Organizational Culture – Pennsylvania Health Care Association

For the summer, I am an intern at Pennsylvania Health Care Association (PHCA) under the Director for Government Relations and Advocacy. Their association serves the membership of long-term care facilities, such as personal care sites and nursing homes. As these member facilities are becoming more stabilized with residents and staff receiving their vaccinations, issues within the workforce and finances continue; PHCA aids their membership across many facets. The long-term care sector has endured unique issues from the pandemic, and the PHCA office continues to advocate on behalf of its membership to ensure that long-term care facilities can stay open and operating.
The office only has eleven staff members, each specializing in their area of the industry. This creates a special structure within the office, as there is no definitive “power hierarchy”. Many of the staff speak informally and are open to sharing personal stories and experiences in the industry and, more broadly, in life. As I get to know more about the individual employees in the office, I learn that they want to talk to me to ensure I get the most out of this internship that I can. Office doors are left open, and it is common for people to “drop-in” to each other’s offices throughout the day. There are no set lunch hours, so people in the office will often take walks and go out to grab lunch with others. This dynamic made for a very welcoming and collaborative first week in the office.
While the atmosphere is often relaxed, there is an understanding that quality work needs to get done; thus, the dynamics in the office are fluid and shift depending on the issue at hand. This is best reflected in the all-staff meetings, as there are different leaders of projects depending on the subject matter. These meetings are first thing in the morning, three times a week, to share updates on an individual’s work throughout the week. The structure of the meeting allows for each employee to showcase what they have been working on and ask for input and feedback from the other staff members who may otherwise not directly be affiliated with it. These meetings are a great opportunity for collaboration in a low-stakes environment, as well as the promotion of a well-rounded understanding of the long-term care sector within the office. As the industry has been changed dramatically with the pandemic, it is imperative that each employee can highlight significant events in other departments to influence how they make meaningful decisions in their work.