Multi-Skilling in Healthcare Sector - Essay Example

Multi-skilling in Healthcare Sector The primary problems in the case are essentially the issue of change management through empowerment and the problem of communication. Change management is an issue because the orders from the change came from the top up and employee buy-in of the changed situation was not created in a job situation which relies more on Theory Y of management than Theory X. Communications is an issue simply because nurses cannot communicate what they feel about the coming changes to the management while the management has not communicated their exact expectations from the changes they wish to see within the hospital. In these circumstances, the NHS in general and the hospital described in particular have to re-examine their approach to the issues. The primary issue of employee empowerment has to be understood as an issue of trust since individuals and groups of individuals performing specific tasks within the hospital are finding it difficult to trust each other. Traditionally, as described by Thompson and McHugh (2002), employee empowerment is a method by which some decisions can be made by the employees since the management wishes to make them a part of the decision making process. In such situations, employees are empowered about their jobs and it would be important to have such empowerment in places where teams are supposed to decide who has to do what at what time in order to provide the best possible health services. In the case of the NHS, empowerment needs to be used to make the work teams more effective and allow them to interact with each other on a basis of equality rather than a basis of competition. In fact, when employees are empowered, management becomes easier since the day to day decisions can be distributed amongst the employees as they see fit. Additionally, empowerment would give the NHS additional benefits described by Welch (2005) which include increased employee work satisfaction, improved employee morale and greater commitment to the organization. However, considering that the NHS is essentially a government body where the bureaucracy has a stronghold on who does what, empowerment has to be applied judiciously and it should be clarified to the individuals concerned as to who is empowered to do what. As discussed by Thomas and Coe (1991), having individuals who can wear multiple hats and perform multiple tasks for the company is certainly useful when it comes to small businesses and start-up enterprises but the NHS works on the principles of specialization and asking individuals to perform multiple tasks may create friction as described in the case itself. While empowerment is only one side of the story with regard to removing the friction, the other side comes from having good communications. The communication gaps between what the NHS wants and what the employees of the NHS want seem to be quite wide. While the NHS wishes to work on modern footings to provide health related services, the employees seem more focused on protecting their domains and not supporting the objectives of the body. As discussed by Welch (2005), in such cases, private organisations find it much easier to simply remove those individuals from service who cannot follow the vision of the company. However, the same cannot be done here since the NHS is essentially a government controlled entity. Therefore, as discussed by Buchanan and Huczynski (2004), the change to the organisation has to be brought in by staying within the organisational framework that leads to the improvement in efficiency. The employees have to be told exactly what the management hopes to get from its new drive and what they feel should be the response of the employees who support the ideas presented by the management. Most importantly, the employees should be shown how the steps taken by the management will benefit them in the long run and help them improve the process of delivering health services. Without showing this to the employees, it would be difficult for the hospital to get a buy-in to the change from the workers at the hospital. To do this, they do not need to change the structure which is followed by the organisation or the hospital since that itself can lead to employees being disillusioned with the doings of the executives (Proctor, 2001). In fact, this can be done in a much simpler way by using the present structure and placing those individuals who support the change within key positions at the organisations hierarchy (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2004). Starting with the middle management at the hospital and going to the lower management, the change initiative needs to find the right allies for the support it needs that will allow the changes to flourish. It must be noted that such changes are not likely to come about overnight as resistance to change appears to be very strong which is evident from the manner in which the various groups at the hospital responded to the change. However, as long as the top management is committed to bringing a change to the hospital, the change can be made with time. The desire for change may even alter the relationship which the top management has with middle management but it will also bring about an improvement in the level of service provided by the hospital. In conclusion, it can be said that the ideas of the NHS appear to focus on empowering the employees at the hospital but the method in which the empowerment was carried out led to problems within the organisation. The cause of this failure is the problem of communication between various levels of workers within the organisation and once this problem is removed, smooth operations can be expected. However, since a lot of water has passed under the bridge and a lot of hostility has already been created due to past events, the management of the hospital will certainly need to be careful in how this empowerment is passed on to the workers. Word Count: 1,058 Works Cited Buchanan, D. and Huczynski, A. 2004, Organization Behaviour an Introductory Text, Pearson. Johnson, G. et. al. 2005, Exploring Corporate Strategy, Prentice Hall. Proctor, T. 2001, ‘Corporate restructuring: the pitfalls of changing industry structure’, Management Decision, vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 197-204. Thomas, C. and Coe. C. 1991, The flat organization: Philosophy and Practice, British Institute of management. Thompson, P. and McHugh, D. 2002, Work Organisations, Palgrave. Read More