OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Human Resource Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the human resource frame
2. Apply the human resource frame to your personal case situation
Rachael Shoff

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

2) For the personal case analysis, I am choosing the company known as Banfield Pet
Hospital. Internal role. How the veterinary shortage is affecting the quality of care
provided.

3) Describe how the human resources of the organization influenced the situation.

I think one difficult barrier to the human resources department at Banfield Pet Hospital is
that it is located in Washinton. Banfield Pet Hospital has over 1,000 hospitals throughout
the United States and Peurto Rico (Banfield Pet Hospital, 2023). If any associate, including
veterinarians of Banfield Pet Hospital have a concern or wants to speak to someone about
it they essentially have three choices. One choice being they can go directly to their line
manager. But what if the situation is something an associate is not comfortable going to
their line manager with? Their second option is scheduling an appointment with an
Ombudsmen. Downfall of that resource is that there is only one Ombudsmen for the
entire company. I have personally tried to reach out to the Ombudsmen and had to
schedule something about 2 weeks in advance. The third option is sending an email to the
human resources department or calling someone in human resources. Which essentially
you are emailing or calling a stranger who you can’t see face to face which is impersonal
in my opinion.

Although Banfield Pet Hospital does have a human resource department and other
alternatives, unless you live in Washinton and can physically go to the “home office” it
essentially feels impersonal. It even makes it difficult when employees who work in the
hospitals and clinics in separate time zones. If you are trying to call Washington and you
live in the eastern time zone like myself, then you have to wait about 4 hours before you
can even connect with someone. I have been in this situation before where I felt

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 threatened by a co-worker, my line manager was on vacation, and it was 8am in my time
zone and 4am in the HR departments time zone. I felt uncomfortable at work and wanted
to just quit on the spot. There should be other alternatives for situations that can arise.

4) Recommend how you would use the human resources for an alternative course of
action regarding your case.

If I were in chare of the human resources department I would add additional ombudsmens
into the market. I would also add ombudsmens in different time zones so that if people
feel the need to connect that day they do not have to wait weeks to schedule something as
well as wait until the timezones align. I would also suggest having a virtual meeting
option for the human resources department. That way if any associate would like to feel
more connected to someone it’s not just calling a stranger or emailing a stranger. It is
building a connection with someone, putting a face to someone. This way you can pick
up on facial expressions and social que’s.

One thing I think I would introduce is maybe a social media comment board. This way
associates can feel heard and their ideas, opinions, questions, may be able to be answered
by other associates. I think if other associates can connect with one another it would be
helpful. I think sometimes the veterinarians feel like they are on a lonely island. The
hospital that I work at we only have one veterinarian a day. The veterinarian has no one
that is as educated to connect with or bounce ideas off of. They can’t get a second
opinion from another veterinarian and so on.

5) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.

What I would do differently to support not only the veterinarians but also the other
support staff is a better training program. When you are hired with Banfield Pet Hospital
you watch training videos of course, but there is no hands on training. Once you finish
the videos you are thrown to the wolves, it is sink or swim. I would love to partner with a
local rescue or shelter and have new veterinarians fresh out of school perform necessary
surgeries to boost their confidence. I would love to pair experience veterinarirans with
new veterinarians just starting out so that they can shadow and learn. One interesting fact
I think the general public does not know is that when a veterinarian is in vet school, they
are only required to perform one spay and one neuter depending on the college they
graduate from. You can’t really gain confidence when doing a surgical procedure one
time on a shelter animal. Not an animal that has an owner relying on you to keep their
precious family member alive and healthy.

Another thing I would like to implement in veterinary medicine is the push for
credentialed technicians and title protection. Most people do not know that in veterinary

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 medicine an individual who works under the veterinarian who did not go to college and
orgot on the job training is called a veterinary assistant. It is not illegal in some states for
someone who worked at Starbucks or Target yesterday to be monitoring your pet under
anesthesia at a veterinary office tomorrow. Veterinary technicians however, go to school
and get an associates degree or bachelors degree in veterinary technology. They have the
knowledge and experience to work underneath a veterinarian. What is the difference at
the veterinarian office between a veterinary assistant and a veterinary technician you may
ask? For most states nothing. Veterinary assistants can mainly do anything a veterinary
technician can do without the training. So similar to going to a hospital and having a
registered nurse work with you or someone from the gift shop that was trained to be a
nurse with no experience or schooling. Veterinarians want veterinary technicians but
there is no incentive for a veterinary assistant to go to school and become a veterinary
technican because they can already do the same job without an education, the pay
between the two is barely anything, and a lot of vet hospitals do not have college
assistance programs.

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 Reference or References

Pet wellness veterinarian near you. Banfield Pet Hospital. (n.d.).

https://www.banfield.com/about-banfield

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (n.d.). Reframing Organizations, 7th edition. O’Reilly Online
Learning.
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/reframing-organizations-7th/9781119756835/
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