Organizational Change in Evergreen Nursing Home: A Case Study

This case study discusses the organizational change in Evergreen Nursing Home, a government-funded nursing home for elderly residents. It highlights the challenges faced in implementing the change and provides recommendations for effective implementation. The study also discusses the characteristics of the nursing home, the staff structure, and the cultural change required. The subject is social sciences and the college/university is not mentioned.

Running head: SOCIAL SCIENCE
SOCIAL SCIENCE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note:

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Evergreen has the typical characteristic features of a nursing home that takes care of
elderly residents. These nursing homes are mainly run by the government funding’s, and these
are not for profit in nature. These institutions are mainly aimed at catering for the elderly
population for whom there is a lack of support from the family, or the family members are
unwilling or unable to take proper care. These nursing homes are equipped and supplied with
adequate resources to take proper care of the elderly people, most of whom are in need of special
care. The people who are appointed in these centers for the care-taking responsibility are
specially trained and equipped with knowledge of how to take care of such people with special
needs.
In this particular case study one such nursing home taking care of the elderly people have
been cited, and the name of the nursing home is Evergreen which is run by government funding
from the Canadian federal government. It can be learnt from the case study that there are 120
elderly residents who stay in this particular place and the building has three floors. The number
of employees have been divided in the three floors and in each floor there are adequate number
of employees to take care of the residents. The number of staff per person is more or less in
compliance with the “Ministry of Health”. Most of the patients are having special care needs
including problems like dementia, cognitive impairment and dependency on walking. There are
long term illnesses that is required to be monitored by the staffs. The staffs are divided according
to each floor and in each floor there are 2 or 3 day-care aids, 2 Licensed Practical Nurses or 1
Licensed Practical Nurse and 1 Registered Nurse. There is one recreation assistant provided in
each of the floors who takes care of the recreational needs of the residents who are mentally
depressed sometimes and needs to be happy by external recreational activities. Other staff

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according to the case study are “cooks and kitchen staff, cleaners, a building service worker,
laundry staff, receptionists, and an administrative assistant/scheduler.”
The two managerial posts of the nursing home are Care Coordinator and the Service
Manager. These managers are under the supervision of “Nursing Home Administrator” who
again is under the jurisdiction of the Executive Director of the NGO or nonprofit organization
that funds and runs the hospital.
The teamwork system in the nursing home is strong with the staffs that are working in
non-managerial positions being closely unified in their decisions and actions. Many of the staffs
are over 10 years old within the institution that has given them an authority and they feel to be
independent in their working style. There has been a problem of employee attendance in the
organization and as most of the staff members are working for a very long time there is lesser
probability that they can be strongly brought under control by the managers who are relatively
very new. There is problem of budgetary allocations, and there is constraint of budget in a lot of
ways. Because there is no profit generation, increment of the number of employees is also a low
probability and the present employees have to cater to the extra works and responsibilities that
arises. There might be last minute leaves applied by any of the staff who might be sick or for any
other exigency, such leaves are costly for the institute, as substitute staffs have to be hired for
that temporary period.
The cultural change that is required to be managed because of the appointment of new
managers and their working styles are needed to be synthesized with the overall organizational
culture that prevailed in the nursing home for all of these days (Waddell et al., 2016). Attempting
to force any kind of cultural change would ruin the present system. Executive Director of the not
for profit organization has created a new “board” that would help in bringing the needed

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organizational change as per her perception. The board had experts from various fields including
management. The seven main values that have been identified as the “cornerstones” of the new
culture includes “Being Passionate About Making a Difference, Find a Better Way, Taking an
Ownership Mentality, Admiring Elders, WOW Customer Experience, Inspirational Caring,
Working Together With Heart.”
As usually the new organizational change that was proposed was not accepted in the first
instance for the psychological barrier (Beal, Stavros & Cole, 2013). What was the situation can
be best understood by the fact that many of the staff members were unable to understand what
was going on. There have been training of over a month in which the staff had been given extra
payment for their attendance which was a necessary step (Grant, 2014). This shows the extent of
effort the management wants to pay in order to bring the required organizational change. There
were changes such as “learning circles”, the values printed on posters, and “onboarding”.
There are various reasons that organizational change in culture is defended by the
existing employees because they are apprehensive of the new situations and new work
environment (Boohene & Williams, 2012). Though it was reported to the executive that the
culture was “well established”, however the administrator and care coordinator overlooked that
not much change could be achieved on the ground. Some of the values which are established are
already known to most of the members and some of the new changes were simply not executed
on the ground. It is proper to say that the organizational cultural change that was deemed
necessary by July did not go in sync with the actual requirements on the ground. There has been
a lack of research on the part of the formulators of the organizational change, which could have
been done more extensively.

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Organizational change can be effectively implemented in an inclusive process where the
employees are made a part of the change. The employees must not feel excluded which may give
rise to resistance or ignorance to the changes desired (Bamberger et al. 2012). The changes
cannot be properly implemented for these two reasons mainly. One, because the all the staff
members were not a part of the organizational change that was enforced, and secondly, because
the employees who have been working for a long time in the field feels that these changes are not
so much required and they continue to work in their own work (Kempster, Higgs & Wuerz,
2014).
Organizational change is also a slow process in which the stakeholders of the change
might take time to adapt to the new situations. Therefore, it is evident from the case study that it
might take longer for the employees to be actually performing in the way what is desired from
them in the new organizational context.
As recommendations it can be said that the management should reconsider the changes
and the way these are implemented. They must make the system more democratic and feasible so
that the changes come from within. Instead of values more importance should be given on the
practical aspects of the change and that will help in actually bringing the difference in the
organization. The staff members must also cooperate and contribute to the process of change. To
achieve that the management should explain how the newly brought changes will help the staff
members to work in a better and more productive way. It is undesired that the staff and the
management will go into a dispute and the whole efforts of change will go into vein.

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