Motivational coaches for HSE Managers

Boombastic · 08-12-2012 2:53pm #1

I really should stop reading the indo, but here is more lunacy

HSE hires motivational coaches to give senior managers ‘morale boost’

THE HSE is to hire motivational coaches to give its senior managers a morale boost.

The move will see qualified coaches being assigned to Health Service Executive managers “as and when required”.

In all 35 coaches are being hired. The cost is not known at this point.

A spokeswoman for the HSE said the coaches would be on hand primarily to help new senior managers on a one-to-one basis.

:mad: Here's some motivation 'do your fcuking job or join the dole queue'. Wasn't the mantra being spouted that if you don't pay high wages you don't get the best staff. Well this would indicate to me that high wages or not we haven't got the best staff. Wasting money is a pasttime of the HSE:rolleyes:

Shryke · 08-12-2012 2:56pm

No personal masseuse? Barbaric.

Shane-KornSpace · 08-12-2012 2:57pm

Whats a manger?

Rovi · 08-12-2012 2:58pm

Shane-KornSpace wrote: »

Whats a manger?

A bed for Baby Jebus.

Boombastic · 08-12-2012 2:58pm

Shryke wrote: »

No personal masseuse? Barbaric.

They don't need one with all the back slapping they give each other

Shane-KornSpace wrote: »

Whats a manger?

Present tense of minger

Shane-KornSpace · 08-12-2012 2:59pm

Rovi wrote: »

A bed for Baby Jebus.

08-12-2012 3:02pm

Boombastic wrote: »

Here's some motivation 'do your fcuking job or join the dole queue'.

The HSE should have motivational posters made up with the above written on them. Surely would be cheaper to stick one in every office than hiring a life coach.

Odysseus · 08-12-2012 3:03pm

Why do they get external motivation and I have to self motivate. My new office does not get above 14 degrees, I had to self motivate yesterday and sneak into an empty office and steal a heater from one of them.

Seriously, though I don't even know what level a senior manager is? I know my line manager and stuff like that, but these guys never encounter me or any of the work I do. If any one needs a morale boost it is front line staff. I had to rob a heater for my office, my managers office where he sees client is the one office on that floor that is not condemed!

These guys are so far detached from client work I can't see why the need a lift.

AnonoBoy · 08-12-2012 3:05pm

I would have thought the auld fat pay cheque they get would be motivation enough, no?

the culture of deference · 08-12-2012 3:26pm

35 consultants, on consultants rates, 300 quid a day +

I really hope there is a group of armed lunatics out there ready to just go mental

Shane-KornSpace wrote: »

Whats a manger?

A langer from meath.

mikemac1 · 08-12-2012 3:29pm

They need Mr Motivator

Was big in the 1990's and he's making a comeback now

You young 'uns probably won't remember him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhvmHggJ-U8

Fr_Dougal · 08-12-2012 3:32pm

Great idea, must be difficult to manage all their staff when they don't have a fecking clue themselves.

mathepac · 08-12-2012 4:15pm

I sit here incredulous, dumb-founded and aghast (all at the same time). All this goal-setting, motivation, team leadership and get-up-and-go stuff is all based on the science and practice of psychology, and the biggest employer of psychologists in the country is the HSE.

This pseudo-science of "life=coaching" is a dumbed-down of stuff like CBT (which seems to be the HSE's answer to all ills - train all clinicians in CBT, subject every client to CBT, and as an employee if you don't know what CBT is, at least use the TLA often). If CBT and other therapies / tools used by psychologists are good enough for clients, why are they not good enough for HSE "managers"? Is it that these masters of the universe need to be protected from the knowledge that they are in need of psychological help? Would that knowledge further demotivate them or would they just have to get on with life knowing they were less than perfect? Or is it because if they were to join the queues waiting to see their own properly qualified psychologists, they would never reach the top of the queue, just like some of their clients.

More needless wasteful nonsense. What the HSE needs is root and branch organisational design. If they were to hire in the likes of Sheppard-Moscow to undertake such work I'd be delighted, but that would be admitting that Harney, Drumm, Reilly and Co and all their little acolytes have failed, and we couldn't have that fact published.

mikom · 08-12-2012 4:32pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2hVMfFDWE8

kowloon · 08-12-2012 4:49pm

Odysseus wrote: »

Why do they get external motivation and I have to self motivate.

