Free Case Study About Organizational Culture: Can Help Reduce Burnout In Hospitals

Summary

There is nothing secret in the fact that doctors, physicians, surgeons, nurses and other hospital staff always remain in a greater amount of stress on account of their job’s nature i.e. dealing with, directing and operating a human being’s life. Offering a surmountable care to their patients in order to ensure a better life is their sole purpose in the hospital (Belias, 2014). Therefore, when around 72 million patients are treated in thousands of hospitals all over United States annually, the colossal amount of pressure on the hospital staff and doctors could not be seen as any sort of astonishment (Ivancevich, Matteson and Konopaske, 1990). A study in the year 2010 came up to the conclusion that, burnout is one of the major causes that decreases the quality and level of care by the hospital staff. In order to rectify the factor of burnout, the hospital management should develop a culture of the organization that “nurtures trust, improves level of communication and supports the education of stress management” for the staff, nurses as well as doctors (Ivancevich, Matteson and Konopaske, 1990). Our case study “Organizational Culture Can Help Reduce Burnout in Hospitals” also delineates these factors in detail by answering the crucial queries.

Question 1.

The following steps are the ones I will take to ensure that the newly hired nurses understand the hospital’s organization culture:

Providing the nurses the realistic duties of their job description and informing them about the primary principles (Belias, 2014).

Motivating them for their present job as a nurse and telling them its significances so that the always show affirmative approach even in difficult circumstances.
Organizing an open day as the “orientation day”, on this day, the nurses will be told about the culture and quality of care offered by the hospital, in order to make them understand the culture from heart (Ivancevich, Matteson and Konopaske, 1990).

Proving short courses and training to make the nurses more skilled and specialized.

Monitoring the development of the nurses throughout the year.
Developing a counseling program which will assist in the transfer of knowledge from one generation to another thus creating a cycle(Belias, 2014).

Giving the credit to newly hired nurses by organizing annual awards party for employees to highlight their achievements.

Question 2.
Work environment of a hospital differs from other organizations’ working environment in various ways, which cause serious challenges when an attempt is made to support the above-mentioned organizational culture. First and foremost factor involved in this is the significance of the work. For example, staff of each hospital deal with death and life each day, with eliminating sickness for the sole purpose of work. This in turn leads to a greater volume of stress, as every action (even a smaller one) is very consequential for the lives of other individuals(Belias, 2014). Any mistake made leads to augmentation of negativity in the hospital staff or employees (Ivancevich, Matteson and Konopaske, 1990).Sick patients always turn to the hospital in order to find a cure and the volume of work on the hospital staff is 24 hours a day. This also leads to straining of structure because of having no time to rest as nothing could be left on pending. Furthermore, the hospital employees are always pushed to their mental, emotional and physical limits by constant exposure to higher demands for attention, sleep deprivation and longer working shifts in a stressful environment ( Hersey, Blanchard and Johnson, 1988). Therefore, at such higher amount of stress a marginal error, slight miscommunication or failing to notice any information could lead to deadly results while working in a hospital environment.

Question 3.

While I was working for a hospital in United States, an attempt was made to develop the culture of dealing with stress and anxiety management among the doctors, nurses and other hospital staff in order to make everyone work more efficaciously even in a stressful environment. This attempt turned out to be a successful one because of the following key factors:
Individualism was promoted, and every member of the hospital staff was encouraged to express their opinions using a suggestions box which was examined with careful consideration to solve the problems on a monthly basis.
Power-distance approach was enabled in order to make everyone become perfectly of his or her roles and designations as this approach assists in making employees head towards the right direction in order to accomplish their goals on individual as well as collective level(Belias, 2014).
Concept of uncertainty avoidance was used and implemented on account of the fact that this concept was also used by many countries all over the world in order to gain more stability in the workplace (Ivancevich, Matteson and Konopaske, 1990).
Long term orientation structure was established keeping an eye on the future aim and goals ( Hersey, Blanchard and Johnson, 1988). Furthermore, a concept of the current persistence was used for this culture to remain successful in the long term for the hospital. However, only this approach never turned out to be a fruitful one in relieving the stress among employees and other hospital staff.

Works Cited.

Dimitrios, Belias. Organizational Culture And Job Burnout – A Review. International Journal of Research in Business Management, 2014, p 44-50.
Ivancevich, John M., Michael T. Matteson, and Robert Konopaske. Organizational behavior and management. McGraw-Hill Irwin, 1990, p 33-57.
Hersey, Paul, Kenneth H. Blanchard, and Dewey E. Johnson. Management of organizational behavior. Pearson International Edition, 1988. p 11-39.