Human Resources and Staffing Crisis at Blumberg’s Nursing Home

Human Resources and Staffing Crisis at Blumberg’s Nursing Home

1. a) Immediate Staffing Needs at BNH

As three members of the staff were terminated, BNH needs to fill these open positions, which include a Director of Nursing, a receptionist, and a dietary aide. In order of urgency, the Director of Nursing needs to be the first position to be filled because, firstly, the interim director of Nursing is not a registered nurse; hence BNH is not in compliance with the law. As a result, if they were found out, it could lead to penalties or a shutdown. Furthermore, registered nurses are trained to do various roles, which in this case, would be useful in filling in for the other two unfilled positions. For example, in a general context, registered nurses perform functions such as assessing and documenting health status, telephone triage, management of hospital transition, and staff supervision (Smolowitz et al. 2015). Hence, with experience in conducting these roles, the registered nurse can be able to fill in for a receptionist and the dietary aide as they would be able to manage the various tasks these two positions require.

Subsequently, the next position to be filled should be that of the receptionist because this is a full-time job and requires some expertise. Also, receptions have autonomous roles from the rest of the health care professionals; hence, the person in this position should be experienced and in full knowledge of what is expected. Furthermore, a receptionist is the first face people see when they come to the facility; hence, this face should be for someone trained to do this role. Someone with advanced interpersonal skills and coordination. Finally, the last position to be filled will be of the dietary aide because his work is not autonomous; he works under the facilities nutritionist mostly following instructions; therefore, this position can be filled by an inexperienced interim and still go on without a hitch. In fact, according to most job descriptions for dietary aide, there is no formal training expected; the individual is often trained on the job.

1. Human Resource Policy Addressing Inappropriate Conduct

Research shows that there is a myriad of inappropriate behavior going on in the workplace, and almost everybody knows, but they do not want to report it. Most managers have been found to have an enabling behavior whereby they do not wish to intervene in interpersonal issues as they found them challenging. For this reason, employees get away with unacceptable behavior (SHRM, N/d). In such cases, employees are also bond to ignore when their colleagues are behaving unacceptably because their managers are ignoring as well. Therefore, in the human resources policy, the first objective should be regularly training managers and other employees on the importance of reporting misconduct. They need to realize that even the littlest of misconduct can have a butterfly effect on the entire organization. For example, if in the process of their use of illegal substances, the three employees of BNH had made a mistake that led to the harm of a patient or patients, the facility would have been sued and possibly shut down, leading to loss of employment.

Correspondingly, there needs to be a code of conduct policy that indicates how the employees are required to behave and have a list of the prohibited actions (SHRM, 2020). In this case, this policy will communicate clearly what is allowed and what is not. Besides, HR will need to ensure that employees are trained on the contents of this policy when they are onboarded, and there should be frequent reminders periodically to ensure that when an employee breaks the rules, they know it. They understand why they are getting disciplined. Notably, this policy should also include the various disciplinary actions that will be taken as well as the steps to be considered when one needs to report misconduct. Such details will ensure that colleagues are each other’s keepers in that when one notices that their colleague is misbehaving, they get to warn them, and if this does not work, they report it to the relevant authorities.

Additionally, the process of reporting misconduct should be guided in a way that whistleblowers are not stigmatized and also, the alleged culprits are not wrongfully punished. The steps will involve the manager listens intently to the accusation and investigate to confirm the allegations before approaching the accused. Subsequently, they should talk to the accused about the behavior and be ready to listen to their response and where there is willingness, guide the employee from the adverse reaction. Importantly, the manager should never forget to document these incidences as they will be needed in case of an advanced disciplinary action such as termination (SHRM, 2020). Therefore, it is essential to realize that not all unacceptable behaviors should lead to employment termination because people are prone to error. Therefore, there should be categories of disciplinary action. The most common ones include; verbal warning, written warning, and then the third strike the culprit can be fired.

1. Quality Leadership and Management Skills

According to Huberts et al. (2007), in a study of how leadership styles impact integrity violations, they found that three leadership styles influence ethical behaviors in employees. They include strictness, openness, and role modeling. Role modeling motivated employees to be ethical in their interpersonal relationships, and strictness helped prevent cases of fraud. Therefore, the administrator of BNH needs to incorporate these three styles into his leadership model to be able to avoid a repeat of the problem. For example, they should be strict in applying the code of conduct policy whereby nobody, including the managers, is above repercussions when they violate the rules. Also, he should make matters such as skipping the ethical behavior training misconduct by itself. For the reason that mistakes start being made when some people think they are unique and in no need of learning the ethical standards of the company yet they are often the first to say they were not aware it was a mistake when they did it.

Subsequently, the administrator should make sure that he leads by example. BNH has already observed what happens when a leader is committing violations. The Director of Nursing was a member of the management team, yet somehow was found buying and using illegal substances alongside a receptionist and a dietary aide. This action is proof that when leaders make mistakes, their subordinates are more prone to follow suit. Therefore, the administrator needs to follow every rule that has been set in place. For example, he/she should attend all training alongside the rest of the staff. As well, the disciplinary action for violations should also apply to him/her whereby if he/she is found in violations, he should suffer the same fate as the rest of the staff. Similarly, he should encourage an open door policy where the administrator and the management will always be available to listen to employees’ woes. Most often, misconducts are funded on other issues in the workplace.

Consequently, the most important management skill is communication skills because a manager is considered the representative of the company to outsiders, especially customers (Jasinska and Hub, 2019). Therefore, in the case of BNH, the administrator should have excellent communication skills as he/she will need to communicate with the staff and residents of BNH about the incidence. The administrator will need to assemble the team and the residents and explain what happened clearly. Afterward, he/she will need to tell them what policies and safeguards have been put in place to ensure that the incidence never repeats. Correspondingly, it is a manager’s job to ensure there is adaptability after a new policy is set; therefore, the administrator will need to ensure that communication about ethics and integrity is a regular discussion so that it is always on the back of the employees’ minds.

1. Recommend a strategy for BNH to use the Quality Indicator Survey to improve administrative practices

The quality indicator survey is used to find the gaps between the policies and their application. Therefore, the indicators measure the level of compliance in a facility. In this case, a facility can use the indicators as goals to what needs to be achieved in the facility to improve the quality of care (Silveira et al., 2015). Therefore, BNH should not just leave the quality indicator survey for external use by the surveyors; instead, they should incorporate it into their internal controls where they will be keeping check of their compliance. Also, because it is internally, it doesn’t have to be done once a year like the external survey; therefore, the management could keep the survey in a continuous model where the system will always be checking the administrative practices of BNH against the indicator checklist.