Workplace Environment Assessment

Abstract

It is the hope of every organization to have a conducive and productive work environment that is tailored to the specification of every employee. This ensures that the employee is comfortable while working. The comfortability of the employees in the workplace has many advantages to both the employee and the organization. For nursing, the workplace environment is a crucial part of the effectiveness which is thus translated to more quality healthcare and productivity of the facility. One of the important aspects of a healthy workplace is civility which is the formal courtesy in behavior and speech. It plays an important aspect in the relationship between the employees. In this paper, aspects of good health drawn from Clark Workplace inventory will be used to form the basis of discussion. Using relevant literature on the subject, concepts, and theories will be studied and used to practically develop evidence-based strategies for improving the health of a given workplace.
The main focus of this work will be on proving that the work environment is important to both the employees and the organization. Nurses have an even bigger responsibility to be civil in the workplace while exploring other ways that civility can be improved in a nursing work environment.
Part 1: Work Environment Assessment
The workplace assessment score on the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory was 85 out of the possible 100 which is a positive indicator of a healthy workplace. According to the workplace assessment documentation, a score between 80 and 90 is a “Moderately healthy” workplace. Some of the top-rated attributes of the assessment in the available statements on the 1 to 5 scale included employee satisfaction, morale, wellness, unity, transparency among others. Natarajan, Muliira, & van der Colff (2017) categorizes the above attributes as personal motivation factors which are very crucial for a workplace to exhibit healthy attributes. Some of the low scoring attributes in the assessment inventory include shared vision and sufficient opportunities for promotion and career development. The negative scores seem to be more on the attributes whose responsibility is on the organizational level. This may be an indicator of faulty organization structure and policies that handle employee’s welfare (Samnani & Singh, 2016). However, the immediate work environment of individual-related attributes of the nurses scored fairly good.
The surprising attribute of the results of the assessment was the effect of monitoring systems that were on average available on the facility. The monitoring systems have been put in place to ensure that employees are optimally working in their respective posts. However, in this case, the presence of the monitoring systems reduced the effectiveness of the employees and thus optimal conditions were not achieved as pointed to by Clark (2016). Another surprising thing about the Clark work environment assessment inventory was the effect that mismatched employees have on the cohesiveness and civility of the workplace. It is true people have different personalities and characteristics but they should never be exhibited negatively in the workplace (Palo & Chawla, 2015). More so, in the nursing profession, emotional intelligence is a paramount attribute that must be exhibited not only towards the patients that a nurse is attending to but also the fellow nursing and medical fraternity at large.
Before conducting the assessment, several things that were present in our workplace were believed to be true. Some were confirmed to be true while others were proved otherwise after the assessment. Trust and mentoring scores in our workplace were expected to be high and results confirmed with the expectation. Trust is one of the most upheld values by all the employees in the workplace notwithstanding the position, age, or role of the individual at the facility. Trust among the employees is exhibited in many different forms ranging from the roles that each individual is entrusted to other peripheral roles that are not explicitly linked to their professional roles (Samnani & Singh, 2016). Every employee trusts the management that they will do what is expected of them and ensure that the welfare of the workers and patients is taken care of and the management reciprocates the same by entrusting the employees to perform their duties professionally. Mentoring of newly assigned or onboarded members is another attribute where the expected high score was conferred. The more experienced and skilled employees are always available to mentor and show the less experienced employees the way forward on tasks that require specialized skills.
The moderately healthy score on the assessment inventory shows several aspects of the workplace. Both the health and civility of the workplace are positive and good despite the few areas that can use some improvement. The Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory tool for the workplace gave results that show that the workers are not only stimulated by the positive work environment but also, they have a high level of civility. Contributing to this success are several factors that were identified in the assessment. They include clear ethical guidelines, productive workplace culture, and management efforts to manage the welfare of the human resource.
Part 2: Reviewing the Literature
