Advocacy for nurses is one of the crucial parts of effective leadership in nursing. Due to the tremendous pressure that nurses experience as a result of the rising workload, it is essential for leaders to create the workplace setting as comfortable for staff members as possible. The efficacy of advocacy for nurses can be improved significantly if the issue of culture-related needs of the nursing staff is taken into account (Oliveira & Tariman, 2017). For instance, the language barrier often becomes a tremendous obstacle in communicating nurses’ needs to managers accurately, which leads to a drop in nurses’ satisfaction and a rise in the threat of a workplace burnout (Williams et al., 2018). Therefore, deploying cross-cultural communication tools and fostering cultural awareness in the workplace environment is vital for effective advocacy for nurses’ rights and needs. Furthermore, establishing a communication channel through which nurses will submit feedback so that the workplace conditions could be adjusted to their needs and improved accordingly must be developed.
Furthermore, the concept of advocacy for nurses could be taken to a new level by considering introducing changes to the existing policies that shape the workplace environment of nursing experts and the demands that they must meet. Specifically, the workload per nurse may require further changes since the increase in the number of patients to whose needs a nurse must cater is likely to cause a drop in performance quality. Furthermore, the rise in workload is likely to cause a rise in the cases of workplace burnouts, which will create premises for medical errors and a drop in positive patient outcomes. Therefore, immediate changes must be made to the current policies concerning the amount of work per nurse.
Creating perfect organizational culture in which continuous engagement and professional development of employees is promoted is a rather challenging yet implementable task. In the nursing context, the use of innovation and a people-oriented strategy is vital. However, to ensure smooth transition from one setting to another and promote the development of new skills and competencies in nurses, managers will need to make an additional effort. Specifically, the value of innovation and professional development must be promoted in the nursing environment. Although the described objective may be difficult to implement given the increasing workload that nurses must manage, a well-developed talent management approach may help to produce the necessary change and overcome resistance to it among the nursing staff members (Tsai et al., 2019). Namely, incentives and training options must be provided to staff members and represented as significant opportunities.
Additionally, emotional and psychological support for the nursing staff members that expired difficulties adjusting to change and are overwhelmed by the increasing number of responsibilities must be provided. Studies show that the unwillingness to accept new roles and responsibilities, as well as the idea of incremental change in the workplace, in general, is often driven by fear of failure (Brown et al., 2018). Therefore, it is vital to offer employees emotional support and counseling that will help them to overcome the difficulties of the transitioning period and develop the needed skills.
Finally, the issue of communication must be addressed fully to ensure that all staff members are provided with an opportunity to voice their concerns without the fear of possible repercussions. Thus, the presence of pent-up frustration and the resulting drop in motivation among nurses will be avoided. Moreover, the presence of feedback regularly supplied by staff members will guide managers toward building a more comfortable workplace environment that will lead to improved performance among staff members.
References
Brown, R., Wey, H., & Foland, K. (2018). The relationship among change fatigue, resilience, and job satisfaction of hospital staff nurses.Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 50(3), 306-313. Web.
Oliveira, C., & Tariman, J. D. (2017). Barriers to the patient advocacy role: An integrative review of the literature. Journal of Nursing Practice Applications & Reviews of Research, 7(2), 7-12. Web.
Tsai, J. M., Cheng, M. J., Tsai, H. H., Hung, S. W., & Chen, Y. L. (2019). Acceptance and resistance of telehealth: The perspective of dual-factor concepts in technology adoption. International Journal of Information Management, 49, 34-44. Web.
Williams, S., Phillips, J., & Koyama, K. (2018). Nurse advocacy: Adopting a health in all policies approach.Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 23(3). Web.