Workplace Environment Assessment

To Prepare:

Review the Resources and examine the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory, 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):    Workplace Environment Assessment Paper

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 the results of your Work Environment Assessment.
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.  Workplace Environment Assessment Paper
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.

Part 1: Work Environment Assessment

The results of the Work Environment Assessment (WEA) presented a score of 59, indicating that this is an unhealthy work environment. Poor scores were reported in areas concerning career advancement and development, job satisfaction, workload, and the organization being recommended as a good workplace. There were fair scores in areas concerning the mentoring program, promotion of teamwork, and appreciation and achievements. There was no area in which the organization did exceptionally well as a workplace. This shows that there is a need for significant improvements in all areas of the organization as a workplace environment.

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The results of the WEA revealed two surprising things. Firstly, there is significant bullying and hazing targeted at new personnel. This is surprising since it is part of the organization culture. One would not expect this to be the case, especially if the organization seeks to retain newly hired personnel. The new personnel are disrespected at every opportunity, with those who disrespect them arguing that this is the standard practice at the organization and it helps to improve comradery even as the new and old personnel bond. Secondly, the organization has a code of conduct that is regularly updated and presented to the personnel. The document clearly identifies appropriate behavior among the personnel, to include fair distribution of work and how unfair treatment should be handled. However, the document is not well implemented. The code of conduct is largely ignored as the new personnel face cases of unfair treatment and unfair work distribution. Besides these two surprising things, another surprising thing was that the organization is aware that it presents an unhealthy workplace, especially for new personnel who regularly complain about the unhealthy workplace environment, and yet the organization has ignored the issues and opted to maintain the status quo.

The WEA results reveal that the organization presents an unhealthy workplace environment with cases of incivility. The new personnel are subjected to uncivil behavior by the veteran personnel, but do not have any avenue to address their concerns as any complaints they present are ignored. The result is that the new personnel feel unsatisfied. In fact, the unfavorable and unfair treatment has created a culture of incivility as this is now considered normal behavior so that personnel expect this to happen. Besides that, the different professions do not have mutual respect. This makes it difficult for the personnel to communicate, support and interact with each other in the professional tasks (Clark et al., 2011). There is a concern that the new personnel bear the brunt of the negative aspects of the unhealthy work environment. This is detrimental to them as they are subjected to unfair work distribution and unfair treatment. Overall, this organization presents an unhealthy and uncivil workplace environment.

Part 2: Reviewing the Literature

The selected literature for review is Clark (2019). It presents the results of a research study that identifies the appropriate strategies for preparing nurses to address incivility in the workplace. It reports that nurses have an ethical and professional obligation to create and foster a healthy and civil environment in the workplace. This is important for helping nurses to not only protect themselves, but also to protect their patients and other stakeholders. In essence, there is an expectation that nurses must have the capacity to foster civility in the workplace before they can be able protect their patients. Toward this end, the study postulates that a civility training is a requirement for nursing students as it enable them to actively create and foster a civil environment in the workplace. Given this awareness, the study sought to identify the combination of strategies that would be best suited for enabling nursing students to acquire the skills and knowledge required for dealing with workplace incivility. The results of the study reveal that cognitive rehearsal strategy in combination with debriefing, deliberate practice, evidence-based scripting and simulation strategies are best suited for preparing nursing students to acquire the skills and knowledge required for dealing with workplace incivility. The concept described in the study is the use of an evidence-based approach to educate nursing students to address cases of workplace incivility in practice. This concept espouses the use of an education approach in a controlled, non-threatening environment where students can experiment with different approaches and retrospectively evaluate the cases thus preparing them to better address similar cases in real life. During the training, the students practice and are corrected even as they become familiar, experienced and skills in addressing workplace incivility. Also, the concept espouses the use of a skilled facilitator/educator who directs learning to improve outcomes (Clark, 2019).

Clark (2019) presents a concept that is focused on ensuring that nurses learn about identifying and addressing workplace incivility. This concept is useful for creating functional, strong and productive interdisciplinary health care teams while improving the workplace environment so that it is more favorable for the personnel. This concept is applied in civility training that focuses on deliberately preparing nurses to apply evidence-based approaches in determining what constitutes incivility and civility, and the appropriate strategies for addressing concerns (Clark, 2019). There are two opportunities for applying the concept in an organization. Firstly, providing the personnel with training in which an expert engages them to deliver in-person training on-site. Secondly, providing training using virtual tools in which the personnel are subjected to an interactive, remote learning experience that occurs from any location, offsite, in real time. The two opportunities can be leveraged to ensure that nurses are effectively trained, the training is led by an expert, and the training is delivered in a manner that encourages practice, interaction and activity (Griffin & Clark, 2014). As a result, Clark (2019) describes a concept that encourages effective personnel training to help improve workplace civility and health while creating strong teams.

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

The results of WEA reveal that the organization presents an unhealthy workplace in which personnel experience disrespectful and unfair treatment. There are three key strategies for improving the workplace and creating a healthy environment. The first strategy is to leverage the individual personnel as resources. This is especially the case for the individual characteristics and behaviors of the personnel that can be leveraged to enable them cope with an unhealthy and perform well even as they meet the demands of their jobs. This strategy would train the personnel on self-efficacy, competence and self-esteem. The second strategy is to leverage the teams and groups as resources. That is because the teams and groups are linked together by shared relationships targeted at fostering interactions and information exchange in the workplace. this includes social support and good interpersonal relationships. The third strategy is to leverage the leadership at the organization. The leaders have a position of power and this can be leveraged to influence the personnel performance and wellbeing in the workplace (Vana & Tazbir, 2021).

In addition to the three mentioned strategies, there are four strategies that can also be applied to create a healthy and civil workplace while bolstering successful practices. Firstly, providing new personnel with assertive communication and conflict management skills to help them face unfair treatment and hazing. Secondly, conducting informative and educative campaigns to sensitize personnel to the negative effective of an unhealthy and uncivil workplace so that they are galvanized to implement prevention strategies. Thirdly, increasing awareness of what civil and uncivil behavior entails. Finally, adopting a no-tolerance policy for incivility to include a comprehensive code of conduct that appropriately punishes incivility (Beauvais, 2018).

References

Beauvais, A. M. (2018). Leadership and Management Competence in Nursing Practice: Competencies, Skills, Decision-Making. Springer Publishing Company.

Clark, C. M. (2019). Combining cognitive rehearsal, simulation, and evidence-based scripting to address incivility. Nurse Educator, 44(2), 64-68. https://doi.org/10.1097/NNE.0000000000000563

Clark, C., Olender, L., Cardoni, C., & Kenski, D. (2011). Fostering civility in nursing education and practice: Nurse leader perspectives. Journal of Nursing Administration, 41(7/8), 324-330. https://doi.org/10.1097/NNA.0b013e31822509c4

Griffin, M., & Clark, C. M. (2014). Revisiting cognitive rehearsal as an intervention against incivility and lateral violence in nursing: 10 years later. Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 45(12), 535–542. https://doi.org/10.3928/00220124-20141122-02

Vana, P. K., & Tazbir, J. (2021). Kelly Vana’s Nursing Leadership and Management (4^th ed.). John Wiley & Sons Ltd.  Workplace Environment Assessment Paper