NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment.
Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment Clearly, diagnosis is a critical aspect of healthcare.NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment. However, the ultimate purpose of a diagnosis is the development and application of a series of treatments or protocols. Isolated recognition of a health issue does little to resolve it. In this module’s Discussion, you applied the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory to diagnose potential problems with the civility of your organization. In this Portfolio Assignment, you will continue to analyze the results and apply published research to the development of a proposed treatment for any issues uncovered by the assessment. To Prepare: Review the Resources and examine the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory, found on page 20 of Clark (2015). Review the Work Environment Assessment Template.
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Reflect on the output of your Discussion post regarding your evaluation of workplace civility and the feedback received from colleagues. Select and review one or more of the following articles found in the Resources: Clark, Olender, Cardoni, and Kenski (2011) Clark (2018) Clark (2015) Griffin and Clark (2014) The Assignment (3-6 pages total): Part 1: Work Environment Assessment (1-2 pages) Review the Work Environment Assessment Template you completed for this Module’s Discussion. Describe the results of the Work Environment Assessment you completed on your workplace. Identify two things that surprised you about the results and one idea you believed prior to conducting the Assessment that was confirmed. Explain what the results of the Assessment suggest about the health and civility of your workplace. Part 2: Reviewing the Literature (1-2 pages) Briefly describe the theory or concept presented in the article(s) you selected. Explain how the theory or concept presented in the article(s) relates to the results of your Work Environment Assessment. Explain how your organization could apply the theory highlighted in your selected article(s) to improve organizational health and/or create stronger work teams. NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment.Be specific and provide examples. Part 3: Evidence-Based Strategies to Create High-Performance Interprofessional Teams (1–2 pages) Recommend at least two strategies, supported in the literature, that can be implemented to address any shortcomings revealed in your Work Environment Assessment. Recommend at least two strategies that can be implemented to bolster successful practices revealed in your Work Environment Assessment.
The Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory is a critical tool in assessing the health of a workplace (Clark, 2015). Prior to utilizing this tool, I had assumed that my workplace is one healthy environment until I looked at it through the lens of the inventory. I also learned in the course of my career that the tool enjoys the support of healthcare staff, increases the morale of employees and impacts on low employee turnover (Clark et al, 2016). I was reminded even as I filled out the information in the inventory, of the different times I had witnessed conflict but seemed to brush it off. Although the incidences were not common and were far between, they still made for a case to have the situation change. One of the inventory sections calls for reflection on communication levels within the organization as being respectful, direct, or transparent. At this point, I recalled an incident where three nurses were involved in an exchange of words following miscommunication during shift handover. Although the situation was finally resolved, it brought to question how well staff communicates during handover as well as in other aspects of patient care. I had to put a score of 3 in this parameter.NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment.
The other queries in the inventory got between a 3 and 5 in scores. The total final score was 86 which was in my opinion, reflective of my workplace. I know the workplace can do much better than it is currently. The main issue is the lack of clear communication channels. The dominant management style is that of top-down where those in authority are charged with giving information and instructions to the subordinates to follow. As pointed out by Heyden et al., (2017) and witnessed in my workplace, often because of fear of repercussions, the lower rank staff does not voice their opinions and instead choose to murmur in the background. The organization is not conducive for feedback to be enhanced. This is a major setback as I believe that all persons in a team have ideas, suggestions, and views that they can share and which can improve work efficiency.
