OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Human Resource Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the human resource frame
2. Apply the human resource frame to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

My situation included lack of communication, lack of resources and lack of proper training
all while undergoing major changes in processes during the pandemic. I was a young staff
sergeant at the time and barely out of Airman leadership school when I was appointed as the
Non-Comissioned Officer of Infection Control and the Dental Instrument Processing Center
(NCOIC). My duties as the NCOIC consisted of ensuring that all four of our clinic’s infection
control compliance was rated satisfactory on federal, state and local levels while also following
the guidelines and protocols of the Center’s of Disease Control and The Joint Commission. My
job as the NCOIC is essential to keep the clinics running and ensuring that Infection Control and
safety is the number one priority for our staff and our patients. My day to day assignments
included being tasked to conduct inspections and to also work in the sterilization unit to ensure
that dental instruments and materials were properly cleaned and that bacterial spores were
properly killed on reusable instruments. By accomplishing my daily tasks our Group and
Squadron are able to keep our clinics running and our accreditations in order to run our clinical
practices.

I started my journey by way of forfeiture and ineptitude of another It took about two months
to train me after my leadership had already assigned the prior NCOIC with an administrative
spot leaving me clueless of the prior process, because she could not take on the stress of the job
anymore. "Dilbert principle": "the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the
place where they can do the least dmamage-management" (1996, p.14) The job started off rough
not only because I did not have proper turnover, but because when I transitioned our department
was undergoing major rennovations and I learned lots of things via read and write as opposed to
hands on and visuals which is most of what the job entails, aside from the occasional rsearch
when needed. I struggled to adapt, because there was not many people who I could ask for
guidance, being that very few people within our Dental Group were ever offered the opportunity
of this postion. I had to start from scratch, reading almost every policy I could find from what
was left after the renovation; leaving things misplaced. I could not imagine a more horrid time to
be in a place so high visible, until the pandemic hit.

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 When the pandemic hit, I was the go to person for new protocols and clinical guidelines and
practices. I had barely sat in the seat until major taskers were placed in my hand to come up with
contingency plans due to manpower shortages. I did not have all the tools to succeed or the
leadership experience to accomplish a task so big. When I reached out to my superiors my
requests for more trainined staff in the sterilization unit were left unanswered and our clinic went
into half staff leaving my section staff to pick up a lot of work for other clinics. Ultimately this
lead to an issue and shortage of processed and sterile instruments causing a shortfall in our
appointments and patients seen. Numbers and shortfalls, lead to my leadership finally taking me
seriously about the manning request and ultimately lead to a reevaluation of individuals who are
properly trained in sterilization processing and infection control. I felt like I was not able to get
my point across until the numbers were not adding up.

2) Describe how the human resources of the organization influenced the situation.

The Human Resources of my organization influenced my situation dramatically. A huge part

of what lacked in my situation consisted of mismanagement and/or lack of human resources. To
start of with the first instance, There was no proper turnover when it came to filling the position
that I was appointed to, there were no alternates set in place and this is not a job that you are to
learn overnight. A lot of what this job entails is undertstanding processes and procedures and of
course compliance with said medical and infection control policies. What leadership did not
understand is that the work center that I worked in required skilled, knowledable and dependable
people who were keen to attention to detail,. After all you would not want a clumsy or
unknowledgable individual placed within the sole center of sterilization for over 1.4 million
patients. Once I was up to speed and was able to fully fill the position, a restructure of personnel
was enacted, but shortly after we gained individuals, Covid-19 hit.

Once Covid hit, many individuals were called to the hospital’s manpower teams in order to
test patient’s with Covid related symptoms or administer vaccinations to others. We were
severely short manned. On top of being short manned, our clinic intiated a half on half on policy
to help mitigate further spread of the virus. At this point, is where we started to struggle. The
teams were not set up in our liking, because there was not an equal amount of people on shifts.
Because of this, our process and efficiency took a dramatic decline and we ended up ruuning
over clinical hours. My team was overworked! I spoke up about this to upper leadership, but the
request was denied. So many of my subordinates complained, but they only did something when
we were so backed up with our workload that they finally realized that their plan was not
working.

3) Recommend how you would use the human resources for an alternative course of
action regarding your case.

I would have restructured th organization and schedule much differently if I were in charge
of human resources. The first thing I would have done is utilize the individuals who are not
directly in patient care to fill the outside tasker’s such as the covid vaccination line or covid

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testing tasker. On the other hand, I would have also spoke to all of my team chiefs about what
would work best for their sections before enacting a plan that did not receive proper feedback. It
is so important that you communicate with your team, before drastic changes are made. Another
thing I would have done is I would have kept the individuals with skillsets that only they could
accomplish in their primary work area. When you take a person who is proven tobe effective and
replace them with someone with little to no knowledge about something, you are ultimately
shooting your organization in the foot. Lastly, I would have focused on my people and actually
listened, before things got too out of hand. I understand that we are their to serve our
stakeholder’s, but we cannot serve them properly or provide them with quality if we are working
at half our best.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.

The main thing Iwould do differently, would be to encourage autonomy and participation. A
lot of these higher leader’s are so far removed from everyday work. Some are so far removed
that they do not understand the processes done to achieve the goal. If we allow individual
section’s the opportunity of independence and allow them to create a plan towards moving
forward, we may not have ran into this issue. Allowing middle manager’s who are in charge of
teams to participate in planning and bringing something to the table can be beneficial to all
parties. If people do not feel like they are valued or heard, they ultimately feel devalued and
unmotivated.

Many individuals desserve more respect and to be heard, that is why the biggest part to the
big picture is listening, not just communicating. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we learned that
of course there is a give and take in order to improve quality in the organizatio’;s workforce.
Sometimes we need to understand that we can do more for our people, because people have
needs too. A lot of individuals are too focused on number’s that they forget who really runs the
organization. People are your biggest asset, so the thing I would have done differentlty is to treat
them right.

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 Reference

Bolman, L., & Deal, T. (2017). Reframing Organizations, 7th Edition. San Francisco, California