Theoretical Underpinnings of Workplace Culture
According to the Manley, Sanders, Cardiff, & Webster (2011), a workplace culture is always driven by effective leadership in which there will be implementation of procedures and policies that will promote a supportive and comfortable working place. Having an effective workplace will involve induction of employees with an objective of driving job engagement, having a workplace health and safety strategies with an objective of ensuring that there is an increased work productivity within the organization (Jia, Fu, Gao, Dai & Zheng, 2018). From this illustration, having an effective workplace culture increases flexibility, freedom, supportive leadership and provision of a safe environment.
The workplace culture in any healthcare facility is influential when it comes to delivering healthcare which is person centered and clinically effective. It is important to note that, the impacts of ineffective workplace cultures have resulted in increased and highly publicized failings. Empirical evidence shows that, since 2000, there has been an increased concern and attention in regards to workplace culture in the healthcare predominantly in organizational and corporate cultures. The immediate culture being used in the workplace culture has reached a level known as the microsystem levels. In this level, it is considered as a level where healthcare is delivered and experienced (Trinchero, Farr-Wharton & Brunetto, 2017). Therefore, when it comes to drawing an expertise with practice development it will help in the identification of emerging frameworks that will the assist people be responsible for the workplace culture transformation.
It is important to note that poor work culture has led to serious negative impacts in regards to patients’ outcome. A healthy workplace enables nurses and other health practitioners to experience a significant learning in the organization (Manley, Sanders, Cardiff & Webster, 2011). A workplace culture is always patient focused and people centered. Understanding a workplace culture will require knowing the things that makes an effective culture and how to develop one. Additionally, workplace culture is not about people but the social context influencing the way people behave, and social norms that are accepted within the organization.
According to the article, it has come to my realization that understanding culture, there are different aspects of culture that should be taken into consideration. They include; corporate, organizational and workplace. Corporate culture can be defined to as values and practices that are shared across all employees within an organization. Organizational culture can be defined as beliefs and values. When it comes to healthcare, the interplay between corporate, organizational and workplace cultures have significant effects in regards to establishment of social norms, shared values and consistent standards. Management of workplace will involve establishment of a committed leadership (Healy & Goode, 2018).
Workplace culture is a reflection of beliefs and values of the leaders within the organization. The people in key leadership positions do set the examples. From this explanation, leaders have the responsibility of articulating cultural beliefs and proactively embodying the beliefs with an objective of mobilizing employees to engage in transforming the new culture. Secondly, there should be a tactical and practical approach. There should be the creation of a meeting as a platform for cultural management. It is important to note having frequent meetings will provide an ample opportunity towards management of an effective culture (Manley, Sanders, Cardiff & Webster, 2011). When it comes to management of these meetings, leaders should be able to use story telling methods as a way of communicating to employees regarding their job progress and personal progress (Mullane et al., 2018). This means that leaders will act as a source of inspiration and increase accountability. Leaders should always recognize capable employees and their specific contribution. Lastly, there should be leverage of cultural champions for better outcomes.
Practical Implications of Effective Workplace Culture
The authors of the article have identified that workplace culture can manifest different types of characteristics. Workplace culture shows the growth and upward dynamic that are predominantly characterized by increased level of teamwork and employee engagement in regards to the work that they do (Longman, Daniels, Bray & Liddell, 2018). Some of these characteristics include:
Purpose driven workplace culture: successful organizations have a workplace culture where employees have a clear sense of direction and purpose (Pidd et al., 2018). Additionally, employees will also understand both immediate and long-term goals. This is an important concept because having an organization with purpose helps in transforming people and collective use of resources with an objective of achieving the set goals and objectives. It is important to know that, purpose is a motivational driver when it comes to engaging employees and close communities (Rees & Smith, 2017). This means that when a leader establishes purpose in an organization, employees will be driven to accomplish these goals. As an illustration, purpose will act as an engine of the organization. From this explanation, there is an existing relationship between purpose and job performance. According to a survey conducted by Deloitte in 2004, Deloitte discovered that organizations that are focused on purpose do inspire increased level of confidence among its employees.
Effective communication patters: Having an effective communication pattern within an organization will involve the following characteristics: clarity, courtesy and proactivity. Clarity is significant in effective communication because it will help in transfer of information and messages from one person to another in a transparent, clear and concise manner (McSherry & Pearce, 2018). Courtesy allows information and messages to be transmitted in a safe and respectable atmosphere. With this, it will be possible to get effective feedback with a minimal concern. When it comes to proactivity, people involve in a discussion of future developments.
Teamwork: A culture where there is teamwork emphasizes on team accomplishments and allows tasks to be completed faster through collaboration and motivation. From this explanation, teams should be aware of the expectations from the organization and top executives.
Engagement and loyalty: employee engagement have been a hot debate and has become a priority in most companies or organizations. Empirical evidence shows that employees are emotionally and physical engaged when they experienced the following: psychological meaningfulness, psychological safety and availability (Wipfli et al., 2018).
Growth and development: successful organizational cultures give employees an opportunity for both career and personal growth through offering training and teamwork building. Some of the types of growth that are offered in a workplace culture include: position-based culture, professional growth and financial growth (Guillaume, Dawson, Otaye?Ebede, Woods & West, 2017).
