Organizational Culture Influences The Working Environment

Leadership and management are equally important practices; however, where leadership focuses on influencing people to accomplish a goal, management focuses on influencing staff to fulfill an organization’s goals and targets the majority of their attention on organizational goals and objectives (Huber, 2010). In order for nursing managers to combat shortages and retention issues, they need to improve job satisfaction on the organizational level. Some approaches to doing that are: innovative job redesign, the creation of knowledgeable, confident nursing leaders, enhancing supervisor and administrative support and career ladder development (Morgan & Lynn, 2009). Strong nurse managers will collaborate with their nursing leaders to analyze ways to attract new nursing staff to the profession while also being pro-active in improving staff retention (Duffield, Roche, Blay & Stasa, 2010). They also understand that there is a connection between strong nurse leaders, employee satisfaction, a healthy work environment and nurse retention. Another approach nurse managers can take to increase job satisfaction and decrease turn-over is to acknowledge and praise staff for a job well done. Studies have shown that recognition and praise from management had a strong influence on job satisfaction (Duffield, Roche, Blay & Stasa,

Encompassing every department within the hospital is vital to establishing the culture. Leaders need to portray the “just” culture they are trying to instill by their actions, words, and behavior (Emory University, Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, 2013). Leading by example management creates a mold to change the culture to one that focuses on providing a safe healthcare environment (Marquis & Huston, 2015). The change to the culture is dependent on the actions and examples set by the leaders and the treatment of employees. Without leaders setting the framework to guide the organization, a “just” culture is unattainable. Leaders are crucial to establishing the pathway of a “just” culture.

The national nursing shortage is predicted to continue to rise to levels that have not been seen since the 1960’s (Fasoli, 2010). Managers must create an environment that is conducive to employees. The leader needs to promote organizational commitment and retain employees by promoting a positive culture on the unit. Nurses want an environment where they can provide high-quality care to patients and leaders must help facilitate and maintain this environment. Employees also want to feel like their opinions matter to the manager, and they have a say in the future of the unit. Employees do not want to feel like they are not important, or their voices are not being heard.

Thank you for the discussion of your workplace’s nursing culture. My nursing culture in the facility where I am currently employed, a division of United Health Group, also encourages leadership. However, the organization is unique as culture is defined by five values: integrity, compassion, relationships, innovation, and performance (UnitedHealth Group, 2017). Each of these values are reviewed at a monthly 1:1 session with a manager and are incorporated into the annual evaluation, cash awards, and merit increases.

In the United States nursing is the nation’s largest health care profession and there are more 3.1 million registered nurses nationwide (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2011, para. 1). The number of registered nurses is projected to grow by 16 percent from 2014 to 2024 (U.S. Department of Labor, 2015, para. 5) and given these growing numbers there will be an increased need for nurse leaders. Nursing leadership plays a pivotal role not only in striving to implement safe patient practices, but also for nurse retention and satisfaction (Bormann & Abrahamson, 2014, p. 219). Nurses will need development and mentoring to develop the leadership skills needed to support the development of healthy work places (Sherman & Pross, 2010,

The culture of an organization, especially one such as a hospital that involves a lot of different people and their values can greatly increase or decrease the chance of the success of an organization. The hospital doctors, nurses, and other health care workers greatly influence the care of the patient either positively or negatively. Policies and procedures govern the internal making of the regulatory aspects of the patient care. Following policies is a must, and usually leads to the safety of the patient (Jasper, Kangasniemi, Turunen, & Vaismoradi, 2013). The culture of the nursing staff in particular can help influence the retention of nurses, and

There is a continuous evolvement of literature regarding nursing and the positive impact of healthy work environments, which contribute to improved staff satisfaction and greater patient safety outcomes. Researchers have hypothesized that in today’s society nurse leadership roles will be challenging and nurses must have a strong background and skill set to be effective leaders in the future. The chosen literature reviews will attempt to support this hypothesis.

Organizational values have deep meaning and purpose. Understanding these core values and having a deeper sense of the organization’s culture is imperative in order to deliver favorable and positive patient outcomes (Huber, 2014). Prior to sharing a vision, an organization and its members must identify not only the similarities in their values, but also the differences. Aligning and enhancing the similarities while working together to minimize the effects of the differences, can help create a healthy and effective workplace culture. “Organizational culture affects the quality of nursing care” and a group culture based on participation, collaboration, empowerment and shared beliefs lead to better patient outcomes (Huber, 2014, p. 57).