First thing that came to my mind too. The lower paid workers being told to get more done with fewer resources are the ones being stretched. At the very least they should get treated with the same respect as their bosses.

kincsem · 08-12-2012 4:58pm

Could it be that recently retired HSE managers are coming back for a little extra? That would never happen.

KDII · 08-12-2012 5:10pm

I'm a nurse in a HSE hospital. A few weeks ago I had to go to three different wards to find a sheet for an old lady who spilt her tea and had been sitting there freezing. She said she could see how busy all the nurses were and didn't want to bother us, felt absolutely awful that she would feel that way. Maybe starting to get rid of a few "senior managers" would be motivation enough for them.

krudler · 08-12-2012 5:16pm

So money for this but not for beds or y'know, health resources, this truly is a fcuking joke of a country.

steddyeddy · 08-12-2012 5:44pm

Isn't this good news in a way? It proves that there is money in the HSE. All we need is someone with balls to stand up to these clowns.

08-12-2012 5:56pm

Meanwhile us doctors on the front line continue to work 36 hours or more straight and up to and over 80 hours a week, while being paid for about half that. Pretty sickening that the pen pushers and beaurocrats that are ruining the health service put more effort into helping themselves than helping patients.

UCDVet · 08-12-2012 5:59pm

I know people don't want to hear this; but the key to running a successful *anything* is more complicated than 'Scare people with threats of being unemployed'.

For some people, depending on their skill-set and work experience, losing a job is meaningless. I'm fairly poor, but I work in an position that is in high-demand. It took me a whole week to find the job I have now, and all I did was post a CV on a website.

This is particularly true of highly compensated workers.
Maybe it's not fair, maybe it's not right, but it's true.

The other thing you need to acknowledge is that hiring people is very expensive. Even in trivial jobs like working a cash register at McDonalds, there is a hiring process, paper-work, tax documents, and bringing the employee 'up-to-speed'. I've worked at McDonald's and I was a lot better in month 3 than I was in month 1. And the timeframes get longer as the skillset increases.

When you've got skilled employees it can easily take a *YEAR* for them to come 'up to speed' and do their job as well as the guy they replaced. And in many cases, upper management types have intimate knowledge of how the business operates....I can personally say that if my boss were fired on Monday my entire department would crawl to a stand-still and it would take MONTHS before we productive again.

So, as much as it sucks for people who aren't in such a fortunate position, even when the company is losing money or the government department is supposedly broke - the optimal thing to do is NOT screw over the employees. Even if they are well paid, many of them can TRIVIALLY move somewhere else and get paid just as well or better with better working conditions. And when they go, there is a measurable loss to performance.

This can easily create a negative feed-back loop. The good employees leave because the job starts to suck. The crappy ones stay because they aren't good enough to leave. The best of the crappy employees get promoted to fill the gaps that were left, the reputation of the organization goes down, the efficiency goes down, and they have nothing to offer the good job candidates.

A good job candidate would rather work at a successful company with nice perks and skilled co-workers.

That's not to say the HSE is a great example of how to run things. I'm just saying, the best management technique isn't 'Feck em, let them work on our terms or get in line for the dole'. That only works when people have no other options and when you can trivially replace people.

Odysseus · 08-12-2012 6:01pm

kowloon wrote: »

First thing that came to my mind too. The lower paid workers being told to get more done with fewer resources are the ones being stretched. At the very least they should get treated with the same respect as their bosses.

Sure these fcukers neverleave their nice offices in the nice building that I generally don't get to enter. When you see people struggling to get resources so that they can provide patient care; these you see carp like this.

I think I know a bit about the psychology of motivation, this is just a waste.

mathepac · 08-12-2012 9:26pm

steddyeddy wrote: »

Isn't this good news in a way? It proves that there is money in the HSE. ....

There is no money in any of the HSEs, North, South, East or West. They and the Department for Health and Children are overspent to the tune of close to €1BN (?) this current financial year. Stupid money is being spent to make nurses (for example) redundant or to make it attractive for them to take early retirement and then the HSEs spend a fortune hiring those exact same nurses back at agency rates to prevent the hospitals closing completely.

The NCHDs are being worked to death 80+ hours per week, the counsellors can't get warm enough to see clients and yet the HSEs collectively persist in this stupidity and have the arrogance to trumpet it from the rooftops as progress of some kind. "Ohhh look at us we're being progressive, going forward, and at the end of the day our metrics and KPIs are good."

