Walden NURS 6053 Week 7 Workplace Environment Assessment

Walden Nurs6053 All Week Assignments

Part 1: Work Environment Assessment

The workplace assessment that was conducted in the discussion revealed the existence of several workplace incivilities at the author’s former organization. The organization scored 49 points from the Clark Healthy Workplace Assessment Tool (Clark, Sattler, & Barbosa-Leiker, 2016). The assessment revealed that the organization suffered from issues such as poor conflict management, poor vertical and horizontal communication, absence of collaboration and teamwork, and absence of shared governance, decision-making, policy formulation, review and revision. The above mentioned areas demonstrated a worse performance by the organization as relates to the existing workplace culture. As regards the lack of shared governance, decision-making, and disenfranchised policy formulation, the author experienced what they call lack of care from the administrative section of the organization. The executives seemed not to bother about the operations of the facility as they appeared to operate remotely as demonstrated by their appearance only once during the year that the author worked at the facility. Moreover, the issue of holding meetings without the presence of staff was another incivility that characterized the organization. The absence of contribution to the decisions made at these meetings by the personnel makes it difficult for the implementation to occur. The reason for this is that the employees will always feel that they do not own the decision since they were not involved in the preceding process (Collini, Guidroz, & Perez, 2015). The lack of ownership by the employees will ensure that they implement the decisions made at the executive level in a half-hearted manner, which will impact the quality of services offered by the organization. Moreover, such instances lead to the creation of apathy at the workplace, which negatively influences the workplace culture.

The results of the Clark Healthy Workplace Assessment Tool revealed surprising facts about the organization. The issue of employee participation on decision-making was very surprising to me as well as the absence of celebration regarding the achievements made by employees. Initially, the author thought that the above phenomena were commonplace occurrences at various organizations and as such, they should not make it to the list. However, the revelation that the above issues not only impact the workplace culture but also civility as stated by the assessment tool was surprising (Lee, Idris, & Delfabbro, 2017). The author thought that decision-making undertakings were supposed to be left to the management and the employees only needed to have a representation. However, the analysis highlighted the need to have employees at the meetings so as to ensure that they own the decisions. Further, celebrating the achievements of individuals did not appear as an issue to the author since they would be doing their responsibilities. So, the author thought that its absence at the facility would not be considered as an issue before the assessment.

The workplace assessment presented in the discussion indict the health and civility of the workplace. The consequences of the above revelations from the assessment tool negatively affect the health of the organization in terms of the existing workplace culture. The absence of appreciations and involvement in decision-making has made the employees to demonstrate apathy (Schilpzand, De Pater, & Erez, 2016). The presence of these low-intensity deviant behavior is manifested in the absence of respect between and among employees as shown by banging of doors, the toxic and uncivilized nature of employee behavior is also demonstrative of the two concepts.

I work in a large county jail which houses over 3,000 inmates. In my role I am the nursing supervisor for mental health services which are provided by a contract company. Because of this unique setting, I am a part of an organization within a larger organization. In this discussion post I will discuss the Clark Health Workplace Inventory (CHWI) results of my contract organization which operates within the larger organization of the county Sheriff’s department.

In completing the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory (CHWI), I identified that my organizational culture is not “…assessed on an ongoing basis, and measures are

taken to improve it based on results of that assessment” (Clark, 2015). Other areas of incivility I noted in my organization included the lack of a comprehensive mentoring program, the inability to retain the best and brightest employees, and that my organization does not possess a high level of employee engagement, job satisfaction, and morale (Clark, 2015).

In only three of the areas on the CHWI did I rank my workplace in the completely true (5) column (Clark, 2015). These areas are that the employees are viewed as assets and valued partners within the organization, the organization provides competitive salaries, compensation, benefits and other rewards, and there are sufficient opportunities for advancement (Clark, 2015). In fact, this inventory helped me to recognize that my organization values tangible results for their customers, and because of this, they place significant emphasis on the success of the employees.  My organization incentivizes staff to perform through compensation rather than a pleasing culture of values emphasis, shared vision, or collegiality. This is not to say that my organization is not a good place to work, but it certainly is not the most civil environment I have encountered in my career. In addition, the jail setting is paramilitary by nature. Authoritative and assertive communication is the norm.

