Evidence-based Practice Assignment Sample

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Evidence-based Practice Assignment Sample

Introduction: Evidence-based Practice Assignment Sample

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Part 1

1.1 Evaluation of the concept of evidence-based practice

The evidence-based practice can be defined as decision-making and problem-solving approach that involves using research evidence, critical appraisal of information, and others in practice to increase the likelihood of the outcomes. The practice involves asking, appraising, applying, assessing and acquiring in the process of developing a good quality of decisions. Furthermore, the ultimate objective of this practice in the organizational setting is not only to improve but also to retain the standardization of the service quality which in turn leads to positive outcomes. 

Two evidence-based approaches

Discussion

The rational model and the critical thinking both approaches are the effective strategic way of applying the available evidence for effective decision making. According to Brownstein et al. (2019), the critical thinking approach uses the questioning method in or to understand the context before making a decision thereby providing support in the building of effective judgment in sound decision making. On the other hand, the rational model helps to eliminate the biases and error possibilities thereby judgment making becomes wider in that context.

The company can practice shared decision making to ensure the fact that individuals are supported in the way of making the right decisions (Lehane et al. 2019). Their success rate indicates their effective decision-making style and the probabilistic outcomes of their policies. 

The presence of biases in the decision making process disrupts and distorts the contemplation of the outcomes by influencing judgment in the decision making path. In order to avoid biases, the provision of the offering of alternatives needs to be eliminated in the decision-making process. 

Examples

Approach 1: In the way of designing new processes in the clinical care such as the implication of new diagnostic tools and others the evidence-based practices help in analyzing the psychological and physical effect of the built environment for the users.

Approach 2: the management bodies of the organizations can use the evidence-based practices to identify the root causes of the high absence rates by incorporating critical thinking

Approach 3: in order to come up with a conclusion related to any aspect, the management team can imply evidence-based practices to ground firmly the reality along with acknowledgement of clear limitations that helps in deriving the main argument or context of that aspect. 

1.2 Evaluation of appropriate analysis tool

The company might apply the fishbone tools of analysis to recognize various future issues related to patient care, quality services and others. The organization can able to benefit from the building of a healthy relationship among the patients and caregivers by applying the fishbone, as it helps to identify the causes of disruption in these relationships. The tool also helps in developing the joint in-depth brainstorming discussion on the basis of visualizing potential causes related to the organization which in turn helps in deriving effective solutions or mitigating strategies (Abdulai et al. 2020). Furthermore, the lack of a proper visual diagram in that process may create a mess in the findings of the potential strategies as it shows irrelevant causes for challenges. 

The PESTLE analysis might also use by the company in order to diagnose the opportunities for growth for the organization. According to Li et al. (2018), the external environmental analysis through this analytical tool helps to provide insights regarding the market position, by evaluating that company can able to make its business strategy more effective that in turn leads to growth. Additionally, by applying this, organizations are not only able to spot their business opportunities but also able to exploit them fully that in turn helps to achieve a competitive edge over the new competitors in the market. 

Apart from that in the area of diagnosis of legislation impacts the company might also benefit from the assessment of the external factors in its operational market through the integration of the PESTLE tools. The provision of a 

clear understanding of the political, legal, economic and other environments by this specific tool can guide the management bodies in their strategic decision making that might minimize various legislation impacts and ensure the organization's operational continuation thereby. 

The 5 forces analysis can also prove as beneficial for the company in the context of recognizing the opportunities and future issues. According to the Steinbrenner et al. (2020), the five forces analysis helps the organization in order to understand the factors that are affecting their business profitability within a specific industry thereby the organization can also be able to make informed decisions related to their specific areas of concern. By doing so, the organization not only gain a competitive edge over its competitors but also enable it to grab various new opportunities for business growth. In addition, some drawbacks of the analysis include the analysis of an organization's strategic position in comparison to the broad industry which is sometimes not valid. 

1.3 Principles of critical thinking

The critical thinking mainly encompasses the dispositions and skills that are required regardless of the evidence nature, sources of the evidence and the settings for the application. Accorading to Albarqouni et al. (2018), in practical decision making, critical thinking is the key element for structuring the decision in a deep and logical way that help to generate impactful outcomes as well. The main principles of critical thinking are as follows:

Be skeptical

Open-mindedness is the basic foundation of this thinking. In the way of critical thinking, one should accept noting unless evidence and also accept the views of the other as well (Scarre, 2020). 

Examine terms

The understanding of all the information completely is required to define all the terms. It is also important to follow the original meaning of the term for lining the facts or drawing the conclusions as well. 

