The current workplace culture in a South African nursing education institution

Abstract

The aim of this article is to assess the current workplace culture of a selected public nursing education institution in South Africa. Public Nursing Education Institutions in South Africa are approved and accredited to provide education and training of student nurses by the South African Nursing Council. The focus of this study was directed towards transforming the Public Nursing Education Institutions workplace culture to person centredness. A workplace culture refers to shared values and practices, beliefs systems, and a set of assumptions that are shared across all groups in an organisation. Organizational culture or workplace culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, morals, law, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by employees as members of an organization Positive workplace culture in all organisations embrace person-centeredness, leadership development, collaboration, participation and inclusion of all stakeholders. The attributes of a positive workplace cultures include lifelong learning, high support and high challenge, positive attitudes with open communication, effective teamwork and treating other people with respect. Negative workplace culture in nursing education institutions is characterised by problematic work relations, ineffective teamwork, decreased morale, job dissatisfaction and high turnover of nurse educators. A quantitative research design was utilised, to assessed the workplace culture in a public nursing education institution in South Africa. Data were collected using an adapted person-centred practice inventory. We sampled the total population of nurse educators and nurse managers (86) in the institution. The person-centred practice inventory indicated challenges in the areas of person-centeredness, collaboration, inclusion and participation as well as workplace culture. The benefits of a person-centred workplace culture include improved teamwork, increased morale, high productivity and efficiency, enhanced job satisfaction, collaboration, effective work performance, reduced stress and retention of employees.