Engagement and Vendor-Employed Managers

by Trevor Byrd, Ph.D., VP, Client Solutions

A number of Morehead client organizations have contract-based relationships with external organizations to manage business functions like environmental services and food services. In these scenarios, the work unit manager is employed by a vendor company, while that manager's staff members are employed by the hospital or healthcare system. In my experience, it is not unusual to hear clients express concern that this perceived constraint hinders the health system's ability to improve, or enforce accountability for improving, engagement in these situations.

Although I am certainly sympathetic to that perspective, I must note that some Morehead clients have groups that score high on engagement and are managed by an external vendor. In fact, several client organizations come to mind in which groups led by managers from an external vendor boast some of the strongest engagement scores in their organizations.

I was recently on-site with one such client. The purpose of my visit was to meet one-on-one with managers who had low engagement scores to review their action plans. Toward the end of the day, a couple of unclaimed meeting time slots were opened up to any interested managers across the organization. One of the managers who took advantage of the opportunity was a vendor-employed food services manager with high engagement scores. Despite this manager’s high employee engagement levels, she was continually looking for opportunities to improve her own effectiveness and that of her department.

Toward the end of our meeting, I talked with this manager about how HR and senior leaders can most effectively facilitate improvement in engagement scores among vendor-employed managers. This manager said two things: 1) In all instances, organizations should treat these types of managers as partners, not vendors, and 2) Even though vendor-employed managers serve “two masters” (the vendor-employer and the healthcare organization in which they work), they spend most of their waking hours in the healthcare organization and function like an employee of that organization. Because of this second comment, vendor-employed managers are inclined to identify with your organization just as much, if not more than, the vendor that actually employs them.

Given these two points, it makes sense to include vendor-employed managers in all communications received by traditional employees, solicit their feedback on organizational issues, and afford them the same developmental opportunities offered to traditional employees. To treat them differently from how you treat traditional employees can derail engagement and improvement.

Are there departments in your organization managed by individuals from an external vendor? What suggestions can you share for supporting positive change in groups with this type of management structure?

About the author− As a Morehead consultant, Trevor strives to understand clients’ business needs and crafts solutions that allow them to address human capital concerns proactively. He mines survey data to clarify the unique factors driving employee engagement, identify high-interest segments within the organization, and link employee factors with valued business outcomes such as turnover and customer/patient satisfaction. Trevor works closely with clients to apply meaning to data and generate action plans for growth. He earned his Ph.D. in industrial-organizational psychology from Virginia Tech.