Problem Solving and Decision Making in Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

This report focuses on the issue of staff absenteeism in Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It provides an analysis of the causes and effects of staff absenteeism and presents a solution to the problem. The report recommends the implementation of a plan to improve communication and create a happy, healthy, and safe working environment.

PROBLEM SOLVING AND DECISION MAKING

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 3
TASK - 1...................................................................................................................................... 3
MAIN BODY............................................................................................................................. 3
Nature and impact of the staff absenteeism on employees and their organization...................3
PESTLE analysis of the macro economic factors contributing to the staff absenteeism...........3
Causes of staff absenteeism....................................................................................................4
Effects of staff absenteeism.....................................................................................................5
Solution to the problem of staff absenteeism...........................................................................5
Recommendation..................................................................................................................... 6
Implementation of the plan.......................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................. 8
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................ 8

INTRODUCTION
The present report is based is on the study of Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation
Trust (MCHT). The report focuses on the existing issue that has been faced by many media
sized general hospital trusts i.e., the issue of staff absenteeism. This report aims to study the
nature and impact of the issue on the employees and their organization. There will be an
analysis of the issue’s cause and effect. The present report will provide a solution that helps in
solving the persisting issue faced by the Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
(MCHT). Moreover, this report will present a plan through which the solution can be
implemented within the organization.
TASK - 1
MAIN BODY
Nature and impact of the staff absenteeism on employees and their organization
 The rate of staff absenteeism reduces as the pay day comes and it increases just after
the employees are being paid. Such behaviour of the employees within the Mid Cheshire
Hospitals NHS Foundation hinders the day to day functioning of the hospital (Alharbi,
and et.al 2018. ). If one employee carry out such activity, it influences the behaviour of
other employees to follow the same.
 It has been observed that the rate of staff absenteeism in the night shifts of the hospital
is much higher than the day shifts. This abrupt the routine of the hospital and leads to
mismanagement as there is no employee that wants be available for the night shift in the
hospital. Due to this existent adamant nature of a few employees, the other employees
who have to continuously do the night shift feels that the management is partial with
respect to a number of employees, this reduces their job satisfaction.
PESTLE analysis of the macro economic factors contributing to the staff absenteeism
Political: The problem of staff absenteeism is persistent in not only in Mid Cheshire Hospitals
NHS Foundation, it is existing in the entire health care sector in UK. This has been affecting the
growth of the health industry (Der Feltz-Cornelis, and et.al 2020). Therefore, the government of
UK is focusing towards implementation of certain laws specifically for the employees of
Healthcare sector. It is changing the bills which can affect the health care sector.
Economic: The economic factors such as inflation, interest rates and exchange rates also
affects the health care sectors. The economic factors affect the cost of the organization. The
increased cost of imported equipment and operations affects the salaries of the employees
within the health care sector. This creates a dissatisfaction among the employees which in turn
leads to absenteeism.

Social: There are certain social beliefs which changes with respect to a people coming from
different places. These factors include behaviour of people towards certain disease such as
HIV. This factors affects the healthcare sector. If the employees or professional is not well
aware about something, patients might not like to visit that hospitals (Etehadi, and Karatepe,
2019.). Lack of knowledge among the professional can lead to lack of interest and result in
absenteeism.
Technological: Lack of knowledge of the advanced technology to the employees working on
lower level under the healthcare sector, creates a certain level of frustration within the job which
leads to absenteeism. Therefore, the healthcare industry should their employees efficiently.
Legal: The over involvement of legal bodies affects the health care industry. There are certain
laws whose compliance is essential such as health and safety law but when each and thing in
the health care sector comes with its own terms and conditions, it creates problems for staff too.
Environmental: The main job of the healthcare industry is to promote health and safety of each
and every individual within the organization. Therefore, it is important for the hospitals to work
towards improving the environment of the society (Karimbil, 2019.). Healthcare industry should
up with environment friendly ways to dispose the waste or it might affect the functioning of the
healthcare sector.
Causes of staff absenteeism
 Sickness: It has been observed that one of the major reason that leads to the complex
issue of staff absenteeism is sickness. The sickness could be personal sickness or they
may a family member who is sick and needs help at home.
 Lack of interest: When an employee is not interest in a particular job or a specific field,
he finds reasons to avoid going to the work.
 Inappropriate management: When there is faulty management in an organization, it
troubles the employees as they do not get their tasks on time. The organization should
make sure that each and every is assigned to his roles and responsibilities on time so
that will be no issue because of inappropriate management skills of the organization.
 Inappropriate work culture: Employees avoid going to a work place where there is
inappropriate work culture. This means that if an employee was assigned with the
responsibility of a 10-hour shift, then it is the duty of the organization to not push him to
extend his duty hours without being duly informed (Mollazadeh, and et.al 2018.). If the
Hospital or any other organization follows the same culture, then they should work on it
so that the employees feel satisfied with their jobs and do not feel pressurized.

