Self-Managed Teams drive business growth - Dr Amegbletor

Accra, July 29, GNA - Dr Wisdom Amegbletor, the Chief Executive Officer of the New Crystal Health Services (NCHS), has recommended Self-Managed Teams, a non-traditional organisational model, as an effective way to motivate staff and ensure productivity.

'Whiles most entrepreneurs prefer to oversee every decision making process, sometimes even to the point of micro-managing departmental structures, the Self-Management Team leadership style relinquishes some level of planning and decision making in the hands of employees,' Dr Amegbletor said.

'At NCHS, we have seen how this management style has empowered staff to come up with practical and quick solutions to some of the challenges they encounter daily as they attend to our numerous clients.

'And this has resulted in improved customer service and accounted for the many referrals the hospital has had in recent months,' he said.

Mr Joseph Adjei, the Human Resource Manager for NCHS, said; 'NCHS has 14 teams that are self-managed and can, therefore, make decisions on various subjects from staff disciplinary issues to whatever is required to get the work done.

'Instead of individual appraisals, there are team appraisals and our Maternal Care team has made the biggest impact since the implementation about a year ago.'

'The ability to decide how staff contributes to the hospital's growth has engendered this feeling of 'ownership' among everyone and management does not have to always be on the scene for work to go on' Mr Adjei said.

As to any downsides experienced by the New Crystal team in implementing the programme, Elisabeth Ogbe, a management staff of the hospital, said the tendency to cover up for friends who belonged to same teams remained a big constraint but there were team leaders who were periodically trained to root out underperforming members.

Ultimately team goals remain the driving force for all workers, she said.

New Crystal Health Services is one of the nation's fastest growing private medical facilities with substantial growth in its client base across all branches.

From a team of nine persons in 2003 attending to about five patients a day in a four room facility in Ashaiman, the hospital currently operates seven networked branches in two regions, seeing more than 300,000 clients yearly with staff strength of more than 300. It is responsible for one per cent of the National Health Insurance Scheme received.

GNA