Strategies to Develop Employee Satisfaction in Healthcare

Motivation and Discipline That Brings Employee Satisfaction in Healthcare

• Crystal Mullen

ASSIGNMENT: Read the following scenarios and answer the questions in paragraph format. The answer for each scenario should be 2 pages in length. Your final submission should be 4-5 pages in length.

Scenario 1: With the continued focus on managed care, your employees are worried that focusing on cost cutting will reduce the quality of patient care. As a health services administrator, you are worried about the continued dissatisfaction. Develop three strategies that would motivate and increase employee satisfaction.

Keeping staff motivated is a very important part of management in any industry. Furthermore, the high stress nature of managed care means implementing policies and procedures regarding work place motivation and support which then generates employee satisfaction are very important to retain qualified healthcare professionals (Cardenas, 2014). Keeping your healthcare staff engaged and motivated can be particularly if the healthcare facility is short-staffed or often includes temporary personnel or floating nurses. However, even in a work place environment that looks for any means to cut costs, there are still ways to motivate staff and can help improve performance and morale (Leviticus, 2014).

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If I were a health services administrator, one measure any I would implement is to simply take advantage of my staff’s strengths. This would help my staff feel more confident and accomplished, which could then increase my entire team’s efficiency. When team members are assigned to jobs that match their strengths, they are then able to complete their tasks in a shorter period of time. Because they are finishing their required tasks sooner, they will then providing staff with more time to complete additional assignments. For example, if I were to assign a confused or disoriented patients to a health care professional who thrives on these types of patients, I would be able to increase the patient willingness to cooperate with the health care professional and lessen the need for multiple staff members to be involved in inconsequential issues (Leviticus, 2014).

Furthermore, if I were a health services administrator looking for ways to motivate my staff, I would make it a point to ask for their feedback about health care issues on a regular basis. I would like to encourage dialog about their daily challenges with things like work schedules, patient care, hospital environment, or any other stressful managed care issues they are facing. I would create a variety of options for them to express their thoughts and ideas in a positive, proactive way, while discouraging unproductive griping, whining and complaining. I would look for their feedback on their most frequent challenges in the manage care facility that they deal with by holding meetings implementing suggestion boxes and even with monthly or quarterly surveys. I would make sure to keep my requests for staff feedback that would generate positive solutions, not just negative feelings, gossip or opinions (Cardenas, 2014).

Also, if I were a health services administrator looking for ways to motivate my staff, I would provide them with opportunities to demonstrate as well as experience leadership in their profession on a consistent basis. I would also schedule team members with leadership tendencies for tasks like leading department staff meetings, research information on current medical issues or even mentor someone using their own experiences. Finally, but not exhaustively, I would assign my health care team members to conduct small group sessions for peer-to-peer learning about such issues as nursing procedures, hospital policies, and patient care trends and responsibilities. Therefore, by creating leadership opportunities, my team can then generate their own problem-solving abilities. (Cardenas, 2014).

Finally, though certainly not exhaustively, if I were a health services administrator looking for ways to motivate my staff, I would implement policies that would reward my team for the excellence they bring to the managed care facility. I believe rewarding achievements in my staff helps them staff stay motivated and actively involved. I would acknowledge their excellence in our weekly staff meetings, congratulate them via email or post of their achievement via social media. Also, I would recommend my team members for professional or hospital awards or perhaps even offer them a new title upgrade as a way of showing my team that how much I appreciate their hard work. Finally, though certainly not exhaustively I would considered allocating them a prime parking spot for the team member in the managed care facility who exceeds expectations each on a monthly basis or give gift cards when my team exceeds a particular goal(Leviticus, 2014). Therefore, I believe if I were to implement these measure, my team would be encouraged to continue to excel at their post in the managed care facility and be satisfied in their job because they’ll know their work matters and is appreciated.

Scenario 2: Pretend that you are a new nurse manager, you have opted to select the positive discipline approach to managing employee behaviors. List the steps in the positive discipline approach and explain how you would apply it to the nurses that you supervise.

The positive discipline approach is one that presents the role of a discipline as one that tries to regulate the negative behavior of employees to make them better workers. It is an approach to discipline that uses corrective action in order to generate more productivity, improved performance and a more effective workforce.

Although harsh, negative punishment is effective for producing short term results, this approach will prove futile because negative discipline often generates employee frustration, higher absenteeism rates, low workplace productivity and high turnover. Positive discipline however, tries to correct the negative employee behavior by first counseling the employees of what is expected from them, then giving an oral warning, and followed by a written warning. Only after those steps are measures such as termination or discharge considered. Here are the step to positive discipline.

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Counseling is the first necessary step of the positive discipline process. This step would give me the opportunity to isolate the nurse’s behavior problems so that I can offer him or her possible solutions. When I’m counseling a nurse, my goal is to make employee him or her aware of the facility’s policies, procedures and rules. Often, the nurses want to be a productive member of the facility and simply need a better understand of the rules. Then during the counseling I can have a better understanding of the nurse’s point of view so that we can both agree on the best way to adhere to the facility’s rule. Therefore, I believe the counseling step can easily solve many of the problems that arise in a nurse’s behavior.

The second step in positive discipline would be an oral warning. This step can also be given during counseling however, it tends to be a bit more confrontational. This is when I would become even more of a boss than a friend and remind my nurse of the behavior that requires correction.

If however the nurse’s behavior has not been improved by counseling or oral warning, I would then implement the third step of positive discipline which is a written warning. This step requires documentation that correction was given but the behavior is unchanged. The written warning is where the nurse and I would write out a plan to correct the problem so that it would not arise going forward.

If the nurse fails to receive positive discipline through counseling, oral warning, or written warning, I would then implement the fourth step in the positive discipline approach which is a final warning. When I implement a final warning, I would hold a conference that would emphasizes to the nurse just how important it is that he or she correct his or her inappropriate actions. This is not a step I would wish to implement because I would have to insist that he or she take a non-paid day off. I would suggest to my nurse that he or she use this day to decide if his or her actions are worth correcting in order to remain with the facility. While I would not enjoy implementing this step, I can see how it can be quite effective in demonstrating to my nurse the seriousness of the problem that is created by his or her inappropriate behavior and that it can no longer be tolerating at this facility.

Finally, if the nurse will not submit to counseling, respond to an oral warning, or a written warning and seem unchanged by a final warning, then and only then would I implement the fifth and final step in positive discipline and that is to discharge the nurse from his or her duties. As difficult as it may be to discharge an employee it is necessary if I want to maintain the positive nature of the facility as a whole.

What I really appreciate about positive discipline is that it promotes problem solving rather punishment. Positive discipline integrates positive confrontation with the nurse with the problem behavior and thus provides him or her with the opportunity to be justified. I would then inform him or her of the company policies and procedures. Therefore, I believe positive discipline provides the most opportunities for long term employee satisfaction because employees will understand the correction process without feeling coerced or belittled (Industrial Relations – Naukrihub.com, 2014).

References

Cardenas, H. (2014). Strategies to Motivate Staff Nurses. Retrieved January 12, 2014, from Chron.com: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/strategies-motivate-staff-nurses-15427.html

Industrial Relations – Naukrihub.com. (2014). Positive Discipline Approach. Retrieved January 12, 2014, from Industrial Relations – Naukrihub.com: http://industrialrelations.naukrihub.com/positive-discipline-approach.html

Leviticus, J. (2014). Effective Strategies That Bolster Nursing Teams. Retrieved January 12, 2014, from Chron.com: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/tools-techniques-use-team-effective-24079.html