respond  EXPERIENCE : The Reduction in workforce paper explored the knowledge and the decision making process required to plan and execute the organizational changes at Roxboro Medical Center. The job of restructuring and reducing the workforce of an organization will always significantly impact the staff. In the setting that we were given, the CNO was tasked with reducing nursing leadership by 30%. Human resources provided guidelines and additional information to assist in the decision making process. It is especially important for key stakeholders to be involved from the outset of the process to assure organizational policy and procedure are adhered to. The model that was chosen for this organizational staff reduction is Kotter’s change model which relies on stepwise planning and implementation of a strategic plan on a short timeline while also promising ownership for employees. Faced with the development of a plan to reduce the organization's workforce, it is the responsibility of management to use an approach that strengthens the organizational mission and values. Transparency, sensitivity, and open communication are essential and will allow staff members to better understand the decision making process during this challenging time. To assure the buy-in of the staff, the change model that is used to research and plan for the staff reduction must incorporate proven rationales and reassurance of an improved work-life balance along with increasing autonomy and ownership. The organization must remain transparent and communicate openly and often identifying details of the plan and timeline while identifying strategies in order to execute the plan and gain facility-wide acceptance and support. REFLECTION : During the time that I was doing research and writing this paper, the Covid-19 pandemic was surfacing and I actually was faced with making some similar decisions at my own organization. I am a manager in perioperative services and when the Governor placed a moratorium on elective surgeries our caseload decreased by about two thirds. Hospitals face many financial obstacles today and are often forced to use an approach such as staff layoffs to maintain their financial viability (Daniels & Ritter, 2018). The first wave of cuts that I had to make was dismissing all travel staff giving them two weeks’ notice. At this time, I also took all non-benefitted employees off the schedule. Ten days later I realized that we were still overstaffed and cut everyone’s FTE by 25%. Another week passed and our CEO and CNO tasked all managers with cutting our staffing budget by another 20%. Emotions and feelings may affect the initial acceptance of the change due to misconceptions about the process of the reduction in force and when issues of trust exist (Walker & Karau, 2016). This was gut-wrenching for me, I knew how devastating this would be to many of my staff members. Feelings of guilt and being at fault is quite common for managers who are faced with .

1. respond
EXPERIENCE
:
The Reduction in workforce paper explored the knowledge and
the decision making process required to plan and execute the
organizational changes at Roxboro Medical Center. The job of
restructuring and reducing the workforce of an organization will
always significantly impact the staff. In the setting that we were
given, the CNO was tasked with reducing nursing leadership by
30%. Human resources provided guidelines and additional
information to assist in the decision making process. It is
especially important for key stakeholders to be involved from
the outset of the process to assure organizational policy and
procedure are adhered to.
The model that was chosen for this organizational staff
reduction is Kotter’s change model which relies on stepwise
planning and implementation of a strategic plan on a short
timeline while also promising ownership for employees. Faced
with the development of a plan to reduce the organization's
workforce, it is the responsibility of management to use an
approach that strengthens the organizational mission and values.
Transparency, sensitivity, and open communication are essential
and will allow staff members to better understand the decision
making process during this challenging time. To assure the buy-
in of the staff, the change model that is used to research and
plan for the staff reduction must incorporate proven rationales
and reassurance of an improved work-life balance along with
increasing autonomy and ownership. The organization must
remain transparent and communicate openly and often
identifying details of the plan and timeline while identifying

2. strategies in order to execute the plan and gain facility-wide
acceptance and support.
REFLECTION
:
During the time that I was doing research and writing this
paper, the Covid-19 pandemic was surfacing and I actually was
faced with making some similar decisions at my own
organization. I am a manager in perioperative services and when
the Governor placed a moratorium on elective surgeries our
caseload decreased by about two thirds. Hospitals face many
financial obstacles today and are often forced to use an
approach such as staff layoffs to maintain their financial
viability (Daniels & Ritter, 2018). The first wave of cuts that I
had to make was dismissing all travel staff giving them two
weeks’ notice. At this time, I also took all non-benefitted
employees off the schedule. Ten days later I realized that we
were still overstaffed and cut everyone’s FTE by 25%. Another
week passed and our CEO and CNO tasked all managers with
cutting our staffing budget by another 20%. Emotions and
feelings may affect the initial acceptance of the change due to
misconceptions about the process of the reduction in force and
when issues of trust exist (Walker & Karau, 2016). This was
gut-wrenching for me, I knew how devastating this would be to
many of my staff members. Feelings of guilt and being at fault
is quite common for managers who are faced with making staff
reduction decisions. This paper was the most difficult I have
ever written, but one of the best because I was living through
exactly what I was writing about.
IMPLICATIONS
:
This assignment helped me through the reductions that I had to
make as I was researching for the assignment I was also

3. researching for the real task at hand. I am so thankful that this
class happened to coincide with the real-life situation that I
found myself in. I had never even considered that I would ever
be faced with such decisions in my organization, we are a giant
1100 bed level one trauma center with four sister hospitals
within 100 miles of us. Florida is extremely fortunate to have
been minimally impacted by the pandemic so far, but I will
never forget this experience and carry with me what I have
learned through this. Open communication, sensitivity, and
transparency are a few of the most important things that a
manager should remember to use when faced with a task such as
this. When faced with a substantial reduction in staffing the
decisions for termination must always be based on measurable
metrics to keep the decisions equitable with supported
rationales (Perry, 2016).