NURS_6221 Interviews on Employee Empowerment and Psychological Safety

Module 2 Assignment

Interviews on Employee Empowerment and Psychological Safety

NURS 6221 Recruitment and Selection Plan Nursing Essay

Recruitment and Selection Plan

NURS 6221 Managing Human Resources

Part 1: Job Description Analysis

Explain the role of the nurse executive in developing job descriptions and why it represents an essential human resource management function.

Nurse executives have the primary responsibility for administering and managing patient care services. This function sees them oversee planning and development functions regarding procedures and policies. Although they do not have direct contact with patients, nurse executives shape policies related to nursing and health care. Which places them in a unique position to identify nurse personnel needs in terms of competencies and skills, and ensure that the facility has the right mix of nurse personnel. Besides that, they bear responsibility for the facility’s financial accountability, thus placing them in a unique position to determine the facility’s nurse personnel needs authoritatively. Also, they are responsible for establishing ongoing relationships with other nurse personnel to foster a cohesive work environment NURS 6221 Recruitment and Selection Plan Nursing Essay. These responsibilities strategically position nurse executives to identify the nurse personnel needs of a facility (Finkelman, 2016).

Analyze the job description you have selected as the focus of your Assignment. Include the source of the job description and critique the job description for clarity and accuracy.

The job description under analysis was presented by Northwoods Surgery Center, located in Veterans Parkway, Woodruff, Wisconsin, for an operating room nurse. The report gave the licensing and certification requirements. Also, it offered the job summary, expected duties, and preferred qualifications for the candidates (Northwoods Surgery Center, n.d.). The description is detailed and practical since it offers a refined list of duties and requirements. In fact, it is accurate in defining the role and accountability, thus making the expectations clear. The responsibilities have been refined into fewer points with the tasks grouped into main responsibility areas that reflect personnel expectations at the moment NURS 6221 Recruitment and Selection Plan Nursing Essay. To be more precise, it clarifies expectations, offers a basis for measuring job performance, defines the description of the role, and prevents arbitrary interpretation of role content and limits. Still, there is a need for greater clarity, particularly with regards to pay and grading systems to offer greater job clarity (Hunt, 2015).

Explain how well the job description defines the required employee attributes for the job and how it could be improved. If information is available, describe how the tasks and competencies associated with this job may have changed since the job description was conceived.

The job description has defined the personnel attributes for the job. Firstly, it has identified the certification and licensure requirements, a regulatory need that ensures the practice is regulated to ensure professionalism and protect patients. Secondly, it identifies the essential duties and responsibilities, thus clarifying expectations. Finally, it presents the preferred requirements for the candidates as qualities that increase their odds of getting hired (Hunt, 2015). As such, the job description offers a detailed definition of the required personnel attributes for the job.

There have been some changes in the responsibilities of operating room nurses since the Northwoods Surgery Center presented the job description. The facility does not include providing care to patients as operating nurse during al facets of the surgery processes such as before, during, and after surgery. Since then, there have been additional responsibilities that require operating room nurses to provide patient education and prepare the operating room equipment and instruments within a sterile field (Nursing Jobs, 2020) NURS 6221 Recruitment and Selection Plan Nursing Essay.

Write a new or revised job description that reflects your analysis and which you would use for advertising the position and recruiting candidates for the job.

A revision is warranted for the job description for operating room nurses presented by Northwoods Surgery Center. The review would retain the primary responsibilities and add that they would have the responsibility of providing patient education, and prepare the operating equipment and instruments within a sterile field. Also, education and training requirements would be listed to include education programs, the duration of study, and practicing experience. Besides that, a salary and benefits quote should be included since this will help in identifying the facility as a competitive employer, thereby helping it attract the best talent (Nursing Jobs, 2020).

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Explain how you would use social media and online job search technology to maximize presentation of the job description and reach a broader share of potential recruits.

