Introduction
The motivation of staff plays a big role in nursing management. Nurse leaders are responsible for securing the professional development of nurse practitioners, performing conflict and relationship management, and promoting service-oriented behavior and values. Service orientation includes identifying and meeting the needs of customers and motivation to improve health care service quality. Therefore, it is important to investigate how a nurse administrator can motivate nurse practitioners to be service-oriented.
Ways to Promote Service-Oriented Behavior
Service orientation is regarded as one of the competencies of nurses’ social awareness. It is stated that “service orientation, whether customers are patients or members of other departments, draws on the ability of the leader to grasp the customer’s perspective and to create actions responsive to that perspective” (Thomas, 2015, p. 68). Thus, as a nurse administrator, I would utilize leadership and communication skills to achieve success in organizing interprofessional collaboration and educate effective nurse-patient relationship among other nurses to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
It is advisable for a nurse administrator to encourage teamwork and collaboration among nursing staff and physicians, as well as build a healthy work environment by cultivating self-control and empathy. The nurses can be coached through training and feedback used to encourage discussions on challenges in inpatient care. It is beneficial to involve other nurses in leadership in solving problems to increase their self-awareness and build certain types of organizational behavior in the service-oriented environment. It is a general opinion that cooperative relationship motivates nurses and improves their morale. Positive communication at the workplace also assists in the motivation of the service-oriented approach among staff. A nurse administrator should be an example for other nurses and apply the principles of service-oriented behavior in everyday practice by greeting the nursing staff at the beginning of their shift and communicate their expectations towards career and goals. A nurse administrator should also encourage nurses to participate in research activities.
It is possible to say that a nurse administrator would also benefit from applying the servant leadership approach by prioritizing the well-being of the other nurses and concentrating on the ways to make their work more effective and successful. Some researchers note that “servant leadership is a service-oriented approach that focuses on valuing, supporting and developing people” (Hanse, Harlin, Jarebrant, Ulin, & Winkel, 2016, p. 233). It is crucial to empower the employees to increase job and patient satisfaction and transform culture and quality of long-term care. Servant leaders wish to implement the best practices among the employees and understand the importance of quality improvement activities. Such an approach assists in increasing the commitment of nurses and decreases turnover. Servant leaders tend to develop skills in others and encourage nurse participation in studies and implementation of evidence-based practices to improve health care quality. A nurse administrator also should learn from one’s mistakes and accept positive outcomes of criticism. Thus, servant leadership assists in developing highly-qualified medical professionals among nurses.
Conclusion
The discussion of the methods that a nurse administrator can utilize to motivate service-oriented behavior proved that a number of approaches could be used to reach the set goal. Assisting in interprofessional collaboration and educating effective nurse-patient relationships are considered to be effective in promoting service-oriented behavior among nurses. It is crucial to encourage teamwork and collaboration, as well as building a healthy work environment. A nurse administrator would also benefit from applying servant leadership approach to promote service-oriented behavior among others and involve them in participating in research and implementing evidence-based practices to improve the quality of health care services.
References
Hanse, J. J., Harlin, U., Jarebrant, C., Ulin, K., & Winkel, J. (2016). The impact of servant leadership dimensions on leader–member exchange among health care professionals. Journal of Nursing Management, 24(2), 228-234.
Thomas, T. (2015). Management and leadership for nurse administrators. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.