Opinion ID: 199863
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Hospital's reasons

Text: 26 Melin testified as follows. He was responsible both for creating the new management structure resulting from the need to cut staff and for picking the new Surgical Program Director. The Hospital lacked the funds to maintain both a new Surgical Program Director and the Peri-Operative Services Director, the position Weston-Smith held. Weston-Smith's maternity leave had, he said, nothing to do with the elimination of her position. The restructuring affected about 20 jobs, although this number includes some employees who were rehired in new positions, as Neumann was. Employees other than Weston-Smith were laid off, including at least one higher in the organization than she, and other management positions were eliminated. 27 After the reorganization, Neumann as the new Surgical Program Director assumed all of Weston-Smith's prior responsibilities, plus additional ones. Melin had considered both Weston-Smith and Neumann for the new job, which was in many ways similar to Weston-Smith's old job. He picked Neumann because she, in his view, fit better into the upgraded job, now a part of senior management. Melin thought the difference between the old job and the new one was that the old was a management role; the new, a senior management, or leadership, role requiring leadership and support from the rest of the organization and a vision for a bigger picture. He had two primary reasons for selecting Neumann. First, he had observed Neumann's leadership skills when she served as chair of the Hospital's successful, recent capital campaign. During that process — which involved asking employees to contribute to the Hospital's fundraising for a new building even as it laid other employees off — Melin had seen Neumann build loyalty and morale, and win employee support. Second, he had faced Neumann at the bargaining table. She had been chair of the nurses' collective bargaining unit for a number of years; Melin had seen that she was skilled with budgets and that she could lead. She won his respect.