 Inappropriate environment: It is important for an organization to ensure that the
environment in which its employees are working is promoting healthy and happy vibes. It
should be safe for each and every employee that is working the organization. This is so,
because it encourages an employee work for its organization happily on a regular basis.
Effects of staff absenteeism
 Increased expenses: High rate of staff absenteeism increases the expenditure of an
organization. When a huge number of employees remain absent continuously, it affects
the functioning of an organization and leads to mismanagement because of the
decreased number of present employees. This issue pushes an organization to hire
more employees so that the work does not get affect which increase the expenses of the
organization (Raja, and Gupta, 2019. ). Similar is the case with Mid Cheshire Hospitals
NHS Foundation Trust. The staff absenteeism has increased the cost by £ 1 million each
year per percentage.
 Hampers the quality of work: It has been observed that the staff absenteeism hampers
the quality of work of an organization and affects its reputation. In the Mid Cheshire
Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, as the employees remain absent every now and then,
this is affecting the health of the patients which in turn is leading to a downfall in the
market image.
Solution to the problem of staff absenteeism
 Provision for happy, healthy and safe working environment: It is important for the
company or an organization to maintain a happy, healthy, and safe working space for its
employees. There should be a set of rules and regulation which ensure the safety of its
employees such as pension schemes for financial safety and punishments for any kind
of bullying, harassment, or misconduct (Ticharwa, Cope, and Murray, 2019. ). The
organization should also carry out playful activities for their staff in order to reduce the
stress that builds up in a hospital. This will improve the satisfaction of the employees and
encourage them to be present at workplace.
 Liberal grant of paid leaves: When the employees have the facilities to take paid
leaves for specific reasons such as sick leaves for their own or if someone from their
family is ill, then the employees will feel satisfied with their company and will not take
leaves without any reason.
 Easy communication within the organization: If the employees of an organization can
easily communicate regarding their issues and grievances to the management, and if the
management will ensure that their issue is instantly resolved, it will encourage the

employees to be available for their organization and work towards the benefit of the
organization (Tyagi, and et.al ).
Recommendation
In order to minimize the issue of staff absenteeism, the Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation
Trust should follow the measure which promotes easy communication within the hospital.
The is the best measure as easy communication will make easier for the employees to
communicate with the management regarding any issue that the employee is facing. They can
communicate about their security, the existing environment, the stress, the burden, personal
issues or even financial issues and the staff will make sure that the problems faced by the
employees is being resolved as soon as possible.
Implementation of the plan
Aim:
To ensure easy and effective communication in order to address the grievances of the
employees.
Objectives:
To effectively address the problems faced by the employees.
To provide them with necessary and relevant solutions
To remove the barriers of communication between the employees and the management in the
Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Strategies:
 First of all, the Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust will formulate a committee
in order to plan on how to make the communication easy within the organization and
remove the barriers of communication between the staff and the management.
 The committee will develop a special portal that will be used specifically for the purpose
of acknowledging the issues of the employees. Through this portal, the employees can
raise a ticket and mention their issue by way of a message (Burmeister, and et.al
2019.). The message will be transferred to the redressal committee immediately. The
redressal committee will call the employee and ask them about the issue in brief and
then after discussing, it will instantly work out for ways resolve it.
 The another strategy to remove communication barriers will be development of a
number of teams based on the model of Belbin’s team roles. Each team will be assigned
with a specific number of employees. There will be one head for each team and each
team will be having same number of employees. There will be relaxed communication
between the team lead and the employees. if there is any issue that the employee is

