Crisis of Low Morale in Nursing Staff

Introduction of Firm

This case study describes Los Rayos a medical center that is in a nurse crisis not only for their high turn over rate but for their low morale among its nursing staff. Although the hospital works diligently to provide quality care to its patients it is failing in many areas due to understaffed and overworked nursing staff. Mandated to keep up government regulations, the hospital understands the importance of not compromising quality even though it has had to minimize quantity in staff. The hospital requires nurses to come up with strategies to be implemented to help improve not only working conditions and quality control but patient care and ideas to help increase personal job performance. Over the last eight years the hospital has enforced some of the changes suggested but it finds itself still with the issue of nurses who feel that they are overextending themselves. Nursing staff is still in the position of trying to keep up with the demand of continuous educational conditioning and development while performing on the job tasks in addition to extra curricular activities.

Overview of Firm Competitive Advantage

In order to have a firm competitive advantage an organization has to possess something unique that its competition does not have. What makes one different from another? This question is what separates groups and classes and makes one stand out among the rest. At Los Rayos they have qualified staff just not enough of it. Partnering with another major medical facility was a good business move as it can serve the purpose of showing Los Rayos ways it can improve on its functions within the facility. A normal turnover rate for hospitals is at 14% while Los Rayos is at 21%. Changes in an industry can affect bases and balance among it (Porter, 1985). Job satisfaction will make the difference on the advantage another medical facility will gain when nurses are looking upon where they would like to settle for a career. Some nurses will take a salary cut or drive further in order to work within a medical facility that offers them more than an opportunity to use their credentials. As the medical environment is forever changing one thing that may give a hospital a firm competitive advantage would be their values. Having an expectation of learning within the organization lets nursing staff know that they will be encouraged and required to continue to advance in their field and stay current on all resources and advancements in medicine. Having a competitive advantage means that you make it more difficult for competition and shake up the level playing field. According to Michael Porter (1985), if an organization can achieve and maintain differentiation they will be an above average performer in their industry and exceed competition. In order to be successful in this strategy Los Rayos will have to identify attributes and qualities among their nursing staff that are different from their rivals who are the organizations who benefit from their high turnover rate. They need to identify the factors that contribute the turnovers and come up solutions to keep nursing staff from leaving and also keep staff happy on the job.

Problem statement

The problem with Los Rayos medical facility is management does not resourcefully use staff, which leads to a high number in turnovers. The facility is understaffed and overworked and they promoted housekeepers to health techs and provided no skill training leaving nurses to double work as they would need to perform the patient care tasks that the “health techs: were promoted to do. The hospital also dropped moral amongst staff as they took away appreciation events such as the employee picnic and Christmas party that gives staff something to look forward to every year. It is highly noted that when employees feel they are appreciated on the job it reflects in their job performance. The hospital reduced its nursing staff to double patients per nurse and increased shifts from 8 hour to 12 hour. This tedious and exhausting work schedule not only creates a hostile work environment as staff are reluctant to go the extra mile or over achieve for patients and colleagues. The hospital requires a lot from its nursing staff and where a raise or an on the job leisure activity would have compensated for the tedious job detail, management has taken those tokens away.

Alternative Solutions/Opportunities

a.) Create a rewards system to retain staff -there should be a work environment where staff have materials and training to properly perform tasks and should be awarded for productive performance. Evaluations should be done quarterly on staff to review job performance and adhere to what can be done better but also praise what has been done successfully. During this process not only is staff being rewarded for their accomplishments but also they acquire new knowledge and education that helps expand their skill and personal development.

i) Build moral in the workplace

ii) Cause discord among staff

b.) Regular Shifts- Staff has become overwhelmed by the hours they spend on the job. If they had shorter shifts they would have time to reprogram and detox and come back refreshed eliminating turnover and burnouts

i.) Gives staff a chance to unwind from a days work and not have to report right back for duty

ii) Staff may call out or take more time off with shorter shifts

Decision and Support

In order to create a work environment that constantly develops nurse’s skills so that they can efficiently perform job tasks management needs to create a rewards system to help retain staff. Management has to recognize the nurse’s core commitment is to provide quality care to their patients and they need to help reduce job related stress by ensuring that supporting staff such as health techs are properly trained and skilled in work related duties. Nurses need to feel important, valued, and appreciated by their organization, as they love their job and they just want working conditions to improve.

Action Plan

Moving to implement the rewards system and shorter shifts for staff should take place immediately to ensure that staff understands management understands their concerns and have worked to rectify their issues. To implement successful changes, management must play an active role in the entire change process. It is the manager’s responsibility to understand how to address and put the change into action along with properly overseeing resistance from the staff. It is the manager’s responsibility to understand how to address and put the change into action along with properly overseeing resistance from the staff. Identifying potential risks, anticipating risks, estimating impact of risks, and managing risks successfully are all accomplishments and work towards building moral and retention. Scundra (2016) explained the importance of leaders understanding how to deal with different people and personalities hence the importance of the quarterly evaluations so management can provide feedback to each nurse and staff member personally. Once nursing staff feels compensated for their diligent work they will be eager to preform on the job and happy to work at Los Rayos now and in the future.

REFERENCES

Drucker,P. (2009). Management Cases.New York, NY. Harper Collins Publisher

Porter, M. E. (1985). Competitive Advantage . Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance , 1-30. Retrieved January 22, 2017.

Sacndura, T. A. (2016). Essentials of Organizational Behavior. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.