Food-Service-Manual-for-Health-Care-Institutions

Food Service Manual for Health Care Institutions
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• Personally observing and thinking why the situation is usually inaccurate. The manager
needs to observe employees, equipment, and so forth. Write down the facts observed, and accurately
describe what was found. List all facts and any related conditions that have a bearing on
the decision. Take the time to be thorough.
• Interviewing anyone who will be affected by the decision. Listen to what is being said.
Observe behavior. Do not rush, do not criticize. Be objective and nonjudgmental.
Once all the facts have been gathered, organize and evaluate them. Decide what are facts
and what are opinions. Are these facts reliable? Additional observations and interviews may be
necessary.
Identify Alternative Solutions or Outcomes
With the problem clearly defined, the manager can move on to the third step in the decisionmaking
process, developing alternative courses of action to deal with the problem. In some situations,
alternatives may already have been defined by the organization’s policies and
procedures, and the manager must simply carry them out. For example, if an employee repeatedly
ignored a work schedule by arriving late and had received first an unofficial reprimand and
later a written warning about the consequences of repeated tardiness, the manager usually has
only one choice in dealing with the problem, according to the organization’s personnel policies.
With other scenarios, however, the manager will have to collect information to arrive at
relevant and valid alternatives. Depending on how quickly the decision must be made, the manager
may involve employees or other managers to brainstorm ideas and possible alternatives.
When making decisions about nonroutine problems or conflicts all possible outcomes of the
alternatives outlined must be considered to ensure a winning situation.
Evaluate Relative Values of Alternatives
Each alternative must be carefully examined for its strong and weak points. To do this, the manager
must gather all information pertinent to each alternative and then answer these questions:
• Is the alternative feasible? For example, does it violate any departmental policy or procedure?
Does it conform to legal, regulatory, or code restrictions? Does the alternative risk
overstepping firmly established bounds of authority?
• Is the alternative satisfactory? Even when an option is feasible—that is, even if no strict
organizational barriers are in its way—the option may not suit the unofficial social norms of
the work group. Implementing changes that are socially unacceptable to the staff would meet
with stiff resistance.
• If the alternative is both feasible and satisfactory, will its consequences be acceptable to
the manager, the department, and the organization?
Information gathering for each option may require a review of policies and procedures, an
examination of previous memos or other documentation on the same or a similar problem, or
an analysis of job descriptions. Additional information may be gained from personal experience
and observation and from discussions with other managers in the organization.
Activate Action Plan to Implement Best Choice
Answering the above questions will help eliminate all but a few options. The best of these probably
will be the one that allows the most positive answers to the questions of feasibility, satisfaction,
and potential consequences. However, not all options are mutually exclusive. If two
seem to be equally good solutions to a problem, perhaps they can be used in tandem or sequentially.
For example, offering a new special diet menu to patients might require them to make
choices that are somewhat more complicated than what they are accustomed to. Should the
nutrition staff show the staff nurses how to help patients fill out their menus, or should