Leading and Managing Organizational Change

This report discusses the issues faced by the human resources in the General Surgery Unit at Eastern Massachusetts University Hospital and provides recommendations for improvement.

Organizational Change
LEADING AND MANAGING
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE -
964169

Organizational Change
Table of Contents
Introduction..............................................................................................................................3
Problem statements...................................................................................................................3
Recommendation/Solutions......................................................................................................4
Conclusion................................................................................................................................5
Bibliography..............................................................................................................................6

Organizational Change
Introduction
Barbara Norris has been recently appointed as the Nurse Manager for the General Surgery
Unit at the Eastern Massachusetts University Hospital. The General Surgery Unit of EMU
has not been performing well and is experiencing a number of issues in relation to its human
resources. Barbara Norris had an idea about the prevailing conditions but she took up the
challenge to turn things around for the General Surgery Unit. Therefore, in this report, we
will discuss the issues that are being experienced by the human resources working in the
surgery unit and how they can be addressed.
Problem statements
The General Surgery Unit at EMU is experiencing a number of problems with respect to its
human resource management practices. Some of these problems are discussed below:
First of all, the surgery unit is experiencing very high labor turnover ratios, which has
resulted in a shortage of staff members. Due to the shortage of staff members, the unit is
failing to perform its day-to-day functions and operations smoothly, which is having an
adverse impact on employee morale and motivation levels (Mohamed, Lai, Daskalaki, &
Saridakis, 2016).
Secondly, the work culture in the surgery unit is not up to the mark. The work culture in the
surgery unit has become negative over a period of time. The employees are not ready to work
with each other in teams and are talking ill about each other at their back. The employees in
the surgery unit feel that they are given tasks on the basis of the relation that they have with
their seniors and not on the basis of their caliber.
Thirdly, the management of the surgery unit is failing to recognize and reward the efforts that
are being made by the employees for the achievement of organizational goals and objectives.
There is no system of performance appraisal in the unit and the employees receive negative
feedbacks from different sources rather than getting feedback from Barbara Norris herself.
The employees in the surgery unit are engaged in their jobs and are also ready to go an extra
mile for the wellbeing of the patients, but they feel that their seniors do not acknowledge their
efforts and value their inputs.

Organizational Change
Lastly, the management of EMU has not been able to provide career development
opportunities to the staff members of the General Surgery Unit. The nurses working in the
surgery unit have reported that there is still a large number of nurses working in the unit who
do not have optimum experience in their fields. Further, the nurses are not given any training
or development opportunities that could help them in increasing their skills and in offering
better healthcare services to their patients.
The prevailing problems can have a major impact on most of the stakeholders. The
employees would not only lose their interests in the job but would also feel a lack of
motivation and job satisfaction. The employers will have to deal with high turnover ratios and
labor shortages, which will make it difficult for them to operate normally (Obeidat, 2016).
The customers would not be able to receive high quality healthcare services from EMU and
the overall productivity, profitability and efficiency would decline.
Recommendation/Solutions
The problems prevailing in the surgery unit can have a long-lasting impact on the market
reputation of EMU, which makes it imperative for the management to implement corrective
measures for the improvement of the surgery unit. Some of the recommendations are
discussed below:
First of all, Barbara needs to start team building exercises in the surgery unit. Barbara can
form action teams comprising of different employees and can shuffle them every weak. Each
team can be given a specific task to complete. Such team building exercises will help Barbara
in developing an environment where the employees are open and helpful to each other
(Moore, Everly, & Bauer, 2016).
Secondly, workforce planning will have to be implemented as a priority human resource
management function in the surgery unit of EMU. Most of the problems in the surgery unit
are arising because of the shortage of staff and high labor turnover. The management needs to
identify the labor demands of its surgery unit and find out sources to fulfil the demand.
Having optimum workforce will prevent burnouts amongst the employees and they would be
able to maintain a better work-life balance, which will increase their motivation level and job
satisfaction levels as well (Lopes, Almeida, & Almada-Lobo, 2015).

Organizational Change
Thirdly, performance measurement and appraisals will have to be strengthened in the surgery
unit. Performance management is an important demand of the employees in the contemporary
business world. They have a need to know the way in which they have been able to contribute
towards the success of their organizations. Therefore, the management at EMU can
implement a 360-degree feedback program which will offer the employees with an
opportunity to get feedback on their performance from their co-workers, seniors, juniors as
well as their customers. Receiving performance feedbacks from multiple sources increases
the reliability and validity of the results (Hageman, Ring, Gregory, Rubash, & Harmon,
2015). Further, the management can also attach a system of rewards and potential appraisal
with the 360-degree feedback. The management can offer monetary or non-monetary rewards
to the employees who demonstrate excellent performance over a specific period of time and
can also consider them for promotions. Further, for the underperforms, the management can
design training and development programs and can also assign coaches or mentors to them.
This would allow the underperformers to increase their competencies and achieve the
performance objectives which have been set up for them (Cogin, Ng, & Lee, 2016). As a
result, the management will be able to optimize the performance level of its workforce and
will also be able to design training and development programs for them.
Conclusion
The situation in the surgery unit is entirely messed up and Barbara Norris was aware of this
fact right from the beginning. Barbara is a competent manager who can turn things around for
the surgery unit because of her strong will power and high job engagement level. Therefore,
she should look into the above recommendations and implement them to start an
improvement process as soon as possible.

Organizational Change
Bibliography
Cogin, J. A., Ng, J. L., & Lee, I. (2016). Controlling healthcare professionals: how human
resource management influences job attitudes and operational efficiency. Human
resources for health, 14(1), 55.
Hageman, M. G., Ring, D. C., Gregory, P. J., Rubash, H. E., & Harmon, L. (2015). Do 360-
degree feedback survey results relate to patient satisfaction measures? Clinical
Orthopaedics and Related Research®, 473(5), 1590-1597.
Lopes, M. A., Almeida, Á. S., & Almada-Lobo, B. (2015). Handling healthcare workforce
planning with care: where do we stand? Human resources for health, 13(1), 38.
Mohamed, A., Lai, Y., Daskalaki, M., & Saridakis, G. (2016). Employee turnover as a cost
factor for organizations. Research Handbook on Employee Turnover, 25, 109-117.
Moore, J. M., Everly, M., & Bauer, R. (2016). Multigenerational challenges: Team-building
for positive clinical workforce outcomes. Online journal of issues in nursing, 21(2).
Obeidat, S. (2016). The link between e-HRM use and HRM effectiveness: an empirical study.
Personnel review, 45(6), 1281-1301.