The integrity of the healthcare system along with the quality of healthcare services provided to the patients for harboring optimum outcomes is intimately associated with the practice of safe workplace environment for the nursing staff as well as other healthcare professionals. The issue of sexual harassment is quite concerning in modern day context and are often found to be addressed through proper HR presentation and trainings. Recognition of behaviors and actions indicative of sexual harassment is a challenging task for the experienced nurses and HR professionals and it falls under their critical responsibilities to become accustomed with the kind of interactions that may be hazardous involving inappropriate remarks and jokes, improper fraternization, quid pro quo questions and potentially offensive images. Hence it is imperative to understand and assess the ramifications harbored due to instances of sexual harassment that will be addressed in the following discussions. Furthermore steps required mitigating the situations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior at workplace in partnership with the HR department will be discussed and critically analyzed pertaining to specific example depicting the incidence of sexual harassment will be dealt with.
Empirical research has revealed the instances of violence in workplace across a sample of 8,780 registered nurses engaged in practice at the 210 hospitals in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia by virtue of retrieving the survey responses from the concerned population. Frequency of incidences of violence were recorded in the study and findings showed that approximately half of the respondents encountered one or more types of violence during the past 5 shifts of their work duration. Variation in the frequency of violence was associated with its type that included emotional abuse, physical assault, and threat of assault, sexual assault and verbal sexual harassment. All types of violence that the nurses were subjected to mostly emanated from the patients and a bulk population of the victims was found to have not reported the incidents previously. Emotional abuse, the most prevalent type of violence in the population originated from diverse sources encompassing the patients, families, colleagues and the physicians. Hence, the existing workplace was found to be quite stressful and not at all conducive to work in for the nurses because of the reports indicative of sexual harassment and other forms of violence (Duncan et al., 2016).
The instances of sexual harassment unlike any other forms of violence pose detrimental effects in the mind of the victims. Persistent violence instances are matters of huge concern for the healthcare service fraternity as they adversely impact the workplace environment through exhibition of negative impacts in case of workplace satisfaction, retention of the workforce and finally the physical and mental health of the nursing personnel due to taxation on psychological and physical well being (Barker, 2017). Moreover, quality of patient care is also profoundly impacted and results in compromising the provision of healthcare service delivery to the patients thereby accounting for poorer health outcomes in them and increasing the risks (Vessey, DeMarco & DiFazio, 2010). Quitting from clinical practices by the registered nurses is a common happening that in turn lead to shortage of nursing staff. Factors such as violence and sexual harassment in workplace have been reported as the causal factors that contributed to the decision of the nurses to leave clinical nursing profession (MacKusick & Minick, 2010). In the example elucidated all these observations were common as well that culminated in negatively influencing the workplace.
Nowadays the laws in favor of women are quite stringent especially in cases of sexual harassment and other violence the offenders are justly punished under the court of law. A hostile working environment due to the presence of pervasive sexual harassment often makes the employees uncomfortable to carry out their duties in an effective manner. The victims of such atrocities have the rights to consult a labor law attorney or sexual harassment attorney to seek legal advice and guidance in terms of how to proceed with the issue so as to get justice. Legal liability of the employers along with similar implications upon the persons engaged in sexual harassment is seriously concerning and that may be described as an obligation arising out of law to make the perpetrators responsible for causing harm to an individual thereby resulting violation of that obligation. Nurses who have been exposed to sexual harassment thus could have resorted to legal ramification in the situation described above thereby jeopardizing the workplace environment (Spector, Zhou & Che, 2014). The law about protection of women at workplaces that is available now could have been referred to take the legal discourse against the offenders that in turn would have worsened the workplace balance. Vicarious liability concept is important in this respect to understand the matter in an in depth manner. This kid of liability held one person legally responsible for the actions incurred by another depending upon the special form of relationships shared between both the parties. In short, the employers are regarded responsible for the misconduct or actions of their employees as they are considered to be the agents of the employers and the actions are occurring within the course of employment itself. Autonomous decision taking ability by the nurses coupled with their right to work in a healthy and safe environment entitles them to take legal resort whenever these rights are thwarted due to experience of incidences like sexual harassment and violence at workplace (Khan, Begum & Shaheen, 2015). The legal complications and court room procedures thus might have negative implications in the workplace affecting the stability in the environment.
Workplace environment is not only crucial for the health and safety issue of the employees of the organization it is imperative and intimately related with the reputation of the organization. Devastating effects are found to take place concerned with the productivity of the organization apart from impacting the quality of life of the employees. Job commitment is often found to get compromised because of the prevalence of workplace violence, sexual harassment being a form of that violence. Respondents who have confronted such situations are likely to have the intention of job turnover. Organizational culture undergoes a major setback as a result of such instances. Threats to patient safety due to lack of commitment of the attending healthcare staff also occur where deterioration in team performance because of adverse staff relationship act as the major contributing factor (Aytac, Dursun & Akalp, 2016). Although in the specific example cited, all of these factors were not quite significant yet the issue of patient safety has been reported to risky under such circumstances with the victim nurses unable to work with their utmost potential.
