Introduction
As healthcare becomes more complex and fragmented, nursing professionals should undergo historical boundaries and learn to work cooperatively. Team members are brought together by influential leaders with clearly established purpose, norms, and expectations. Meanwhile, the scheduling team coordinates schedule-related tasks, shifts, and resources. As a leader, I should dedicate all my efforts to this ongoing process to meet the nursing professionals’ needs and create an open space for them.
Scheduling Team Development Steps
The scheduling team is interprofessional, containing only specialists within the same discipline. Murray (2017) recognizes that the four steps of team creation are applied in this case. I will begin with team forming when members meet and start learning the purpose – to optimize schedule shifts and staffing levels – under the leader’s supervision. The further step is storming since the specialists generate possible ways to achieve their goals.
Whenever a conflict occurs due to somebody’s support of employee needs rather than operational requirements, the leaders assign members to mediate it. This action helps the team during its norming phase when the leader steps out of the process and allows members to take accountability for their work. The last step is performing, when professionals develop group cohesion and become interdependent. Hence, the leader’s role and duties weaken over the phases, giving the scheduling group members more autonomy.
Nevertheless, while building the team, many essential issues must be considered. The primary one is that most nurses are used to working in silos. However, modern realities demand collaborative operation, which might be challenging for the first time (Murray, 2017). That is why, as the team’s leader, I should precisely deliver our purpose and objectives to fuel their collaboration. Another essential concern is that while shaping the team, I should be responsible for establishing an effective feedback system where all healthcare providers and my team members will regularly share their perspectives. This initiative facilitates continuous improvements and positive team dynamics. The team members’ qualifications, diversity, and performance will be evaluated and considered.
Leadership and Management
Leadership and management guide the scheduling team’s work, narrow its focus, and improve its strategic planning. The leader’s authority is determined by his ability to form member alliances (Yoost & Crawford, 2019). My strength as a leader of the scheduling team is my high organizational, time management, and prioritization skills. I am excellent at determining urgent issues and finding the means to allocate time and resources while resolving them. Moreover, my communication skills and high empathy, matched with trait theories in nursing, will help me to establish democratic leadership and support my team. However, my weakness is micromanagement and over-commitment, which might be revealed during the last two phases of team development. Whenever I need to trust my colleagues equally as I trust myself, inner conflicts occur, hindering the nurses’ autonomy. Thus, I plan to improve my self-awareness and learn to delegate authority to my competent team.
Team Members Selection
Selecting team members is a challenging and time-consuming process. Healthcare sectors, including my nursing unit, work around the clock, creating time constraints, staff shortages, and stress. Considering the complexity of determining the most suitable schedule shifts, my team members should possess hard and soft skills (Abdalkareem et al., 2021). Primarily, they should have solid analytical skills, helping them in problem-solving and time management. Apart from that, they should undergo training in scheduling software proficiency.
Regarding soft skills, as the nurses will also be preoccupied with patient admission scheduling, they should have practical communication skills and cultural competence in treating patients equally and meeting their needs. Although scheduling experience might be beneficial, it is not a requirement. Overall, members will be selected based on accuracy, adaptability, and attentiveness.
Team Meetings Arrangement
The leader gets acquainted with the team members’ potential during the first meeting. However, its primary agenda is to identify whether the members’ perspectives and enthusiasm regarding the scheduling accuracy and compliance match. Since I plan to apply a synergy model in my team – combining members’ strengths and compensating for their gaps – I will start with an Icebreaker activity (Murray, 2017). Each member shares interesting facts about their personality, career, and expectations during this activity. Further, nurses discuss scheduling challenges from the past and create solutions for them in groups. The meeting is arranged in a habitual organizational setting with empowering communication.
Another critical issue to consider is that leaders should resolve conflicts during the first group meeting. In nursing, variances occur based on the specialists’ background. As an illustration, current nursing employs only 11% of males, meaning they may experience work-related biases (Goldsberry, 2018). Sometimes, nursing professionals undergo unjust treatment from physicians who treat them as subservient specialists. In order to address these issues, the leader should create a culturally sensitive, respectful, and equal environment where nurses receive support from all healthcare professionals.
Conclusion
The nursing team should work in a safe and open environment where everybody’s voices are heard. To achieve this, the leader is responsible for establishing feedback mechanisms, teaching professionals to actively listen, and empowering all members during the smooth team-forming process. If nursing specialists communicate effectively, share a group vision, and plan their actions, collaboration in the scheduling team will go effectively and benefit the organization.
References
Abdalkareem, Z. A., Amir, A., Al-Betar, M. A., Ekhan, P., & Hammouri, A. I. (2021). Healthcare scheduling in optimization context: A review. Health and Technology, 11, 445-469. Web.
Goldsberry, J. W. (2018). Advanced practice nurses leading the way: Interprofessional collaboration. Nurse Education Today, 65(1), 1-3. Web.
Murray, E. (2017). Nursing leadership and management for patient safety and quality care. F. A. Davis Company.
Yoost, B. L., & Crawford, L. R. (2019). Fundamentals of nursing: Learning for collaborative practice. Mosby.