Orlando Health was founded on the heels of World War 1 in 1918, during the onset of the Spanish flu epidemic. The organization was initially called Orange general hospital and was supported financially by community members and a dedicated group of doctors. Currently, the company has grown to be Florida’s most comprehensive and not-for-profit organization and observed the healthcare needs of nearly 2 million people in central Florida annually (Orlando Health, n.d.). The organization is Central Florida’s fourth largest employer, employing almost 23,000 employees and more than 4500 affiliated physicians (Orlando Health, n.d.). Orlando Health has a change process plan aligned with its most important organizational values. Successful change implementation for the company needs leadership to utilize education and learning to promote change-related knowledge and competencies. This paper aims to offer organizational design recommendations for Orlando Health, performing organizational learning assessments in providing the organizational learning recommendations for the organization.
Organizational Recommendations
Leadership philosophies entail a structured approach to leading others to attain a common goal, and aligning these philosophies with organizational design is crucial. The leaders in an organization play a critical role in enabling the organization to achieve its set goals and aligning the workforce per the company’s missions and visions. When the company has poor implementation and faulty strategy, the organization cannot achieve its objectives and maintain a competitive advantage in the market. Well-aligned organizations pose clarity of the essential aspects for their success. The leaders of Orlando Health must establish ethical goals that are clear to themselves and the entire team. Leaders must be involved with open and multidirectional communication with the whole workforce. The leader should at all times provide motivation and reassurance to the employees. The leaders should employ transformational leadership skills by being good listeners, enthusiastic, open to feedback, and practicing emotional intelligence.
Influential leaders should integrate diverse ideas and views and coherently organize them to benefit the organization. The organization entails people from different cultures with different abilities and beliefs. The leader should be able to understand employees prone to varied views and opinions and consider them all. The leadership team should be responsible for offering inspiration to employees whose ideas have not been adopted and avoid making them feel as if they are not part of the team. Achieving the goals of the organization highly relies on the ability of teamwork. Organization alignment will benefit Orlando in putting the interest of the organization ahead of personal interests.
The organization’s shared values cannot be successfully implemented unless employees and leaders who believe in the strategy are committed to changing practices that stand in the way of shared values. The organization should always recognize that it can enhance its profitability and competitiveness by solving social problems (Lee, 2019). The leaders are essential in creating shared values by having explicit and logical arguments to solve social issues that will drive company growth. The leader must collaboratively develop the shared values to build a high-performing team. The leader must ensure that each individual’s shared values are considered and that every member is held accountable to behave according to the shared values.
Vision statements in mission statements are essential to the organization’s brand, help attract talented individuals and provide guidance to the team and board to implement the strategic plan. To further improve the company’s shared values of the company it has created inspiring mission and effective vision statements. The leaders should work with the employees to list the needs of their customers. The leaders should effectively communicate with the employees about the company’s mission and vision. The employees should work towards a common goal, and without proper communication of the vision, the workforce will likely work without a common measure or standard for performance. Leaders should evaluate the values and goals of the company and consider its purpose in creating division. They should consider their already published visions and modify them to meet the objectives that the organization has not yet met. The vision should be clear and precise, and the employees who manage to attain the goals should be rewarded and perform recognition for employees’ efforts.
Organizational structure has a direct impact on the progress of Orlando Health. Innovation plays a significant part in the organization’s success, and growth for the organization hence has to be a primary area of concern. The company should at all times structure the organization to encourage employee involvement in the business’s operations. Employee involvement will help modify the company’s flow of work and information. The innovation will result from collective ideas and efforts, and the ability to innovate will reflect their creative use of technology and resources. The organization should tailor the cultures that enable workers always to feel motivated and valued. Innovation performance may skyrocket with significant support and recognition that employees receive from management and a fully engaged workforce.
The company must understand that its employees have a social life and other responsibilities outside the organization’s operations. The healthcare system is currently facing struggles with a work-life balance due to the shortage of healthcare professionals (Ayar et al., 2022). The organization’s employees should be given opportunities to maintain equilibrium between their company’s obligations in personal life. The leaders should provide a suitable scheme that offers the employees a chance and time to attend to their personal matters.
Many employees find it challenging to balance their career demands and personal life. This is because the company bestows a lot of responsibilities on them without considering that they have a life outside in the things they should take care of besides the company’s duty. The employees are supposed to be offered partial leaves. In emergencies, they should be able to acquire permission to attend to important tasks and be given a chance to go out and listen to their families. Workplace stress is a significant cause of mental health issues for employees. Mental health issues result in employees’ low productivity and inability to perform their tasks as needed. The company may consider enabling their employees to change environments, such as scheduling time for employees and giving them a chance to work from home at times, which will improve their productivity.