Although team buildings are organized once a year, I feel that more could be done. One incident that took place in the workplace made me come to this conclusion. The general attitude in the workplace was where older nurses tended to use disrespectful language to the newer staff. The former often used degrading language and openly scolded the latter for genuine mistakes they made. This kind of incivility had become an almost accepted culture in my workplace.NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment. The newer staff was supposed to ‘man up’ and soldier on through the ‘boot camp’ first year of work. However, this was not only wrong but it was also a major cause of low morale and demotivation of the newer staff. It was during one such event when an older nurse called a newer staff ‘a moron’ for failing to insert an IV correctly in a patient. The patient happened to have heard the degrading remark and demanded to talk to the hospital management. Needless to say, a staff meeting was called the very next day and the management was displeased by the fact that an experienced nurse would lack the decency to restrain her tongue in the presence of a patient and worse still, degrade a qualified RN. At this point, the management demanded that nurses write down the challenges they face and these were discussed openly. Because there was anonymity when writing down the issues, nurses were able to be candid about their problems. It was resolved in the meeting that any form of incivility would be met with immediate suspension pending investigation of the offending person. In the long run, the stern action that was pronounced seemed to be effective because no more incidences of incivility were reported, The meeting was later followed by a two-week training session for all staff on workplace ethics and which highlighted the negative effects of incivility on team morale as well as on patient outcomes.
In conclusion, it is unfortunate when team members purposefully make it hard for others to work and even worse when patients have to witness discord between team members. The Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory should be utilized in healthcare facilities to ensure that the working environment is conducive to work and that patients receive the best of care from a motivated team.NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment.
Describe the results of the Work Environment Assessment you completed on your workplace.
Although the members of the organization I work have a shared vision, they do not always live by it. The aspect of respect was lacking while collegiality and trust were not as strong as they should be. The leadership is respectful, direct and transparent in communicating with staff; the issue was communication between the elderly and millennial nurses. The organization values its staff and perceives them as assets. There is equitable publicizing and celebration of collective achievements as well as individual achievements.NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment. The level of employee morale, engagement, and satisfaction is not as high as it should be. Further, although the organizational culture is assessed, it was not initially done on an ongoing basis and the measures were not taken to make improvements on the assessment results. The members of the organization actively engage in policy development as well as the revision and review of the same; joint decision making, and shared governance. There was no evidence of teamwork though it is emphasized a lot. The employee mentoring program was virtually non-existent. An emphasis is put on employee self-care and wellness. The organization provides sufficient resources for professional development and growth. The management treats employees with respect and fairness. The workload is also fairly distributed, is manageable but sometimes it is unreasonable. Conflict and disagreements were not resolved respectfully not until the action taken following the incident that I described in the earlier paper.NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment. The organization did encourage the free expression of positions and diverse ideas; employees were not initially given a voice. The rewards, benefits, and salaries are competitive. There are also fairly sufficient opportunities for career advancement and promotions. The organization attempts to attract the best staff and retain the same. However, most of the nursing staff would not recommend the organization as a great place to work to friends and family because of the incivility that persisted prior to the resolution taken by the managers.
Identify two things that surprised you about the results and one idea you believed prior to conducting the Assessment that was confirmed.
The first thing I realized is that although the management treats staff fairly and respectfully, it is the nursing staff that shows no respect for each other. The second is that although the culture of the organization is assessed on an infrequent basis that still was not sufficient to improve it based on the assessment results. I thought that the management cared for the wellbeing of the staff but in reality, as observed from the results, the one aspect the management seemed to be nonchalant about was the psychological safety of the environment (Edmondson, 2018). So while all others were looked into such as career development issues, the psychological safety was not considered and that is how incivility was able to take root in the organization. NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment.
Explain what the results of the Assessment suggest about the health and civility of your workplace.
The test score was 86. This suggests that the organization I work in is moderately healthy. The management works at providing the necessary tools and resources to ensure that patient service delivery is not compromised. Thus, organizational decisions are more on a corporate level rather than an individual staff level. This creates a situation where the management is detached from the psychological and emotional needs of staff facing incivility in the workplace. This detachment harms patient care as was witnessed in the incident described in the previous paper (where a patient witnessed two nurses verbally abuse each other).NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment.
Briefly describe the theory or concept presented in the article(s) you selected.
Explain how the theory or concept presented in the article(s) relates to the results of your Work Environment Assessment.
