Procedural Justice And Job Satisfaction Of Nursing Employees

In “Patient outcomes in the field of nursing: A concept analysis”, researches completed a concept analysis on job satisfaction as a means to make managers aware that the nursing workforce should be stabilizes especially in a time of a world-wide nursing shortage. (Liu, Aungsuroch, and Yunibhand, 2016, p84) Researchers completed this analysis by utilizing the Walker and Avant concept analysis model. The Walker and Avant model, established in 2011, is comprised of eight steps: a) selecting a concept, b) determining the purpose or aim of the analysis, c) identify all possible uses of the concept, d) determine the essential attributes, e) construct an example of the concept in use, f) construct illegitimate, related, contrary, borderline, and invented examples, g) identify antecedents and consequences, and h) define empirical referents. (McEwen & Wills, 2014,

As an employee do you ever take the time to sit and read through your jobs handbook or contract agreements? The truth is there are a very select few that really take the time to view the information that is set to inform you of the policies and procedures that are beneficial to your job. For Instance, organizational justice ensures that not only the organization but the employees are treated fairly and protected in case of an unlikely incident. Organizational justice as defined by our text is a more complete view of fairness within organizations and a process theory of motivation extending equity theory arguments (Giblin, 2014).

The purpose of this paper is to create a concept analysis and identify a nursing concept that is within a nursing theory. A concept analysis is a process where concepts and their characteristics are researched and clarified. The eight steps on conducting a concept analysis include selection of a concept used in a nursing theory, identification of the aims or purposes of the analysis, identification of possible use of the selected concept, determination of defining attributes, identification of model cases, identification of antecedents and consequences, and lastly definition of empirical referents (Walker & Avant, 2011). The nursing concept selected for this paper is “empowerment” within the nursing profession. The nursing theory from which the empowerment concept was obtained is Kanter’s Theory on Structural Empowerment. In order to empower someone, an individual needs the tools and resources to feel powered. According to Laschinger, Gilbert, Smith, & Leslie (2010), Kanter defines power as the ability to mobilize information, resources and support to get things done in an organization. The role of management is to provide employees with power tools that empower them to maximize their ability to accomplish their work in a meaningful way. Kanter goes on to describe two primary empowerment structures in organizations, first being the structure of opportunity and second the structure of power. The structure of opportunity relates to job conditions that provide

“Nursing is informed caring for the well-being of others” (Swanson, 1993, p. 352). Kristen Swanson’s relationship-based caring theory encompasses maintaining belief, knowing, being with, doing for, and enabling. Nursing is a profession with vast opportunities for growth and development. Each nurse has his or her individual passions; mine reside within obstetrics, women’s health, and nursing leadership. Nurse leaders play an integral role in the success of healthcare organizations. Nurse leaders shape the roles of nurses within their organizations. Nurse leaders seek methods to improve patient care. They also use innovation to gain efficiencies in care delivery and decrease healthcare cost. Many nurse leaders have an ultimate goal to aspire to be a chief nursing officer in a healthcare

All employees analyze their environment and strive to be recognized and rewarded for their hard work and dedication they put into the company, in a word they are seeking justice. Justice can be defined as a person receiving what they feel they are entitled to and if they do not receive what they deserve, the situation may boarder on injustice. Unfortunately in today’s society justice and appreciation are not given out to all those deserving (Pinder, 1998). Within the Equity theory there are three justice theories. The first of which is distributive justice, this touches on if the referent feels that the outputs are fair that are given to the employees. This comes into play

I believe that it is important to understand that job satisfaction has an impact on job performance. In my personal experiences I have seen management completely oblivious to the concerns of their staff that had a negative impact on job satisfaction. The text cites 300 studies that found that organizations with

A study from the Journal of Nursing Management entitled "Nursing Staff Teamwork and Job Satisfaction", cites the following implications of their study as applicable to nursing:

The national nursing shortage is predicted to continue to rise to levels that have not been seen since the 1960’s (Fasoli, 2010). Managers must create an environment that is conducive to employees. The leader needs to promote organizational commitment and retain employees by promoting a positive culture on the unit. Nurses want an environment where they can provide high-quality care to patients and leaders must help facilitate and maintain this environment. Employees also want to feel like their opinions matter to the manager, and they have a say in the future of the unit. Employees do not want to feel like they are not important, or their voices are not being heard.

