Knowledge Bank

The purpose of this project was to answer the question, “Will decreasing the span of control for the nurse manager of an intensive care unit increase employee engagement?” A naturally occurring pre-post test design was chosen to measure employee engagement. A nursing leadership redesign occurred on seven different nursing units. As part of the nursing division’s strategic plan, the redesign decreased the number of employees directly reporting to a nurse manager, defined as span of control. To decrease the number of variables for this project, the intensive care unit management and staff were utilized. This project occurred in a 10-county regional medical center in south-central Ohio. Data analysis was conducted by a contractual agreement and results were provided for each nursing unit.