Week 4: Ensuring Equity and Inclusion Within
a Diverse Nursing Staff
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Hiring a diverse staff is the first step in providing culturally sensitive care. To create a work environment that is also inclusive and equitable, attention must be given to revising old policies and procedures, or developing new ones, that are culturally sensitive.
1. Find and describe one or two policies at your organization that when revised would more explicitly reflect an inclusive and equitable work culture.
“Diversity Policy We are committed to building a workforce that reflects the diversity of the community we serve. Fostering a diverse workforce benefits both employees and patients by offering an inclusive place to provide and receive care. Men and women from different backgrounds serve in a number of roles in our organization. While we may come from different experiences, we all share the same goal of providing high quality patient care.
Providing Culturally Competent Care Our employees receive annual training designed to support and encourage an inclusive environment for healthcare delivery and customer service. Additional resources are available to assist with the delivery of healthcare, such as translation and technology services and responding to cultural issues for patients and families of different backgrounds.
Recruiting and Retaining Diverse Talent As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we are committed to recruiting talented employees with valuable expertise from different races, religions, genders, sexual orientations and other protected classes. We participate in local career fairs and business expos, work with recruiting sources to actively seek diverse applicants, and partner with colleges and schools
with significant minority enrollment to identify highly qualified applicants.” (MHRO, 2022)
Hello All,
A significant number have prior experience working for large corporations. To achieve success, it is crucial to have a broad cultural perspective. Possessing high levels of cultural intelligence indicates a person can work and communicate well with individuals from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds. Organizations, and HR specifically, may provide valuable assistance in fostering cultural intelligence, even if it ultimately depends on an individual's aptitudes. Human resources may help by giving multicultural education training, where appropriate communication and behavioral approaches are vital. This might include teaching about the social and economic principles of other cultures. My company has employees from a broad variety of cultural backgrounds, therefore valuing cultural diversity is a top focus. Human resources strives to provide training programs that teach existing employees and potential recruits about cultural diversity and cultural intelligence. Above is my company’s diversity policy. I feel it is very vague in comparison to other policies I found when researching other company policies. Assuming that a single approach would be effective for everyone is no longer
viable.
Those in positions of authority have the responsibility of turning differences into gains for everyone concerned. If we want to create a welcome space that celebrates diversity, we must first start by respecting the identities of those around us. According to Stanford (2020), simply assigning someone to lead diversity and inclusion initiatives is not enough. In order to succeed, businesses must see diversity as integral to their goals and regularly survey members from a wide range of backgrounds to gauge how they feel progress is being made. For this reason, programs teaching cultural competency are inadequate. True diversity and inclusion can only be achieved when leaders from all walks of life work together to create a culture that respects and encourages variety of thought and employs best practices and sufficient resources to fully engage all workers and help them reach their full potential.
-Stacy
Diversity Policy | Quality & Safety. (n.d.). Diversity Policy | Quality & Safety. Retrieved November 14, 2022, from https://www.merithealthriveroaks.com/diversity-policy?key=merit- river-oaks,diversity-policy
Stanford F. C. (2020). The Importance of diversity and inclusion in the healthcare workforce. Journal of the National Medical Association , 112(3), Pg247–Pg249. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7387183/
Hello Taylor and Class,
My workplace also has very vague policies and minimal training in comparison to other facilities. Annually, we are assigned two online training courses addressing this matter. A company I used to work for had a committee created to address cultural sensitivity. Such teams should be a staple in all companies, especially healthcare. Does your facility have anything similar? Providing workers with helpful resources and making the workplace pleasant ultimately lead to positive outcomes. Anti- discrimination policies that aim to address racism, religious intolerance, and other forms of bigotry require a definition of hostility. Many companies have implemented anti-discrimination training programs to combat bigotry and prejudice in the workplace. It is advantageous to build a team composed of people from different backgrounds and with different points of view. According to Cater (2020), expanding the pool of qualified nurses has good effects in all facets of the profession, including teaching, study, and patient care. One major technique for achieving racial and ethnic parity in health care is to increase the number of nurses from underrepresented groups. Managers with cultural competence in the clinical setting can better address problems arising from bias. A more harmonious workplace can be fostered if executives face these problems head-on. People are more at ease when they do not have to hide who they are or where they came from. Current and potential workers alike would benefit from Human Resources staf receiving cultural sensitivity and understanding training. Policies designed to bring in a more diverse workforce have the potential to improve both communication and equality in the workplace. Having to work in bad conditions might lead to discontentment among employees. This gives a chance to establish a structure that is mutually beneficial. Several industries have made great steps toward becoming more accepting of all people. Even culturally aware workers may have trouble avoiding bias in care if they are not given clear guidelines to follow. How do you think we can promote cultural sensitivity in our facilities where such topics are so vague and seem to be of minute consideration?
