NURS 6053 Workplace Environment Assessment
Sample Answer for NURS 6053 Workplace Environment Assessment Included After Question
You may think your current organization operates seamlessly, or you may feel it has many issues. You may experience or even observe things that give you pause. Yet, much as you wouldn’t try to determine the health of a patient through mere observation, you should not attempt to gauge the health of your work environment based on observation and opinion. Often, there are issues you perceive as problems that others do not; similarly, issues may run much deeper than leadership recognizes.
There are many factors and measures that may impact organizational health. Among these is civility. While an organization can institute policies designed to promote such things as civility, how can it be sure these are managed effectively? In this Discussion, you will examine the use of tools in measuring workplace civility.
RESOURCES
Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.
Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.
WEEKLY RESOURCES
To Prepare:
- Review the Resources and examine the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory, found on page 20 of Clark (2015).
- Review and complete the Work Environment Assessment Template in the Resources.
BY DAY 3 OF WEEK 7
Post a brief description of the results of your Work Environment Assessment. Based on the results, how civil is your workplace? Explain why your workplace is or is not civil. Then, describe a situation where you have experienced incivility in the workplace. How was this addressed? Be specific and provide examples.
BY DAY 6 OF WEEK 7
Respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days by sharing ideas for how shortcomings discovered in their evaluations and/or their examples of incivility could have been managed more effectively.
A Sample Answer For the Assignment: NURS 6053 Workplace Environment Assessment
Title: NURS 6053 Workplace Environment Assessment
In nursing practice, incivility is not uncommon, but the factors that result in it cannot be discovered without conducting a healthy work-setting inventory. Thus, I was interested when the Clarks Healthy Workplace Inventory was available because it would gauge my nursing environment’s healthiness or unhealthiness. The results indicated a score of 85 depicting that my long term acute care facility was healthy because 80 to 90 range indicated high civility. Transparent and respectful communication, shared vision, employee satisfaction, and emphasis on personal care are among the outcomes that stood out because they formed the basis of civility in the setting. In TEDx Talks (2017), professor Gittell asserts that having the same vision, knowledge, and mutual respect leads to timely, accurate, and frequency, thereby confirming how a civil setting should be designed.
During my nursing practice, I experienced incivility where my superior dictated the directions, and I had to nod in understanding. Suggestions from certain staff members including myself was discouraged and seemed to be totally rejected. I would have loved a more participative decision-making process because I have the skill set required to contribute to major discussions. After I had carried out the activities stipulated, I went to the physician and explicitly stated that I felt demeaned when he commanded me. To my surprise, he listened attentively and admitted he was under a lot of pressure. Marshall and Broome (2017) input that nurse leaders are required to have the skill set to steer the organization through the challenges, and this was one of them. According to Clark (2018), I exercised cognitive rehearsal techniques that involve identifying incivility and addressing it in a nonthreatening way. In conclusion, despite scoring a 4 in the assessment inventory, communication has improved significantly in the long term acute care facility because leaders recognize that the ideas of other nurses are essential.
References
Clark, C. M. (2018). Combining cognitive rehearsal, simulation, and evidence-based scripting to address incivility. Nurse Educator, 44(2), 64-68.
Marshall, E., & Broome, M. (2017). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert clinician to influential leader (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Springer.
TEDx Talks (2017). The Power of a Simple Idea | Jody Hoffer Gittell | TEDxRochester. Retrieved 14 July 2020 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7nL5RC5kdE
A Sample Answer 2 For the Assignment: NURS 6053 Workplace Environment Assessment
Title: NURS 6053 Workplace Environment Assessment
When I read your post, I had the same feeling about making Clark’s Healthy Workplace Inventory, a mandatory survey for all employees in any organization. They should be anonymous, so anyone could fill it up and share their opinions without any fear of repercussions. As long as the facility has the means and desire to make things better, such or similar survey should be done quarterly, and then evaluated thoroughly, making any changes necessary to improve an organization’s quality. It is also essential that when an issue persists, managers and leaders must act promptly and present results to staff. Such a response builds trust between employees and management and maintains staff engagement (Frampton et al., 2017). It is also crucial that the solution is effectively implemented. Otherwise, employees lose interest in participation.
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Having that said, I believe that every organization should form a work program in which employees can learn how to speak freely
about their concerns and issues (Clark, 2015). The research has shown that when healthcare employees feel free to voice their problems, it provides a safer practice which highly benefits patient care. One of the strategies to promote such culture would be organizing mandatory training where educators could teach the employees how to communicate transparently, effectively, and civilly (Clark, 2015).
