Question

Jack Koolez has just been hired on a 46-bed neurosurgical unit at a large teaching hospital in Illinois. He has 5 years of neurosurgical experience and feels comfortable beginning his employment with the new institution. Nurse Koolez arrives early and gets ready to report. He informs the charge nurse that he has arrived and would like to know with whom he will be working for the first day. The charge nurse informs him that he is required to carry his own assignment the first day. Nurse Koolez’s assignment consists of two low-severity patients.

Nurse Koolez is upset and feels abandoned because he feels that a day of orientation with another nurse is important; however, he does not verbalize his concern. Throughout the day Nurse Koolez asks numerous questions to find out where simple items such as linen, medications, and thermometers are. He feels he is bugging everyone and wishes he had not accepted this new position. After completing his treatments, charting, medications, and assessments, Nurse Koolez asks other nurses if he can help them. The other nurses eagerly accept his offer. At the end of the day Nurse Koolez decides he is going to quit his job because he feels alone and isolated. As he approaches the report room to speak to the nurse manager, six staff nurses hug him and congratulate him on the superior level of care he provided to his patients. Nurse Koolez is baffled. They tell him that it is unit tradition to test all new nurses to see if they can “handle the heat.”

1. In this case study, how would you delineate whether Nurse Koolez’s experience is a problem of culture or a problem of climate?
2. How could Nurse Koolez have assessed the organizational climate? Can organizational climate be assessed during the hiring process?

BACKGROUND, p. 57

Define organizational culture, including that it is both what an organization has and what it is.

How does organizational culture affect the quality of nursing care and patient outcomes?

Answer 1

1) According to me nurse koolez experience on the first day is the promblem of culture and not climate, as it is the tradition to test all new employees in the same way, by neglecting them on the very first day.

2) Nurse koolez on the first day would have assessed the organizational climate as non- Coperative, Isolated nd must have experienced lack of team work and unity

3) It is very difficult to asses the real organization culture during the hiring process but one can get some clue by talking to the employees working in the organization and asking them how they feel working in that organization.

4) organizational culture depends on the values, norms and beliefs by the people. It can also be determined by the rules and regulations followed. Organizational culture can be hierarcy oriented, aggressive, outcome oriented, people or team oriented etc.

5) Job satisfaction and healthy organizational culture lead to increased productivity and outcome on the contrary lack of job satisfaction leads to frustration and irritability which directly affect the patient care and thier outcome.