Take Me To Your New Leader. Please.

What does it say when a regional, century-old company with more than 12,000 employees decides to go outside of its own ranks to fill the top spot?

                         

Hopefully, it says that some folks are starting to catch on.




 

Non-Profits Can Be Expensive

According to data filed with the IRS, Seton Family of Hospitals was the largest non-profit in Greater Austin in 2015 – by a significant margin – and that organization represents only a portion of the entire Seton Healthcare Family. Two physician groups operating as part of Seton Healthcare Family were also included in the top 10 list: Tri-County Clinical and Seton Family of Physicians.                                          

Data was sourced from XML published by IRS Public Form 990 dataset from 2015 and published on NonProfitLight.com.

In total, 18 Seton Healthcare Family subsidiaries filed 990’s that year. And in keeping with the non-profit spirit, 15 reported expenses that exceeded revenues – including three Foundations that exist solely to raise funds for Seton – resulting in an $80+ million shortfall.

Layoffs, of course, are one way companies cut down on expenses when necessary. But according to the same IRS data, Seton might be laying off the wrong people. When it came to executive compensation for non-profits in Greater Austin that same year, Seton leadership dominated the list.

                                                                                         

Data was sourced from XML published by IRS Public Form 990 dataset from 2015 and published on NonProfitLight.com

Last week a Seton executive posted a tweet about income disparity and its turbulent effect on our current political climate. I responded with a link to the IRS data shared above, but I don't think it was well received. His original tweet was DELETED hours later. Oops.                                             

                                                                                         

Layoffs, and More Layoffs

In November of last year, a WARN letter announcing upcoming layoffs was sent to the Texas Workforce Commission. A previous round of layoffs had occurred only two months earlier, in September 2016. Reporters from KVUE and Austin Business Journal caught wind of the letter and reported the story, including updates, on November 22 and 23.

The leak must have caught Seton leadership by surprise, as it created internal turmoil for several reasons:  

1. Because the sender did not specify how many employees would be laid off at each site, an independent party estimated those numbers as indicated by the handwritten tallies.

2. That person probably did not realize that Seton's Smithville hospital had few more than a total of 31 employees at the time, leading some to believe that the news story was also a surprise announcement that their hospital would actually be closing its doors in the next few months!

3. Other employees (Seton has approx 12,000 of them) were unpleasantly surprised to read about another round of layoffs - coming so soon after those a few months earlier.

So how did leadership handle the crisis? Not very well. They were quick to provide the correct number of planned layoffs for each site, which prompted the new item updates, but the dates for the layoff period remained the same. Then, they simply told employees that local media was mistakenly re-reporting on the layoffs that had already occurred in September. And for those who are wondering why the number of total layoffs varied from one month to the other - don't ask any questions.

After personally seeing a copy of the WARN letter (the information it contains is public, so all I had to do was call the Workforce and request a copy of it), I provided the following feedback in a subsequent "anonymous" MyVoice survey question.
                                                                                         

 

Big Sister is Watching You

As part of an ongoing effort to improve communication between administrators and other associates, Setonville (the employee intranet) added an option to comment on news items posted daily.      

Leaders did so with some trepidation, however. And ultimately those who chose to post “anonymously” were not aware that their anonymity was not exactly guaranteed. Kind of like visiting a confessional, in a "retaliation-free environment" - but with a two-way mirror instead of a privacy screen. Surprise. Gotcha!

I pointed that out in a subsequent MyVoice pulse survey (another “anonymous” platform designed to improve communication). 

                                                                                         

                                                                                       

                                                                            

$elling the Mi$$ion

What do you get when you cross a 100-year-old spiritual Mission with: a multi-colored fun font, tongue-in-cheek headlines, and a multi-million-dollar advertising budget? Not much.

      

The executives in the "Man Cave" approved, but many of those providing care on the front line had mixed feelings about such a fanciful campaign. Perception vs. reality. 

Voice your opinion at your own peril, though.  Just nod, and say "Wow!"

                                                                                         

Fortunately a chaplain was glad to make herself available for counsel with the conflicts I began experiencing became overwhelming. She also helped me to understand that the positive force of a religious institution can sometimes be undermined by equally negative powers within.                                                                 

The Man Cave

Current secular leadership (predominately male) flippantly refers to their deluxe quarters in the administration building as “The Man Cave.”  It’s not clear how widely known the crass nickname is among other associates, but to many it is downright disrespectful to the founders they claim to be inspired by and paying homage to.

A man who once served on the organization’s Board of Trustees recently confided that after the Daughters’ departure he felt a need to keep executive leadership “in line.” I was struck by his candor, yet comforted by his intuition. “That is appreciated much more than you probably realize,” I responded.