Social media and online job search technology will be used to find and make connections with quality candidates. The two approaches help in reaching elusive passive candidates, finding great culture fits, filtering bad candidates, and saving money. Two different strategies would be applied. The first strategy targeted at social media recruiting would focus on participating in the right conversations, promoting the facility culture, targeting niche networks, involving personnel, and growing social media presence as a recruiter. The second strategy aimed at online job search technology, such as LinkedIn, would create and complete a brand page, use filters to find candidates, and reach out with a personal touch (Hunt, 2015) NURS 6221 Recruitment and Selection Plan Nursing Essay.

Describe two examples of how jobs similar to your chosen position are presented to interested job seekers from the social media and online job sites you visit.

The first example is off M.P. Shah Hospital that presented a job advert on its Facebook page. The facility offers a description of its expectations of the successful candidate, job responsibilities, and how to apply (see Figure 1). The second example is off DaVita Medical Group that placed an advert for an operating room nurse on a LinkedIn page. The description includes the employment location, functions, responsibilities, preferred experience and credentials, and type of employment: full-time (see Figure 2).

Figure 1. Facebook page of job advert by M.P. Shah Hospital

Figure 2. LinkedIn page of job advert by DaVita Medical Group

Part 2: Interview and Selection Plan

Describe the ideal candidate for this job, and explain the sources of information you would use in evaluating applicants.

Five skills would be assessed during the interview process to identify the ideal candidate. The first skill is the ability to work as part of a team. The operating room is a dynamic and complex environment requiring the operating room team members to share the traits of anticipation, organization, respect, and good communication. Another skill includes the possession of excellent communicating abilities. The operating room is a high-stress environment, and it is not uncommon for tensions to run high. Operating room nurses working in these environments must be able to communicate effectively with other team members in a professional and calm demeanor. Communication skills are also useful in easing the fears of family members and educating the patients. The third skill is organization. An operating room nurse must be very organized concerning charting and organizing actions and supplies to ensure the best outcomes throughout the surgical procedure. The ideal candidate must be able to find surgical medical and items quickly, and this is not possible unless the individual is highly organized. The fourth skill is attention to detail. The ideal candidate should be detail-oriented, knowing the location of everything and monitoring them. This requires the ability to pay attention to small details and the overall picture, and always staying alert to the needs of the team, equipment, and patient NURS 6221 Recruitment and Selection Plan Nursing Essay. The final skill of critical thinking and problem-solving. The ideal candidate should be confident and capable of making critical decisions as well as being an excellent problem solver. The individual must be able to judge, evaluate, and respond appropriately and quickly to changing situations (Crawley, Swailes & Walsh, 2013; Finkelman, 2016).

Explain an overview of your process to identify and select that candidate.

Who within the healthcare organization would be involved in the interview process, and why

Since hiring is a significant decision, there is a need for an intelligent and robust hiring team that can implement an effective hiring process. The first member is the hiring manager who administers the whole hiring process. This individual is responsible for interviewing, screening, communication, and decision making with other team members for the recruitment process. The second member is the HR manager, who is responsible for creating a well-organized and professional process. This individual offers administrative support and acts as a link between the team and the candidate to deliver sound decisions. Also, this individual acts as a neutral party when negotiating salary and benefits. The third member is the direct reporting manager who knows all about the requirements and workings department to which the new personnel will be added. This individual can judge if the candidate has the required abilities. Given that this individual is likely to supervise the candidate if successful, then it is only fair for the individual to evaluate the candidates. The final member is the nurse executive who evaluates the candidates for skills and knowledge (Crawley, Swailes & Walsh, 2013).

Pre-interview guidance and preparation for interviewers and recruits

Pre-screening the candidates before the interview in order to identify those not meeting the basic requirements.  Such as the position terms of salary requirements, willingness to relocate, education, and work experience. Identifying this occurs through three approaches. The first approach is to evaluate the application and review resumes. The second approach is to conduct telephone interviews, an initial phone conversation that offers information on the candidate’s professionalism, attitude, ability to listen, sense of humor, and communication skills. The third approach is social media and online searches that present private information on the individual to include a snapshot of the candidate’s professional persona, employment status, volunteer activities, organization alignments, and social values (Ozbiglin, Groutsis & Harvey, 2014).

