Assignment 1: Collaboration

Application of Materials (Motivation)

Performance in human service agencies is important and controlled by regulations and standards of practice. It is from these sources that supervisors characterize the performance of employees above, within or below expected levels. In Digital Human Services Agency, employees are responsible for receiving victims from different hospitals around the region and admit victims of domestic violence. Patients are grouped and advanced to psychologists, counselors and other professionals respectively depending on the nature of their conditions of admission. After observing documentation of admissions for the past one week, it is established that waiting times at the agency’s reception has been increasing with a constant number of admissions. Additionally, referrals to respective professionals has been increasing to depict incorrect placement of patients within the agency (Cook & Brown, 1990). An increase in waiting time is a factor of performance that reflects on the efficiency of services offered. When the number of admissions are constant, an increase in waiting time shows that patients take too long to be served. This raises questions on the performance of employees serving clients as they are admitted. Additionally, in what is considered patient safety, erratic referrals depict lack of concentration or incompetency among employees referring clients. To improve performance, there is need to introduce optimization techniques through queuing theory to reduce the amount of time patients have to wait in the queue (Patti, 1988). This can take the form of adding or repositioning service providers attending to the patients. On the other hand, evaluating the competency of employees in each level will ensure that sufficient skills are available and matched with existing positions.

References

Cook, R. S., & Brown, N. W. (1990). Most effective and least effective boards of nonprofit human service agencies. Group & Organization Management, 15(4), 431-447.

Patti, R. J. (1988). Managing for service effectiveness in social welfare: Toward a performance model.Administration in Social Work, 11(3-4), 7-21.