The posting
VCA CAVES has served the community for more than a decade as an Emergency Hospital – we provide 24 hour care 365 days a year.
We have a number of specialty services on staff providing services such as specialized surgical procedures, and ophthalmology. We offer 24-hour emergency and critical care services.
Assistant Hospital Manager — Responsibilities & Expectations
Hospital Operations
- Oversee day-to-day hospital and floor operations, ensuring appropriate workflow, staffing, communication, and patient/client service.
- Maintain a visible leadership presence on the hospital floor and proactively identify operational issues before they escalate.
- Help troubleshoot staffing, workflow, client service, and operational challenges in real time.
- Partner with clinical and administrative leadership to ensure departments work effectively together.
- Adjust priorities throughout the day based on caseload, staffing, patient needs, and hospital demands.
- Participate in the manager on-call rotation and respond appropriately to after-hours operational concerns.
- Ensure leadership decisions and operational changes are communicated, implemented, and followed through to completion.
People Leadership & HR
- Support onboarding and orientation of new associates, ensuring training, access, documentation, and introductions are completed.
- Manage associate performance and reinforce hospital expectations, policies, and standards.
- Lead crucial conversations, including performance concerns, behavioral issues, interpersonal conflict, attendance, accountability, and other challenging situations.
- Demonstrate the confidence and emotional intelligence necessary to address concerns directly rather than avoiding difficult conversations.
- Hold associates accountable while maintaining empathy, fairness, consistency, and professionalism.
- Document performance and employee-relations concerns appropriately and partner with AR when necessary.
- Support associate engagement, retention, development, and recognition.
- Assist with conflict resolution and facilitate productive conversations between associates.
- Help develop leads and supervisors and reinforce leadership expectations throughout the hospital.
Financial & Business Management
- Develop a strong understanding of the hospital's financial performance and key business drivers.
- With the guidance of the Hospital Director understand and regularly review hospital financial metrics, including revenue, payroll/labor, overtime, productivity, discounts, accounts, expenses, and other relevant KPIs.
- Recognize how staffing, scheduling, purchasing, workflow, pricing, and operational decisions affect hospital profitability and financial performance.
- Assist with payroll, timecard review, corrections, PTO, attendance tracking, and other payroll-related responsibilities.
- Support the team with client and patient accounts, including discrepancies, outstanding balances, discounts, refunds, and escalated financial concerns.
- Monitor adherence to hospital billing and charging expectations.
- Assist with identifying opportunities to improve efficiency, control expenses, and support responsible hospital growth.
Organization & Administrative Management
- Maintain a high level of organization and attention to detail while managing multiple competing priorities.
- Help develop and maintain systems for tracking projects, deadlines, associate concerns, follow-ups, onboarding, and operational initiatives.
- Prioritize responsibilities appropriately and distinguish between urgent issues and tasks that can be planned or delegated.
- Maintain accurate documentation and ensure administrative responsibilities are completed by established deadlines.
- Demonstrate strong follow-through; when ownership of a task is accepted, ensure it is completed or appropriately communicated and reassigned.
- Keep hospital leadership informed of outstanding items, barriers, and significant operational concerns.
- Assist with scheduling and staffing management based on hospital needs.
Client & Team Communication
- Serve as a leadership point of contact for escalated client concerns and complaints.
- Communicate clearly, calmly, professionally, and confidently with clients, associates, doctors, and leadership.
- Demonstrate empathy while maintaining appropriate boundaries and hospital policies.
- Ensure important information is communicated across shifts, departments, and leadership teams.
- Follow up with associates and clients when commitments are made.
- Adapt communication style based on the audience and situation while remaining consistent and transparent.
Leadership Expectations
- Must be a proactive self-starter who recognizes what needs to be done without waiting for continual direction.
- Demonstrates strong ownership, responsibility, reliability, organization, and follow-through.
- Brings potential solutions to hospital leadership.
- Comfortable making independent decisions within the scope of the role and recognizing when escalation is necessary.
- Able to prioritize and remain organized while managing multiple competing responsibilities in a fast-paced environment.
- Maintains confidentiality and sound judgment when handling sensitive employee, client, financial, and hospital information.
- Demonstrates emotional intelligence, empathy, composure, and professionalism, particularly during conflict or high-stress situations.
- Models the standards, behaviors, and accountability expected of the hospital team.
- Must have previous leadership or management experience.
- Veterinary or clinical experience is a plus but not required; willingness and ability to learn veterinary hospital operations is essential.
Schedule & Availability
- Primary schedule will consist of swing shifts Tuesday–Saturday to provide leadership coverage across different teams and shifts, open to further discussion
- Schedule will remain flexible and will shift as the operational needs of the hospital change.
- Must be willing to work evenings, weekends, and alternative shifts when hospital needs require additional leadership coverage.
- Participation in the hospital's manager on-call rotation is required.
- Dependability and flexibility are essential expectations of the position.
If you are a current associate, you need to apply through our internal career site. Please log into Workday and click on the Jobs Hub app or search for Browse Jobs.
Benefits: We offer competitive compensation along with a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, vision and paid vacation/sick days, 401(k), generous employee pet discounts and more!
The information in this position description indicates the general nature and level of work to be performed. It is not designed to be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications required of associates assigned to this job. Management reserves the right to revise the job description or require that other tasks be performed when the circumstances of the job change (for example, emergencies, change in personnel, workload, or technical development).
We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer - Veterans / Disabled. For a complete EEO statement please see our career page at vcacareers.com.
