1. How well has Barbara Norris done in her first month as a nurse manager of GSU?

Was she a good choice for the position?

Barbara grew up in a family of nurses, her mother and grandmother both were nurses and hence,
she developed a deep respect and admiration for that profession quite early in her life. She aimed
to be a nurse right from the beginning. She graduated with honors from the nursing program and
thereafter completed her Masters in Nursing Administration despite having responsibilities of
raising a family. Evidently, she had shown immense dedication to her profession. The Eastern
Massachusetts Hospitals General Surgery Unit, where Barbara is the Nurse Manager, was
plagued by many issues like high employee turnover rate and low employee satisfaction scores
besides staff shortage, high stress levels and low morale due to a hiring freeze recently instituted.
When she joined the organization, it was experiencing a decrease in revenue and an increase in
costs. She had 33 people working under her at the time of joining. But during the first month she
had lost 2 Registered Nurses and five months before joining the organisation 3 Registered nurses
had quit their jobs. Despite being aware of such a situation in the unit Barbara went head on with
the challenge to turn the unit around though she was warned against taking up the job by her
mentor. In her first month, Norris has been faced by a lot of such difficulties, yet she was very
adamant in changing things. She worked over-time to get her staff up to speed while facing a
resource crunch. She discovered the issues being faced by her staff through one-on-one meetings
and tried to get to the bottom of these things. She provided a forum for discussion of these issues
in an open and transparent manner.So,she ran an off-site for her staff, where many specific issues
had come up, of which she made a list ,ready to resolve each one of them. Barbara Norris was a
good choice for the position because of the grit and dedication shown by her in such challenging
times and more importantly taking on such a challenge despite knowing what lay ahead of her.
She had the vision and determination to turn things around.

2. What changes is she trying to make and why?

At the off-site Barbara gathered all the responses of her staff and identified lack of collaboration
and teamwork, interpersonal and intergroup conflict. The work culture in GSU was significantly
different from the trauma unit where Barbara had previously worked. At the trauma unit, the staff
was a close-knit group and believed in helping each other. The credit went to the then manager
who acknowledged her staff and sought their input on important decisions relevant to the unit.
So, Barbara is trying to bring about the same kind of environment in this unit too where the staff
would be involved in major decisions like staffing. This would make her staff feel important and
probably be a morale booster .She had noted down all major items that frustrated or de-motivated
her staff and was determined to set realistic and attainable goals for each one of them. She was
considering talking to her director to seek a reprieve from the hiring freeze so her staff doesnt
have to pick and choose the care to give for their patients which is apparently a cause for
frustration. Another cause for concern that came up during the meeting was that the staff wasnt
being acknowledged properly for their efforts verbally or otherwise, which is a reason for de-
motivation and low morale among the staff. Barbara was considering putting in place a fair and
transparent review process and employing other forms of acknowledgment other than monetary
compensation, which she doesnt not have adequate influence on.