Scope and Purpose
The purpose of this guideline is to answer questions asked by people concerning bullying. The authors also want to give the position of the organization and the college of Licensed Practical nurses on bullying on decision making and management of bullying.
The other purpose is to relay the role of each of the nurses on bullying and come up with recommendations on the way forward. It seeks to answer the question of the accountability of members regarding bullying (College of Licensed Practical Nurses of Nova Scotia, 2008). The target group is the members of the organization who are Licensed Practical Nurses of Nova Scotia. They include victims of bullying, perpetrators of bullying in the workplace, and those who witness bullying. It is necessary to note that in the practice guidelines the authors did not come out clearly on their objectives and their target group, although this information can be acquired from the text.
Stakeholder Involvement
The professions represented are members of the College of Licensed Practice Nurses of Nova Scotia. There is no indication of the involvement of the stakeholders in the guidelines. Thus, this looks like it is the position of the organization and not the entirety of the members they represent. I think there is a likelihood of conflict because the guidelines have not been proved to work on the population.
More so, the opinions of the people on the most effective ways of dealing with the issue have not been discussed. This gives the idea of the top-down method of management where decisions are made at the top and passed to the bottom managers. The minimal involvement of the major stakeholders who are going to actualize the guidelines is an indication that the implementation process of the recommendations may not be successful. It is important to seek the involvement of most, if not all of the members.
Rigor of Development
The sources of the guidelines which are provided on the reference page indicate diversity. The methods selected are not justified since there is no research involved so the information provided cannot be qualified as an ideal way of dealing with the problem. There is no information on whether the recommendations have been pilot studied and found effective. The guidelines only discuss the benefits of that choice of management to manage workplace bullying. There are no risks that have been discussed even though the risks are important in order to weigh if the choice of management is the most effective.
Recommendations
In order to be able to deal with disruptive behavior at work, identification of bullying behavior is important. I would recommend that there should be training on how to identify bullying behaviors. I would also recommend that the ethics of organizations be modified to accommodate the dealing and punishment of bullies. The government should also be lobbied to hasten the process of coming up with laws that manage workplace disruptive behaviors.
Resources that would be needed to actualize this plan include training classrooms and material, time, and transport facilities to make legislative visits.
The role of the nurses is to attend training on workplace disruptive behaviors and to implement what they have learned in their training. The nurses should lobby their employers to come up with organizational-specific guidelines to protect them against bullying. The nurses should also engage legislators on this issue so that there are policies that protect all the nurses in Nova Scotia.
Application
Change is not always received well since people prefer things they are used to seeing or doing. Implementation of the recommendations may deal with some problems. There may be victimization of people who report issues on workplace bullying, especially if the bully is an influential person. Those who are identified to be bullying others may be punished severely yet the bullying might have been as a result of other psychological problems affecting the bully that should have been addressed and the bully given time to change. Teamwork within organizations may be severely affected as during a case of bullying, some employees may take the side of the bully while other employees may take the side of the victim leading to an unhealthy organizational environment.
Implementing the recommendations may be quite costly especially when all the employees in the organization have to attend training on bullying. This will lead to a reduction in the organizational working hours for the employees. Training materials have to be financed and the trainers may have to be paid. The legislative approach may also be very costly as researches have to be done, brochures to the legislators have to be made, and follow-up of the bill in the process of making it may require a lot of time and financial resources.
The outcomes of these guidelines can be measured using a follow-up questionnaire on the effectiveness of these guidelines. The passing of policies and laws regarding workplace bullying is an indication that the lobbying was successful. A follow-up class on the training can also be done to see whether the knowledge acquired was helpful.
The organization also indicated that they received calls asking them about the accountability of the workers on workplace bullying. The calls can be followed up to find out if the callers are now aware of their accountability.
References
College of Licensed Practical Nurses of Nova Scotia (2008). Practice Guidelines: Bullying in the Workplace. Web.
Melnyk, B.M., & Fineout-Overholt, E. (2011). Evidence-based practice in nursing and health care: A guide to best practice, (2nd Ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.