-Stacy
Carter, B. (2020). Achieving diversity, inclusion and equity in the nursing workforce. Revista latino- americana de enfermagem, 28, Pg1- Pg4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7021476/
•Dr. Scoggs and class,
•Interestingly, I reviewed almost a hundred policies and found one very generic one. The
policy is named “Antidistrimation Non-retaliation Harassment free environment. The policy was revised in 2019 and contained no addendum. The vocabulary is straightforward, stating we are an equal-opportunity employer. The organization will not allow employees to be discriminated against for the usual list of things we read. Retaliation or creating a hostile work environment is not tolerated. A yearly requirement is to complete a cultural and sensitivity online learning module (Young & Guo, 2020). The policy needs to be more specific and define discrimination and hostility. Revising the policy should include a phone number, an anonymous telephone line, an email, or a direct line to human resources at the cooperate human resources level to discuss concerns or fears outlined in the policy. The policies are reviewed and revised, and updated on an as-needed basis. Policies revisions are “owned” by the department responsible for enforcing the policy. In this instance, the policy revisions are created by human resources. Recently, the organization hired a cultural and diversity leader. The leader has developed a workgroup comprising representatives from every race and ethnicity employed with the organization (Rosenkranz et al., 2021).
The group has requested permission to revise this policy, and create a new policy is required. The new policy will need to be reviewed at a cooperate level. Antidismiration policy should be a separate policy that an inclusive policy includes race, religion, sexual preference, and members of diverse groups. The new policy reinforces what defines discrimination and encourages other employees to speak up if they witness this type of behavior. When I joined the organization, two nurse leaders employed for 30 years were still at the manager level. After working side by side with these ladies, I was surprised they had not
progressed further in their careers. After long conversations and several meetings, both
were promoted. Improving diversity opens up opportunities for employees that need to
be appropriately represented. Culturally diverse staf improves outcomes, reduces health disparities, and expands resources. Leadership establishes a diverse culture and reduces diferences among employees. Unfortunately, women in leadership still face discrimination and gender bias. All caregivers are working toward the common goal of providing quality care.
•References
•Rosenkranz, K. M., Arora, T. K., Termuhlen, P. M., Stain, S. C., Misra, S., Dent, D., & Nfonsam, V. (2021). Diversity, equity and inclusion in medicine: Why it matters and how do we achieve it? Journal of Surgical Education , 78(4), 1058–1065. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsurg.2020.11.013Links to an external site. •Young, S., & Guo, K. L. (2020). Cultural diversity training. The Health Care Manager , 39(2), 100–108. https://doi.org/10.1097/hcm.0000000000000294Links to an external site.
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•ReplyReply to Comment o Collapse Subdiscussion Heather Carr Heather Carr Nov 15, 2022Nov 15 at 11:02am Manage Discussion Entry
Hello Crystal,
I enjoyed your post and agree with that the policy regarding hostile work environment should contain resource information like phone numbers. The facility I currently work, just revised our
hostile work environment policy to include this verbiage and also added an anonymous call center that anyone can use to file a report. This phone line has a generic phone number assigned to it to protect the reporters identity. This has helped so much, because the call center receives several calls a day with questions or concerns and we are able to follow up just by the information that is provided. The results of this were also included on the all employee survey, where staf voiced how happy they are that they are able to file a report without feeling
like they will be singled out or have retaliation ( which our organization doesn't tolerate). Do your organization would have a similar outcome, should they add the anonymous call line?
