Diagnosing and Treating Workplace Issues- An Application of the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory

Diagnosing and Treating Workplace Issues- An Application of the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory

Introduction

Every management seeks to create a conducive and healthy work environment. Such an environment benefits both employees and the entity. Civility is one of the elements that characterize a healthy workplace. Civility is demonstrated through politeness, courtesy, kindness, a sense of discreteness, respect for each other, and empathy. Incorporating these values within an organization’s culture ensures that the work environment is homogenous in all departments. In the healthcare sector, providing nurses with a healthy work environment ensures that clients receive the best quality of care and further promotes collaboration and high productivity. The importance of civility in the workplace is heightened by the constant interactions with clients and necessary collaboration with other healthcare workers.

Part 1: Work Environment Assessment

The score that was obtained from the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory was 85 of 100. This score indicates a healthy workplace. As denoted by the assessment tool, a score within the range of 80 to 90 is considered moderately healthy. Most of the questions were rated 4 or 5. None of the questions were rated below 3, which is neutral. The statements assess the organization’s culture, shared vision, development opportunities for employees, respect, open communication, shared decision-making, teamwork, collaboration, workload distribution, competitive pay, and benefits, as well as employee satisfaction (Clark, 2015).

My organization scored the least determination of discernible trust between the leaders and followers. The other low score occurred in the assessment of the organization’s culture consistently. The second lowest score was obtained in the members’ ability to subscribe to a shared vision, active shared decision-making and governance, wellness, self-care, sufficient development resources, respect and fairness, workload distribution in a fair manner, effective conflict resolution, free expression of ideas, competitive remuneration, career advancement opportunities attraction and retention of talent, and recommendation of the organization as a good employer. The highest score was observed in respectful, direct, and transparent communication, value asserted on human resources, publicizing and celebrating achievements, as well as high employee engagement and satisfaction.

The results that surprised me included the lack of clear discernible trust between leaders and their followers, as well as the lack of constant assessment of the entity’s culture. I had not realized that these aspects were existent in the organization since I had not paid attention. However, they are repeatedly demonstrated in the interactions between leaders and followers in subtle ways. Furthermore, I was unaware that the organizational culture needs constant assessment and improvement. This is not an aspect that I have observed in the organization despite having a strong corporate culture that is easy to identify and teach. However, its assessment is a new concept, which seems important in ensuring that the organization’s values are effectively and consistently upheld through organizational practices and policies.

Part 2: Reviewing the Literature

In the pursuit of civility at the workplace, Clark’s Healthy Workplace Inventory proves to be a critical tool. Civility is depicted in specific behaviours. These include honesty and politeness during communication, respect for other employees, courtesy, professional appropriateness in all communications, and trustworthiness. Civility is intended to achieve two objectives. First, it should create a work environment that encourages the engagement of all employees. Secondly, it enables the provision of better customer service due to a high level of engagement and teamwork. These actions match the definition of civility, which is ‘claiming and caring for one’s identity, needs and beliefs without degrading someone else’s in the process’ (Reed, Whitten, & Jeremiah, 2019, p.168). The definition emphasizes fostering respect for other people’s respect and for oneself as well.

Unfortunately, uncivil behaviour is rampant in organizations in various sectors. These uncivil behaviours are demonstrated through the provision of negative feedback in public, lack of greetings, exclusion of other staff members in activities that require their input, offensive comments, and disrespectful actions. These actions seem normal in human interactions in the workplace. However, the victims tend to translate these behaviours into the process of service delivery. Their commitment to the organization diminishes significantly, which leads to high turnover. Therefore, it is important to ensure that civility is incorporated into the workplace for lower turnover, increased employee satisfaction, and better delivery of services (Porath & Pearson, 2013).

Incivility is categorized as a highly communicable trend. This means that victims of incivility tend to treat others in the same way, creating a negative culture. To change the culture of incivility to a positive aspect, it is advised that language is reviewed. Hospitals should create a zero-tolerance policy for any bullying, harassment, or intimidation. The idea is that small changes are critical in changing the landscape of healthcare to a positive aspect. The most important aspect of civility or its absence in a healthcare setting is the effect it has on patient safety. Uncivil behaviours can result in life-threatening mistakes and complications that are avoidable, which harm the patient (Reed, Whitten, & Jeremiah, 2019). To ensure that patients are safe in the healthcare facilities, it is necessary to cultivate civility in the workplace.

My organization could apply various strategies to ensure that civility is a fully blown aspect of its culture. This can be done by creating open communication among all members regardless of their rank. This promotes collaboration, which is beneficial for quality care. In addition, it is necessary to create a policy that ensures harassment, rudeness, lack of respect, and intimidation are not tolerated. Most importantly, training all employees on civility, the organization’s efforts on developing the same, and its benefits to all stakeholders. During the training process, employees can be encouraged to share experiences of incivility at the facility. This may generate empathy from perpetrators and help others understand the importance of being civil. In the future, the healthcare facility should continually assess the culture to ensure that the aspects that characterize civility are maintained. Leaders should assume a pioneering role in the process of establishing civility at the organization. This ensures that the employees have a clear direction of the actions they need to take to demonstrate civility.

For instance, all employees should be encouraged to greet one another at the facility as the start of the journey towards civility. Supervisors should be expected to provide negative feedback to employees politely and privately without any intimidation. In addition, staff members at all ranks should be polite while seeking assistance or collaboration with others or offering the same. Most importantly, employees should be grateful to their colleagues and use courteous words such as please and thank you. These examples may seem insignificant, but they hold the potential to transform the workplace significantly.

Part 3: Evidence-Based Strategies to Create High-Performance Interprofessional Teams

The need to bring incivility to an end at the organization is inevitable. The Joint Commission, which is responsible for accrediting healthcare facilities, issued a warning in 2008 regarding the profound negative consequences of incivility. Thus, addressing the issues that encourage or sustain incivility is a requirement by the Joint Commission (Osatuke, Moore, & Ward, 2009). The process of finding solutions to incivility is complex because healthcare organizations consist of multiple departments. This section will explore some of the most promising strategies and tools that are supported by evidence in their development of civility in the workplace.

First, the adoption of the CREW (Civility, Respect, and Engagement in the Workforce) program is one of the tools that can be utilized by the organization. The Veteran’s Health Association set up the CREW program in 2005 (Osatuke, Moore, & Ward, 2009). The main objective that CREW seeks to fulfil is improving the work climate through respectful and civil interactions. The CREW program does not have a manual for implementation. This means that the structure and content of CREW vary from one facility to the next. The variations are important because each facility has different incivility issues. To implement the CREW program successfully, it is necessary that the organization identifies a coordinator who will be responsible for organizing initiatives and meetings. They will also create workgroups that consist of staff members who will take part in the meetings. CREW is ideal because it has been found to increase overall job satisfaction, heighten the desire to remain at the organization, reduce sick leave, reduce EO complaints, and better quality of care as well as patient outcomes (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2022).

Secondly, designing a training program that should complement the adoption of the CREW program is important. First, the organization should conduct an assessment to identify issues that cause significant incivility issues among staff members. They should also seek to understand the impact of these aspects. The content of the CREW meetings and training sessions should be based on the collected data. The training program should also have clear objectives and monitoring processes. This will enable the organization to review the training process and determine its effectiveness.

Conclusion

Civility is more important in the workplace today than in the past. This is due to employers’ need to comply with accreditation requirements in the health sector, create a good working environment, and provide quality care. Employees in the health sector have been exposed to incivility in the past decades, making it a normal organizational aspect that is passed down from one person to another. However, the dangers of incivility cannot be ignored anymore, which calls for aggressive action in all healthcare facilities. The adoption of tools such as the CREW program and employee training are recommended to eliminate incivility in the featured entity. In addition, it is necessary to ensure that employees understand the process and its need. They may know that the aspects of incivility are negative on a personal level. However, few employees may be aware of the organizational effects that incivility creates. In the future, organizations need to constantly, consciously, and proactively create a non-tolerance policy that discourages rudeness, intimidation, bullying, and other such behaviours that promote incivility. In addition, the healthcare organization should ensure that civility elements are incorporated within its organizational culture. The culture should also be assessed repeatedly to ensure its sustenance. Civility is an important element that needs to be nurtured in every healthcare facility for the benefit of employees, patients, and the employer as well.

References

Clark, C. M. (2015). Conversations to inspire and promote a more civil workplace. American Nurse Today, 10(11), 18-23.

Osatuke, K., Moore, S. C., & Ward, C. (2009). Civility, Respect, Engagement in the Workforce (CREW). The Journal of Applied Behavioural Science, 45(3), 384-410.

Porath, C., & Pearson, C. (2013). The Price of Incivility. Harvard Business Review.

Reed, L., Whitten, C., & Jeremiah, J. (2019). The Importance of Teaching Civility as a Workplace Relationship Building Competency. Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, 46, 168-174.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (2022). Civility, Respect, and Engagement in the Workplace (CREW). Retrieved from https://www.va.gov/ncod/crew.asp

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Assignment: Workplace Environment Assessment
Diagnosis is a critical aspect of healthcare. However, the ultimate purpose of a diagnosis is to develop and apply a series of treatments or protocols. Isolated recognition of a health issue does little to resolve it.

Diagnosing and Treating Workplace Issues- An Application of the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory

In this module’s Discussion, you applied the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory to diagnose potential problems with the civility of your organization. In this Portfolio Assignment, you will continue to analyze the results and apply published research to develop a proposed treatment for any issues uncovered by the assessment.

To Prepare:

Please review the Resources and examine the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory, which is found on page 20 of Clark (2015).
Review the Work Environment Assessment Template.
Reflect on the output of your Discussion post regarding your evaluation of workplace civility and the feedback received from colleagues.
Select and review one or more of the following articles found in the Resources:
Clark, Olender, Cardoni, and Kenski (2011)
Clark (2018)
Clark (2015)
Griffin and Clark (2014)
The Assignment (3-6 pages total):

Part 1: Work Environment Assessment (1-2 pages)

Review the Work Environment Assessment Template you completed for this Module’s Discussion.
Describe the results of the Work Environment Assessment you completed on your workplace.
Identify two things that surprised you about the results and one idea you believed prior to conducting the Assessment that was confirmed.
Explain what the results of the Assessment suggest about the health and civility of your workplace.
Part 2: Reviewing the Literature (1-2 pages)

Briefly describe the theory or concept presented in the article(s) you selected.
Explain how the theory or concept presented in the article(s) relates to your Work Environment Assessment results.
Explain how your organization could apply the theory highlighted in your selected article(s) to improve organizational health and/or create stronger work teams. Be specific and provide examples.
Part 3: Evidence-Based Strategies to Create High-Performance Interprofessional Teams (1–2 pages)

Recommend at least two strategies, supported in the literature, that can be implemented to address any shortcomings revealed in your Work Environment Assessment.
Recommend at least two strategies that can be implemented to bolster successful practices revealed in your Work Environment Assessment.