Team members behaving badly (Proceedings)

How would you deal with the following HR situations in your practice?

1.) You have a busy 4 doctor practice and two of your doctors have informed you that they are pregnant and due within 30 days of each other. They both intend to return to work on a full time basis after their babies are born. What are you going to do about these pregnant employees and how are you going to staff the practice when they are on maternity leave?

2.) You have a practice manager who when hired was told she will receive 4% of practice gross for managing the practice. She is now making over $80,000 a year plus benefits and is not doing a very good job. She is very poor at delegating (she runs to Costco because she does not think anyone else can do it), she does not like conflict (so the employees get away with anything they want to do), she had not been able to bring your inventory under control (it is still 19% of gross), and other employees do not respect her. She is however loyal and dependable, and has been with you for 15 years. What are you going to do with this practice manger?

3.) You own a veterinary practice and have managed it since you purchased it. When you first bought the practice it was grossing less than a million dollars, but now you have six FTE doctors, and gross over 3 million a year. Although the gross continues to increase, your net does not seem to be keeping pace and you feel you are "practicing harder and not smarter". Your practice really does not have any management structure, everyone comes to you with their problems and you are spending more time on management than medicine and surgery. You never believed in job descriptions or spending time developing an employee manual, but now you feel like the "prisoners are running the prison"! What do you need to do to get yourself out of this HR hell situation?

4.) You have suspected Kelly, your long time receptionist of stealing from you for some time now, but could never prove it. Last night Kelly was working the closing shift and again the cash draw was short $100.00. You called Kelly into your office and confronted her, but she denied she had anything to do with the cash shortage and told you she thinks it is Amber, your new receptionist that is helping herself to the cash and Kelly has also told you that she thinks Amber has a drug problem. You have had enough and fire Kelly on the spot telling her you think it is she who is stealing from you, not Amber. Kelly threatens to bring her case to the labor board and also tells you that she know for a fact that you have been taking cash out of the deposit before bringing it to the bank and she is going to report you to the IRS and just for fun she is also going to contact OSHA because she knows your practice is not in compliance. What are you going to do and what should you have done to prevent this situation from occurring in the first place.

5.) You are the practice manager for a six FTE doctor hospital with 45 employees. One of your technicians feels that she has been sexually harassed by one of the associate doctors. This employee went to the owner of the practice and told him about this situation, but the owner did not take the complaint seriously and told the employee not to worry about it, he said "Doctor Smith is just like that, he doesn't mean any harm, just ignore him". The employee has now come to you with allegations of sexual harassment. To complicate matters further, this technician is not liked by the other employees within the practice and the associate doctor is loved by all, You are afraid you will have a mutiny on your hands if you have to let the associate doctor go, what is a practice manger to do in this situation?

6.) You are the practice owner of a very successful veterinary practice. You and your wife have run the practice and built it up to a 6 doctor hospital. Recently your wife decided to retire and you hired a practice manger. Your son has also graduated veterinary school and has decided to come back into the practice, he has been there for less than a year, but things are not going smoothly. You son is very strong headed and tells employees what he thinks. He has undermined management on several occasions and has shown blatant disregard for you and your wife, to the point that he has been openly disrespectful and condescending. He tells everyone that your way is the "old" way and his way is the "new" way. The employees have basically formed two "camps", half the employees are in support of you and the other half are in support of him. The practice moral is very poor, and there is a definite "them or us" feeling among the employees. Your son does not like the new manager and has undermined her on several occasions, so that she is gun shy to do anything without everyone's approval. This situation is affecting everyone, your wife is crying all the time, your employees are quitting or threatened ot quite, and you can't sleep at night because you are so upset. You really would like to see the practice stay in the family and see your son own it, but you are afraid that if he does with it what he wants he will drive it into the ground and there goes your retirement. What is a father to do?