Another research has shown that 50% of Physicians and 25% of Nurse Practitioners lack high-quality communication skills with geriatric patients, especially palliative care patients and their families (Back, Fromme & Meier, 2019). It is interesting to know that Medicare has already implemented the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) program, which will incentivize clinicians based on their training in providing quality communication measures.
Reference:
Back, A. L., Fromme, E. K., & Meier, D. E. (2019). Training Clinicians with Communication Skills Needed to Match Medical Treatments to Patient Values. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 67, S435–S441. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1111/jgs.15709
Clark, C. M. (2015). Conversations to inspire and promote a more civil workplace. American Nurse Today, 10(11), 18–23.
https://www.americannursetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/ant11-CE-Civility-1023.pdf
Frampton, A., Fox, F., Hollowood, A., Northstone, K., Margelyte, R., Smith-Clarke, S., & Redwood, S. (2017). Using real-time, anonymous staff feedback to improve staff experience and engagement. BMJ quality improvement reports, 6(1), u220946.w7041. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjquality.u220946.w7041
A Sample Answer 3 For the Assignment: NURS 6053 Workplace Environment Assessment
Title: NURS 6053 Workplace Environment Assessment
I took the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory and my organization scored a 55. According to the results, this means that the health, in terms of civility, is considered unhealthy. These results were surprising to me as I would not label my workplace as being so. I tried to remain unbiased and fair when making my selections. Reviewing my answers, I can see that the areas that need improvement the most is employee satisfaction, engagement, and morale. In most departments, you can sense resentment and people unhappy with their jobs. People are always complaining in break areas and on social media. Another area that scored low is that there is little to no emphasis placed on employee wellness and selfcare. This can be due to recent changes made in policy to combat the Covid19 pandemic, but many of the benefits our employer had in place for employee wellness was taken away. One example being the fitness center area.
Due to infection control, it was closed, as well as the 30 minute “wellness” leave that was allotted for working out. One area that scored high in my assessment was that the organization provided competitive salaries, benefits, compensations, and other rewards. My employer pays well and offers great paid time off benefits. We also receive hazard pay bonuses once a month and get plenty of opportunities to earn overtime or additional time off. One area that can be improved upon to increase civility in our organization is communication. Effective communication is paramount, especially during this time of uncertainty. I feel that many plans are not communicated to all the employees that changes effect. One example is just last week when our clinic had to resort back to phase one due to an influx of positive cases in our area, only the supervisors knew about the changes and dropped the ball on communicating it to the staff. Everyone was confused and it truly was mass chaos. I feel that more effort should have been placed on letting the entire staff know the plans and what was expected. Not knowing what exactly was going on added to a stressed environment.
References
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
A Sample Answer 4 For the Assignment: NURS 6053 Workplace Environment Assessment
Title: NURS 6053 Workplace Environment Assessment
The key to changing world is by listening to one another, giving each other chances to be heard can prevent chaos in the workplace and the work at large, the stress encounter in healthcare work environment could create lack of respectful way of communication. Poor communication and lack of knowledge are barrier to successful interprofessional collaboration (Broome & Marshall, 2021). our ability to cope with stress and control our emotion and talk to each other with respect hinges upon our ability to handle stress.
Description of Work Environment Assessment
My workplace scored 42 on the Clark Health Workplace Inventory, indicating that my workplace is very unhealthy. My workplace scored 4 points each under 2 statement categories “Individual and collective achievement are celebrated and publicized equitably” and “There is a comprehensible mentoring program for employees.” My workplace scored 1 point each on the statement “The workload is reasonable, manageable, and fairly distributed” and “Members of the organization use effective conflict resolution skills and address disagreements respectfully and responsibly.” My organization scored 2 points each in all other statement categories.
Members of my organization do not live by a shared vision and mission based on trust, respect, and collegiality. A shared mission and vision in an organization are critical because it helps to shed light on an organization’s direction. The actualization of shared vision hinges on its ability to form a sense of ownership among the team members in an organization. A well-embraced shared vision brings about a sense of identity that will run in the organization, and an organization that embraces a shared vision will grow.