A few of those included the use of effective leadership, improved work environment, shared governance, obtaining Magnet status and the use of a nurse residency program. An effective leader should have a transformational leadership style with a strong basis on communication between leaders and staff regarding the goals, values, and vision of the organization. Effective leaders also encourage an atmosphere of autonomy, shared governance, group cohesion, and empowerment of staff along with reward and recognition (Force, 2005). A positive work environment is one where nurses feel respected and valued (Erenstein & McCaffrey,

The researchers found that the staff responded favorably to consensus and consultative leaders. Although some facility managers had a leadership style that fostered employee growth and satisfaction. The researchers found that organizational culture played a more significant role in the employee’s overall satisfaction with their job (Banaszak-Holl, Castle, Lin, Shrivastwa, & Spreitzer,2015). Organizations that were more cooperate driven had the highest turnover rates among nursing staff. Turnover rates were lower in nursing facilities where these leadership models were not employed. Competing Values Framework (CVF) was used to measure culture and staff satisfaction in a healthcare setting (Banaszak-Holl, Castle, Lin, Shrivastwa, & Spreitzer,2015). The CVFs measured the different values and how they can lead to conflict within a healthcare environment. The data showed that within the CVF RNs, NA and LPNs had an increase in turnover rates when the environment was rigid. In a hierarchical culture, RNs had less turnover, however, this was not the case for LPN and NA. In some instances, the organizational culture carriers over in management practices and therefore can negatively affect employee

The organization culture as a leadership concept has been identified as one of the many components that leaders can use to grow a dynamic organization. Leadership in organizations starts the culture formation process by imposing their assumptions and expectations on their followers. Once culture is established and accepted, they become a strong leadership tool to communicate the leader 's beliefs and values to organizational members, and especially new comers. When leaders promote ethical culture, they become successful in maintaining organizational growth, the good services demanded by the society, the ability to address problems before they become disasters and consequently are competitive against rivals. The leader 's success will depend to a large extent, on his knowledge and understanding of the organizational culture. The leader who understands his organizational culture and takes it seriously is capable of predicting the outcome of his decisions in preventing any anticipated consequences. What then is organizational culture? The concept of organizational culture has been defined from many perspectives in the literature. There is no one single definition for organizational culture. The topic of organizational culture has been studied from many perspectives and disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, organizational behavior, and organizational leadership to name a few. Deal defines organizational culture as values,

Organizational structure has been set up to facilitate all goal achievements. It is a way to motivate their employees and get them to work together. It also helps its employees to follow the organizations goals, and work together as a team. In order to do this, they need to have an organized structure to be able to run the company smoothly. A main foundation of every organization is to post their mission statement and goals everywhere so that their employees can see them. An organizational culture can consist of common shared beliefs and values that are established by the organization’s leader, and then communicated and reinforce through various methods, this helps shape employee perceptions, behaviors and understanding. Overall, organizational structure and culture can effect progress of many organizations in a positive and negative way.

The structure of an organization determines the allocation of roles, regulations, and responsibilities, and therefore builds a basis for the culture in an organization. There is a constant relationship between organizational structure and organizational culture that provides a theme within an organization. Both can be difficult to clearly define and distinguish when analyzing an organization. Organization culture is a perspective into the company’s personality; it provides descriptive values, principals, traditions, and a way of doing things that effect how members view the organization (Robbins, DeCenzo, & Coulter, 2013). The organizational structure builds the

Nurses’ personal and professional values cannot be sustained without healthy work environments. A healthy work environment is critical to the comfort of every healthcare provider, regardless of positions. If nurses are placed in leadership positions without adequate preparation and support for their responsibilities, this can lead to an unhealthy work environment, which might then turn into staff turnover, job dissatisfaction, anxiety, and low quality care to patients. Many health care facilities today continue to suffer from a nursing shortage that is expected to continue, resulting in challenges for the health care system in the United States (Ritter, 2010, p.

Over time, it is expected that businesses make changes to their work place to improve productivity and efficiency. It is evidently found throughout several businesses, including Guide Dogs that many factors affect this. Factors such as workplace culture and government policies are important features which help to build and define the success of the business and efficiency of the workplace. It has been evaluated by Business SA that for these reasons, these factors clearly affect the proficiency and productivity within a work place.