Mitigation or amelioration of the behavior that constitute sexual harassment is essential to curb this social menace that in turn adversely affects the smooth operation of the healthcare services. Reviewing the case that has been mentioned where nurses have been victims of sexual harassment and other forms of violence, certain plans and strategies are recommended to address these demanding situations in an appropriate manner. In this context, both the employer as well as the employees plays vital roles to handle the circumstances. The compliance with the legal and professional standards by one and all related to the organization is considered indispensable for the purpose of rendering a congenial working environment devoid of any kind of violence or bullying activities (Singh, 2016). Women at workplace particularly the nurses in the healthcare settings are prone to fall prey to the adverse behavioral outcomes such as sexual harassment and physical abuse. Furthermore, education of the nursing staff is very much essential to identify and act accordingly to inappropriate behaviors thereby allowing them to prevent future repetitions of such behaviors from the offenders. Adequate implementation of the workplace prevention guidelines and plans are to be encouraged by the concerned authority in order to cope up with the workplace violence scenario. Utilization of the protective equipment in conjunction with reinforcement of staff through back up support might be an effective strategy to handle the situation. Improvement of the nurse-patient and nurse-doctor communication skills along with other strategies such as installation of cameras, security patrol at key departments and zero tolerance policies from the employer’s end through formulation of anti-harassment policies and establishment of suitable bodies to govern these matters are essential to address these problems (Zhao et al., 2016). All communications regarding anti-harassment policies need to be made aware to the staff on a regular basis. Responses to complaints must be prioritized and prompt actions are to be taken to allow for quicker and effective intervention. Moreover, the employees must actively participate to ensure a non-violent and non-discriminatory workplace atmosphere through prevention of sexual harassment in workplace. Commitments from the employees’ ends should encompass the following of certain simpler steps such as understanding, observing, examining and confronting the actual situation in order to arrive at a definite resolution through reception of support from appropriate bodies (Meade, 2016). Training programs might be an effective way to address the issues involving both the employee and employers through compliance with the national laws and policies and all these strategies may be corroborated to the example cited previously for yielding holistic outcomes.
Human Resource (HR) management with respect to an organization is responsible for carrying out functions related to the hassle free operation of the concerned organization. They are also entrusted with the job of addressing the complaints of any sort of violence at workplace including that of sexual harassment. Issues related to sexual harassment are to be taken very seriously and the report of such incidences need to be immediately communicate to the higher authority through adopting specific procedures (Lussier & Hendon, 2012). On matter pertaining to implementation of the anti-harassment policies, HR department should circulate the relevant policies to all the employees to make them aware of the guidelines and the consequences of violation of such policies. The legal discourse in case of breach of the legal obligation is to be clearly communicated and appropriate measures are to be ensured by the HR management to handle the situation in a fair manner. The HR managers must pay adequate attention to make informed decisions on matter related to intervention strategies in such situations (Cogin & fish, 2009). Therefore the action plan as conceived by the competent authority to ameliorate the sexual harassment incidences may be collaborated with the HR management for addressing the scenario pertinent to sexual harassment in workplace.
References
Aytac, S., Dursun, S., & Akalp, G. (2016). Workplace violence and effects on turnover intention and job commitment: a pilot study among healthcare workers in Turkey. European Scientific Journal, ESJ, 12(10).
Barker, K. C. (2017). Sexual Harassment Experience, Psychological Climate, and Sex Effect on Perception of Safety (Doctoral dissertation, Walden University).
Cogin, J., & Fish, A. (2009). Sexual harassment–a touchy subject for nurses. Journal of health organization and management, 23(4), 442-462.
Duncan, S. M., Hyndamn, K., Estabrooks, C. A., Hesketh, K., Humphrey, C. K., Wong, J. S., & Giovannetti, P. (2016). Nurses’ experience of violence in Alberta and British Columbia hospitals. Canadian Journal of Nursing Research Archive, 32(4).
Khan, N., Begum, S., & Shaheen, A. (2015). Sexual harassment against staff and student nurses in tertiary care hospitals Peshawar KP Pakistan. International Journal of Innovative Research and Development, ISSN 2278–0211, 4(1).
Lussier, R. N., & Hendon, J. R. (2012). Human resource management: Functions, applications, skill development. SAGE Publications.
MacKusick, C. I., & Minick, P. (2010). Why are nurses leaving? Findings from an initial qualitative study on nursing attrition. Medsurg Nursing, 19(6), 335.
Meade, J. (2016). Implementing Strengths-Based Teaching Strategies in a Policy Practice Course. Journal of Policy Practice, 15(3), 233-242.
Singh, T. (2016). Prevention of Sexual Harassment of Women in the Workplace: Seeking Gender Equality at Work in India. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 18(1), 104.
Spector, P. E., Zhou, Z. E., & Che, X. X. (2014). Nurse exposure to physical and nonphysical violence, bullying, and sexual harassment: A quantitative review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 51(1), 72-84.
Vessey, J. A., DeMarco, R., & DiFazio, R. (2010). Bullying, harassment, and horizontal violence in the nursing workforce the state of the Science. Annual review of nursing research, 28(1), 133-157.
Zhao, S., Qu, L., Liu, H., Gao, L., Jiao, M., Liu, J., & Wu, Q. (2016). Coping with workplace violence against general practitioners and nurses in Heilongjiang Province, China: social supports and prevention strategies. PLoS one, 11(6), e0157897.
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