Satisfaction

Satisfaction Introduction Nursing is one of the professions which are very demanding for the people who endorse it physically as well as emotionally. While there are many such professions which require minimal to no use of emotions, feelings, or sentiments to achieve excellence in the work, these are the fundamental ingredients of success for a nurse since he/she has to deal with human beings all the day and is involved in work as sensitive as taking their care. In order to optimize on the potential of providing the patients with the best quality care, it is imperative that nurses feel good about themselves, their profession, and their life. “ The workforce in the health sector has specific features that cannot be ignored and motivation can play an integral role in many of the compelling challenges facing healthcare today” (Lambrou, Kontodimopoulos, and Niakas, 2010). The manager of the hospital or the health care center assumes the prime responsibility for keeping the nurses satisfied, because the performance of the organization as a whole is directly linked with the individualistic and collective performance of the nurses. This research was conducted with an intention of identifying ways to satisfy the nurses.
Significance of the Problem
Patient care is one of the most sensitive tasks that need to be dealt with immense delicacy and prudence because it not only involves dealing with people’s emotions along with taking care of their health but also has the potential to affect the public image of the hospital or the health care center for better or worse depending upon the quality of patient care delivered in it. Among the issues a manager of a hospital or a health care center is exposed to, two of the prime issues include late arrival of nurses, and shortage of nurses when they are needed on urgent basis. The patient care is scheduled and everything works according to a plan. In such circumstances, late arrival of nurses disturbs the schedule which causes the issues of time management to surface. At the end of the day, this behavior of nurses incurs the hospital many indirect costs, which reduce the profitability of business. On the other hand, shortage of nurses when they are needed on urgent basis is very depressing for the managers and administrators and it also brings a bad name to the organization.
Rewarding the employees is fundamental to help them maintain a high self-esteem at the work place and keep their motivation for work high, and the same rule applies on the nurses. Nurses need to be rewarded in order to be satisfied enough to deliver their best at the work place and improve their behaviors in terms of getting punctual and showing readiness to serve when required on urgent basis. In this context, it is obligatory upon every hospital manager to establish an efficient system of rewards for the nurses. The reward can be of any kind ranging from tangible to intangible, and monetary to non-monetary. However, “ Allocating this budget successfully by establishing an acceptable, cost-effective reward system is a true challenge for every hospital manager” (Gieter et al., 2006). This research paper evaluates nurses’ perceptions of the rewards so that the most suitable and cost-effective reward options for the nurses can be identified.
Methodology
My research questions were as follows:
1. Which among the two behaviors is more worthy of reward; overstaying or punctuality?
2. Which rewards do you like more; monetary or non-monetary?
Answers of these two questions were retrieved from 10 nurses in total. The nurses were required to select one of the two options given against both the questions. In addition, the research participants were handed over a list of 5 rewards that were identified during the literature review and they were asked to rate the extent to which they found them appropriate as reward on a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 indicated least appropriate, 2 indicated, not appropriate, 3 indicated appropriate, 4 indicated very appropriate, and 5 meant most appropriate.
Data
8 of the 10 research participants referred to punctuality as a more suitable criterion of rewarding the nurses, whereas 6 of the 10 research participants identified non-monetary rewards as more satisfying while the rest thought of the monetary rewards as more satisfying.
The data collected for nurses’ perception regarding the relative appropriateness of the 5 types of rewards is displayed in Table 1. 1
Rewards
N1
N2
N3
N4
N5
N6
N7
N8
N9
N10
Pay increment
5
5
4
5
5
5
5
3
4
3
A day off
2
2
1
1
2
2
2
3
1
1
Praise
3
3
4
4
4
2
3
3
2
3
Rise of grade
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
2
3
4
Flexibility of office timings
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
The average score of the responses received from the 10 nurses was calculated, as shown in the Table 1. 2
Rewards
Average Score
Pay increment
4. 4
A day off
1. 7
Praise
3. 1
Rise of grade
3. 7
Flexibility of office timings
1. 1
Analysis
From Table 1. 2, it can be assessed that rewards meant to increase the nurses’ satisfaction in the work place range from most important to least important in this order; pay increment, rise of grade, praise, a day off, and flexibility of office timings.