How interview outcomes would be compiled, and how differences in interview ratings would be resolved

Interview outcomes will be collected using scorecards. Through using standardized interview questions, it becomes possible to develop a single scorecard that will be used on all the candidates. Also, a section on comments will be included in which the interview team members will write down their feedback. The interview outcomes will be determined based on average scores. In case of differences in interview ratings, justifications for the ratings will be discussed before settling on the final candidate (Ozbiglin, Groutsis & Harvey, 2014) NURS 6221 Recruitment and Selection Plan Nursing Essay.

List five essential questions you would ask in an interview to evaluate key employee characteristics for this job. For each question, explain what you would look and listen for in the candidate’s response.

The questions would be presented in three groups. The first group is operational and situational questions. These questions are intended to evaluate attention to detail and critical thinking. The two questions to be asked are:

• Suppose you were asked to prepare for an operation for which you have no experience. What would you do?
• What are the three questions you would ask a patient before surgery?

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The second group is role-specific questions the evaluate a nurse’s understanding of the circulating and scrub roles. The two questions to be asked are:

• Why is it essential to conduct surgical skin preparation?
• What are the legal aspects of an OR nurse?

The third group is people behavioral questions that evaluate people skills. The question to ask is:

• Tell me about a time when you had a panicked and anxious patient. How did you calm the patient?

Explain how you would measure a candidate and assess the recruit’s fitness for the position.

Candidates who present for the interview are those who are determined as having the professional qualifications for the job. The interview goes on to evaluate them for operational and situational competence, role-specific capacity, and behavioral competence. Also, they would be assessed for five skills. The first skill is cultural competence that evaluates the ability to provide care to patients with various behaviors, beliefs, and values. The second skill is the flexibility that assesses openness to learn new things and the ability to tolerate a change in response to the rapidly changing practice environment. The third skill is positivity, that assesses a nurse’s ability to maintain a positive attitude. The fourth skill is emotional intelligence that evaluates the ability to work in teams collaboratively and effectively deal with conflicts. The final qualification is passion that assesses attitude towards work tasks (Hunt, 2015). NURS 6221 Recruitment and Selection Plan Nursing Essay

References

Crawley, E., Swailes, S. & Walsh, D. (2013). Introduction to international human resource management. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Finkelman, A. (2016). Leadership and management for nurses: core competencies for quality care (3^rd ed.). London: Pearson Education.

Hunt, D. (2015). The nurse professional: leveraging your education for transition into practice. New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company, LLC.

Northwoods Surgery Center (n.d.). Operating room nurse (RN) – job description. Retrieved from https://www.northwoodssurgerywi.com/Operating_Room_Nurse_Job_Description_NWSC.pdf

Nursing Jobs (2020). Operating room (OR) nurse jobs and salary. https://www.nursingjobs.com/nurse-specialties/operating-room-or-nurse-jobs/

Ozbiglin, M., Groutsis, D. & Harvey, W. (2014). International human resource management. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. NURS 6221 Recruitment and Selection Plan Nursing Essay

Impacts of Employee Empowerment and Psychological Safety

Comparing and analyzing the interviews

Speaking up bravely and powerfully has increasingly become an important quality in the workplace, particularly for the vulnerable demographic groups. It allows personnel to share revelations about their workplace cultures and how they affect them. It is important to note that speaking out is not without risk, and the scope and degree of the risk varies widely given the situation and context. In such cases, personnel will not speak up against damaging or intolerable behavior if the risk includes punishment that outweighs the gains. Yet, speaking up is important to a functioning and healthy workplace (Finkelman, 2016) Impacts of Employee Empowerment and Psychological Safety. The present paper compares and analyses the results of interviews conducted with three participants to collect their perceptions on empowerment and psychological safety.

