Workplace abuse: finding solutions

The atmosphere within the work setting speaks volumes about your culture, and is often a primary factor in recruitment and retention (or turnover) of staff. Workplace tension and abuse are significant contributing factors as to why nurses are exiting workplaces--and even leaving the profession. Abuse can take many forms from inappropriate interpersonal communication to sexual harassment and even violence. Administrators should adopt a zero tolerance policy towards abusive communication. Addressing peer behavior is essential, but positive behavior must also be authentically modeled from the CNO and other nursing leaders. Raising awareness and holding individuals accountable for their behavior can lead to a safer and more harmonious work environment.     

Reading and understanding employee benefit plan financial statements

If your employee benefit plan has more than 100 participants, chances are you've had to work your way through the audited financial statements you're required to include with your Form 5500 filing. These statements contain a wealth of information about the financial health of your plan, and understanding them is an important fiduciary responsibility. To strengthen your grasp of financial statements, this article gives an overview that will make a plan's financial statements more informative, explains their basic structure and provides information on some of the more arcane aspects (such as actuarial tables). While this article focuses on Taft-Hartley (multiemployer) plans, much of it applies to other types of employee benefit plans.     

A balancing act: managing your personal and professional life--Part II

Managing your personal and professional life is a lifelong balancing act due to situations that arise in the course of expected and unexpected normal life events. Identifying and dealing with these issues in your own life will likely make you a stronger leader in the eyes of your employees who often struggle with similar issues. Acknowledging these struggles among your employees can help create community in work teams, which ultimately translates into retention. Advocating for work life policies in your organization will transform personal compassion into organizational culture and, ultimately, into corporate policy.     

Stepping up to Teaching in Business: Understanding Teaching Effectiveness for Small Classes

This article provides those teaching in small classes in an Australian tertiary environment with some recommendations on how to get started and tips for effective teaching. The focus of the advice is on small class teaching, which is generally comprised of fewer than 30 students. The tips presented are centred on being organised, understanding your content and your students, generating engagement and norms for participation, as well as investing in adaptable skill development. A seven step process to teaching effectiveness is reviewed. These tips provide teachers with foundational knowledge that can be transferred to teaching large classes.     

Using technology to let your voice be heard

Creating e-mail audio messages can add a more personal touch to your communications with staff and possibly build loyalty while affirming your interest and concern for your employees. A 5-minute flash demonstration of this process, which should play in any Internet browser, can be viewed at http://tigger.uic.edu/~mcassey/neja07/neja07.html. Learning to use high tech to promote an experience of high touch is a frequently missed opportunity in the business of health care delivery.     

Creating your own leadership brand

Building equity in a brand happens through many encounters. The initial attraction must be followed by the meeting of expectations. This creates a loyalty that is part of an emotional connection to that brand. This is the same process people go through when they first meet a leader and decide if this is a person they want to buy into. People will examine your style, your competence, and your standards. If you fail on any of these fronts, your ability to lead will be severely compromised. People expect more of leaders now, because they know and recognize good leaders. And, predictably, people are now more cynical of leaders because of the well-publicized excess of a few leaders who advanced their own causes at the expense of their people and their financial future. This will turn out to be a good thing, because it will create a higher standard of leadership that all must aspire to achieve. When the bar is raised for us, our standards of performance are also raised.     

REVIEWS AND COMMENTS

With the intent of stimulating discussion, this section is reserved for book reviews, comments, and letters; your input is welcome. By nature, this material may be subjective, reflecting the opinions of the authors; your responses are therefore encouraged.     

Computerized physician order entry: a prescription for patient safety

Clinician adoption of CPOE/CDS solutions is crucial to helping caregivers reduce medical errors and enhance patient safety. The LeapFrog Group CPOE/CDS report can be a helpful guide, but as clinicians concerned about the quality of health care and the well-being of our patients, we must play an active role in the successful adoption of these solutions by: 1. Making sure that your institution is committed to having the appropriate people involved in the entire process, including nurse leaders. 2. Selecting a vendor that has the knowledge and clearly understands the importance of implementing this type of system. 3. Ensuring that your organization is selecting a system that actually meets the criteria defined by the LeapFrog Group.     

Designing your health benefit plan

A health care benefit plan should meet the needs and expectations of your organization and its insureds. Each organization is unique, so a health care benefit plan shouldn't be "off the shelf" but be uniquely tailored for your organization. Analyze current demographic, utilization and other data to determine which services members and their families are using and what type of services may be needed in the future.     

Your employment brand: is it working for or against you?