Ahh James, you'll be found out for the light-weight you really are very, very soon.

Capt'n Midnight · 08-12-2012 9:57pm

Tell them to watch Glengarry Glen Ross. :mad:

The challenges associated with transformation, the recruitment moratorium and financial restraints have put higher demands on all HSE managers, but particularly on senior management roles, according to the Executive.
What's the story on frontline staff morale ?

HR waffly stuff
http://www.imt.ie/news/latest-news/2012/12/hse-managers-to-get-coaching.html

Talented HSE senior managers, supported by personal coaches, will now be given the opportunity to “stretch and grow” their skills and capabilities to enable the organisation to respond effectively to the “many significant challenges” it is dealing with now and into the future.

A new ‘one-to-one coaching service’, currently out to tender, is a follow-on from a Management Development Centre (MDC) process embarked on by the Executive a few months ago to identify the strengths and development needs of high-potential managers working just below the National Director level, as part of a major national programme aimed at ultimately embedding a culture of talent management across its management structures.
...
The challenges associated with transformation, the recruitment moratorium and financial restraints have put higher demands on all HSE managers, but particularly on senior management roles, according to the Executive.
...
In addition, there is an unprecedented demand in today’s economic climate for increased efficiency within the public sector with a key emphasis on doing more with less.
...
Development approaches include projects, opportunities to lead new service developments, coaching, mentoring and specific skills development, IMT understands. It is expected that tailored ‘one-to-one’ coaching will help elite managers focus on three-to-four aspects of their personal development needs as identified in pursuit of achieving performance that can be improved and sustained. It will also help them take ownership for a plan of personal continuous performance improvement over the subsequent 12 months.
The HSE has set a cap of €150 per hour for the providers of the coaching programme, and expects session to be restricted to 10 hours, comprising five or six sessions per coachee over a maximum period of eight months.

Odysseus · 08-12-2012 10:23pm

UCDVet wrote: »

I know people don't want to hear this; but the key to running a successful *anything* is more complicated than 'Scare people with threats of being unemployed'.

For some people, depending on their skill-set and work experience, losing a job is meaningless. I'm fairly poor, but I work in an position that is in high-demand. It took me a whole week to find the job I have now, and all I did was post a CV on a website.

This is particularly true of highly compensated workers.
Maybe it's not fair, maybe it's not right, but it's true.

The other thing you need to acknowledge is that hiring people is very expensive. Even in trivial jobs like working a cash register at McDonalds, there is a hiring process, paper-work, tax documents, and bringing the employee 'up-to-speed'. I've worked at McDonald's and I was a lot better in month 3 than I was in month 1. And the timeframes get longer as the skillset increases.

When you've got skilled employees it can easily take a *YEAR* for them to come 'up to speed' and do their job as well as the guy they replaced. And in many cases, upper management types have intimate knowledge of how the business operates....I can personally say that if my boss were fired on Monday my entire department would crawl to a stand-still and it would take MONTHS before we productive again.

So, as much as it sucks for people who aren't in such a fortunate position, even when the company is losing money or the government department is supposedly broke - the optimal thing to do is NOT screw over the employees. Even if they are well paid, many of them can TRIVIALLY move somewhere else and get paid just as well or better with better working conditions. And when they go, there is a measurable loss to performance.

This can easily create a negative feed-back loop. The good employees leave because the job starts to suck. The crappy ones stay because they aren't good enough to leave. The best of the crappy employees get promoted to fill the gaps that were left, the reputation of the organization goes down, the efficiency goes down, and they have nothing to offer the good job candidates.

A good job candidate would rather work at a successful company with nice perks and skilled co-workers.

That's not to say the HSE is a great example of how to run things. I'm just saying, the best management technique isn't 'Feck em, let them work on our terms or get in line for the dole'. That only works when people have no other options and when you can trivially replace people.

Very few of these managers would hold positions that are difficult to replace, actually we need to ask how many of these position are really needed?

I understand what you are saying but I don't think it applies in this case.

Odysseus · 08-12-2012 10:40pm

@Capt'n Midnight, Fcuk me that waffle is the biggest pile of sh!te I have seen in a long time. So that is 1,500 for each of these so called elite managers.

I have no problem with staff getting access to any type of motivation intervention that may facilitate a better working environment. However, I think we need to be more concerned about morale with the staff who actually either see the impact cuts have on patient care or those who have to deny patients access to some type of intervention because the money is not there.