The interviews first collected the participants’ perspective on the concept of empowerment for personnel. A common themes on the definition for employee empowerment is that it is the management approach that offers personnel responsibility and autonomy concerning their specific job tasks. One participant specifically mentioned that it is the workplace concept that allows lower level personnel to participate in decision-making by offering unique views on the problems and issues facing the organization. Besides that, they noted that empowerment has been advantageous. Firstly, it results in increased responsiveness to problems and issues facing the organization. Secondly, it helps in increasing productivity. Finally, it improves personnel commitment to the goals of the organization since they take ownership of the decisions made. Also, they noted that it presents some three disadvantages. Firstly, it reduces the speed of decision making so that it is not optimized and uniform. Secondly, it creates coordination problems since decisions are decentralized. Finally, it blurs authority and presents opportunity for conflict. Finkelman (2016) presents similar views on employee empowerment, defining this concept as the control and autonomy that personnel assigned in their workplace activities. It also notes that the concept includes having less oversight and allowing personnel to have greater voice in workplace processes (Finkelman, 2016) Impacts of Employee Empowerment and Psychological Safety. Overall, the participants presented an informative awareness of employee empowerment as a concept, noting that it allows employees to be involved in decision making to improve productivity as well as quality of life.

Secondly, the interviews collected the participants’ perspective on whether autonomy is important in the workplace. The interviews identified autonomy as the freedom that personnel enjoy in completing job tasks with all of them conceding that they enjoy some autonomy. One of the participants linked autonomy to being allowed to set work schedules so that an employee is only expected to meet the set deadlines. Another participant identified autonomy as the freedom to make workplace decision with minimal supervision. Still, they all conceded that autonomy allows them to enjoy freedom that in turn results in increased job satisfaction so that they are motivated to continue working for the organization and improve their productivity Impacts of Employee Empowerment and Psychological Safety. Ozbiglin, Groutsis and Harvey (2014) acknowledges the views presented in the interviews, noting that autonomy gives personnel freedom that results in increased job satisfaction. This results in greater feelings of responsibility among personnel so that they are motivated to improve their quality of life. Besides that, autonomy helps with reducing turnover and increasing happiness. The mentioned benefits can only be realized if the autonomy is moderated so too much freedom could result in disorganization. Besides that, individual personnel have unique characteristics that make them respond differently to autonomy. Some personnel thrive in autonomy while others report improved outcomes (Ozbiglin, Groutsis & Harvey, 2014). It is clear that employee autonomy offers unique benefits to include improved happiness, motivation, and productivity.

Thirdly, the interviews collected the participants’ responses on whether they have been involved in workplace decision-making. They all acknowledged that although they do not make decisions, they routinely offer input on decisions affecting their jobs. The nurse interviewee particularly noted being involved in decision making concerning patient care, and this has helped with gaining personal and professional stake in the medical facility, as well as its overall success. Crawley, Swailes and Walsh (2013) concurs with the views presented in the interviews, explaining involvement is an indication of commitment, and this leads to increased productivity of personnel as they actively participate in the different aspects of the organization. This is particularly useful for the workers who wish to see their efforts succeed. Besides that, it helps with on the job training as personnel get increased responsibility that expands their skill sets and prepares them for future additional responsibility (Crawley, Swailes & Walsh, 2013). Finkelman (2016) also mentions that involvement in workplace decision-making increases personnel morale through reducing the power gap between management and workers, and opens communication lines. As functioning participants in decision processes, workers get to understand that their ideas are important contributions to the organization. This gives them the power to influence work outcomes thereby leading to positive attitude and increased work satisfaction towards the organization and their position (Finkelman, 2016). Overall, it becomes clear that the concept of personnel involvement in decision-making processes ensures that the company has timely and reliable long-term assistance Impacts of Employee Empowerment and Psychological Safety.