The ability to attract and retain hard-to-find professionals is vitally connected to the perceptions of your organization both internally and externally. Many organizations confuse their employment brand with branding and all too often put considerable effort and often scarce resources against ineffective initiatives. Most health care organizations do not consistently allocate the necessary resources needed to build and sustain a strong employer brand. The relationship between employers and employees to and among each other and the values you strive for collectively are the cornerstones of your employment brand. It is imperative for nurse leaders to create and sustain an environment where employees are inherently positive and connected to their organization.     

集团公司税务筹划探析——以某国有企业集团为例

A企业集团做为国有企业集团,2006年以前税负过重,严重影响其现金流量。税收因素已成为影响其发展壮大的重要因素。从2006年起,A企业集团管理层开始重视税务筹划,并探索出了一套适合自身发展的税务筹划体系。本文通过对其税务筹划案例的分析,总结出A企业集团在税务筹划实施中的成功做法,以为类似的企业集团提供借鉴。     

马克思主义经济学说的运用与异化

马克思主义经济学说在坚持、发展、理解和运用中都有可能有意无毒地造成异化现象。使马克思主义受到贬损。马克思主义经济学说历来是你可信也可不信的，但信与不信必须尊重它的原义及其所体现的立场、观点和方法，不能有异化言行。     

The implications of nurse staffing information: the real value of reporting nursing data

There is a dearth of information about the relationship between the patient care contributions of nursing and its financial contributions to an organization. As consumers and legislators are becoming more aware of the ramifications of nurse staffing issues, and as they endeavor to address them with legislative solutions, the decision on how best to develop optimal staffing strategies may soon be taken away from nursing leaders. To maintain control of this important issue and develop solutions that will help highlight the economic and patient care contributions of nurses, a thorough understanding of the problem, and a new commitment are needed from nursing leaders to take charge of the issue. To relate nursing care to patient outcomes, meaningful data on the nursing care provided is needed in addition to data on the nursing needs of patients. Staffing and performance monitoring tools should be used to effectively plan, implement, and control financial and operating resources as well as measure the economic value of the nursing profession's contribution to the cost and benefits of patient care.     

Doing what only you can do: the challenge to the promoted leader

An offer of an executive-level promotion is not without risk. The transition to an effective executive is a continual journey, not a destination. Designing a roadmap with effective skills and strategies will help make your professional and personal life journey more rewarding and successful.     

有人说蒂米什瓦拉是罗马尼亚的上海,我想说我们可以做得更好!

虽然蒂米什瓦拉与中国相距甚远，但我们非常关注中国近几年来的发展变化。同样，我们也非常期待中国将会选择什么样的发展道路。     

Deconstructing health care reform

As health reform is deconstructed, we need to stop and do some deconstructing of our thinking about it, looking at the context of our assumptions or frames. If we think of health as taking the supreme welfare of the people seriously, we will not allow it to be framed only in terms of for-profit interests and the status quo. Nurses have expertise and knowledge regarding what is needed for a quality health care system. We have to join the conversation with as many good questions as ideas. Working from a different frame, one that reflects more of your values, may give you new insights into holding the conversation.     

Promoting nursing as a career choice

Fewer young people are considering nursing as a career. This project was designed to present nursing as a viable career option to middle school students. A questionnaire was administered to six classes of middle school students before and after a presentation on nursing as a career. Results showed the presentation improved student attitudes and perceptions toward nursing as a career. Nurses can use this project as a stepping stone to develop additional programs to interest students in nursing as a career before the students discard the notion altogether.     

A Neglected Aspect of the Economic Ideology of the Early New Deal

I have been exceedingly interested in the paper on Price inflexibility which you kindly sent me. I think that your distinction between market prices and administered prices is one of first class importance and very illuminating. I have been aware of the point in a dim sort of way, but had not crystallized it, as you have. Nor had I realized how sharp and important a division there is in practice between the two. [Keynes, 1935]     

Transition programs for internationally educated nurses: what can the United States learn from the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada?

It is critical to conduct competency assessments of internationally educated nurses (IENs) to ensure public safety, as well as uphold accountability to nursing as a regulated profession. Transition programs are needed because of the required proficiency of the working language, as well as differences in nursing education, national health care systems, nursing practice and culture, etc. Transition programs in the United States are grossly under-developed because of lack of recognition of their importance, lack of funding and standardization, and decentralized regulation in nursing. United States can learn from the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada regarding how to best transition IENs. Its current hit-and-miss approach is inadequate and inconsistent with the emerging global trend to systematically deal with the transitional challenges of IENs at the national level.