I know for my experience that the most demotivating thing I have ever experienced was sending someone away, not because I did not have the skill to help, but because the organisation could not pay for it.

Capt'n Midnight · 08-12-2012 10:55pm

Odysseus wrote: »

Very few of these managers would hold positions that are difficult to replace, actually we need to ask how many of these position are really needed?

I understand what you are saying but I don't think it applies in this case.

The general perception is that the HSE needs more frontline staff and less middle/senior management.

And senior managers cost a lot more than frontline staff.

Not sure on the position today but at one point there was one admin for every 2.5 nurses/doctors. And when you consider the admins are mostly there 9-5 and the medical staff are there 24/7 it was said that there were more pencil pushers employed than nurses on duty.

http://www.inmo.ie/Home/Index/6284/6319 Feb 2007

A snapshot of HSE staffing reveals no less than 181 senior management grades are now in place on salary scales which have maximums in excess of E100,000 a year.

The figures revealed that in addition to the chief executive officer, there are:

11 national directors
13 heads of functions or departments
four advisors to the CEO
50 assistant national directors
Four directors of regional health offices
32 local health managers
Eight hospital network managers
45 hospital managers and chief executives
14 other senior management grades.

The pattern of growth in management grades is repeated in the levels immediately below and the growth of Grade 8s has raised more than a few eyebrows throughout the system, rising from a mere six in the year 2000 to 521 at the end of 2005, with similar growth experienced throughout 2006.

http://www.publicinquiry.eu/2008/03/30/hse-monster-rampages-on/

In 2000 there were six grade 8 people in the Department of Health – Today, there are 714. (Grade 8 is a high level, high pay position).
...
There are now administrative and management staff for every 2.5 doctor and nurse in the HSE.

Any one got stats for current numbers of senior staff ? (I've seen a figure of 850 but can't verify)
(note many got good compo packages to take a walk a while back)

the culture of deference · 09-12-2012 5:15pm

Someone I know spent a week in hospital recently. The 1st 25 hours were on a trolley in the hallway near the A+E. The nurses worked so hard given the ****ty conditions. Fcukall doctors on call and fcukall admin management staff anywhere to be found after 5pm.

The main obvious problem in this country is Admin and management. The senior staff in all governmental jobs have been there too long, and progressed way above their ability due to the way things were done in Ireland.

Boombastic · 10-12-2012 2:08am

40c in every Euro spent on Admin for health, compare to 7c/euro in the UK - according to Gerard Keane on the Saturday night show...not sure where he got his figure but it's believable

Capt'n Midnight · 10-12-2012 6:36pm

http://www.imt.ie/opinion/2012/09/putting-good-money-after-bad.html The Croke Park Agreement protects a wage bill which accounts for 70 per cent of healthcare expenditure.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/one-hse-worker-on-leave-was-paid-13m-in-14-years-3168781.html One worker was on leave from 1996 to 2010 and was paid more than €1.3m in that time. The worker is now back at work in another area of the HSE.

Absenteeism rates climbed to an average of 4.98pc last year among the HSE's staff of 104,000. This compared with a rate of 4.8pc in 2010. A rate of 4.8pc would see staff who have six weeks' holidays miss an average of 11 days per year.

The HSE initially sought a fee of over €6,000 when asked to release the figures under the Freedom of Information Act. However, they later released them free of charge.

opinion guy · 10-12-2012 6:42pm

Meanwhile:
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/hospital-offers-counselling-over-doctor-suicides-3319836.html

Counselling for staff AFTER two doctors commit suicide

The HSE is a disgrace

take everything · 10-12-2012 7:03pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Meanwhile us doctors on the front line continue to work 36 hours or more straight and up to and over 80 hours a week, while being paid for about half that. Pretty sickening that the pen pushers and beaurocrats that are ruining the health service put more effort into helping themselves than helping patients.

And now they're not paying living out allowance for NCHDs. This knocks about 10% off pay.
Even though i signed the 2010 contract that explicitly details "living out allowance" and the amount.
I have yet to see any evidence of this allowance not being payable.
I put this to the IMO- what a laugh. Told them about the breached contract. Nothing. Useless.

I'm raging over the fact a contract can be breached just like that.
NCHDs are constantly fcuked over.

Motivational coaches for HSE Managers

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