Multiskilling at the Rossett NHS Trust Hospital in the UK
Introduction
This report entails an analysis of a case study on the introduction of the concept of multiskilling at the Rossett NHS Trust Hospital in the UK. The project was intended at incorporating the generic working concept within the ward-teams. The goal of the project was to enhance the ward-based team’s operational effectiveness and to enrich the employees’ job by combining the domestic workers and the porter’s role. From the project, Rossett NHS intended to improve its operational effectiveness and efficiency by enhancing its responsiveness to clients’ needs and achieve value for money. The report explores the gaps in the organisation’s leadership and organisational behaviours that contributed to the organisation’s failure in implementing the change initiative.
Leadership and organisational behaviour
Leadership and management
The execution of the project would have resulted in the implementation of significant changes that would have transformed the job roles and responsibilities of different teams within the hospital. In implementing organisational change, the top executive should not assume that the lower level employees understand the rationale driving the change decision. On the contrary, the top executive must discuss and explain to the employees the necessity of pursuing the change initiative. The organisation’s employees need to incorporate effective communication, which constitutes a critical leadership practice, in deciding on the implementation of a change initiative (Galbraith, 2018). However, the top management depicted autocratic leadership behaviour. The top management at Rosset NHS Trust Hospital ignored the importance of integrating the concept of employee involvement in deciding on change. The top executive was only concerned with the benefits of multiskilling to the organisation, which is making money.
Even though the organisation intended to conduct a pilot project in testing the change initiative, the firm did not discuss with all the employees. Communication was only held with a sample of 12 domestic and pottering staff involved in the implementation of the pilot project. The prevalence of ineffective employee involvement is also evidenced in the project teams. Rather than conducting team briefs, the leaders responsible for rolling out the pilot scheme undertook informal communication through notice boards. This indicates that the project leaders were only concerned with achieving the benefits associated with the change initiative. Galbraith (2018) asserts that before implementing a change initiative, the organisation’s leaders must inspire the employees by sharing with them a compelling vision for the change initiative. Nevertheless, the hospital’s management team did not appreciate the importance of ensuring that the employees are adequately involved in making decisions relating to the change initiative. The lack of effective communication underlines the prevalence of poor leadership behaviour. While some of the organisation’s leaders such as Anita Patel, the Director of the hospital’s Hotel Services, held some transformational leadership characteristics, in her proposal to introduce the generic-working concept, she failed to portray an adequate level of charisma to inspire the employees.
Motivation
Ensuring that the employees are motivated in undertaking their job roles and responsibilities is critical in the attainment of organisational goals. The employees’ level of motivation influences their organisational behaviour, for example, commitment to their job roles (Rakowski, 2008). To achieve this outcome, the organisation’s management team needs to ensure that the employees achieve need satisfaction as proposed under the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Among the categories of needs includes psychological needs and self-fulfilment needs. Among the psychological needs include feeling of prestige while self-fulfilment or actualisation comprise of attaining one’s full potential (McGuire, 2012). The fact that the implementation of the multiskilling concept at Rossett NHS entailed reorganisation of job roles would have adverse effects on the employees’ level of motivation as illustrated by the outcome of the pilot project. The decline in employee motivation would have arisen from the fact that the male employees would have been forced to undertake job roles meant for female employees, for example, cleaning duties. Rather than appreciating the importance of addressing the possible employee resistance as advocated for by the institution’s trade union UNISON, to the new job roles, the top management was largely concerned with the rolling out of the generic working concept. In response, the porters were demotivated which is underlined by their open resistance to perform cleaning duties in their new job roles because they held the view that those are women’s jobs.
In implementing the generic working concept, Rossett NHS believed that it would have contributed to the organisation’s success by enriching the employees’ jobs hence increasing their level of motivation. According to Herzberg’s two-factor theory, organisations can enhance the employees level of motivation by observing two categories of factors that include the motivator and hygiene factors. The motivation factors are comprised of the employees’ specific job roles and responsibilities, a sense of achievement, and advancing one’s personal and professional growth. Conversely, the hygiene factors comprise of the working environment such as the pay and job security, working conditions, the company policies, and the prevailing interpersonal relationship (Griffin, 2008). Despite Rossett NHS efforts to enhance the employees’ level of satisfaction by integrating the performance-related pay approach, the firm failed in increasing the employees’ level of motivation as underlined by their resistance to the new job roles. Moreover, the firm did not address the fact that some employees felt ‘threatened’ by the change in job roles and responsibilities. Under such circumstances, the firm should have addressed the job security concerns amongst some employees’ occasioned by the change initiative.
