Workplace Civility

Discerning the health and well-being of the workplace is very important for a healthcare
leader. A good leader should understand the requirements for practice in their environment,
assess for gaps, and enforce changes to improve working conditions in their workplace. After
completing the 2015 Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory, the Hospital Corporation of
America’s ICU department scored an 84, which implies the workplace is rated moderately
healthy. Some of the areas that the organization scored lower were related to compensation, and
lack of diversity in ideas. On the other hand, the organization scored high on teamwork, staff
training, and advancement opportunities. This paper will describe the Hospital
Corporation of America’s ICU department’s civility also provides a vivid example of a
situation where workplace incivility was witnessed and solved.
Workplace Environment

The Hospital Corporation of America’s ICU department workplace has high civility. The
organizational processes tasked with addressing employee concerns amongst themselves,
against the administration, and with the leadership are well developed and infused into the
organizational culture to avoid confrontations. Employed are never involved in outbursts
arguments or disagreements with colleagues. Such misconduct is never witnessed in the
organization. As part of the organization, employees feel respected by their coworkers, and they
try to reciprocate the same respect in their interdisciplinary teams. Nurturing a culture of
collaboration within an organization is essential in synthesizing the unique strengths of
multidisciplinary healthcare workers (Clark, 2018). A good organizational culture results in
civility if the administration supports employees in harnessing the challenges that might arise
(Clark, Olender, Cardoni, & Kenski, 2011).

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Workplace Incivility

I once witnessed incivility at my workplace while working in the emergency department,
which is high stress and intensity environment. On one of the occasions, I witnessed a Nurse
Manager scream at another nurse to “get off their lazy ass and help out,” thinking the latter was
sitting idle. However, she was helping a physician to enter orders in another emergency.
Research indicates that self-knowledge and sensitivity to other people’s needs are some of the
essential components of effective communication (Marshal and Broome, 2017). The
management had to demote the Nurse Manager since, upon assessment of the situation.

Conclusion

A leader should be aware of their strengths and weaknesses, especially in such high
stress working environments. Even in workplaces with high civility, pressure could lead to
incivility. The Nurse manager did not practice proper listening skills in communication to
investigate what the other nurse was doing before yelling at her. Alternatively, she could have
sought other means to talk to the nurse away from the busy emergency department.

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References

Clark, C. M. (2018). Combining cognitive rehearsal, simulation, and evidence-based scripting
to address incivility. Nurse Educator. doi:10.1097/NNE.0000000000000563
Clark, C. M., Olender, L., Cardoni, C., & Kenski, D. (2011). Fostering civility in nursing
education and practice: Nurse leader perspectives. Journal of Nursing Administration,
41(7/8), 324–330. doi:10.1097/NNA.0b013e31822509c4
Marshall, E., & Broome, M. (2017). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert
clinician to influential leader (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Springer.