Figure: principle of critical thinking

(Source: learner)

Premises of arguments

The analysis needs to be done on basis of the argument not assumptions in the support of the statement. It is important for one to look at all hidden biases and assumptions for examining the big picture.

Be cautious in drawing conclusions over evidence

Before coming to any conclusion one should be careful to draw it on the basis of only the available evidence. The evidence needs to be based on accurate information and also focus on multiple effects and causes. According to Abdulai et al. (2020), the accuracy in collecting evidence is the responsible factor for the generation of impactful outcomes. 

Consideration of alternative interpretations 

 The other principle of critical thinking includes the consideration of alternative interpretations in order to reach the conclusion. Alternative interpretations from different other shreds of evidence help to provide insights regarding the other aspects as well that in turn help to make the evaluation more effective.

The principle of critical thinking not only helps to bring a general attitude towards building critical thoughts. In the way of critical thinking, the acceptance of the facts that are evidence-based, having a questioning mind, focusing on assessing the views of the other as well help to bind all the constraints in a problem-solving approach that in turn helps to extract meaningful outcomes as well.

1.4 Different ethical theories and perspectives

Utilitarianism theory 

This theory of ethics advocates actions that help to foster pleasure or happiness and strictly oppose the reasons that indicate harm or unhappiness. According to Raman and Basavaraj (2019), the theory promotes good or wellness in great amounts for a large number of people. Furthermore, it is a reason-based approach that is mainly used to determine wrong and right but also posses with some limitations as it does not take into account the culture, feelings, or emotions as well. In a nutshell, the theory suggests that an action is only right if it tends to promote good or happiness and also consider wrong if it produces sadness (Savulescu et al. 2020) 

In the way of making decisions, the management bodies of the organization can use an ethical approach accordance with this theory that help to determine the outcomes of the decision based on its consequences. By focusing on producing goods for the greatest number through aligning the business activity the organization can be able to create more value in their business. Apart from that, in the decision-making process, the integration of this ethical concept also helps to outline the organizational behaviors. The taking of the ethical decision through integrating this approach also helps to foster trust, fairness and care for others in organizational culture.

Altruism theory

This theory stated an ideology that the happiness of others should be the subject of the principal goals of an individual's action. In a simple word, the concept indicates the act of selflessness towards others (Carlson and Zaki, 2018). This ethical doctrine also emphasizes the moral value of an individual regarding their actions rely solely upon the impact of others regardless of consequences. 

In the decision making process, the practice of altruism is helps to build effective social connections as its focuses on creating the greatest values with a small act. The presence of this ethical approach in the organizational decision making process not only helps to build an employee well-being culture but also helps to create more values by performing its responsibilities to the community respectively. Apart from that the implication of the concept of altruism helps to provide the decision-makers with a foundation in regards to making good decisions by setting the ground rules for the organizational behavior. It has been also seen that the companies in their decision making process by focusing on subjectifying this ethical approach are able to encourage and motivate their employees towards giving their best.

2.3 Decision-making approaches

Action learning sets

Action-learning refers to a procedure of bringing action and thinking into harmony. Learning is considered a continuous procedure and it can be achieved with a probing and open mind, question, and capability to listen, and explore ideas. As opined by Maddison and Strang (2018), sets of action learning are beneficial as it helps to acquire skills of problem-solving for a long period. The set is used for promoting different leadership skills, learning good practices in organisations, evolving good and fresh ideas, and others. Additionally, the set is used to form efficient plans for exclusive and immediate implementation of plans, achieve desired outcomes, and result in constructive ways. It can also help to learn best practices inside organisations and achieve organisational growth. ALS can be used to overcome issue of lack of team engagement by organising team members to overcome issues as well as take a resolution for the issue.

Fishbone 

The main issue in this study is the lack of job engagement among employees which causes a negative impact on the growth of organisations. Additionally, the issue hinders the rate of job retention and facilitates employee turnover. According to Yakubiv and Poliuk (2019), the issue decreases productivity of employees and the situation reduces the overall profitability of organisations in market areas. Additionally, job engagement is related to performance of employees in regular activities in workplace. A lack of job engagement causes a low level of performance and reduces creativity of workers in their regular job roles. Lack of creativity in return harms productivity of employees and hinders overall productivity of organisations. The situation becomes responsible for loss in organisations in market areas while lowering its organisational growth. 

