Support and Empowerment of Employees

Week 3: Support and Empowerment of Employees

How does healthcare compare with other fields in markers, such as employee empowerment and engagement? Investigating that question is one purpose of your Module 2 Assignment, for which you will interview three employees in different fields, with one individual in healthcare. You will also consider the theme of psychological safety, which you will explore in more detail in Week 4.

As you begin your Assignment, reflect on your own experiences and perceptions of a typical work environment within a healthcare setting. As a nurse executive, you will have greater influence over how the nurses you lead function within that environment. Recall examples from the Learning Resources of benefits when nurses are empowered and engaged. Consider how you can use the information you gain through this Assignment to develop your leadership skills, with the goal of providing support that is constructively impactful for nurses, patients, and a healthcare organization.

To Prepare:

· Choose and secure the agreement of three individuals you know well (i.e., family and friends) to be interviewed on the topics of employee empowerment, engagement, and psychological safety in the workplace. One person you interview must work in a healthcare setting.

· Review the Learning Resources on employee empowerment, engagement, and psychological safety in the workplace. Consider definitions that clarify these concepts and which you can explain to your interview subjects in enlisting their participation and guiding responses.

· Access and review the document Employee Interviews: Guidelines and Questions, located in the Learning Resources, for guidance on planning, conducting, analyzing, and comparing the interview responses. Note: You are required to submit the signature of each person you interview to confirm the individual’s agreement to participate. Fill in Page 1 of the Employee Interviews: Guidelines and Questions document, print the page, and obtain the signatures. (There is a place for all three signatures on Page 1.) Scan and submit Page 1 as a separate Word file with your completed Assessment.

· Conduct a brief (20–30 minutes) phone or in-person interview with each individual. Speak with each person separately so that you have three sets of independent views to compare. Questions to ask are provided in the Guidelines document. Note the questions are repeated in a section for each interviewee. Take notes in the document, or record the interviews with each person’s permission.

· When you have completed all three interviews, review each individual’s experiences and sense of empowerment, engagement, and psychological safety at work. Compare and contrast the responses with the goal of arriving at clear conclusions on how the degree of employee empowerment, engagement, and psychological safety influences job performance, satisfaction, and morale.

· Compare the responses of the individual who works in healthcare and your own experiences in professional practice in healthcare to the responses of your interviewees working in other areas. Consider conclusions you can make about employee empowerment, engagement, and psychological safety in healthcare compared with other professions.

· Consider quality care and safety issues in healthcare and the relationship among psychological safety, employee empowerment, and engagement as positive or negative factors.

· Consider strategies nurse executives can apply to improve or enhance employee empowerment, engagement, and psychological safety within healthcare settings.

Assignment:

Based on your three interviews and drawing on current literature, and from the perspective of a nurse executive’s role in supporting employee job performance and satisfaction, write an analysis that addresses, in 4–5 pages, the following points:

· Describe the three employees you interviewed, including their industries and job titles.

· Explain your working definitions of “employee empowerment” and “employee engagement” that are the basis of the interviews.

· Summarize how the interviewees characterized the culture of employee empowerment and engagement within their organizations.

· Analyze how employee empowerment and employee engagement within healthcare organizations compare with other industries.

· Explain your working definition of “psychological safety” that is the basis of the interviews.

· Summarize how the interviewees characterized the presence, absence, and/or degree of psychological safety within their organizations.

· Analyze how psychological safety within healthcare compares with other industries.

· Analyze how degree of psychological safety, employee empowerment, and engagement are positive or negative factors for quality care and safety issues within healthcare.

· From the position of a nurse executive, explain at least two leadership strategies you would recommend for actions to improve or sustain psychological safety, employee empowerment, and engagement within healthcare organizations. Speak generally, or specifically, to your current healthcare organization or one where you have worked in the past.

REFERENCES:

Asiri, S. A., Rohrer, W. W., Al-Surimi, K., Da’ar, O. O., & Ahmed, A. (2016). The association of leadership styles and empowerment with nurses’ organizational commitment in an acute health care setting: A cross-sectional study. BMC Nursing, 15(38), 1–10. doi:10.1186/s12912-016-0161-7

Choi, S. L., Goh, C. F., Adam, M. B. H., & Tan, O. K. (2016). Transformational leadership, empowerment, and job satisfaction: The mediating role of employee empowerment. Human Resources for Health, 14(1), 73. doi:10.1186/s12960-016-0171-2

Laschinger, H. K. S., Wong, C. A., & Grau, A. L. (2013). Authentic leadership, empowerment and burnout: A comparison in new graduates and experienced nurses. Journal of Nursing Management, 21(3), 541–552. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2834.2012.01375.x

Lee, A., Willis, S., & Tian, A. W. (2018, March). When empowering employees works, and when it doesn’t. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2018/03/when-empowering-employees-works-and-when-it-doesnt

O’Donovan, R., Ward, M., De Brún, A., & McAuliffe, E. (2019). Safety culture in health care teams: A narrative review of the literature. Journal of Nursing Management, 27(5), 871–883. doi:10.1111/jonm.12740

Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). (2017). 2017 Employee job satisfaction and engagement: The doors of opportunity are open [Executive summary]. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/research-and-surveys/Documents/2017-Employee-Job-Satisfaction-and-Engagement-Executive-Summary.pdf