BUSI 570 Week 7 Group Presentation Example

Rest, Dignity and Stewardship: A Corporate Values Plan for Brightwell Home Health

Part 1: Values Paper

Introduction

Brightwell Home Health is a composite agency that sends 400 caregivers, nurses' aides, therapists and home health aides, into the homes of elderly and disabled clients across three counties. Like much of the home care industry, it struggles with burnout and turnover: caregivers work alone, often on irregular schedules, for modest pay, and many leave within a year. Our group's case studies examined three organizations known for living out biblical values: Chick-fil-A's practice of closing on Sunday, ServiceMaster's commitment to the dignity of people who do service work, and Patagonia's stewardship of creation. This paper integrates those three values into a values plan for Brightwell. Hess and Cameron (2006) argue that values produce extraordinary performance only when leaders embed them in daily practices, and our plan follows that principle by giving each value specific practices and measures.

Value One: Rest

Every Chick-fil-A restaurant stays dark on Sunday, a rule Truett Cathy set in 1946 so that his workers, and he, would have a day for rest and, if they wished, worship (Callahan, 2023). The practice reflects the Sabbath command, which in Deuteronomy explicitly extends rest to servants and workers (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Deuteronomy 5:12-15). Research supports its wisdom: Sonnentag and Fritz (2015) found that people who cannot mentally detach from work during time off experience more strain and burnout, especially under heavy workloads.

For Brightwell, rest cannot mean closing on Sunday, since clients need care every day. It can mean guaranteeing every caregiver a protected day each week that no scheduler may override, publishing schedules two weeks in advance and ending the practice of calling caregivers on their days off to cover gaps.

Value Two: The Dignity of Work

ServiceMaster, the cleaning and facilities company, built its corporate objectives around honoring God in all it did, helping people develop, pursuing excellence and growing profitably, and its longtime leader C. William Pollard argued that the people who clean floors deserve to be developed and respected as people made in God's image (Pollard, 1996). The value rests on Genesis 1:27, which grounds every person's worth in being created in God's image, and on Colossians 3:23, which describes all work as done for the Lord.

Research shows why dignity matters for motivation. Grant (2007) argued that jobs designed so that workers can see their impact on the people they serve spark a motivation to make a difference, which sustains effort and persistence. Home caregivers do some of the most consequential work in health care, but they rarely hear what their care means to clients and families. Brightwell can change that by sharing client and family thanks with caregivers every month, creating a career ladder from aide to certified roles with paid training, and inviting caregivers into care-planning meetings rather than simply handing them task lists.

Value Three: Stewardship

Patagonia has treated the earth as something entrusted to it, committing a share of sales to environmental causes and, in 2022, transferring its ownership to a trust and a nonprofit so that profits not reinvested in the business go to protecting nature (Chouinard, 2005; Gelles, 2022). The value reflects Genesis 2:15, in which God places the man in the garden to work it and keep it. Stewardship in the biblical sense extends beyond the environment to everything entrusted to a person or organization, including people, money and time.

For Brightwell, stewardship means caring well for what has been entrusted to it: clients' homes and safety, caregivers' time and health, and the public funds that pay for much of its care. Practical steps include route planning that reduces caregivers' driving time and mileage, which saves fuel and returns time to caregivers, and transparent reporting to clients and payers on how care hours are used.

What Our Case Studies Had in Common

When our group compared the three case studies, we noticed that each company's value had three features in common. First, the value cost something: Chick-fil-A gives up a day of sales, ServiceMaster invested in training workers that competitors treated as interchangeable, and Patagonia gave away the ownership of a profitable company. Second, the value was built into a structure rather than left to individual managers: a closing rule, a set of corporate objectives that governed decisions, and an ownership trust. Third, each value protected people or things that could not easily protect themselves: hourly workers' time, the self-respect of people in low-status jobs and the natural world. These features guided our choice of an organization. Home health care is an industry where caregivers' time is routinely consumed, their work is undervalued and public resources are stretched, so all three values speak to its real problems. They also guided our plan, which attempts to make each value costly enough to be credible, structural enough to last and protective of the people with the least power in the organization.

How the Values Work Together

Rest protects the people who give care, dignity reminds them why the care matters, and stewardship ensures that the organization uses well everything entrusted to it. The three values reinforce one another. Caregivers who are rested can give the attentive care that makes their work meaningful; caregivers who see the meaning of their work are less likely to leave; and an organization that treats caregivers' time as something entrusted to it will protect their rest. Cameron et al. (2004) found that organizational virtuousness was associated with both performance and resilience, partly because virtuous practices create positive spirals that spread through an organization. Our plan is designed to start such a spiral in an industry where the usual cycle runs the other way, from burnout to turnover to understaffing to more burnout.

