “I feel that the organization cares for me as an employee”, and “I enjoy working here”, where the average response was close to the middle, halfway between “Agree” and “Disagree”.

In response, the director has initiated a policy review on employee mental health and well-being. She has asked you to review the current employee well-being program, which currently has very low levels of participation (only 5% of staff have taken part in one or more of the program’s activities). This program mainly consists of discounted membership with a particular gym franchise, access to confidential workplace counselling services (up to 5 sessions free), an online learning resource on topics such as meditation, mindfulness and self-compassion, and a few other activities throughout the year such as the 10,000 steps challenge and ‘ride to work’ day). She has asked you to put together a plan to improve employee well-being over the next 12 months (just in time for the next staff engagement survey), including details about how you propose to implement it and evaluate it, and how you will evaluate its.