What should the associate managers have done upon initially hearing of the nurses’ complaints?

Sunrise Hospital is a 300-bed general hospital located in the Greater Cincinnati region. The last couple of months have been very stressful for its nursing personnel because of an increased volume of patients after the closing of its nearby competitor. The hospital acquired all its competitors’ workload and saw a significant rise in profit.

The associate managers were inundated with complaints from the nurses and requests to seek assistance from upper management. The managers resisted informing upper management of this dilemma to prevent showing that they were unable to handle the new workload. Additionally, they did not know how to address the nurses’ concerns with upper management. After a couple of weeks of heavy work flow, the nurses decided in unison to go on strike on a very busy day in the hospital.

Upper management was stunned when they arrived at the hospital and saw all the nurses picketing outside their building.

1. What should the associate managers have done upon initially hearing of the nurses’ complaints?
2. What remedies can upper management undertake to facilitate fair hospital working conditions?
3. Could upper management have headed off the strike before it happened? How?

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