Huston_Leadership Roles and Management Functions in Nursing,

Chapter 16 Educating and Socializing Staff in a Learning Organization

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Finally, the learner must understand the basic principles underlying the tasks and how a variety of situations will modify how the task is accomplished. Learning in the classroom will not be transferred without adequate practice in a simulated or real situation and without an adequate understanding of underlying principles. • Span of memory . The effectiveness of staff development activities depends to some extent on the ability of the participants to retain information. Effective strategies include the chance for repeated rehearsal, grouping items to be learned (three or four items for oral presentations and four to six visually), having the material presented in a well-organized manner, and chunking . • Chunking . This occurs when two independent items of information are presented and then grouped together into one unit. Although the mind can remember only a limited number of chunks of data, experienced nurses can include more data in those chunks than can novice nurses. For example, experienced nurses are typically better able to recognize subtle changes in a patient’s condition based on the assessments they have made or changes in lab values, whereas the novice nurse may take a bit longer to connect these pieces of information. • Knowledge of results . Research has demonstrated that people learn faster when they are informed of their progress. The knowledge of results must be automatic, immediate, and meaningful to the task at hand. People need to experience a feeling of progress, and they need to know how they are doing when measured against expected outcomes. Assessing Staff Development Needs Although managers may not be involved in implementing all educational programs, they are responsible for identifying learning needs. If educational resources are scarce, staff desires for specific educational programs may need to be sacrificed to fulfill competency and new learn ing needs. Because managers and staff may identify learning needs differently, an educational needs assessment should be carried out before developing programs. Many staff development activities are generated to ensure that workers at each level are competent to perform the duties assigned to the position. Competence is defined as having the abilities to meet the requirements for a specific role. Health care organizations use many resources to determine competency. State board licensure, national certification, and perfor mance review are some of the methods used to satisfy competency requirements (Huston, 2023a). In addition, self-administered competency checklists, record audits, direct observa tion, and peer review may be used. Many of these methods are explained in Unit VII. For staff development purposes, it is important to remember that in the case of deficient competencies, some staff development activity must be implemented to correct the deficiencies. Another learning need that frequently affects health care organizations is the need to meet new tech nologic and scientific challenges. Many of a manager’s educational resources will be used to meet these new learning needs. Some organizations implement training programs because they are faddish and have been advertised and marketed well. Educational programs are expensive, however, and should not be undertaken unless a demonstrated need exists. Organizational development targeted to the specific needs of the facility may be the most cost-effective approach. In addition to developing rationale for educational programs, the use of an assessment plan will be helpful in meeting learner needs. The sequence that should be used in developing an educational program is shown in Display 16.5. Staff development activities are normally carried out for one of three reasons: to establish competence, to meet new learning needs, and to satisfy interests the staff may have in learning in specific areas.