Switched Keys

I've written about Job Search Issues before and ideas about using information technology to improve business. Two weeks ago I got another reminder of how inadequate management philosophies can be. When I applied for a job at Trinity Mother Frances I was redirected to a third party site where I could apply and upload the text of my resume. So that's what I started to do. I didn't have time to complete it so I saved what I had and was going to come back later. When I later returned I found (as I expected) that I could neither view or edit my application.

The TMFHS job search site was formatted like the other Trinity Mother Frances sites but it is actually at healthcaresource.com. From it you only have the options to search or apply for a posted job. If you know something about URLs you could edit the address and go directly to healthcareresource.com and on that site submit your resume to that site not something that you'd find out from the Trinity Mother Frances site.

Trinity Mother Frances has replaced effective administrative policy with philosophy. From one perspective they have adopted the religious belief that a company can benefit by going paperless but they sidestepped the proper implementation of a system that brings this about. By replacing HR with an inadequate system to manage applications they are limiting their ability to acquire evaluate and hire competent personnel.

From a different vantage point you can see their adoption of yet another philosophy; that companies can usually save money by outsourcing when possible. On the contrary if you have enough volume to do a particular task in house and you have the capital to implement it you save money by doing it in-house. In many cases the capital investment can be returned by the saving in a year or two. The precondition is that the inside operation is properly managed. There are many issues involved in outsourcing but the same management that mismanages the internal department will very likely mismanage the outsource efforts. If the operation is maintained using outsource contracts there is a whole set of additional issues.

There are experts publishing management advice and philosophies on a daily basis in the areas of Finance Supply Chain Management IT Human Resource management and Records Management. Some of it may be quite good but when organizations attempt to implement cutting edge ideas without first understanding and applying the basics there is certain to be chaos.

It's like your first love when you were more in love with being "in love" than the boy or girl you met. So many of our administrators are more possessed with the latest buzzword or acronym than they are in understanding what it really means and how it can be successfully implemented. It's just something they can sell to the next level of management and make themselves look good. That couldn't be more true with the latest "paperless" craze with companies going full steam ahead scanning all their existing documents into their computers.

Using technology to manage information is a good thing if it's done right. If not it can be a nightmare. Technology is just another tool. There really is no substitute for prudent management.