Supervisor’s effect on clinical workers’ job satisfaction and turnover intentions

Abstract

Healthcare supervisors who lack proper knowledge of the profession’s standards may inadvertently put patients’ safety at risk. Clinical workers’ job satisfaction and turnover intentions potentially affect the quality of care provided to patients. Contingency Theory, Transformational Theory and Situational Theory are appropriate to underpin this study because healthcare supervisor expertise can affect job satisfaction and turnover intentions of their employees. This causal comparative study examined the relationship between clinical workers’ perceived leadership expertise of their supervisor and the turnover intentions and job satisfaction of employees of healthcare organisations in Southern Louisiana. The study included research questions regarding the following: the relationship between the responses of supervisors and clinical workers on the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), the relationship between clinical workers’ job satisfaction, as measured by the Job in General scale, and their perceptions of their general healthcare supervisor’s expertise, and the relationship between clinical workers’ turnover intentions, as measured by the turnover intention scale of the Michigan Organizational Assessment, and their perceptions of their general healthcare supervisor’s expertise. Utilising the analysis of variance, no statistically significant relationship was identified among the variables. The primary findings of the study, however, revealed a strong association between a supervisor’s expertise and the leadership practices of modelling the way and encouraging the heart on LPI. Although the findings were not aligned with those of previous studies, the results are valuable to healthcare leaders seeking to examine the relationship of healthcare supervisor competencies and workforce shortages.