Six hats

The term, six hats suggest that it includes six different hats considering six different aspects such as process, facts, feelings, creativity, benefits, and cautions. The colours of the six hats are different and a white hat is related to thinking facts in an objective as well as a neutral way. According to Othman and Bamasood (2021), red hat is responsible for thinking about feelings, emotions, and intuition. A yellow hat provides an opportunity to think in a positive way about a particular issue. Black hat includes thinking in a critical and negative way whereas, green hat helps to include creativity and facilitate divergent thinking. Blue hat controls other hats and regulates timing as well as orders for different topics. The six hats technique is helpful to explore the problem of lack of job engagement in organisations.

3.1 Measure of financial and non-financial performance

Table 1: Financial and Nonfinancial Information 

(Source: Self-Created)

Observing Financial and nonfinancial factors are highly important by the mentioned company for improving in the performing industry and earning more competitive advantages. As opined by Quesado et al. (2018), financial factors are interlined with non-financial factors as both are dependent on each other. Gross income of a company provides an amount that operations have achieved before settling down operating expenses. Hence, it is better to observe the net profit amount to compare with similar company’s working conditions. Depreciation, bad debt, interest payments are the common operational expenses and it takes away a certain amount of revenue achieved from ongoing operational income. Information stated in the above table as revenue is being presented as net profit. It is important to consider profit after tax as this tax amount is considered as an operational expense. Return on Investment (ROI) refers to the return a company achieves after deducting cost involved during production. As stated by Boudlaie et al. (2020), outcome from ROI supports in measuring success achieved and required areas of improvement for improved future. The mentioned organisation has acquired £2065 as recruiting cost and that rose to £3012 at the end of 2020. Therefore, this increased operational cost has impacted the revenue level and that has lowered the ROI rate. Deducting this cost from revenue the mentioned company has achieved 16% ROI. 

The value of ROI is one of an important KPI for any company and guides to interpret non-financial improvements. As commented by Franco?Santos and Otley (2018), KPI refers to key objectives of a company those are kept in forefront for making effective decisions. Success and failures of the mentioned company are easily recognised by evaluating the KPIs. Comparing the prime weakness of this organisation is low employment engagement it is important that proper non-financial factors are being measured that enhances employment productivity. Overview of the business becomes clear by understanding the importance of KPIs. Understanding the performance of employees to reach the strategic goals utilisation of KPIs are highly significant within this company. Furthermore, KPIs provide a benchmark that helps in making a comparison between current and past outcomes. The outcome is being set within the balanced scorecard to observe results being matched with the four identified perspectives.

3.4 Impact of a range of people's practices

The people's practices not only help to add more value to the organization but also help to increase the brand awareness respectively. Recruitment is the effective process through which the HR of the organization can able to create more value in business. It has been seen that the effective recruitment process is the source of meeting the operational targets for an organization (Drisko and Grady, 2019). The fulfillment of the operational targets within the time frame help to enhance the consumer's satisfaction that in turn boost the market reputation and engage more consumers in business thereby create values. 

On the other hand, the building of an effective L&D strategy also helps to create values in business by engaging more stakeholders in the decision-making process. The stakeholder's involvement helps to provide insights regarding the various aspects of business and also developing of an effective strategy. 

In the HR department, the creation of the values can be seen through the various acts of the HR such as motivating others in order to give their best, assessing the worker's performance, hiring talent and others. All of those areas indicate the active engagement of the employees the creation of more values towards consumers can be seen. 

Various tools such as ROI calculations, CBA calculations and others are used in evaluating the impact of the people in the organization. The Return on investment tools is mainly used in order to determine the profitability of the expenditures under the key performance indicator (Portney, 2020). The HR management bodies of the company might use these measuring tools in terms of measuring the completion of the task over the time period which in turn helps to take effective decisions for the future as well. On the other hand, the cost-benefit analysis helps the management bodies to weigh the cons and pros regarding their taken decision in a systematic manner that in turn helps to reduce the generation of any future constrain respectively.

Part 2

2.1 Analytical tool to review data

Production level of the concerned company has been affected due to the rise of certain issues and the main criteria are being reflected in table 1. The collected data interprets 68 employees who have left the organisation due to pursue another career option. In the second position, absence of flexibility in conducting a job role is the reason for leaving existing employment. 31.35 is the average number of employees that have left this company within the time frame of 2016 to 2020. As commented by Souza et al. (2018), average provides a particular digit that supports in interpreting a large data set. Hence, this average number acquired from production is being used to compare a data set gathered from the payroll. 

The collected data from figure 2 presents that employees of mentioned company left the current employment due to facing a high unachievable target and not net getting appropriate payroll. Monotonous working conditions and employment satisfaction schemes are not involved; the organisation holds the second position for increased labour turnover (Staniec and Kali?ska-Kula, 2021). Comparing the average value of the two large data sets it is easy to interpret that production is the prime reason for high labour turnover. The current payroll condition does not require much improvement as the average value is less compared to production data set. 

