CHAPTER 17

Unit Managers Responsibilities in Meeting Staffing Needs

The requirement for night, evening, weekend, and holiday work
that is frequently necessary in health care organizations is
stressful and frustrating for some nurses.
Inflexible scheduling and extended work schedule are major
contributor to job dissatisfaction and turnover on the part of

nurses.
Centralized and Decentralized Staffing
Centralized staffing where staffing decisions are made by
personnel in a central office or staffing center
Decentralized staffing the unit manager is often responsible for
covering all scheduled staff absences, reducing staff during
period of decreased patient census or acuity, adding staff during
periods of high patient census or acuity, preparing monthly unit

schedules, and preparing holiday and vacation schedules.

Complying with staffing
There has been movement in at least 28 states to impose
mandatory staffing requirement, and one state has been already
enacted legislation requiring mandatory staffing rates that affect
hospitals and long-care facilities.
o Agency nurses or travel nurses these nurses are usually directly
employed by an external nursing blocker and work for premium
pay, without benefits.
o Float pools per-diem staff generally have the flexibility to
choose if and when they want to work
o Flextime is a system that allows employees to select that time
schedules that best meet their personal needs while still meeting
work responsibilities.
o Self-scheduling allows nurses in a unit to work together to
construct own schedules rather than have schedules created by
management.
o Shift bidding the organization sets the opening price of shift

o Managers should attempt to have diverse staff that will meet the
cultural and language needs of patient population
o Fair and uniform staffing and scheduling policies and procedures
must be written and communicated to all staff
o Existing staffing policies must be examined periodically to
determine if they still meet the needs of the staff and the
organization
o Workload measurement tools include NCH/PPD, PCS, and
workload measurement systems. All workload measurement
tools should be periodically reviewed to determine if they are a
valid and reliable tool for measuring staffing needs in a given
organization

CHAPTER 18
MOTIVATION
o is a force within the individual that influences or directs
behavior
INTRINCIS MOTIVATIO
o comes from within the person, driving him or her to be
productive
EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION
o Which is motivation that is enhanced by the work
environment, occur after the work has been completed
MOTIVATIONAL THEORY
MASLOW
o Maslow hierarchy of needs and theory of human
motivation. Maslow believed that people are motivated to
satisfy certain needs, ranging, from basic survival to
complex psychological needs, and that people seek a
higher need when the lower have been predominantly met.
SKINNER
o B.F Skinners research on operant conditioning and
behavior modification demonstrated that people could be
conditioned to behave certain way based on a consistent
reward or punishment system.
HERZBERG
o Frederick Herzberg theory, hygiene or maintenance factors
and motivator factors was called the Motivation-Hygiene
theory or two Factor theory. He maintained that motivators
or job satisfiers are present in work itself; they give people
the desire to work and to do that work well.
McClellands
o Studies state that all peoples expectations about their
environment or a certain event will influence their behavior
Gerllerman
o states that mosta managers in organization
overmanagage, making the responsibilities too narrow and
failing to give employees any decision-making power or to
stretch them often enough
Mcgregor
o Shows the importance of a managers assumptions about
workers on the intrinsic motivation of the workwer
Managmust show their own positive attitude to demonstrate the
employees that there s joy in work
The success of a motivationa strategy is measured by the
increased productivity and benefit to the organization and by the
growth of the person, which motivates him or her to accomplish
again.