Looking at the article, there are five attributes that determine an effective workplace culture. The following are the identified key attributes of an effective workplace:
Specific shared values within an organization: When it comes to the shared values within an organization, the following are the ten core values that can be used in a healthcare institution, person-centeredness, lifelong learning, high support and high challenges, leadership development, evidence use and development, open communication, teamwork and safety. These ten values can be classified into the following domains:
Understanding Practice Development Principle Two (2)
Person centeredness which can be defined as treating patients as individual and giving them the care they need. Use of this type of value within an organization will help in the recognition of values used during patient approach. Having a person centered approach will help in improving the quality of healthcare service available, help patient access the healthcare that they need and help in the reduction of the pressure in regards to health and social services having patient centered care will involve the following:
- The organization will get to the patient as a person and recognizing their individuality
- Always perceiving patients as experts about their health issues
- Sharing power and responsibility
- Taking holistic approach in regards to assessing the needs of the people and providing care.
- Inclusion of families where applicable
- Ensuring that all services are accessible, flexible and easy to navigate
- Ensuring that all members of staff are supportive
Working with others which will involve open communication, high support and high challenge, involvement, participation or leadership development. Effective care which will involve evidence use and development, lifelong learning, positive attitude change and safety.
The second attribute is realization of the ten core values that re-experienced in actual practice which is regarded as a collective responsibility. A strong workplace culture is always characterized by people having a shared value, common mission and vision (Smith & Williams, 2017). All these values are realized by patients then experienced by the same patients. Mission and vision of an organization can be reflected in daily organizational practice through having a motivated and collaborating staffs. The third attribute is adaptability and innovation towards maintaining an effective workforce. It is important to note that, in any organization, adaptability is usually maintained when there is a positive work attitude among employees (Goetzel et al., 2018). When it comes to innovation, technical innovation has become a key organizational policy. With increased innovation, there will be different ideas that will be generated in regards to having an effective workplace culture.
The next attribute is appropriate change which is driven by the needs of the people, patients or communities. In this scenario, organizational change increases flexibility and continuous adaptation (Burke, 2018). For this to take place a workplace culture should be driven by the needs of the people and implementation of evidence based intervention. With this, there should be a systematic evaluation. The last attribute will involve enabling and evaluating learning performance and shared governance. With this, formal systems will be used that will be helping in the process of enabling values that are to be realized in the organization (Flynn et al., 2018). In this scenario, the formal systems will be required to evaluate all the achievement of person centered, safe and effective care which is a key professional focus in the healthcare industry, there should be implementation of ongoing practice transformation and implementation of shared governance. Therefore, it is important to recognize these formal systems. It is important to note that, the development, implementation and adaptation of the formal systems will be a reflection of the key values within an organization.
The article has identified certain factors that organizations should consider towards effective workplace culture. These factors include:
Individual enablers who are considered as transformative leaders within the organization. When it comes to organizational change, effective leadership is a key factor to be considered. With effective leadership, there will sharing of a common goal and being able to make effective decisions which will help in improving the performance of the organization and establishing an effective relationship among employers and patients (Cravens, Oliver, Oishi & Stewart,2015). In this case, there leaders who are required are transformational leaders who will act as skilled facilitators. Transformative leaders are required to act will high integrity, moral intent and multiple intelligences. All these will help in achieving organizational change.
Attributes of an Effective Workplace Culture
Organizational enablers will involve having an enabling leadership, organizational readiness and decisions making. Having good leadership with an organization will help in determining the best management to be used towards achieving the set organizational goals. An example of organizational enabler can be given by a human resource department which will help in maintaining the values, mission and vision of the organization (Novak, Farr-Wharton, Brunetto, Shacklock & Brown, 2017). Additionally, this department will help in handling the expectations and needs of employees after recruitment in the selection process. From this explanation, HR department will facilitate the performance of organization through dealing with different needs of the organization.
It is worth reflecting on the practical implication of effective workplace culture. Therefore, when it comes to the practical implication of an effective workplace culture, having a person-centered approach will help in improving the quality of healthcare service available, and also help patient access the healthcare that they need and help in the reduction of the pressure in regards to health and social services having patient centered care will involve the following (Bollen, Euwema & Munduate, 2016):
- The organization will get to the patient as a person and recognizing their individuality
- Always perceiving patients as experts about their health issues
- Sharing power and responsibility
- Taking holistic approach in regards to assessing the needs of the people and providing care.
- Inclusion of families where applicable
Through identification of an effective patient centered approach, there will be improved patient outcomes. When it comes to patient centered approach, there will be the use of PD approach. This approach will help in identification of different ways to motivate employees. When it comes to effective workplace culture, an organization should work on motivation and retention of employees. This will help in having skilled employees and maintaining their competitive advantage in regards to maintaining an effective workplace culture (Conroy, Feo, Boucaut, Alderman & Kitson, 2017). According to all the collected evidence, health care organizations should focus on providing a person centered approach that will help in improving the outcomes of patients and carers. This means that healthcare organizations should work on focusing on the important things to patients with an objective of making changes on the identified areas.
Looking at the article, I would like to conclude that, according to the above discussion, a workplace culture is always driven by effective leadership in which there will be implementation of procedures and policies that will promote a supportive and comfortable working place. Having an effective workplace will involve induction of employees with an objective of driving job engagement, having a workplace health and safety strategies with an objective of ensuring that there is an increased work productivity within the organization. According to all the collected evidence, health care organizations should focus on providing a person centered approach that will help in improving the outcomes of patients and carers. This means that healthcare organizations should work on focusing on the important things to patients with an objective of making changes on the identified areas. With this, the initiative will help in ensuring that all the identified loopholes are improved and ensuring that people/patients/communities are using the services.
Having an effective workplace culture will involve determining an innovative approach that will ensure all the organizational goals, leadership and mission of the organization are taken into consideration. Most importantly, there should be use of an organizational network which will involve definition of the services which are fundamental to driving an organization to the next level of success. Other areas to be considered towards an effective workplace culture include: employment satisfaction, retention and patient outcomes.
Purpose Driven Workplace Culture
References
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