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Fourthly, the interviews explored the decision-making authority practiced by the participants’ organizations. They all practice centralization of authority whereby all authority to make decisions is retained by top level managers. The authority can occasionally be delegated to the lower level managers. The participants explained that the financial implications of decisions demand that top level managers retain authority so that they are rightly held accountable for the outcomes. The authority is vested in the management position, allowing each manager to control activities under his/her jurisdiction to include affecting and influencing the behavior of subordinate personnel even without obtaining their permission. For instance, the nurse mentioned that shift assignments are typically done by the nurse managers without consulting the individual nurses. Crawley, Swailes and Walsh (2013) notes that it is not surprising for managers who take care of the organization and are policy makers to be central in decision making. The managers are in charge of the organization and are responsible for overall performance. They provide a sense of direction, evaluation organization methods, provide leadership and formulate strategies. Through centralization of authority, the organization gets to use the expert skills available in the organization. The managers possess valuable leadership knowledge, experience and skills that enable them to present the best decisions (Crawley, Swailes & Walsh, 2013) Impacts of Employee Empowerment and Psychological Safety

Finally, the interviews explored how comfortable the participants are in making suggestions in the workplace. All the participants indicated that there are mechanisms in place that enable them to make suggestions in the workplace. They specifically mentioned that they are comfortable because they can make the suggestions anonymously thus avoiding victimization. In addition, they have representatives who collect their suggestions and present them in the appropriate forums thus allowing the personnel to remain anonymous. As such, the interview participants reported being comfortable pointing out problems in the workplace. Ozbiglin, Groutsis and Harvey (2014) acknowledges that power structures in the workplace creates a situation in which personnel do not feel comfortable making suggestions for improvements. Through the use of anonymous suggestions, personnel are assured of not being victimized so that they remain free to offer unique ideas and perspectives (Ozbiglin, Groutsis & Harvey, 2014).

The interview analysis makes it clear that speaking out is an important resource that organizations should not overlook. It notes that personnel will only be comfortable if they are protected and are allowed to contribute towards decisions. Overall, employee empowerment and psychological safety allows the organization to get new ways of thinking and perspectives, give a voice to personnel, promote active participation, and improve loyalty as well as productivity.

References

Crawley, E., Swailes, S. & Walsh, D. (2013). Introduction to international human resource management. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Finkelman, A. (2016). Leadership and management for nurses: core competencies for quality care (3rd ed.). London: Pearson Education. Impacts of Employee Empowerment and Psychological Safety

Ozbiglin, M., Groutsis, D. & Harvey, W. (2014). International human resource management. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.\

Impacts of Employee Empowerment and Psychological Safety
Note: You began this Assignment in Week 3 and it will be due by Day 7 of Week 4. Plan your time accordingly.

As you wrap up your analysis of the three interviews you completed, draw on the information and perspectives gained through the Learning Resources and Discussion, this week, to assess psychological safety in each workplace. As a nurse executive, you will have new avenues for making a difference for staff and patients. With those opportunities in mind, consider how to apply the insights you gain regarding psychological safety in healthcare settings.

Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

To Prepare:
Review Learning Resources that will guide your analysis of employee empowerment, engagement, and psychological safety.
Use the Guidelines & Questions document, from the Learning Resources, to help you in completing your Assignment, including providing the signature sheet to confirm your three interviews.
Assignment:
Finalize your Module 2 Assignment. Impacts of Employee Empowerment and Psychological Safety

Nursing Care Models Papers

The purpose of this assignment is to identify nursing care models utilized in today’s various health care settings and enhance your knowledge of how models impact the management of care and may influence delegation. You will assess the effectiveness of models and determine how you would collaborate with a nurse leader to identify opportunities for improvement to ensure quality, safety and staff satisfaction.

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Course Outcomes Completion of this assignment enables the student to meet the following course outcomes. CO1: Apply leadership concepts, skills, and decision making in the provision of high quality nursing care, healthcare team management, and the oversight and accountability for care delivery in a variety of settings. (PO2) CO2: Implement patient safety and quality improvement initiatives within the context of the interprofessional team through communication and relationship building. (PO3) CO3: Participate in the development and implementation of imaginative and creative strategies to enable systems to change. (PO7) CO6: Develop a personal awareness of complex organizational systems and integrate values and beliefs with organizational mission. (PO7) CO7: Apply leadership concepts in the development and initiation of effective plans for the microsystems and/or system-wide practice improvements that will improve the quality of healthcare delivery. (PO2, and 3) CO8: Apply concepts of quality and safety using structure, process, and outcome measures to identify clinical questions as the beginning process of changing current practice. (PO8)