The article by Clark (2016) is an insightful and very informative piece to a nursing professional with the pursuit of a healthy and conducive workplace. The article focuses on the attribute of civility in a nursing workplace and the role of leadership that plays in fostering civil behavior in an organization. After defining what civility is in the context of the nursing profession, Cynthia Clark outlines an eight-steps guide that nursing leadership should follow to ensure that they foster civility in the workplace. Also covered extensively in the article are the American Nurses Association’s (ANA) code of ethics regarding the civility concern. P.E.A.K (Principled, Ethical, Authentic, Kind) is the mnemonic that is used in the article to describe the characteristics that a leader must have to foster civility in a nursing workplace. To exhibit civility, nurses need to self-reflect since according to the article ‘nothing can change’. The PEAK concept as suggested in the article helps initiate and implement the 8-step fostering plan that will ensure that civility is embodied in the organization culture. The eight steps are;
1. Raising awareness and availing support from leadership
2. Measurement of civility, health, and teamwork of the workplace
3. Forming a civility team to implement the action plan
4. Developing a civility plan focused on Policies, hiring, and protocols
5. Implementing of the developed action plan and their strategies
6. Evaluating the action plan using reassessment of the strategies
7. Reinforcing the success achieved in the implementation stage
8. Expanding the plan and strategy of the civility initiative.
The PEAK and self-reflection concept of developing a healthy and civil workplace is highly comparable to our work as the results clearly show. On the leadership attributes in the model i.e. Principled, Ethical, Authentic, Kind the results from the assessment regarding our workplace were very positive. Although there was some difference in the occurrence of the attributes on our leaders, the overage score was above 3. Thus, is conclusive that leadership is a crucial part of an organization that wants to establish civility in their nursing workplace.
This concept of leadership can be applied in our work to ensure that civility is established and maintained. The leaders however must be principled, meaning that they have to act per the morality of civility outlined in the ANA ethics. They must also be Ethical in their nursing and leadership practice as dictated by the ANA and the organization’s policies (Wyatt, Brand, Ashby-Pepper, Abraham, & Fleming, 2015). They must also be Authentic meaning they have to be guided by facts and reliable sources of civility factors while leading the nurses. Lastly, the nurse’s leaders must be Kind to the employees and any other stakeholder in the nursing fraternity. All these factors and attributes are conspicuous on the leaders at our workplace and thus it is to significantly attribute the high score in the Clark Workplace Environment Inventory to their leadership.
Part 3: Evidence-Based Strategies
To address the shortcoming that was identified in the workplace, the work of Clark (2016) can be very instrumental since it not only outlines the requirements that are needed to achieve civility but also gives a procedural action plan. In a situation where civility has been established by the management into the organization, the article suggests an action plan which will improve the civility of the workplace. To improve the negatively rated attributes on the workplace which were identified as lack of shared vision and insufficient opportunities for promotion and no support for career development, the nursing leadership should form a civility team that will ensure that the negativity is tackled. According to Clark (2016), the team will be mandated to improve the attributes that were pointed to be on the negative end of the spectrum and maintain the positively marked attributes to ensure that civility is well in place on the organization.
Another shortcoming that was revealed in the workplace environment assessment was the lack of motivating initiative from the leaders. To solve this problem, the PEAK concept should be taught and instilled on to the leaders of the nursing fraternity to ensure that they foster civility on to the workplace that is entrusted to them. A professional trainer should be contracted to ensure that the leaders are principled, Ethical, Authentic, and Kind. These values will ensure that the leaders are intentionally fostering civility in the workplace and ultimately improving the score on the Clark Workplace Environment Assessment inventory.
To ensure that the successful attributes are maintained and bolstered in the workplace can be done by motivating the most proactive nurse on civility. This helps to keep the nurses motivated to maintain civil attributes and spread to other nurses in the workplace. The motivation can be done by rewarding their accomplishments that are explicitly linked to civility. Another form of rewards includes professional development of the nurses that exhibit consistent attributes of civility. These activities are important since they not only improve the individual who is being rewarded but also encourage others to improve their skills to ensure that they get rewarded (Wyatt, Brand, Ashby-Pepper, Abraham, & Fleming, 2015). This creates a positive growth trend that if maintained leads to a civil and healthy workplace.
Another effective recommendation that can be used to bolster civility in a workplace is training the nurses on the strategies and concepts that improve civility in the environment. This is effective since some of the nurses might be exhibiting uncivil behavior since they are not trained or do not have the knowledge of civility. This can be caused by incompatibility that exists between the academic and professional settings. Offering practical training that is tailored to their specific workplace can greatly improve their efforts towards a more civil workplace.