2.2 Data evidence 

The mentioned company has faced a prime issue is low employee engagement that creates an impact on the overall production rate. According to the collected evidence employees are not able to choose flexibility to perform job responsibilities. Highly engaged employees also provide less productivity due to absence of flexibility. Employees of this company were unable to perform personal tasks as a result becomes stressed and work-life balance diminishes among the entire workforce (Purba et al. 2021). The entire workforce’s productivity falls down due to less rise of employees’ stress as a result the revenue collection decreases. According to 2.3, fishbone technicality provides knowledge that employee turnover is increasing and retention rate is decreasing due to lack of job engagement. Employees are losing capacity to include creativity and improve the quality of their jobs [Referred to Appendix 1].

The collected evidence from payroll data set interprets that employees of this company are not able to achieve previously stated targets to each respective job role. Hence, employees find difficulty in continuing work within this organisational framework and lack of engagement becomes visible. Employees further felt each ongoing job within the concerned company is highly monotonous and this again creates less employment engagement (Anindita and Seda, 2018). Internal management recognises the risk involved with this organisational issue. High staff turnover, low productivity, increasing rate of absenteeism, more conflicts within workplace, more negativity and stress among employees are negative impacts. Observing the risk factors involved with this issue it is usual that a negative outcome becomes visible in front of the company’s hierarchy [Referred to Appendix 2]. 

2.4 Decision-making approach 

The concept of 6 thinking Hat is being used for making appropriate decisions by this company for controlling the adverse impact rising from less employment engagement. It is recommended that internal management needs to investigate every aspect of the identified issue. The concept of this technique is going to provide a clear and conflict-free way to decrease employment turnover rises from workplace conflict (BASUKI, 2018). Trying out varied approaches and creating a constructive framework is going to help this company to address the operational issue. The collected evidence provides a series of reasons for which employees of this organisation are currently leaving. Observing that evidence it is being suggested the organisation needs to supply exact tools to perform job responsibility easily. Since inflexibility is the main reason, internal management needs to provide equipment that allows employees to conduct operations remotely and bring back a work-life balance. 

Presence of this issue has an adverse impact on financial level and that results in difficulty to acquire high operational revenue. It is being recommended that proactive action has to be taken that increases productivity along with financial standing of the mentioned company (Ndevu and Muller, 2018). Generally, 41% of production level is going to be hampered due to presence of nearly 31.35 average employees leaving the company within a particular time frame. The main reason to address this issue is minimising the cost of recruiting new employees or else the entire operational expenses are going to rise over the year. After incorporation of recommending strategies it is necessary to measure the positive outcome from every responsible job roles. 

3.2 Describing, comparing, and contrasting different approaches

Performance Management 

Acquired information of the mentioned company provides data regarding three departments and the outcome presents that production level was highly low in 2016 and highest in 2020. Improving performance management has become possible by keeping a focus on certain areas such as standards, quality, performance and effective work (Pulakos et al. 2019). The managers of these three departments have shown sufficient effective initiative towards achieving a better productivity whereas the low employee engagement has created a barrier to progress successfully. Respective managers of respective job roles secure departmental insights by collecting observations of employees’ difficulties. Quantitative data as a measuring tool to understand people performance within this company. 

Absence Management 

The concept of absence management refers to employers’ approach towards creating policies that are highly effective. In this scenario, inclusion of this management is highly important as the company faces maximum absentee for unable to remain flexible and maintaining a proper work-life balance. Employee productivity has been disrupted poorly which leads to more labour turnover and cost of hiring new employees (Tseng and Levy, 2019). Graphic-rating scale and 360-degree feedback has to be used by this company for getting an accurate result regarding employee performance. The outcome has to be compared with prior results to understand whether absence management is working properly. 

3.3 Findings 

Information presented within figure 3, indicates that nearly 80 employees out of 100 employees leave this company. Therefore, it is easy to understand that improving the pay structure requires an improvement. Employee satisfaction is involved with a proper pay structure and that helps in addressing the organisational issue in a proper manner. 

Figure 4 depicts that maximum employees leave this company as unable to achieve the stated target mentioned by hierarchy. Target has to be justified along with that proper payment has to be paid after achieving the stated target (Kopansky-Giles, 2021). Since the pay structure is also poor along with that stated target remains unachievable employee engagement falls down and creates an adverse impact on the production level.