LOseraie Turnaround Challenge Case Solution

1. How the nursing home manager could improve leadership and increase staff motivation and engagement?

i. Problem Identification

The main issue at hand was that despite Chalon underwent a lot of restructuring in the nursing home by eliminating the dissident employees and working on gaining employees trust to reduce absenteeism and turnover; there was still a long way to go. This is because a very small section of its employees was positively influenced and motivated. However, the true benefits could only be achieved if all of its workforces would work at the same pace, in the same direction (Cho, Kim, Park, & Cho, 2013). Apart from this, due to the prevailing issues in the nursing home, Chalon was unable to allocate sufficient time to devise a new strategy in France's highly competitive nursing industry.

Furthermore, it was still necessary to make employees adopt a service-oriented approach so that they can deal with their clients that is the senior citizens very efficiently. This would, in turn, have a positive impact on brand reputation (Caruana, 2002). However, this could only be possible through effective leadership. Furthermore, L’Oserai could greatly benefit from an opportunity at hand, by bringing on board physicians from abroad considering the limited health care facilities in France. This would help the nursing home to develop a distinct image for itself.

ii. Analysis

An important issue is that L’Oserai’s pay structure to its employees is way below than the market average, which tends to demotivate them and negatively influences their productivity levels. As per Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, this is a very important consideration (Neher, 1991). Employees stand at different levels of hierarchy in the pyramid, and as soon as their needs in that part of the pyramid are fulfilled, they work on moving up the hierarchy to stay motivated. When their financial needs are not fulfilled, they get demotivated, which reflects in the high levels of absenteeism and non-serious employee behaviour (Xiao & Noring, 1994).

Such a situation is also consistent with Herzberg’s theory of hygiene factors and motivators (Furnham, Forde, & Ferrari, 1999). Hygiene factors are extrinsic and include job security, salary and working conditions. In L’Oserai, not only is the pay scale low, the working conditions of the employees are also not up to par in terms of outdated equipment, long hours to cope up with the absenteeism and an organizational culture where gossiping is very common. Thus, this again negatively impacts on the ability of employees to provide quality services to their clients. Poor service results in more potential customers getting attracted to the competitors (Rust & Zahorik, 1993).

Apart from this, the employees in L’Oserai do not work as a single unit as there is professional jealousy among different job categories as can be seen in between the nurses and the nurse aide. Lack of trust and absence of positive relations among employees can have negative consequences for any organization’s they would be focused on achieving individual goals rather than the collective goals (Mulvey & Klein, 1998). Thus, the organization’s overall success could be negatively impacted. Thus, it is necessary to build an organizational structure such that all the employees trust and respect each other and work as a team to achieve the maximum benefits.

iii. Recommendation

Based on the analysis of the situation prevailing in L’Oserai nursing homes, the nursing home manager would need to use a combination of strategies to improve leadership and staff engagement. Firstly, the pay scale needs to be a market competitive so that the staff turnover gets reduced and the employees stay motivated as their financial needs would be fulfilled. Then only, will the employees move up the hierarchy and would want to adopt a behaviour such that they would be respected by their colleagues in order to motivate them. However, to reach this stage, market-competitive salaries will be essential (Delfgaauw & Dur, 2007).