Organizational Learning Assessment
Knowledge sharing within an organization is significant to achieving the organization’s goals. In Orlando Health, teams value the sharing and transferring of knowledge (Orlando Health, n.d.). Professionals who have worked for more years are teamed with junior employees who mentor and monitor their performance, promoting learning. The organization benefits from collective responsibilities rather than individualized performance. One of the ways the organization enhances organizational learning is through e-learning. The E-Learning process has taken dominance over the years due to its efficiency and effectiveness (Abdi et al., 2018). It ensures the company members can learn about enhancing employee performance at their place and convenient time. The process does not require the employees to go to a specific location for training which enables the learning process to progress with higher levels of efficiency.
Through e-learning, management can share information regarding employees’ establishment of practical teamwork, motivation, and critical information about the workplace. The e-Learning is consequently accessible to the management team and used only by the employees who learned how to manage things more efficiently by aligning the employees with the organization’s goals. E-Learning has stimulated mentorship and business enhancement for their various practices.
Orlando Health organization recognizes system integration to provide ongoing education for clinicians to care for the patients. The organization has developed a high-quality stimulation program to provide continuous stimulation learning for the employees (Orlando Health, n.d.). Knowledge is captured through the online learning process, where the team can register for the programs and attend training without having to attend physically. Education is offered which demonstrates the continuous collaboration of safety, quality, and patient experience by providing evidence-based training for the care of patients. The simulation provides the team with the learning skills needed before caring for the patients. The training is provided by stimulation learning experts comprising simulation technicians, learning consultants, administration, doctors, and other healthcare professionals (Ayar et al., 2022). Learning is evaluated by the team’s performance in offering comprehensive planning, assessment, and patient care services portrayed by the workforce.
Learning Organization Recommendations
For Orlando Health to improve organizational learning, it should ensure increased knowledge accessibility and availability. To enhance their availability of knowledge, the organization should develop an event database where the information acquired during the learning can be stored and retrieved by the employees. Learning is a continuous process, and knowledge should be accessible continuously. The company should foster and encourage a knowledge-sharing culture where behavior modeling should occur from the top. Every organization member should be active in sharing and promoting knowledge. The organization should provide its employees with multiple ways to share their knowledge, as each employee is empowered with different personalities and skills (Orlando Health Simulation Program). Platforms for sharing and contributing knowledge should be enhanced so that teams can actively integrate their acquired knowledge and areas of interest with the other staff. The company should consider integrating personalized coaching for the employees.
To inspire people to share their ideas and knowledge in their organization, leaders should encourage their employees to speak up by the behavior of their desire to listen and be open to the opinions provided by the employees. Leaders should avoid open criticism end have an open-door culture to accommodate views from every team member (Abdi et al., 2018). Leaders should place a core value on good and bad ideas and allow a chance for brainstorming to develop the best possible information as a team. Incentives should be offered for sharing ideas as a form of encouragement for the team to speak up and give appreciation. Various platforms for sharing information should be provided for the teams to ensure continued provision of information and a forum where their employees can share their thoughts at any time.
To capture and make the knowledge part of the organization, it should ensure that all resourceful knowledge is documented at all times for easier accessibility and sharing even with the new employees. After the learning is acquired, it is crucial to ensure that education is ongoing in the organization. Continuous learning can be encouraged by creating a mindset open to growth for the employees. Learning goals should be set to ensure that every individual attains them, which motivates continued learning. Additionally, developmental reviews should be held within the teams to help one another to improve and develop.
References
Abdi, K., Mardani, A., Senin, A. A., Tupenaite, L., Naimaviciene, J., Kanapeckiene, L., & Kutut, V. (2018). The effect of knowledge management, organizational culture and organizational learning on innovation in automotive industry. Journal of Business Economics and Management, 19(1), 1-19.
Ayar, D., Karaman, M. A., & Karaman, R. (2022). Work-Life balance and mental health needs of health professionals during COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 20(1), 639-655.
For team members. Orlando Health. (n.d.). Web.
History. Orlando Health. (n.d.). Web.
Lee, Y. W. (2019). Enhancing shared value and sustainability practices of global firms: The case of Samsung electronics. Strategic Change, 28(2), 139-145.
Orlando Health Simulation Program earns accreditation from the Society for Simulation in Healthcare – Orlando Health – one of Central Florida’s most comprehensive healthcare networks. Orlando Health. (n.d.). Web.