My organization needs more trust between and among formal and other workforce members. When trust is infused in organization tasks get done with ease. Communication at all levels of the organization needs to be more transparent and direct. Effective communication is always essential to nurses (Wynn et al., 2023). Poor communication kills employee morale and engagement, resulting in poor productivity and satisfaction. Poor communication affects cooperation and collaboration among workers. In my organization, employees are not seen as assets. When a company sees employees as assets, it will nurture employee talents and help them grow. When an employee is valued, they tend to maximize their potential.
My organization needs teamwork, spirit, and collaboration. Interdisciplinary collaboration is a means of enhancing future healthcare (Broome & Marshall, 2021). There is some degree of a mentoring program for all the employees’, mentoring program is vital in the organization because it provides employees with necessary support and guidance. Mentorship promotes cohesion and collaboration in an organization. My organization does not lay emphasis on employee wellness and self-care. A good employee is a happy employee, and a happy employee results in high productivity.
My organization needs to gain the ability to continuously assess organizational culture, organization can take measures to improve organizational culture through the assessment of organizational culture. Members of my organization are not engaged in shared governance, do not engage in shared governance no joint decision-making effort or policy is being developed. At my organization workload could be more reasonable. Work needs to be fairly shared. Managing team workload is essential to prevent burnout and stress from work.
My organization has no room for free expression or opposing ideas. In my organization, there needs to be more competitive salaries and benefits. When an organization offers a competitive pay rate, it enhances overall job satisfaction and zero opportunities for promotion, although there is a certain degree of provision for career advancement. In my organization, employee turnover is very high, and my organization needs to attract or retain the best and the brightest employee. Many employees will not recommend my organization as an excellent workplace for their friends.
How Civil is My Workplace – Explanation
Civility means politeness, showing courtesy, the ability to control one’s emotions, and a respectful way of treating others. Civility at the workplace is a vital behavior an employee must exhibit in an organization; civilized behavior is interpersonal rules of engagement that dictate how people interact with each other civility is essential in the workplace. Civility is showing respect to another coworker at work. Civility at work brings about greater job satisfaction and a governable atmosphere. Civility has a relationship with improving morale and the spirit of teamwork.
When I look at my organization, there is a lack of civility and respect, resulting in a harmful environment. Lack of civility at work contributes to emotional exhaustion, sickness, burnout, and a high turnover. It causes chaos. Staffing levels and turnover negatively affect the quality of care in nursing homes (Cimarolli et al., 2022). The lack of civility at my organization serves as a basis for increased grievances. Nurses bully other nurses, causing depression and anxiety among employees. Bullying is a systematic sequence of behavior designed to erode, debase and humiliate others (Griffin & Clark, 2014). My organization cannot authoritatively say that employees are treating each other with respect, and my organization cannot say that they can effectively handle conflicts between employees. My organization cannot say they have an effective way of addressing lousy behavior among their staff.
Incivility I experienced at work
I experienced incivility when I got hired at a nursing home. Incivility among healthcare workers can create an unsafe working environment that can result in poor patient care (Clark et al., 2011). I have been bullied at work by other nurses. When I got hired, I did not know that some nurses were using the schedule/shift my organization was trying to give me as overtime. These old nurses try their best to frustrate me so that I can quit the job, and they can continue to enjoy their overtime, and the company continues to suffer high turnover and a bad image.
However, the new Director of Nursing, a transformational leader, addressed the issue and put the old nurses in order. Leadership is a position of influence, a process that takes place in a group setting, and it has to do with achieving goals that represent a shared vision (Riesch et al., 2023). In an attempt for these old nurses to sabotage my effort, they exhibited various deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to push me out of the facility. Their nefarious behavior included insulting remarks, dirty looks, and intentionally ignoring my input.
They do not want me to ask questions. However, they love querying me, telling our supervisor that they did not know my whereabouts when I just saw them a minute ago, talking to me using a condescending tone, talking about me behind me, trying to prove that they are competent at the expense of my image, accusing professional competence, displaying the silent accusation about professional competence, displaying the silent treatment. In this case, it is the old nurses that are being uncivil. Uncivil encounters in the patient environment can create uncertainty self- doubt, erode self-confidence, and affect the critical thinking ability of a nurse (Clark, 2019).
How the Incivility was Addressed
Incivility at work costs the organization plenty of resources, sometimes affecting its technical and logical problems. Bullying and incivility significantly affect employees psychologically (Alberts, 2022). At my organization, we recently had a good Director of Nursing, and she models good behavior. She did not make excuses, and she did not dismiss my concerns. She immediately agreed with my perception and believed what I said about other nurses’ attitudes. She discovered that the problem I pointed out could affect productivity and increase employee turnover. The director of Nursing held everyone accountable, and she addressed the issue. When I brought it to her notice, she called and talked to all the nurses involved without implicating me.
