Becoming a Split-Department Manager Imagine that you are the manager of a department, the function of which is to provide service in your chosen profession. In other words, if your career is medical laboratory technology, you are a laboratory manager; if your field is physical therapy, you manage physical therapy or rehabilitation services, and so on. You are employed by a 60-bed rural hospital, an institution sufficiently small that you represent the only level of management within your function (unless your profession is nursing, in which case there will be perhaps two or three levels of management). This means that unless you are a first-line manager in nursing (for example, head nurse), you report directly to administration. You have been in your position for about two years. Following some stressful early months you are beginning to feel that you have your job under control most of the time. The merger of your hospital with a similar but larger institution (90 beds) about 10 miles away, a possibility for years, recently became a reality. One of the initial major changes undertaken by the new corporate entity was realignment of the management structure. In addition to placing the new corporate entity under a single chief executive officer, the realignment included bringing most activity functions under a single manager. Between the merger date and the present, most department managers have been involved in the unpleasant process of competing against their counterparts for the single manager position. You are the successful candidate, the survivor. Effective next Monday, you will be running a combined department in two locations consisting of more than twice the number of employees you have been accustomed to supervising.

Instructions Generate a list of the ways in which you believe your responsibilities and the tasks you perform are likely to change because of the merger and your resulting new role. Hint: It may be helpful to make lists of what you imagine to be the circumstances before and after your appointment. For example, two obvious points of comparison involve number of employees (which implies many necessary tasks) and travel inherent in the job. See how long a list you are able to generate. 

1. What does this split-department situation do to your efficiency as a manager, and how can you compensate for this change?