A year after top Medical Center officials said that they might lay off between 600 and 800 employees to rescue the Hospital's budget, administrators finally have an actual number on paper.
Four. So far.
Michael Israel, chief operating officer of the Hospital, said that the Hospital has laid off only four employees, all middle-level managers, since West Hudson consultants began their review of operations in April 1994.
The Hospital is restructuring during a two-year period to lower costs and reposition itself to compete in the 21st century's managed-care marketplace.
Last summer, Medical Center officials announced that as many as 1,500 full-time equivalent positions would have to be eliminated due to budgetary constraints.
Since then, each of the hospital's departments targeted job classifications that were deemed nonessential through a position-review process. The past year's review has targeted 855 full-time equivalent positions for elimination by July 1996, a move which will help generate $40 million in savings and prevent the Hospital from running a deficit for the first time in its history.
As a result of normal attrition, constant position review, cautious hiring practices and unexpectedly high response to two voluntary separation incentive packages offered last September, the number of actual layoffs may be only a fraction of those originally predicted.
"We've been able to handle it," Israel said. "People keep asking me, `When is the shoe going to drop? When is the first big layoff going to be?' I don't see it happening."
But not everyone in the Hospital shares Israel's optimism. Dr. Brenda Armstrong, associate professor of pediatric cardiology, said that while only four employees have been laid off, many more were forced to take the voluntary separation packages due to the "unpalatable" options offered.
"Many people who had limited skills were locked in. Essentially, people were being asked to take jobs that they were overqualified for and to take a pay cut," she said. "It was like asking a senior administrator to fill a clerical position."
Last fall, all Hospital's employees were offered a chance to sign up for the voluntary separation packages before any positions were terminated. Of the Hospital's 8,000 employees, 748 signed up for the program. Of those, 230 have had their jobs targeted for termination and have accepted the package.
About 400 employees remain in the voluntary separation pool, and they may take advantage of a voluntary separation package without being targeted for termination, said Art McCombs, associate vice chancellor for human resources in the Medical Center.
McCombs acknowledged that some employees may have been unhappy with their options, but added, "I think it would be a misconception to say that the majority left because they had no other option."
If a longtime employee felt strongly about staying at the Hospital, he or she could ask for a lateral transfer or use seniority privileges to obtain a lower-level position, McCombs said.
Salary disparities between the old and new jobs were reduced as much as possible through supplemental funds, he added.
While McCombs said that exit interviews were not conducted, "to the extent that I've spoken to individual employees, and given the feedback to the voluntary separation packages... most individuals have been very happy with their personal decisions."
Armstrong points to a lack of retraining efforts as one of the Hospital's failings in the restructuring process. Investing in human resources is essential to the hospital's competitiveness in the future, she said.
"As an institution, we have failed to provide employees with opportunities to improve their own skills while maintaining their current standard of living."
McCombs said that retraining resources were limited, but added that all employees who received pink slips were given up to $1,500 in retraining reimbursement if they enrolled in and passed skills courses.
The largest layoff so far occurred in February when 49 clinical lab technicians, 45 of whom were minorities, received notice that their jobs would be eliminated on July 1.
Since then, 20 have been transferred or reclassified, seven are being retrained and 22 have taken advantage of voluntary separation incentive packages, Israel said.
Attrition may also help reduce the number of layoffs. "We on average lose 1,000 employees a year, and that's low [compared to other hospitals]," Israel said.
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