The director of nursing redefines acceptable conduct at work. Every time the director of nursing sees me coming to work, she always asks how I am doing and listens to my answer. The more she shows me she cares and is willing to listen to me, the more I share potential problems with her. My Director of Nursing utilizes her conflict resolution skills to address my problem. The workload at that facility was hectic, but because of the director of Nursing’s professionalism, I decide to hang on.
Conclusion
The nature of interaction among employees can influence how they discharge their responsibility and how healthcare is delivered. The code of ethic for Nurses describes vividly, the nurse’s obligation to promote safe, ethical environment and culture that encourage civility and affection, dealing with colleagues, coworkers, we encounter with civility, creating a feel free environment at work place, enables employee to speak up. Creating a civil working environment requires a shard organizational vision, values, and team norms. Developing and maintaining of high level of staff, group, and organizational civility, bring up the topic of civility at all quarters of the organization.
References
Alberts, H. L. (2022). Addressing bullying and incivility in clinical nursing education. Teaching and Learning in Nursing, 17(4), 433–437. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.teln.2022.05.004Links to an external site.
Broome, M. E., & Marshall, E. S. (2021). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert clinician to influential leader (3rd ed.). Springer Publishing Company.
Cimarolli, V. R., Bryant, N. S., Falzarano, F., & Stone, R. (2022). Factors associated with nursing home direct care professionals’ turnover intent during the covid-19 pandemic. Geriatric Nursing, 48, 32–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gerinurse.2022.08.012Links to an external site.
Clark, C. M. (2019). Combining cognitive rehearsal, simulation, and evidence-based scripting to address incivility. Nurse Educator, 44(2), 64–68. https://doi.org/10.1097/nne.0000000000000563Links to an external site.
Clark, C. M., Olender, L., Cardoni, C., & Kenski, D. (2011). Fostering civility in nursing education and practice. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 41(7/8), 324–330. https://doi.org/10.1097/nna.0b013e31822509c4Links to an external site.
Griffin, M., & Clark, C. M. (2014). Revisiting cognitive rehearsal as an intervention against incivility and lateral violence in nursing: 10 years later. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 45(12), 535–542. https://doi.org/10.3928/00220124-20141122-02Links to an external site.
Riesch, S. K., Chiappa, J., Floyd, N., & Ponce, M. (2023). The chief nursing officer shared leadership model. Nurse Leader, 21(1), 31–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mnl.2022.09.006Links to an external site.
Wynn, S. T., Ratcliffe, C. J., & Hardin, L. (2023). Ready, set, woo: Refining nursing students’ communication skills. Teaching and Learning in Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.teln.2023.03.004Links to an external site.Links to an external site.
A Sample Answer 5 For the Assignment: NURS 6053 Workplace Environment Assessment
Title: NURS 6053 Workplace Environment Assessment
The score on the Workplace inventory was close to your score. I score a 61 on mine. It is so sad that you experienced that situation while precepting another nurse. I am glad that when you addressed the issue to the nursing supervisor, the nurse was terminated. Your post reminded me of a situation where I was a travel nurse in Virginia in 2018 and oriented a travel nurse. Travel nurses usually (on average) receive only two days orientation. Well, during this two day orientation, I found this nurse to be someone who got irritated easily and demanded things quickly and suddenly. It was not just me that noticed her behavior. Other staff noticed her behavior as well. Even patients shared how she barely acknowledged them in the room and that she was not friendly. There were times when she snapped at others. It was a night shift and I did make the Charge Nurse aware of the situation.
I remember after orientating her for two days, I was off for a few days and was relieved not to have to orient this nurse anymore. When I returned, staff members informed me that they went to the supervisor on the same nurse because of her continuous negative behaviors. The supervisor addressed the issue and terminated the nurse’s contract. I did not expect that from a travel nurse and it was shocking, but it was resolved.
According to Clark (2011), incivility leads to higher stress, turnover, low performance on the job, and dissatisfaction with the job. Also, common examples of workplace violence are mobbing, bullying, and incivility with examples of incivility being remarks that are demeaning and eye-rolling (Griffith & Clark, 2014).
Thank you for sharing.
References
Clark, C.M., Olender, L., Cardoni, C., Kenski, D. (2011). Fostering civility in nursing education and practice. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 41(7/8), 324-330.