Essentials of Nursing Leadership and Management 6th Edition by Ruth Tappen, Sally Weiss

Exercise 6

A large health-care corporation recently purchased a small, 50-bed rural nursing home. A new director of nursing was brought in to replace the former one, who had retired after 30 years. The new director addressed the staff members at the reception held to welcome him. "My philosophy is that you cannot manage anything that you haven't measured. Everyone tells me that you have all been doing an excellent job here. With my measurement approach, we will be able to analyze everything you do and become more efficient than ever." The nursing staff members soon found out what the new director meant by his measurement approach. Every bath, medication, dressing change, episode of incontinence care, feeding of a resident, or trip off the unit had to be counted, and the amount of time each activity required had to be recorded. Nurse managers were required to review these data with staff members every week, questioning any time that was not accounted for. Time spent talking with families or consulting with other staff members was considered time wasted unless the staff member could justify the "interruption" in his or her work. No one complained openly about the change, but absenteeism rates increased. Personal day and vacation time requests soared. Staff members nearing retirement crowded the tiny personnel office, overwhelming the sole staff member with their requests to "tell me how soon I can retire with full benefits." The director of nursing found that shortage of staff was becoming a serious problem and that no new applications were coming in, despite the fact that this rural area offered few good job opportunities.
How could the new administrator have made this change more acceptable to the staff ?