Marketing VP wants contacts at employees' church

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Specializes in Med Surg, Hospice, Home Health.

Marketing VP asked us monday morning to provide him with contact names and numbers for our personal home church to market hospice to our "60 and over" clubs at our home church. I spoke up and stated that my church is my church and i don't believe it is appropriate to ask us for this information. he states "these people need to know about our services....." I just think it's plain wrong--like taking "notes" when people are asking for prayer for healing. I don't have any control over whether this marketer will go to my home church and try to market to the congregation, but he is not doing it in my name....

I think it is wrong to ask employees to provide marketing with contacts.

linda

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Specializes in PICU, NICU, L&D, Public Health, Hospice.

Clearly you are not compelled to provide this information.

Personally, I would not have a problem with my agency providing information to my congregation. Too many people are ignorant of hospice philosophy and care and die without our support. Given that hospice embraces the huge role of spirituality at the end of life and how it impacts quality of life, it seems natural that a presentation might fit well in a christian community.

If there are terminally ill people in my church who would benefit from hospice, I would prefer that they use my hospice...I know we are good and they can have a "sister" providing care and support. The vast majority of my patients live more than 30 miles from my home. I prefer to care for people in my own community when possible...

Odd that you would mention taking notes during prayer requests...many in my church do just that. They keep a "prayer journal" of sorts for daily prayer needs, I sort of admire that dedication.

Peace out...

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Specializes in CTICU.

It's none of your work's business where, or if, you go to church.

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It's none of your work's business where, or if, you go to church.

I agree. I also do not feel it is appropriate for this person to ask you to do part of his job for him. I have marketed for an employer before by handing out business cards but I did it because I wanted to. Nobody forced me to do it.

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Specializes in L&D, Hospice.

the VP can market to all churches in the area, why should you give any information? and i agree, many people are not or ill informed about hospice and marketing would be good, but not that way, i would not have given info either! good for you for speaking up!

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Specializes in Gerontology, nursing education.

I would bring this to the attention of your pastor---and your parish nurse, if you have one. While the marketing VP could certainly send materials to ALL the churches in the area, this request seems to me that he wants to use the employees as personal contacts, as ways of saying, "Use our services because Nurse Linda is part of your congregation."

Nothing at all wrong for the VP to make a general presentation to all the churches---as long as he goes through the appropriate channels. By going directly to the "Over 60" clubs, he is attempting to bypass the pastor. Is he afraid the pastor would say no? Frankly, if someone tried to do that to any of the pastors I know, the pastors would get sufficiently upset that they might deny ANY further contact between their congregations and the organization, no matter how helpful the services or products offered by that organization might be.

It's also irritating because doesn't the VP realize that folks who aren't "over 60" might also want to learn about hospice?

My husband is a pastor and I am a parish nurse. My husband agrees that this is a boundary issue and it is unacceptable (maybe even illegal) for the VP to ask you, as an employee, for information about your church. It is an invasion of your privacy and the privacy of the other members of your congregation. (Yes, my husband would be livid if someone tried a stunt like this, as would I. I also think our parishioners would be pretty upset as well.)

The VP can look up the pastors in the telephone book and make contact with them or with the parish nurses. The ministerial staff will take it from there.

Definitely talk with your pastor about this and give him/her a head's up about what this VP is doing. If the VP threatens you with a "write up", talk to someone else in authority. This is a marketing scheme that will backfire and potentially COST your agency a LOT of business.

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Specializes in Gerontology, nursing education.
Clearly you are not compelled to provide this information.

Personally, I would not have a problem with my agency providing information to my congregation. Too many people are ignorant of hospice philosophy and care and die without our support. Given that hospice embraces the huge role of spirituality at the end of life and how it impacts quality of life, it seems natural that a presentation might fit well in a christian community.

If there are terminally ill people in my church who would benefit from hospice, I would prefer that they use my hospice...I know we are good and they can have a "sister" providing care and support. The vast majority of my patients live more than 30 miles from my home. I prefer to care for people in my own community when possible...

Odd that you would mention taking notes during prayer requests...many in my church do just that. They keep a "prayer journal" of sorts for daily prayer needs, I sort of admire that dedication.

Peace out...

I agree with tewdles that many people could benefit from information about hospice, but again, any request for marketing needs to go through the pastor before it goes to the congregation. I still think this VP is thinking he will gain some strategic advantage by exploiting those employees who belong to certain faith communities, but in all fairness, any faith community needs to not show favoritism to ANY business interest because of the laws governing tax-exempt status for houses of worship.

Again, go to the pastor but do not be surprised if, instead of allowing only your agency to make a presentation, he/she suggests a panel of agencies to present their services as well.

As a parish nurse I once had to tell a parishioner that we could not market her health club to our congregants due to a possible violation of laws addressing tax-exempt status for churches. She was not happy but I told her that we either had to allow EVERY health club to market to our church or we could not allow anyone.

Interestingly enough, my husband and I are jointly presenting a Lenten series in our church regarding end of life issues and we have been discussing hospice. Most people in our area use one large hospice but I had to make sure to point out that there is another, smaller hospice service in the area, just to ensure fairness.

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Specializes in Med Surg, Hospice, Home Health.

I don't mind the idea of providing information to the whole congregation, what irritated me was wanting to market in my name to the 60 and over club. I take notes during prayer requests, to PRAY for these people, not to be used later to contact them outside of the church setting to market hospice. When people ask for prayer, it's for healing, not choosing a hospice for end of life care. It was brought up again on monday. Our new marketer said if we would provide the information of the contact of the 60 and over club that she would make a "cold call" and not use our names. I told her to contact the office of the senior pastor and go from there. I believe it is important to get the information of hospice and the benefits to local churches---i just don't want the marketing team to hard press the people at my home church in my name.

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Specializes in LTC, Home Health, Hospice.

AtlantaRN,

I agree with you there.

I was in that situation once, and told them that although I work for the company and want it to succeed, I don't want my name mixed in with it. Should something go arwy I would be the goto person when a situation would arise. The Pastor of my Church has asked me the name of the place I work for, I give it to him, but never ever ask for the name of the person. Also, if they want to get the info, they can use the good old yellow pages.

I am not paid to do their work and I KNOW they would never do mine: :)

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Specializes in Hospice, Case Mgt., RN Consultant, ICU.

I feel the marketing person is out of line asking hospice nurses for contacts within their church. It is not his business what church nurses attend. I am aware that management can put a lot of pressure on their marketing people to produce. The result can be patients being admitted that are not eligible and promises being made to families that can not be fulfilled. This gets to be a really uncomfortable situation for the hospice case manager and social worker because they are the ones having to deal with the situation. We had a marketing person getting all kinds of credit for her productivity, but we nurses had to deal with the by products. The plan to contact people 60 and older feels totally wrong!

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Specializes in ER/ MEDICAL ICU / CCU/OB-GYN /CORRECTION.

I realize I am responding to an old post - but I would tell him I am an athiest.

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COnflict of interests comes to mind. I'd speak to the supervisor so they can set your wayward liaison straight. It's a bit no no in my book

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