Introduction
To come up with a more concrete comprehension of the entities, Bolman and Deal demystified major schools of organizational theory into four frames; structural, human resource, political and symbolic. Bolman and Deal define the term frame as an image of a window where individuals can view an organization. These frames play a functional role in navigating the organization’s problems, climate, and culture altogether. Each frame encompasses strengths and limitations, which are robustly grounded in various theoretical premises and should be only applicable in a given situation. This paper addresses two frames, that is, the human resource frame and the political frame of the UnitedHealth Group(UHG).
Human resource framework
Further, analyzing UHG’s strengths and weaknesses from a Human Resource perspective. One of the critical strengths of the UHG is the ability to incorporate inter-professional teams to deal with clients and entity problems in a professional manner. Interpersonal relations promote healthy and respectful work settings in the sense that it encourages communications, corporation, and it ensures diverse teams of employees at UHG feel a sense of belonging and accomplishment in whatever they undertake. The current CEO of UHG, David Wichman, is skilled in ensuring that employees are satisfied. He generally encourages teamwork and positive relations by ensuring that employee’s issues are addressed promptly. Empowering employees is one of the best ways to retain them in highly competitive health care settings. Getting industrious and loyal employees are challenging, and thus, the company should develop motivating employee initiatives that help them focus on the achievement of entity goals. In UHG, employee training and career advancement are emphasized in UHG, where the HR department undertakes training needs analysis to identify the skills gap among the employees. Some of these training include capacity building and inductions, which typically equip the employee of the UHG with transferrable skills necessary for the organizations’ day-to-day running. Even though
UHG is one of the leading health care entities in the united states; one of the critical impediments crippling its goals is the lack of adequate employees to undertake day-to-day responsibilities. UHG has only 325,000 employees, 100,000 been clinicians, and this number is low as compared to the US population whom they serve. There is a need to add several staff, especially during these COVID times due to work overload and duties escalation. Another weakness is that the entity has failed to care for the well being of their staff. According to Jena (2020), most companies have given employees the liberty to work from home, especially during these covid-19 times. Still, UHG is asking employees to return to work amid the escalating cases. While it’s typically true that health care services are essential, employees should be allowed to be heard. Health care institutions are direly needed to operate efficiently, especially during these Covid times, but the company should encourage telework to reduce the risk of staff contracting the virus.
Political framework
Bolman and deal political frame depicts entities as living and screaming political arenas. As such, the UHG is politically conscious because its initiatives help shape and inform public policies that are likely to enhance the quality and delivery of health care services. One of the UHG political framework strengths is that the company actively participates in advocacy activities for its stand on public policy issues with elected leaders and other stakeholders at federal, state, and local levels. UHG external affairs lead to political advocacy activities. UHG also engages in educational outreach, campaign contributions, and lobbying for the passage of critical policies that are likely to affect the communities and their customer positively. In 2019 alone, UHG contributed $6.5m d towards trade associations and political expenses. Wichmann has been an active participant in the unites states political arena, trying to criticize proposals that the world destabilizes the nationals health care system, such as attempts to limit clinician’s ability to practice medicine at their best, warning Congress that it will yield severs impact of US economy and jobs. In this context, Wichmann is a distinguished organizational and political leader who understands his organization’s political dynamics. He can map the political terrains by knowing key players and their interests. Their degree of power and hence can form relationships with those players.
Another Strength of UHG is its ability to form functional teams, notwithstanding the diverse nature of employees. No organization in the world possesses enough resources to get the job done. Given the success rate and productivity of the UHG, it is clear that Wichmann can mobilize employees to utilize scarce resources for superior performance. Conflicts are inevitable in any organization. One of the critical weaknesses affecting the political arena of the UHG is constant change and the introduction of new systems and procedures that result in chaos and confusion. Whenever a new change has been implemented, the management of the UHG DO actively involve employees, and this results to administration conflicts. There is a breakdown of communication between the employees and the management, and it becomes hard for such conflicts to be resolved.
On the whole, this assessment shows that UHG is on the right track, but it needs to put special emphasis on conflict resolution and the staffing of employees. UHG is one of the essential services that is allowed to operate during covid times. As the number of covid cases increases, there is a need to add more staff to the escalating number of convalescents. I believe that human resource structure truly reflects how I view the UHG vis-a-viz political structure. to achieve organizational goals, entities should pay close attention to the needs of the employees and ensure that employees have the necessary resources to do their job. However, it is important to view the organization through the lenses of the four pillars to identify key areas that are impeding the company’s performance.