Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) – New Manager Orientation
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) – part of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services - adopted a leadership and management development strategy in support of building a high-performing organization. The strategy’s objective is to enhance the efficacy of the agency’s mission to ensure healthcare security for the organization’s numerous and varied beneficiaries.
Leadership in Context (LinC) is the primary management-training program of the CMS. It is a mandatory training program for new managers, consisting of 12 days of training over the course of four months. Because the entire program is only offered twice each year, new managers are sometimes required to be active in their roles for several months before they have the opportunity to attend the formal training.
A Needs Assessment carried out with the intent of identifying opportunities for redesign of the LinC program indicated that new managers would benefit from an immediate high-level training intervention as they start their new role. This abbreviated course would serve to bridge any gap in critical managerial skills over the period that passes until they are able to attend the full LinC program.
With this objective in mind, Tata Interactive Systems (TIS) designed and developed a Web-based Training course entitled New Manager Orientation (NMO) for new managers within CMS. The course was designed as an orientation to the managers’ new role and equips them with the “core operational information” necessary to perform their new duties. This primary information needed to be immediately effective and compliant as a stopgap for managers until they have the opportunity to attend the more formal and lengthy LinC training program. The course included scenarios with multiple decision paths.