facing, he/she can directly communicate it with the team lead. The team lead will
analyse the intensity of the problem and act accordingly (ohnson, Hall, and et.al ,
2018.). If the problem can easily be solved by the team lead then the team lead will
directly suggest ways to resolve the issue but if the issue is serious and it needs a
proper action, then the team lead will coordinate with the redressal committee to ensure
that the problem faced by the employee gets resolved as soon as possible.
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Success indicators:
 In order to measure the success of the plan, the new committee will implement the
plan for 15 days at first. Under this period, the redressal committee will be able to
analyse if the strategy of team development and the development of grievances
portal is successfully helping the employees in resolving their issues not. If not, then
the management will work on the problems that are still coming while following the
procedure.
 The management will keep a track of the employee performance and the rate of
absenteeism. If the rate of absenteeism has lowered after implementing the plan, this
will depict the success of the implementation of the plan. Similarly, if the rate of
absenteeism within the hospital remains same, it will depict that the employees are
still facing issues with the organization and the hospital needs to take actions in
order to resolve the issues.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that the working environment of an
organization plays an important role in reducing the problem of staff absenteeism. There should
be relaxed communication between the management and the employees and a comfortable
hierarchical structure. This makes it easier for the workforce to approach the management

about any kind of troubles faced by the employees. Therefore, it is important for Mid Cheshire
Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to relax their managerial hierarchy and formulate the plan
which involves development of a grievances portal, a redressal committee and formation of
teams within the organizations. This will help the hospital in reducing the rate of staff
absenteeism within the organization and improve the quality of work as well.

REFERENCES
(Books and journal)
Alharbi, F.L and et.al 2018. Causes of absenteeism rate among staff nurses at medina
maternity and child hospital. The Egyptian Journal of Hospital Medicine. 70(10).
pp.1784-1788.
Der Feltz-Cornelis, and et.al 2020. Workplace stress, presenteeism, absenteeism, and
resilience amongst university staff and students in the COVID-19 lockdown. Frontiers in
Psychiatry, p.1284.
Etehadi, B. and Karatepe, O.M., 2019. The impact of job insecurity on critical hotel employee
outcomes: The mediating role of self-efficacy. Journal of Hospitality Marketing &
Management. 28(6). pp.665-689.
Karimbil, M.R., 2019. A study on employee absenteeism in today’s workplace. Journal of the
Gujarat Research Society. 21(17). pp.273-279.
Mollazadeh, M., Saraei, M., Mehrdad, R. and Izadi, N., 2018. Sickness absenteeism of
healthcare workers in a teaching hospital. Hospital Practices and Research, 3(1), pp.6-
10.
Mollazadeh, M., Saraei, M., Mehrdad, R. and Izadi, N., 2018. Sickness absenteeism of
healthcare workers in a teaching hospital. Hospital Practices and Research. 3(1). pp.6-
10.
Raja, H. and Gupta, R., 2019. The impact of employee absenteeism on organizational
productivity with special reference to service sector. Int J Humanit Arts Lit. 4(7). pp.581-
94.
Ticharwa, M., Cope, V. and Murray, M., 2019. Nurse absenteeism: An analysis of trends and
perceptions of nurse unit managers. Journal of nursing management. 27(1). pp.109-116.
Tyagi, M., Tyagi, P.K., Daga, A. and Gupta, S.K., EFFECT OF HR INTERVENTIONS BASED
ON BIOMETRIC ATTENDANCE SYSTEM RECORDS TO IMPROVE EMPLOYEE
ABSENTEEISM.
Burmeister, E.A and et.al 2019. Determinants of nurse absenteeism and intent to leave: An
international study. Journal of nursing management. 27(1). pp.143-153.
Johnson, J., Hall, and et.al , 2018. Mental healthcare staff well‐being and burnout: A narrative
review of trends, causes, implications, and recommendations for future
interventions. International journal of mental health nursing. 27(1). pp.20-32.