I agree that an organization’s structure plays an influential role in a nurse’s overall satisfaction. In fact, Buffington, Zwink, and Fink (2012) concur stating, “Creating an organizational culture committed to registered nurse (RN) retention is a strategy to reduce nurse turnover” (p. 273). Research reveals numerous hospitals today are restructuring their organizations to try and increase overall nurse satisfaction and retention. This “new recipe for healthcare leadership and organization is needed,” according to Miners, Hundert, and Lash (2015), not only to improve nurse satisfaction, but ultimately to improve quality of care and increase patient outcomes (p. 114).

For nurses, the workload and patient assignments are the most significant factors in their perception of their ability to provide quality care to their patients. Of course, this is directly related to nursing job satisfaction. Nursing is a career in which patient satisfaction and caregiver satisfaction go hand in hand. When the nurse is happy, he or she provides high quality care to the patient, which in turn makes the patient happy. In addition, when the patient is pleased with the care they are receiving, this makes the nurse happy and improves nurse job satisfaction.

The surveys were numerically coded and only able to be accessed by the researchers. The survey itself included thirty questions that were broken down into three categories about education level, shift length, age, and experience. The categories were compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue, and burn out. Once the surveys were received by the researchers, the information gathered was entered into the Statistical Package for the Social Science. Each category from the survey was then computed into statistics. Out of the 1,000 surveys mailed out, a total of 278 participated. The limitations of the study were a small sample size, low response rate, and the variables were measured at one given time. The results of this study were primarily women, white, married, and worked 12 hour shifts. The mean age of the participants were 44 years old. The years of working as a nurse ranged anywhere from 1 year to 48 years and the largest number of nurses held a bachelor’s degree, although it ranged from a diploma to doctorate degrees. This study found that nurses who held higher levels of education, such as master or doctorate degrees, had higher satisfaction in the workplace compared to those who held lower level degrees, such as associates and bachelors. There was no clinical significance in the number of years as a nurse and compassion fatigue, although there was a higher level of satisfaction as a nurse who had been working longer than those who did not

The study also revealed a limitation such as the 2008 survey did not find a statistical significant association between union nurses and job satisfaction (Segao et al., 2011). The reason why union nurses tend to be more vocal because they are less fearful about voicing concern due to union protection (Segao et al., 2011). If nurse managers with great leadership skills can harness the ability for union nurses to be articulate and outspoken about work conditions, this can lead to greater productivity and job satisfaction (Segao et al., 2011). Unionization tends to increase wages and improve work benefits, unfortunately the union cannot address every nurse's’ concern in which a nurse may feel a loss of autonomy. There are intangible aspects that cannot be resolved such as unfair assignments, feeling guilty taking vacation and sick days, and etc. The union is a collective organization that represents nurses’ voices. Some nurses join the union because their voices are not heard when it comes to making big decisions that impacts them and the patients. However, there is a significant decrease in nurse turnover while unions nurses worked collectively to improve patient care and

Belizario, S. (2011, August). Inspiring change. Boosting patient satisfaction scores-and nurses’ morale. Nursing 2011, 41(8), 18-21. Retrieved from: http://dx.doi.org/doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.library.ohiou.edu/10.1097/01.NURSE.0000399591.81228.3e.

The general problem I am researching is that job discontent, burnout and workplace unfairness lead to high turnover among nurses globally. High turnover results in nursing shortage and lower productivity than in turn compromise patients’ perceptions of the quality of care they receive, and nurses’ job satisfaction, performance, and organizational commitment.

Nurses play a very important roles in patient care. They have the power to improve the quality of care, thus improving patient outcomes. According to Fackler, Chambers, and Bourbonniere (2015), the phenomenon, which is stated in this study, is that the concept of power is usually viewed by nurses ' perception of their work environment; the environment that allows them to take proper care of their patients. Furthermore, based on the social theory that power is defined as the capacity to achieve goals, the authors believe that if the nurses ' capacity to achieve goals for themselves and their patients culminates in a positive conclusion, then power becomes an essential phenomenon to explore (Fackler et al., 2015).