Discussion
I think that both punctuality and overstaying when required are equally important in the profession of nursing since the nature of job is such that immediate care may be needed at any time. In order to bring about a positive change in nurses’ behavior and performance in the hospital, I would adopt a democratic leadership style because of several reasons; Firstly, I have started the process of change with a democratic process wherein I have gathered nurses’ perceptions of which rewards they deem more important in comparison to others and what behaviors are more worthy of reward. By collecting data from the nurses, I have got them involved in the change process in a way that they feel valued and their opinion has been considered. This is essential for making them feel good about the change so that they become mentally prepared and willing to participate in the process of change. “ It recommends cultivating sincere, authentic relationships grounded in trust and respect; encourages a sense of equity and facilitates shared appreciation of nursing and support service jobs” (Babiarz, 2009, p. 43). Secondly, nursing is a profession where personal willingness of the nurse to take care of the patient matters more than if he/she is obliged to. It is a matter of dealing with the sentiments and emotions of people, that is best achieved when the nurse feels respected in the hospital. This imparts the need for me to adopt a democratic leadership style in which I do oblige them to cooperate with me in the implementation of change, but at the same time, do it in a way that they feel respected rather than offended.
To implement this strategy, I would first conduct a meeting in which I would make the nurses aware of the present challenges and the need to tackle them in order to progress as an organization. To implement the change strategy successfully, it is imperative that the existing challenges are diagnosed first (Hassin, 2010, p. 23). I would emphasize upon the need for the nurses to be punctual and be ready to overstay when required. I would discuss the results of the research with them and tell them that they consider punctuality as a more appropriate criterion to be rewarded than overstaying, and would also let them know that majority of them thinks that the most important to least important rewards include pay increment, rise of grade, praise, a day off, and flexibility of office timings. I would introduce a more strict attendance system according to which the nurses would be required to be present on time. Since cost-saving is a prime objective of this research, nurses who arrive late will have their salary deducted by a certain percentage depending upon the number of days for which they arrived late while I would reward the nurses with pay increment whose punctuality has been the maximum for a period of 6 months. I shall provide the penalized nurses with an opportunity of getting their salary deduction cancelled by overstaying. For every one day of late arrival, they would have to overstay for at least three days to get the deduction cancelled. I shall ask the nurses to immediately comply with the changed policy. The results would be reviewed every 6 months and necessary modifications to the proposed strategy will be made.
Conclusion
This research was meant to identify nurses’ perceptions of the best motivating rewards for them and the best nurses’ behavior that made them worthy of receiving those rewards. A majority of nurses identified punctuality whereas a minority identified overstaying as the behaviors worthy of reward. Rewards rated by the nurses in order of decreasing importance were pay increment, rise of grade, praise, a day off, and flexibility of office timings. I would use the results of this research to improve the satisfaction of nurses at the hospital in a democratic leadership style by focusing upon increasing their involvement and engagement in the change process.
References:
Babiarz, J. (2009). Improving patient satisfaction through employee satisfaction: focus on
nursing satisfaction with support services. Hospital Management and Development: Patient Care.
Gieter, S. D., Cooman, R. D., Pepermans, R., Caers, R., Bois, C. D., and Jegers, M.
(2006, July 6). Identifying nurses rewards: a qualitative categorization study in Belgium. Human Resource Health. 4(15). Retrieved from http://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov/pmc/articles/PMC1526749/.
Hassin, A. (2010). Effective Diagnosis in Organisation Change Management. Journal of
Business Systems, Governance, and Ethics. 5(2): 23-29.
Lambrou, P., Kontodimopoulos, N., and Niakas, D. (2010). Motivation and job satisfaction
among medical and nursing staff in a Cyprus public general hospital. Human Resource Health. 8(26). Retrieved from http://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov/pmc/articles/PMC2998451/.