Please help Background Carrie Wilson, a registered nurse with more than 10 years
ID: 362870 • Letter: P
Question
Please help
Background Carrie Wilson, a registered nurse with more than 10 years of active supervisory experience, was hired from outside as nursing manager for the emergency department of County Hospital. It was Carrie’s style to develop insight into how to manage a given operation by putting herself where the action was and becoming totally immersed in the work. She quickly discovered, however, that her tendency to become deeply involved in hands-on work drew reactions from staff members ranging from surprise to resentment. She also discovered that her predecessor, who had been in the position for several years, had been referred to as “the Invisible Nurse.” As someone said about the former manager, “I think she was a very pleasant person, but that’s hard to say because we almost never saw her.” In spite of the legacy of the Invisible Nurse, Carrie provided a constant management presence and seemed determined to remain deeply involved in the work of the department. She was also determined to improve vastly the level of professionalism in the department, a quality that had struck her from the first as decidedly lacking. In a short time Carrie had moved to reinstate and enforce a long-ignored dress code for the department, eliminate personal telephone calls during working hours except for urgent situations, curb chronic tardiness on the part of some staff members, bar food and drink and reading materials from work areas (also a reemphasis of long-ignored rules), and curb the practice of changing scheduled days of work after the time limit allowed by policy. Carrie found her efforts frustrated at every turn. As she said to her immediate superior, “I can’t understand the reaction. All I’ve done is insist that a few hospital rules be followed—mostly rules that have been there all along but were being ignored—and added a few twists unique to the emergency department. Just that, and yet the bitterness and lack of support and even resentment are so strong I could slice them. I’m getting all-out resistance from a few people whom I would still have to describe as good, professional nurses at heart.” Carrie’s boss, the Vice President for Nursing Service, said, “Do you suppose you may have been pushing too hard, hitting them with one surprise after another without knowing how they felt and without asking for their cooperation?” “That’s possible,” answered Carrie, “but now I’m committed on several fronts and I can’t back down on any of them without looking bad to the department.” “Don’t think of this as a contest of wills or a game,” said the vice president. “It may be necessary for you to back down temporarily in some areas or at least hold a few of your improvements up in the air for a while. It may not hurt to fall back and involve a few of your staff in looking at the apparent needs of the department.” With a touch of impatience in her voice, Carrie said, “Oh, I’ve heard all this stuff about participative management and staff involvement in making decisions. That may be the way for some, but that’s never been my style. I’m paid to make decisions so I make them—I don’t try to avoid responsibility by encouraging employees to make my decisions.”
Answer these questions
1-How has Carrie’s behavior altered or otherwise affected the environment within which she expects her decisions to be implemented?
2-Ideally, how should Carrie have initially approached her plan to improve the emergency department?
Explanation / Answer
1.Before Carry started working in County hospital, the hospital atmosphere was completely different with less control over the staffs since Carry’s predecessor was not interfering with the employees and she hardly comes in front of them. But Carry is very much dedicated to the profession and wanted the hospital and its atmosphere to be more professional. The difference in attitude of both the managers made the atmosphere entirely different from each other and the employees were not ready to lose the freedom they enjoyed under the previous manager. Hence they felt frustrated and were not ready to adopt the changes when Carry insisted on sticking to the dress code, eliminate the personal phone calls except urgent situations, curb chronic tardiness of staff members, bar food and drink and reading material from work place and curb the practice of changing scheduled days of work after the time limit allowed by the policy. They felt Carry is trying to dominate and the workplace atmosphere became filled with employee anger, frustration and dissatisfaction.
2. Ideally before implementing the plan for change in the workplace atmosphere, Carry would have analyzed the impact of the changes on the employees. She should have developed a step by step procedure to implement the plan successfully and taken necessary steps to convey her motive behind implementing the plan and its future benefits that organization may achieve to the employees effectively. Better communication strategies should have adopted and when employees have a clear communication they would understand the need for the changes and support Carry. A discussion with the employees on the same would help Carry to understand the challenges behind adopting the policies and it also helps in developing better alternatives in case of policies that is difficult to execute. When the decision making process is a mutually agreed one it becomes easy to execute and brings more benefits to the organization.