Preventing Absenteeism and Violence at Work

It is essential for a head nurse to implement topical leadership tactics that stimulate staff motivation and, at the same time, prevent such dangerous phenomena as workplace violence and absenteeism. The simple principles of punishment and deprivation of bonus payments in case such violations are detected may be ineffective since this or that employee may continue performing his or her duties unscrupulously but more carefully. Kvas and Seljak (2014) propose to encourage reporting procedures when subordinates are willing to share the incidents of violence at work and absenteeism independently. Such an approach may be effective if trusting relationships between the head and the staff are established. The authors also note that ongoing monitoring by leaders should be maintained so that employees could not be afraid to report all controversial situations to help improve working conditions (Kvas & Seljak, 2014). This principle of organizational activity is effective and meets modern management standards.

Contact with employees to establish trust is one of the steps towards eliminating violence at work and absenteeism. According to Kvas and Seljak (2014), head nurses should convey to all subordinates the importance of “the protocol for reporting violence” to avoid stressful situations (p. 349). The possibility of resolving controversial situations at the stage of their inception makes it possible to eliminate further challenges and contributes to increasing leadership authority. As Wressell et al. (2018) note, in order to prevent violence at work and absenteeism, special testing protocols can be promoted to offer subordinates to report the incidents of operating disruption either anonymously or publicly. Test analyses may be carried out through surveys where employees can share personal opinions about the microclimate in the team and those difficulties that they face and that affect their performance negatively. Timely communication is one of the main principles of maintaining normal relationships, and the task of head nurses is to control subordinates’ responsibility and their initiative.