One example of incivility that I encountered in my workplace occurred via an email exchange with the attending psychiatrist, an individual who is the direct supervisor for all mental health medication providers in the jail. I had written an email to him inquiring about the system for assigning psychiatrists to evaluate patients. I also asked how long it typically takes to complete initial psychiatric evaluations and initial medication orders, and if we could discuss options to improve this system. I attached a report I generated from our electronic medical record system which showed the extensive backlog of psychiatrist appointments. This report was 196 pages long, with some appointments waiting more that 72 days since the appointment was scheduled.

I do not wish to give details about the psychiatrist’s response to my direct, but professional and civil inquiry. In general, this provider’s email response included aggressively worded comments suggesting that I should focus on my own responsibilities and mind my own business, in addition to other very direct and clearly angry comments. This written response was so uncivil and inappropriate that the highest-ranking administrator at my facility, an individual who is responsible for all healthcare delivery in our jail, responded immediately in my defense. He stated that the inquiry was in fact from him, and I was only the messenger. He deflected his incivility toward me, something I think an effective leader should do.

Broome & Marshall state that it is to be expected that diverse teams of people are going to have different perspectives (p. 224). However, one of the things I appreciate the most about my organization is the intensity of its focus on providing services to tangibly and measurably meet national standards of mental health care delivery in the correctional setting. These standards are published by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC) and these standards require that mental health evaluations occur within 14 days of the request for such services (National Commission on Correctional Health Care, 2018). A benefit of working within a paramilitary setting such as corrections is the support for rapid identification of problems and implementation of solutions. A drawback of working in a paramilitary setting such as corrections is the reality that incivility is sometimes tolerated, with an attitude that staff should suck it up so to speak.

One tool that has been found to increase civility in the workplace is TeamSTEPPS (Krivanek et al., 2020). TeamSTEPPS is a system of communication tools that are especially designed to improve safety in healthcare communication (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, n.d.). Use of standardized tools to frame conversations between providers with diverse perspectives can improve civility. In addition, in a paramilitary setting such as corrections, tools are an effective, concrete way to teach communications. Finally, tools such as TeamSTEPPS help to eliminate biases in communications thereby improving civility.

References

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (n.d.) TeamSTEPPS 2.0. self-paced course. Retrieved from https://www.ahrq.gov/teamstepps/instructor/onlinecourse.html

Broome, M., & Marshall, E. S. (2021). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert clinician to influential leader (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Springer.

Clark, C. M. (2015). Conversations to inspire and promote a more civil workplace. American Nurse Today, 10(11), 18-23. Retrieved from https://www.americannursetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/ant11-CE-Civility-1023.pdf

Krivanek, M. J., Dolansky, M. A., Goliat, L., & Petty, G. (2020). Implementing TeamSTEPPS to Facilitate Workplace Civility and Nurse Retention. Journal for Nurses in Professional Development, 36(5), 259–265. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1097/NND.0000000000000666

National Commission on Correctional Health Care. (2018). Standards for health services in jails (2018). Available from https://my.ncchc.org/productdetails?id=a1Bf200001E7Ur6EAF

Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment

Clearly, diagnosis is a critical aspect of healthcare. 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.
• 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. 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.

By Day 7 of Week 9

Submit your Workplace Environment Assessment Assignment.

Submission and Grading Information

To submit your completed Assignment for review and grading, do the following:

• Please save your Assignment using the naming convention “WK9Assgn+last name+first initial.(extension)” as the name.
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• If applicable: From the Plagiarism Tools area, click the checkbox for I agree to submit my paper(s) to the Global Reference Database.
• Click on the Submit button to complete your submission.

Walden NURS6053  Week 7 Workplace Environment Assessment

Walden NURS6053  Week 7 Workplace Environment Assessment

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Module 5

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