I analyzed the article by Mao et al., (2019) on incivility in the workplace and the impact it has on employee performance, their citizenship as well as their counterproductive behaviors. The authors used the transactional model of stress in examining how in work incivility, employee behavior responses are moderated within the social context. The authors observed a three-way cross-level interaction. These were between incivility experienced by an individual, differentiation of group incivility, and group silence that predicted supervisor-rated counterproductive behaviors, citizenship, and performance of employees.NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment.NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment. The results of the study indicated that when an employee faced individual incivility it likely resulted in lower citizenship behavior and performance. When a group faced incivility, it resulted in high counter-productivity and group members chose to keep quiet when incivility experiences were high in intensity. This implies that a work group’s contextual characteristics impact the way appraisal and response from employees unfolds toward workplace incivility.NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment.NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment.
Concerning my workplace, the transactional model of stress would most likely produce similar results as it did in this study. When individual staff faces incivility, they tend to be less productive and even less likely to exhibit any citizenship behavior. The Millennials as a group also chose to keep quiet when they were harassed by the elderly staff which led to counter-productivity in the workplace.
Explain how your organization could apply the theory highlighted in your selected article(s) to improve organizational health and/or create stronger work teams. Be specific and provide examples
This model can be used in my workplace to identify the exact external stressors and from that, find solutions to the same. For example, by determining what makes the elderly perceive the Millennials as incompetent or why the Millennials believe that the elderly are inefficient in insisting on using outdated methods of patient care, the model cancer in on the target problem areas. Once these areas are positively identified, the next step is to come up with a solution, in this case, setting up a training session for the elderly nurses on keeping up-to-date with the latest patient care methods (such as use of mobile tablet devices). NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment.Another solution as proposed by Sharma & Sharma (2016) would be to start a mentoring program in the healthcare facility; a buddy system where each Millennial nurse would be paired with an elderly nurse. Each partner would be required to teach the other in their areas of weakness. This way, each partner will gain skills and knowledge in their perceived areas of weakness. Additionally, a mentorship program will help in fostering teamwork at the buddy level and consequently at the entire staff level.NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment.
Recommend at least two strategies, supported in the literature that can be implemented to address any shortcomings revealed in your Work Environment Assessment.
One of the strategies that can be implemented and was shown to be successful following the incident I mentioned in the other paper was team building. Although the management has had an annual outdoor, 2-day event, team building sessions held, this proved to be ineffective. That said, Lacaster et al., (2015) in their study provide a basis for having team building activities done more frequently and in-doors, as this will be an effective way of fostering teamwork. For example, management can arrange at the departmental unit level, to have monthly in-door team building activities and offer rewards to the best performing teams. When groups are encouraged to work together to create solutions and get rewarded for it, it will increase participation, enhance individual problem-solving skills, and create healthy relationships between team members.NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment.
The second strategy would be to offer frequent training sessions for staff based on individual needs (Warner et al., 2016). HR will need to create a needs-based sheet where individual staff will be required to fill in the areas they deem to be a challenge in performing their duties. Once an individual fills in their areas of weakness, HR should come up with online and/or face-to-face training sessions that will meet the needs of the staff. This will encourage a culture of self-improvement and will go a long way in helping both Millennials and the elderly staff to work in cohesion.NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment.
Recommend at least two strategies that can be implemented to bolster successful practices revealed in your Work Environment Assessment.
One of the successful practices in my workplace is the open communication between staff and the management. The problem with communication was between staff members. In case of any future incivility, staff should be encouraged to speak-out without fear of repercussions. The management should consider establishing an anonymous reporting channel where a harassed nurse can safely report and the offending nurse will be summoned upon completion of proper investigation of the allegation (Abdollahzadeh et al., 2017).NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment.
Another strength is that the management of the organization actively engages in policy development as well as the revision and review of the same. Blake (2016) proposes that this can be improved to include staff input on policymaking. When the management wants to make or revise policies, it should involve the staff that will be affected by the said policies. Getting feedback from the staff will help in creating or revising relevant policies that the staff can relate and adhere to; this will reduce any incidences of insubordination, non-compliance, rule-breaking and incivility. NURS 6053 Week 9 Assignment. Topic: Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment.