Workplace Environment Assessment

The workplace is perhaps the most critical element in healthcare settings and may vary significantly depending on employee well-being, patient care outcomes, and successful organizational outcomes. A healthy work environment enhances collaboration, mutual respect, and proper communication. An unhealthy workplace enhances stress and burnout and leads to poor patient outcomes. The Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory assists by diagnosing the health and civility of a workplace to help identify areas that require intervention. In this regard, the Workplace Environment Assessment at my organization entailed the utilization of this inventory to assess the status of civility and health in the organization, succeeded by a literature review to support the identification of evidence-based strategies to meet identified challenges and promote positive practices.

Part 1: Work Environment Assessment

The assessment conducted using the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory yielded a score of 54, classifying the environment as unhealthy. As evidenced by this low score, the organization has many problems, most of them related to incivility and communication. The main challenges include a need for more cooperation between new and experienced workers and unfair treatment focusing on shift work. These challenges result in a work climate that is saturated with distrust, resentment, and unfair practices, which are the signs of an unhealthy organizational climate.

Two aspects of the assessment results were quite surprising. First, the degree to which over-optimistic management skewed the overall morale was more severe than the forecasted optimism. Some realized that shift change or workload discrimination leads to discontent and conflict among workers. If experienced nurses were permanently receiving such preferences over new nurses, it felt like seniority was valued more than hard work, warranting new nursing workers’ poor morale. In management practices, trust in the leadership was diminishing, and team integration was becoming eroded since some of the staff felt excluded.

The second shock was the extent to which tensions between novice and experienced personnel shaped the day’s work. The presumption here was that people would seldom have disagreements; when they do, they would only be over a particular issue. However, the assessment showed that such tensions were typical in the workplace and interfered with teamwork and communication during ordinary work. While teamwork enhanced slightly when patients were at the core of care during emergencies, temporary cohesiveness had little to offer in fixing ingrained rude behavior that recurred when performing ordinary tasks.

The assessment also affirmed the previous notion that management bias is one of the strongest influences in staff politics, particularly in the distribution of assignments. Pre-assessment, there seemed to be a possibility that favor was being played in assignment distribution. The findings of the assessment proved this belief and cited a definite trend toward biased assignment practices. These biased tendencies in favor of specific nurses usually resulted in dissatisfaction among newer nurses who felt overworked and undervalued compared to their colleagues with more experience. This was a chronic problem that cumulatively led to an overall foul work atmosphere with no trusting environment, low morale, and no opportunities for growth and mutual development.

Besides, the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory results indicate that civility and health in this workplace are impaired. Civility refers to behaviors that show respect, inclusiveness, and fairness within the organization, as indicated by Xue (2023). However, biased practices and discriminatory assignment distributions in this workplace work against the principles underlying this aspect. The strained relations between various groups of staff further reduce civility and make it impossible for the team to work as a well-driven machinery with harmonious functioning during routine times. While there are moments of teamwork when patients are in acute states of emergency, such moments of teamwork do not replace the lack of civility implicit in the organization.

Part 2: Reviewing the Literature

The two selected articles include Hover and Williams (2022) and Lee and Miller (2022), which explain the nature of workplace civility and how it can be enhanced. Hover and Williams (2022) reviewed the narrative of lateral violence in healthcare with additional emphasis on new nurses’ perception of the phenomenon and its impact on the profession in terms of job retention. Lateral violence can be defined as actions that are psychological, emotional, or verbal aggression coming from one or more persons in the workplace, usually in relation to another person or group in the same hierarchy level. In new nurses, it can present as comments that undermine one’s authority, dismissal from group decisions or assignments, or being given difficult shifts. Such experiences demoralize employees’ morale and job satisfaction and, consequently, impact retention rates. The results highlighted by Hover and Williams (2022) align with the observation made during my evaluation, in which it seems that unfair distributions of assignments reflect the managerial attitudes towards the subordination of inexperienced nurses.

On the other hand, Lee and Miller (2022) describe the creation of a diversity, equity, and civility council as a preventive measure to achieve health equity in academic nursing and practice. Such councils should foster a forum through which staff can voice matters concerning discrimination, manners of conduct, and unfair treatment within the workplace. Hence, its function is to break down barriers toward accommodating diversity and minorities by identifying systemic problems and putting measures for mainstream diversity and equity in place. Forming a diversity and civility council is helpful for my organization because there are no distinct initiatives aimed at combating prejudice and implementing a tolerant working environment at present.

Theories from these articles directly relate to the results of the Work Environment Assessment, providing a lens through which to view the root causes of an unhealthy workplace. The concept of lateral violence demonstrates how hierarchical structures and management biases can promote tensions across groups of staff, as was seen in the biased assignment practices. It is unequivocal to state that the proposal for a diversity and civility council offers a reasonable way to deal with the root systemic causes of the lack of civility in the workplace.

Notably, the organization could take the theories and concepts garnered from the literature and make further enhancements to organizational health by building better work teams. For example, a diversity, equity, and civility council could be established where employees raise issues of concern so as to resolve bias or incivility in the organization. This council would implement policies such as equitable shift assignments and design training programs on conflict resolution that would help further the understanding of novice and experienced nurses. In addition, more programs could be developed where two nurses of different levels of experience, ranging from fresh nurses to more experienced, could be paired for the sake of companionship and knowledge sharing (Rinaldo et al., 2022). By addressing issues of bias and lateral violence through structured interventions, the organization can promote a healthier work environment where all staff members feel valued and respected.

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

In relation to the aspects criticized in the Work Environment Assessment, evidence-based practice shall be applied to eliminate bias, incivility, and low morale.

Strategies to Address Shortcomings Revealed in the Work Environment Assessment

Implementing Structured Conflict Resolution Training

Hover and Williams (2022) note that lateral violence in the workplace can be managed through established training that prevents conflict resolution. This training would enable the staff to handle conflicts effectively, hence minimizing the impact of tensions that result from the organizational hierarchy being augmented with biased practices. It could be in the form of workshops, for instance, where role-play fosters free conversation and understanding among staff in the workplace. Also, the organization can devise a policy or practice requiring training staff in skills like emotional intelligence, empathy, and cultural sensitivity, which have to be part of conflict resolution to allow staff to understand other’s standpoints and improve staff relations.

Establishing a Peer-Support Network

This would include establishing a peer group that would support one another in eliminating the effects of lateral violence and ensure improvements in the workplace workplace. This would be a network where the staff could freely address issues related to management bias, workload distribution, or any other issues they may have with the employers without the risk of repercussions. Having arranged timetabled meetings of peer support with the assistance of an appointed mediator, it is possible to structure the conversation and assist the staff in developing mutual management solutions for occurrences of concern to all of them. The nature of peer support is a form of mentorship in which new nurses will be guided on the working cultures and given guidance on solving professional issues in their workplaces.

Strategies to Bolster the Existing Good Practices

Strengthening Critical Incident Debriefing Processes

Since the assessment established that staff pulls in a particular direction during emergencies, it makes sense to build on this by conducting structured post-incident analysis and performance and using the lessons identified to enhance operations during normal working. Daily briefings after significant events allow the organization to find time for effective communication and areas to enhance and appreciate good collaboration (Arriaga et al., 2020). Debriefings can also operate as a tool to remind the teams of the necessity to show a civil approach and support each other, not only in emergency cases only.

Introducing Recognition Programs for Teamwork

Through recognition and reward power, it is possible to encourage the staff to adopt collaborative attitudes. Samardzic et al. (2020) allude that having a recognition program that focuses on teams demonstrates superior performance, particularly where the team has responded to a crisis. This is one way through which the culture of positive interdependence can be promoted. The program includes monthly rewards for the most polite, collaborative working team and recognition during staff meetings.

Conclusion

Issues of concern from the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory included overall civility and management bias in the workplace. The literature review aggravates the necessity of specific, organized approaches to dealing with the problems identified in the organization, including conflict solution sessions, diversity civility committees, and peer support groups. Implementing research-informed practice to transform organizational culture for diversity and equality would foster an organizational culture for morale, high-performing teams, and quality patient care.

References

Arriaga, A. F., Szyld, D., & Pian-Smith, M. C. M. (2020). Real-time debriefing after critical events. Anesthesiology Clinics, 38(4), 801–820. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anclin.2020.08.003

Hover, L. A., & Williams, G. B. (2022). New nurses’ experience with lateral violence and their decision to remain in nursing. International Journal for Human Caring, 26(4), 199–208. https://doi.org/10.20467/humancaring-d-20-00069

Lee, S., & Miller, K. (2022). Developing a diversity, equity, and civility council to advance health equity in nursing academia and practice. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 46(3), E16–E23. https://doi.org/10.1097/naq.0000000000000528

Rinaldo, J. G., Baumgardner, R., Tilton, T., & Brailoff, V. (2022). Mentorship respect study: A nurse mentorship program’s impact on transition to practice and decision to remain in nursing for newly graduated nurses. Nurse Leader, 21(2), 262–267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mnl.2022.07.003

Samardzic, M., Doekhie, K. D., & Wijngaarden, J. D. H. (2020). Interventions to improve team effectiveness within health care: A systematic review of the past decade. Human Resources for Health, 18(2). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-019-0411-3

Xue, P. (2023). Advancing workplace civility: A systematic review and meta-analysis of definitions, measurements, and associated factors. Frontiers in Psychology, 14(1277188). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1277188

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Clearly, diagnosis is a critical aspect of healthcare. However, the ultimate purpose of a diagnosis is the development and application of a series of treatments or protocols. Isolated recognition of a health issue does little to resolve it.

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 the development of a proposed treatment for any issues uncovered by the assessment.