Interview Synopsis and Findings
I interviewed the supervisor in the department of surgery within St. Mary Hospital. The hospital is one of the largest healthcare centers in Atlanta that is sponsored by the Catholic Church. According to the supervisor, the surgery departmentis a very dynamic section of the health center.
The department has ten workers. The department handles all surgery requests from different clients and cases of referrals. The supervisor indicated that the department, especially the operating room, needs the personnel to integrate their competencies in handling different tasks to enhance the wellness of the patients.
The personnel in the operating room are charged with direct care of the patient. An operating room supervisor must hold a degree in management and must be a registered nurse. Management skills are required because the supervisor and other personnel in the department have administrative duties besides offering health care services.
As indicated by the supervisor, the personnel in this department must understand the competencies and attitudes of the team members in the operating room. The management is required to ensure the entire team is motivated and satisfied with their work. Motivation and satisfaction influence the development of quality services.
However, the supervisor noted that there is a need to improve on the current structures of organizational learning within the surgery department as a remedy for improving efficiency in service delivery.
This paper will offer an explicit proposal on the best practices of increasing motivation, satisfaction, and performance of the personnel in the surgery department at the hospital.
Motivation Plan
The success of a firm’s human resource productivity depends on the organization of its human resource management. Reflectively, labor as a factor of production, determines the gross output, performance, and goal achievement at optimal resource use.
The St. Mary Hospital has been struggling with human resource management problem as a result of weaknesses in employee motivation, satisfaction, and performance. The next section of the paper presents a comprehensive employee compensation plan targeting the ten employees of the surgery department.
Besides, the treatise offers a work breakdown structure in addition to a communication plan for the project.
The employee motivation, satisfaction, and performance plan
Reflecting on Lewin’s three-step theory, the unfreezing, transformation, and refreezing determine the level of performance in an organization. According to this theory, the first step involves the realization that a challenge exists in the organization.
The second step involves transformation of this challenge into a development goal after which implementation step concludes by developing a solution for the challenge (Ellemers, Gilder, & Haslam, 2004).
The best way to motivate the department’semployees is by giving them responsibilities for achieving something and the authority to do it in their own way. Through this approach, employees will be empowered and they will feel trusted and valued by the management personnel and the hospital.
Naturally, human beings would wish for motivation through mutual consent and internalized empowerment and appreciation. Empowerment unleashes plenty of energy and motivation.
Reflectively, the motivation and energy aspects of appreciation function simultaneously at micro and macro levels to facilitate optimal functionality or productivity.
Empowering the employees will ensure a stable and sustainable win-win situation as employees will be motivated to work without much supervision from the management or their supervisors (Espevik, Johnsen, & Eid, 2011).
As opined by Maslow, in the hierarchy of needs theory, “primary needs are basic before tertiary needs and must be addressed in that order” (Ellemers, Gilder, & Haslam, 2004, p. 36).
The needs include safety, physical needs, love, self esteem, and room for actualization. Job satisfaction is as a result of a systematic and continuous environmental and personality interaction that fosters the right attitude as indicated in the objectives of this hospital.
In the case of the surgery department, social and highly skilled employees should be allocated the right duties than keeping them in a secluded environment. When assigning duties, personality checks are necessary to promote self satisfaction while the same time improves performance.
In addition, periodic self evaluation and interdepartmental rotation ensure a change of environment (Zhou, Wang, Chen, & Shi, 2012). Over time, the results will reliable, effective, and profitable to the department.
Goals of the proposed motivation plan
- Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the current mode of communication between the employees and the organization through incorporation of multicultural training.
- Ensure that the various available methods appeal to the employees.
Objectives of the motivation plan
- To ensure that the organization improves the standard of services that employees receive.
- To increase the number of employee motivation strategies that the organization handles on a daily basis in a bid to accomplish the organization’s objectives.
- To ensure smooth flow of information within and without the organization.
- To increase the number of staff available to attend to clients without creating undue pressure on the finances.
- To improve accountability towards the involved stakeholders.
Differences in attitudes, emotions, personalities and values
Emotions
Since all the personnel in the department are professional adults, the issue of negative emotions is rarely sighted. However, there is the need to develop policies for informingthe positive outlook in this intensive work environment.
Attitudes
Majority of employees in the department have positive attitudes in their duties. However, there are few individuals with relatively negative attitudes.
Personalities
There are several employees who portray different personalities. There are some personnel who are introverts and extroverts. Some of the employees are social while others are not very social.
Values
Since all the employees share the value of professionalism, communication is relatively stable. However, there is a need to revise the values in intra and interpersonal communications to ensure that personal beliefs do not interfere with service delivery.
Transforming each difference into positive behavior
Emotions
Emotional intelligence has significant contribution towards general wellness and good health since it facilitates the development of personal and social competence. Developing personal and social competence through emotional intelligence will improve an individual’s self esteem and self efficacy (O’Neil, Drillings, & O’Neil, 2012).
The emotional intelligence orientation module has remained active in developing dependence of interest attached to an activity, creating proactive relationships, and monitoring their interaction with physical and psychological health.
Attitudes
Properly balanced attitude pays off since the personnel will learn to appreciate the essence of tolerance and need to stay active. By encouraging a hyperactive tolerance level, the personnel will be able to internalize the need for optimizing output level through pre-planning of activities and accommodating extras (Ellemers, Gilder, & Haslam, 2004).
Values
There is a need to establish universal values at the department. Therefore, it is critical to balance the feedback with the efficiency goals as a remedy towards inclusiveness and active participation which translates into desirable performance.
Through focus performance management, the surgery department will be in a position to create clear goals on performance appraisal, manage a positive feedback channel, and offer a continuous and systematic coaching to ensure that employees perform at optimal productivity level (Espevik, Johnsen, & Eid, 2011).
Personalities
The Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior encompasses the elements of subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, intension, and the behavior. It is important to promote positive personalities among the employees in the surgery department. Thus, management may promote productive behavior in the organization.
The intension of the productive behavior is to micromanage any challenges that might interfere with employees’ productivity. As a result, the employees will perceive such organization as supportive of their welfare (O’Neil, Drillings, & O’Neil, 2012).
Implementation
The strategies in this plan require the surgery department to take a collaborative perspective in dealing with the subject matter. In essence, this aspect means that the plan requires the management of the department and the staff to work together at various levels.
The main requirement for the creation of such a set-up is an exchange of information and knowledge relevant to the project. Actualization of the tactics that this plan proposes require the management of the department to work closely with the staff and allow the staff freedom as they accomplish their duties.
It also enables the staff at the department to seek advice and any other forms of aid. Lastly, the organization will apply the use of service-for-service method.
The method is an innovative way through which the department can greatly reduce operations costs, improve employee performance, improve organizational efficiency, and job satisfaction. It would also eliminate the need to outsource for extra employees during busy days.
References
Ellemers, N., Gilder, D., & Haslam, S. A. (2004). Motivating individuals and groups at work: A social identity perspective on leadership and group performance. Academy of Management Review, 29(3), 459-478.
Espevik, R., Johnsen, B. H., & Eid, J. (2011). Outcomes of shared mental models of team members in cross training and high-intensity simulations. Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making, 5(4), 352-377.
O’Neil, H., Drillings, M., & O’Neil, F. (2012). Motivation: Theory and Research. London: Routledge.
Zhou, L., Wang, M., Chen, G., & Shi, J. (2012). Supervisors’ upward exchange relationships and subordinate outcomes: Testing the multilevel mediation role of empowerment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(3), 668.