Transcript In her own words

In Her Own Words
An Overview of the Work of
Susan C. Eaton
This material was designed by Quality Partners, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Rhode Island, under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services (CMS), an agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services. Contents do not necessarily represent CMS policy. 8SOW-RI-NHQIOSC-082006-2
In Her Own Words
Susan C. Eaton
July 9, 1957 – Dec. 30, 2003
Her Background Blended Labor and
Management
My relationships with hundreds of
workers convinced me that work itself,
no matter how low paid or “unskilled,”
is fundamental to most people’s lives –
not just in the sense of earning their
livings, but in their own sense of who
they are and what they are
accomplishing in this world.
Most people have a sense of “making
a difference” in the world through
what they do, whether it is cleaning
toilets, changing bandages, teaching
others, or running a sewing machine.
If they do not have such a sense, they
yearn for it.
…most people both want to do a good
job and to make a difference through
their labor. They hate not having the
proper tools or training to complete
their tasks. They hate not being asked
how they might do their jobs better.
And those who are not asked – which
in my experience was especially true
for those at the bottom of the workplace
ladder – especially have a lot to
contribute. I saw people everywhere
being undervalued and their skills and
ability to contribute underestimated.
When I became a manager in the
national union in 1985, I found myself
suddenly in the role of those I had so
often criticized from the bargaining
table.
I gradually learned the difficult skills
of supporting the growth of others
and negotiating the employment
relationship from the “managerial”
side. Eventually I came to feel that
here, too, I could make a difference.
She studied and taught management
practices that make work good and
result in good work.
Pennsylvania's
Nursing Homes:
Promoting Quality Care and Quality
Jobs
Keystone Research Center 1997
The central question for the future is:
will the PA long-term care industry be
dominated by approaches that deliver
quality care and provide quality jobs?
Or … by approaches that deliver poor
care at the expense of customers and
workers?
Beyond ‘Unloving Care:’
Linking Human Resource
Management and Patient Care
Quality in Nursing Homes June 2000
For now, unfortunately, the traditional lowskill, low-wage, low-performance model is
the dominant one. "But fortunately, it does
not have to be. The evidence
demonstrates that alternative models of
work and care organization exist, and at
least some actors have the power to
enact those alternatives.
Extended Care
Career Ladder Initiative (ECCLI)
2001
CMS Staffing Study 2002
5.0 What a difference management
makes! Nursing staff turnover
variation within a single labor market
Why does turnover among nursing
staff vary widely in long-term care
institutions, even facilities in the
same labor market?
Second, what difference can
management practices make in
helping to understand high or low
turnover?
First-hand ethnographic research
and interviews in nine long-term care
facilities in four labor markets in three
states.
If specific managerial practices can be seen in
a close, qualitative study to be related to
reductions or increases in nursing staff
turnover, then perhaps such practices could
be documented and made available to
practitioners with the ultimate goal of
providing better care at lower cost, as well as
more stable jobs to nursing staff members.
Five Practices Associated with
Low-Turnover Homes:
• High quality leadership
• A culture of valuing caregivers
• High Performance Human Resource
Policies
• Effective, motivational work organization
and care practices
• Adequate staffing ratios and support for
good care
Better Jobs Better Care winners of
national competition announced
September 17, 2003
• Improving Institutional Long-Term Care
for Residents and Workers: The Effect
of Leadership, Relationships and Work
Design
Intensive case studies in 18 highquality MA nursing homes to describe
the ways the homes organize and
supervise the work of frontline
caregivers and study how
organizational factors and care
philosophy affect resident and
employee satisfaction.
Study how organizational and
management practices in long-term
care organizations influence
teamwork and care-giving
relationships, and how those in turn
affect frontline workers and
residents.
The findings will be used to identify
management and policy interventions
that improve the working
environment for direct- care staff, as
well as the care provided to
residents.
DCWI
Better Jobs
Better Care
ECCLI
When you hear the term “Human
Resource Management” what do you
think it includes? Make a list at your
table of all the functions this includes.
Take your list of human resource
management functions and identify
who typically does which of them
in a nursing home
Leading and Managing People
Kennedy School of Government
This course will familiarize managers
with key human resource
management policies, practices and
dilemmas. It focuses on
organizational-level dynamics of work
design, building effective systems,
and change.
What makes this course unique will
be the special focus on the design of
work to maximize individual and
group effectiveness; on the
importance of giving and receiving
feedback and building in
accountability; on motivation and
team-building
Skills we focus on particularly include:
motivating and developing others,
structuring collaboration, and ongoing
learning
“Actor-centered” course with a focus
on practice, drawing reflectively on
experience and knowledge
Work organization is integrally linked
to performance and outcomes, both
for employees and firms, as many
skilled researchers have shown.
Usually how work is organized is decided
at the “top” of the organization, not at the
bottom or even in the middle. I am
interested in HR because, in some cases,
it focuses a light on those in the middle
and the bottom of the ladder. These are
the people who have so much to give, but
are often not asked.
Whether we “work to live” or “live to
work,” we still spend the majority of
our lives working. Surely we can do
better than we do now at ensuring that
most people enjoy and are enriched by
their work.
Most people have tremendous
untapped potential, in my view.
[Human Resource Management] can
help us identify ways to improve how
work can help individuals and
companies realize their full potential in
creativity, relationships, and growth.
At the end of the day it is our
relationships that teach, motivate, and
sustain us in our efforts to become the
people we hope to be, engaged in
making the world we hope to make.