Isaac’s issue: solution
As an assistant nursing manager, I need to effectively manage the routine operations of facilities with the help of nursing units. Resolving Isaac’s issue is my responsibility. I will discuss multiple interpersonal issues raised by his coworkers with him. Isaac is a senior member with 15 years of work experience and his presence on the telemetry floor gives the much-needed knowledge required for handling critical operations in this hospital unit.
Nevertheless, his interpersonal behaviors are becoming an increasing issue for his co-workers, which has been confirmed by other employees from Isaac’s unit. Isaac’s unit is doing satisfactory work; however, I need to show him the importance of keeping cordial relationships within the entire unit. Some of the nurses are new and cannot match his experiences and decisions, but he needs to respect the opinions of other co-working nurses (Rahmani, Ghahramanian, & Allahbakhshian, 2010). At the same time, Isaac also needs to value the inputs and cooperate with other nurses to ensure the smooth functioning of their unit.
As an associate manager, I need to conduct a detailed discussion with Isaac and make him understand that the improvement of his interpersonal skills for the growth and smooth functioning of the entire unit is essential. Also, I need to call a group meeting comprising of nurses working on the telemetry floor. This group meeting will discuss both perspectives and discuss their implications for the patients of the unit as well as the smooth functioning of the hospital (Kieft, de Brouwer, Francke, & Delnoij, 2014). For example, Isaac’s abusive language needs immediate discouragement, at the same time, new nurses need to understand and respect Isaac’s decisions, which are based on his long work experience in handling emergencies.
However, Isaac also needs to give a detailed explanation as to why he thinks a given decision is wrong. For now, he has only given short answers to other nurses’ questions and has not approved of their decisions. Isaac may be right, but he needs to convey his thoughts cordially and effectively. The abusive and non-explanatory nature of discussions will only frustrate and make other nurses uncomfortable. Further, I might also need to distribute the workload of Isaac and give nurses more work because his behavior is a sign of a stressed and overworked nurse (Brom, Melnyk, Szalacha, & Graham, 2016).
As a manager, I will collect information about his behavioral traits and characteristics to offer appropriate training and resources. Also, I might need to provide him with an abled assistant nurse who can take part of his workload and provide him with some time for developing interpersonal skills through reading and training courses. Furthermore, Isaac also needs to understand the importance of time and stress management.
Holiday conflict: resolving
I need to resolve the holiday conflict; otherwise, it would impact the normal functioning of the hospital units and prolong the recovery of patients. The negative implications of conflicts are the inadequate allocation of resources, stress buildup among nurses, and uneven distribution of workload. Because nurses have different opinions, it may lead to conflict and dissension in the workplace. The holiday is an important part of normalizing work stress; therefore, it is crucial to evenly distribute the holidays among all the nurses. However, if multiple nurses opt for the same date for today, it would create a human resource shortage in units. Besides, it is impossible to accept all the holiday requests without altering the requested dates. Altering holiday dates will build up stress and confusion. Therefore, a clear plan is required to avoid any conflicts.
A conflict situation may have both positive and negative impacts (Wright, Mohr, & Sinclair, 2014). On the positive side, nurses from each unit will have to justify their rationale for a given date of the holiday. This will provide enough inputs for the nurse manager to make the decision based on the rationale and justification presented by all the nurses from a given unit. Nevertheless, it will also have a major negative impact, where it will be difficult for a nurse manager to make all the nurses understand the rationale behind a given holiday allocation. The nurse manager needs to look at two major aspects; first, the normal functioning of hospital units during the holidays, and second, satisfactory holiday allocation for the majority of the nurses. This makes it a challenging conflict resolution situation.
This is a case of a competitive conflict, where nurses from various units are competing for getting his or her holiday approved in a stipulated period. As a nurse manager, I will use the win-win strategy to resolve the conflict by persuading conflicting case subjects (Moore, 2014). In this respect, first, I will set a goal for the normal function of a given unit using minimal resources, so that few of the nurses can take holiday. Next, holiday duration will be governed by work stress and load sharing i.e. all the members of a given unit will have to present their cases with suitable justification for priority. The final decision on holiday allocation will be based on two major factors i.e. workload of a given unit and rationally presented by individual nurses. Besides, I will consider the previous holiday profile of nurses and give priority to those who were not able to get holidays previously. This persuasive model should create a win-win situation for both hospital functioning and nurses.
References
Brom, H. M., Melnyk, B. M., Szalacha, L. A., & Graham, M. (2016). Nurse practitioners’ role perception, stress, satisfaction, and intent to stay at a Midwestern academic medical center. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 28(5), 269-276.
Kieft, R., de Brouwer, B., Francke, A., & Delnoij, D. (2014). How nurses and their work environment affect patient experiences of the quality of care: A qualitative study. BMC Health Services Research, 14, 249-253.
Rahmani, A., Ghahramanian, A., & Allahbakhshian, A. (2010). Respecting to patients’ autonomy in viewpoint of nurses and patients in medical – surgical wards. Journal of Midwifery Research, 15(1), 14-19.
Wright, R. R., Mohr, C. D., & Sinclair, R. R. (2014). Conflict on the treatment floor: An investigation of interpersonal conflict experienced by nurses. Journal of Research in Nursing, 19(1), 26-37.