Full text

Running Head: WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT ASSESSMENT 1
Workplace Environment Assessment
Institution
Name

WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT ASSESSMENT 2
Introduction
It is the hope of every organization to have a conducive and productive work
environment that is tailored to the specification of every employee. This ensures that the
employee is comfortable while working. The comfortability of the employees in the workplace
has many advantages to both the employee and the organization. For nursing, the workplace
environment is a crucial part of the effectiveness which is thus translated to more quality
healthcare and productivity of the facility. One of the important aspects of a healthy workplace is
civility which is the formal courtesy in behavior and speech. It plays an important aspect in the
relationship between the employees. In this paper, aspects of good health drawn from Clark
Workplace inventory will be used to form the basis of discussion. Using relevant literature on the
subject, concepts, and theories will be studied and used to practically develop evidence-based
strategies for improving the health of a given workplace.
The main focus of this work will be on proving that the work environment is important to
both the employees and the organization. Nurses have an even bigger responsibility to be civil in
the workplace while exploring other ways that civility can be improved in a nursing work
environment.
Part 1: Work Environment Assessment
The workplace assessment score on the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory was 85 out of
the possible 100 which is a positive indicator of a healthy workplace. According to the workplace
assessment documentation, a score between 80 and 90 is a “Moderately healthy” workplace.
Some of the top-rated attributes of the assessment in the available statements on the 1 to 5 scale
included employee satisfaction, morale, wellness, unity, transparency among others. Natarajan,
Muliira, & van der Colff (2017) categorizes the above attributes as personal motivation factors

WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT ASSESSMENT 3
which are very crucial for a workplace to exhibit healthy attributes. Some of the low scoring
attributes in the assessment inventory include shared vision and sufficient opportunities for
promotion and career development. The negative scores seem to be more on the attributes whose
responsibility is on the organizational level. This may be an indicator of faulty organization
structure and policies that handle employee’s welfare (Samnani & Singh, 2016). However, the
immediate work environment of individual-related attributes of the nurses scored fairly good.
The surprising attribute of the results of the assessment was the effect of monitoring
systems that were on average available on the facility. The monitoring systems have been put in
place to ensure that employees are optimally working in their respective posts. However, in this
case, the presence of the monitoring systems reduced the effectiveness of the employees and thus
optimal conditions were not achieved as pointed to by Clark (2016). Another surprising thing
about the Clark work environment assessment inventory was the effect that mismatched
employees have on the cohesiveness and civility of the workplace. It is true people have different
personalities and characteristics but they should never be exhibited negatively in the workplace
(Palo & Chawla, 2015). More so, in the nursing profession, emotional intelligence is a
paramount attribute that must be exhibited not only towards the patients that a nurse is attending
to but also the fellow nursing and medical fraternity at large.
Before conducting the assessment, several things that were present in our workplace were
believed to be true. Some were confirmed to be true while others were proved otherwise after the
assessment. Trust and mentoring scores in our workplace were expected to be high and results
confirmed with the expectation. Trust is one of the most upheld values by all the employees in
the workplace notwithstanding the position, age, or role of the individual at the facility. Trust
among the employees is exhibited in many different forms ranging from the roles that each

WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT ASSESSMENT 4
individual is entrusted to other peripheral roles that are not explicitly linked to their professional
roles (Samnani & Singh, 2016). Every employee trusts the management that they will do what is
expected of them and ensure that the welfare of the workers and patients is taken care of and the
management reciprocates the same by entrusting the employees to perform their duties
professionally. Mentoring of newly assigned or onboarded members is another attribute where
the expected high score was conferred. The more experienced and skilled employees are always
available to mentor and show the less experienced employees the way forward on tasks that
require specialized skills.
The moderately healthy score on the assessment inventory shows several aspects of the
workplace. Both the health and civility of the workplace are positive and good despite the few
areas that can use some improvement. The Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory tool for the
workplace gave results that show that the workers are not only stimulated by the positive work
environment but also, they have a high level of civility. Contributing to this success are several
factors that were identified in the assessment. They include clear ethical guidelines, productive
workplace culture, and management efforts to manage the welfare of the human resource.
Part 2: Reviewing the Literature
The article by Clark (2016) is an insightful and very informative piece to a nursing
professional with the pursuit of a healthy and conducive workplace. The article focuses on the
attribute of civility in a nursing workplace and the role of leadership that plays in fostering civil
behavior in an organization. After defining what civility is in the context of the nursing
profession, Cynthia Clark outlines an eight-steps guide that nursing leadership should follow to
ensure that they foster civility in the workplace. Also covered extensively in the article are the
American Nurses Association’s (ANA) code of ethics regarding the civility concern. P.E.A.K

WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT ASSESSMENT 5
(Principled, Ethical, Authentic, Kind) is the mnemonic that is used in the article to describe the
characteristics that a leader must have to foster civility in a nursing workplace. To exhibit
civility, nurses need to self-reflect since according to the article ‘nothing can change’. The PEAK
concept as suggested in the article helps initiate and implement the 8-step fostering plan that will
ensure that civility is embodied in the organization culture. The eight steps are;
1. Raising awareness and availing support from leadership
2. Measurement of civility, health, and teamwork of the workplace
3. Forming a civility team to implement the action plan
4. Developing a civility plan focused on Policies, hiring, and protocols
5. Implementing of the developed action plan and their strategies
6. Evaluating the action plan using reassessment of the strategies
7. Reinforcing the success achieved in the implementation stage
8. Expanding the plan and strategy of the civility initiative.
The PEAK and self-reflection concept of developing a healthy and civil workplace is highly
comparable to our work as the results clearly show. On the leadership attributes in the model i.e.
Principled, Ethical, Authentic, Kind the results from the assessment regarding our workplace
were very positive. Although there was some difference in the occurrence of the attributes on our
leaders, the overage score was above 3. Thus, is conclusive that leadership is a crucial part of an
organization that wants to establish civility in their nursing workplace.
This concept of leadership can be applied in our work to ensure that civility is established
and maintained. The leaders however must be principled, meaning that they have to act per the
morality of civility outlined in the ANA ethics. They must also be Ethical in their nursing and
leadership practice as dictated by the ANA and the organization’s policies (Wyatt, Brand, Ashby-

WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT ASSESSMENT 6
Pepper, Abraham, & Fleming, 2015). They must also be Authentic meaning they have to be
guided by facts and reliable sources of civility factors while leading the nurses. Lastly, the
nurse’s leaders must be Kind to the employees and any other stakeholder in the nursing
fraternity. All these factors and attributes are conspicuous on the leaders at our workplace and
thus it is to significantly attribute the high score in the Clark Workplace Environment Inventory
to their leadership.
Part 3: Evidence-Based Strategies
To address the shortcoming that was identified in the workplace, the work of Clark
(2016) can be very instrumental since it not only outlines the requirements that are needed to
achieve civility but also gives a procedural action plan. In a situation where civility has been
established by the management into the organization, the article suggests an action plan which
will improve the civility of the workplace. To improve the negatively rated attributes on the
workplace which were identified as lack of shared vision and insufficient opportunities for
promotion and no support for career development, the nursing leadership should form a civility
team that will ensure that the negativity is tackled. According to Clark (2016), the team will be
mandated to improve the attributes that were pointed to be on the negative end of the spectrum
and maintain the positively marked attributes to ensure that civility is well in place on the
organization.
Another shortcoming that was revealed in the workplace environment assessment was the
lack of motivating initiative from the leaders. To solve this problem, the PEAK concept should
be taught and instilled on to the leaders of the nursing fraternity to ensure that they foster civility
on to the workplace that is entrusted to them. A professional trainer should be contracted to
ensure that the leaders are principled, Ethical, Authentic, and Kind. These values will ensure that

WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT ASSESSMENT 7
the leaders are intentionally fostering civility in the workplace and ultimately improving the
score on the Clark Workplace Environment Assessment inventory.
To ensure that the successful attributes are maintained and bolstered in the workplace can
be done by motivating the most proactive nurse on civility. This helps to keep the nurses
motivated to maintain civil attributes and spread to other nurses in the workplace. The motivation
can be done by rewarding their accomplishments that are explicitly linked to civility. Another
form of rewards includes professional development of the nurses that exhibit consistent attributes
of civility. These activities are important since they not only improve the individual who is being
rewarded but also encourage others to improve their skills to ensure that they get rewarded
(Wyatt, Brand, Ashby-Pepper, Abraham, & Fleming, 2015). This creates a positive growth trend
that if maintained leads to a civil and healthy workplace.
Another effective recommendation that can be used to bolster civility in a workplace is
training the nurses on the strategies and concepts that improve civility in the environment. This is
effective since some of the nurses might be exhibiting uncivil behavior since they are not trained
or do not have the knowledge of civility. This can be caused by incompatibility that exists
between the academic and professional settings. Offering practical training that is tailored to
their specific workplace can greatly improve their efforts towards a more civil workplace.
Conclusion
The Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory is an important tool that can put a quantitative
figure on workplace health. Our workplace which I thought was a perfect workplace
environment scored 85 out of the 100 possible cumulative scores of all the 20 statements in the
inventory. Though the results it was revealed that some of the workplace health factors were not
optimal and thus needed improvement.

WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT ASSESSMENT 8
Civility was revealed as an important indicator of workplace health. Using an article by
Cynthia Clark on the civility of nurses in their workplaces, great insights and concepts were
developed to not only improve the attributes that scored low on the assessment but also bolster
on the positive attributes. The 8-steps guide to fostering civility was very comprehensive on the
development, implementation, and maintenance of strategies that boost civility in nursing.
References

WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT ASSESSMENT 9
Clark, C. M. (2016). Fostering healthy work environments: Powered by civility, collegiality, and
teamwork. https://sigma.nursingrepository.org/handle/10755/603359
Natarajan, J., Muliira, J. K., & van der Colff, J. (2017). Incidence and perception of nursing
students’ academic incivility in Oman. BMC nursing, 16(1), 19.
Palo, S., & Chawla, A. (2015). Incidences of Workplace Deviance Behavior among Nurses.
Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 51(1), 150-161. Retrieved July 30, 2020, from
www.jstor.org/stable/43974545
Samnani, A., & Singh, P. (2016). Workplace Bullying: Considering the Interaction Between
Individual and Work Environment. Journal of Business Ethics, 139(3), 537-549.
Retrieved July 30, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/44164241
Wyatt, K., Brand, S., Ashby-Pepper, J., Abraham, J., & Fleming, L. (2015). UNDERSTANDING
HOW HEALTHY WORKPLACES ARE CREATED: IMPLICATIONS FOR
DEVELOPING A NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE HEALTHY WORKPLACE
PROGRAM. International Journal of Health Services, 45(1), 161-185. Retrieved July 30,
2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/45140487