Implementation and Measures

Brightwell would phase the plan in across a year. During the opening quarter, Brightwell would adopt the protected day and two-week schedule posting and begin sharing client thanks. In the second quarter, it would launch the career ladder with its first cohort of aides in paid training. In the third and fourth quarters, it would roll out route planning and the stewardship report. Each value has a measure: for rest, the share of caregivers who report being contacted on a day off; for dignity, participation in training and promotion rates from within; for stewardship, average drive time per visit. The overarching measure is twelve-month caregiver turnover, which the agency would report to its board and staff every quarter.

Conclusion

Our case studies showed three organizations that live out biblical values in ways that cost them something and shape how their people work. Integrated in one home health agency, those values address the industry's central problem: caregivers who burn out and leave. Rae and Wong (2012) remind business leaders that faith should shape the structures of a business, not only the private convictions of its leaders. Brightwell's plan attempts exactly that.

Part 2: Narrated PowerPoint

Slide 1: Caring for the Caregivers

• Brightwell Home Health: 400 caregivers, three counties
• Problem: burnout and high turnover
• Our values plan, drawn from three case studies

Narration: Brightwell's caregivers carry the agency's mission into clients' homes every day, but too many leave within a year. Our plan uses values from three companies we studied to change that.

Slide 2: Three Companies, Three Values

• Chick-fil-A: rest
• ServiceMaster: dignity of work
• Patagonia: stewardship

Narration: Each of us studied an organization that lives out a biblical value at real cost. Together, those values fit the needs of a caregiving organization.

Slide 3: Rest

• Sabbath extended rest to workers (Deuteronomy 5:12-15)
• Chick-fil-A closed on Sundays since 1946
• Detachment from work reduces burnout

Narration: Rest is the foundation. Scripture protected workers' rest, and research shows that people who can truly disconnect from work are less exhausted.

Slide 4: Rest at Brightwell

• One protected day per week, no exceptions
• Schedules posted two weeks ahead
• No calls on days off

Narration: Home care runs every day, so our version of the Sabbath is a protected day for each caregiver that no scheduler can override.

Slide 5: Dignity of Work

• Every person bears God's image (Genesis 1:27)
• ServiceMaster developed the people who serve
• Seeing one's impact sustains motivation

Narration: Caregivers do vital work but rarely see its effect. ServiceMaster showed that honoring service workers changes how they work.

Slide 6: Dignity at Brightwell

• Monthly sharing of client and family thanks
• Career ladder with paid training
• Caregivers in care-planning meetings

Narration: These three practices tell caregivers that their work matters and that they have a future with us.

Slide 7: Stewardship

• Work it and keep it (Genesis 2:15)
• Patagonia's commitment to the earth
• Everything entrusted to us: people, time, money

Narration: Stewardship means caring for everything placed in our hands, including our caregivers' time and the public funds that pay for care.

Slide 8: Stewardship at Brightwell

• Route planning to cut drive time
• Transparent reporting to clients and payers
• Time returned to caregivers

Narration: Shorter routes save fuel and give caregivers back hours of their week, which connects stewardship back to rest.

Slide 9: How We Will Measure Progress

• Rest: contacts on days off
• Dignity: training participation and internal promotion
• Stewardship: drive time per visit
• Overall: 12-month turnover

Narration: Values become real when they are measured. We will report these numbers to the board and to staff every quarter.

Slide 10: The Twelve-Month Plan

• Quarter 1: protected day, schedules, thanks
• Quarter 2: career ladder launch
• Quarters 3 and 4: routes and stewardship report

Narration: The plan starts with the changes caregivers will feel immediately and builds from there. Our hope is to start a positive cycle in which rested, respected caregivers stay and serve clients well.

References

Callahan, C. (2023, August 18). Why is Chick-fil-A closed on Sundays? TODAY. https://www.today.com/today/amp/rcna99908

Cameron, K. S., Bright, D., & Caza, A. (2004). Exploring the relationships between organizational virtuousness and performance. American Behavioral Scientist, 47(6), 766-790. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764203260209

Chouinard, Y. (2005). Let my people go surfing: The education of a reluctant businessman. Penguin Press.

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Gelles, D. (2022, September 14). Billionaire no more: Patagonia founder gives away the company. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/climate/patagonia-climate-philanthropy-chouinard.html

Grant, A. M. (2007). Relational job design and the motivation to make a prosocial difference. Academy of Management Review, 32(2), 393-417. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2007.24351328

Hess, E. D., & Cameron, K. S. (Eds.). (2006). Leading with values: Positivity, virtue, and high performance. Cambridge University Press.

Pollard, C. W. (1996). The soul of the firm. Zondervan.

Rae, S. B., & Wong, K. L. (2012). Beyond integrity: A Judeo-Christian approach to business ethics (3rd ed.). Zondervan.

Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. (2015). Recovery from job stress: The stressor-detachment model as an integrative framework. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36(S1), S72-S103. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1924