Lack of employee motivation in adopting the new generic working concept further arose from lack of equity inherent in the organisation. The case study highlights the prevalence of preferential treatment for some employees. For example, some of the domestic workers were dubbed as ‘ward hostesses’ enjoyed a privileged position and did not interact with other clinical or patient personnel. As such, some employees perceived that they were being treated unfairly. According to the equity theory of motivation, unfairness within an organisation can increase tension between different employee groups, which is evident between the different subgroups at Rossett NHS (Schermerhorn, 2011).
Training and development
The reorganisation of job roles and responsibilities in the implementation of the generic working concept meant that Rossett NHS needed to undertake employee training and development. However, the firm’s pilot project did not appreciate the importance of undertaking employee training and development. The implementation of employee training and development would have been critical in imparting critical skills, abilities and knowledge to the firm’s employees. This would have significantly improved their capability in performing the new job roles and responsibilities. However, Rossett NHS management team did not recognise the importance of retraining the employees to equip them with skills to enable them to perform the new job roles. Rossett NHS should have considered integrating the direct reinforcement theory in imparting the employees with new skills and abilities.
The direct enforcement theory emphasises on learning by designing a training and development program that correlates with the desired employees job roles and responsibilities. The organisation should, therefore, align its training goal with its mission for the implementation of the generic working concept. Alternatively, constructivist learning theory would also have been applicable. The operationalization of this theory would have entailed moulding the employees’ skills to fit the real organisational environment (Milhem, Abushamsieh & Arostegui, 2014). In reorganising the job roles and responsibilities, the organisation should focus on training the employees on three main areas that include the skills, attitudes, and knowledge relevant to the new jobs. The firm should have undertaken a comprehensive knowledge and skills gap analysis on the employees to be affected by the change. This would have provided the firm insight into the critical areas of training and development to pursue.
Conclusion and recommendations
The report examines the diverse leadership and organisational behaviour issues inherent in Rossett NHS effort to implement change initiative by introducing the concept of generic working. The issues identified relate to the organisation’s approach to leadership, motivation, and employee training and development. Rossett NHS experienced significant failure in implementing the change initiative. The failure arose from its failure in integrating employee involvement and communication in implementing the change. The organisation’s adoption of autocratic leadership was further central to the organisation’s failure in achieving success in implementing the change. Moreover, the organisation’s lack of appreciating the employees’ job satisfaction further contributed to the creation of resistance to the change initiative. Despite the fact that the multiskilling concept would have been beneficial to the organisatioAlthoughure to appreciate the importance of undertaking employee training and development resulted in resistance to the organisation’s failure to reorganise the job roles and responsibilities. Inspite of the failures experienced, Rossett NHS can succeed in introducing the desired change. The organisation should address leadership and organisational behaviour issues. First, the firm should integrate effective leadership. The firm should replace the autocratic leadership style with transformational leadership. Additionally, the firm should integrate a comprehensive employee training and development program by analysing the employees skills and knowledge gap. Enhancing and observing the employees’ level of motivation in their job roles would also be central to the organisation’s success in entrenching the intended change initiative.
References
Galbraith, M. (2018). Don’t just tell employees organisational changes are coming, explain why. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2018/10/dont-just-tell-employees-organizational-changes-are-coming-explain-why
Griffin, R. (2008). Fundamentals of management. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin.
Milhem, W., Abushamsieh, K., & Arostegui, M. (2014). Training strategies, theories and types. Journal of Accounting, Business & Management, 21(1), 12-26.
Schermerhorn, J. (2011). Introduction to management. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Rakowski, N. (2008). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model; the differences between the Chinese and western pyramid on the example of purchasing luxurious products. Norderstedt: Grin Verlag.
McGuire, K. (2012). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; an introduction. Norderstedt: GRIN Verlag.