1 Nurse Manager and Budget Budget development and management are essential aspects of nurse leadership. Budgeting is one of the ways nurse leaders can use to create value and drive performance within their departments, making sure that all projects run smoothly. It involves allocating resources to projects and creating a spending plan that balances expenses with income (Ross, 2020). This also helps in navigating managerial processes and guiding decision-making. The budgeting process should involve the whole departmental team and should not be left as the sole responsibility of the leader. This paper discusses how a nurse manager can include the team in budget development and keep informed budget decisions. How to Engage Nursing Team in Budget Development Budgeting is done to ensure that a team has enough resources to run its project and achieve its goals. Engaging teams in the budget development process ensures that all the necessary requirements are included in the budget, ensuring that essential items are not left out. Thus, nurse managers can engage their team by asking them to contribute to items included in a budget within a certain period. For this, it is important to engage the team and communicate its projections, expectations, and goals to avoid stretching the budget with unnecessary items.
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2 It is also important for the nurse manager to involve the team in allocating resources strategically to every group function. Team members should be in agreement over which project deserves more resources and which one can do with minimal resources. Additionally, the team should be educated on resource management to avoid wastage of resources. Collectively, team members and the lab manager should develop cost reduction strategies that will eventually increase the amount of resources or funds available to budget on. Lastly, team members can be engaged in producing lists of expenditures including new and recurrent expenditures. How to Keep your Team Informed on Budget Decisions Other than being part of budget development, team members should also be aware of the budget decisions made at the managerial level. The team can be informed of the budget decisions by being involved in budget development as well as its implementation. The team forms the driving force behind processes and goals that are to be achieved by budgeting. Therefore, they should be made aware of the budget decisions being made as it directly affects their progress and performance. Keeping the team aware of budget decisions promotes shared decision making which promotes optimal budgeting (Rundio, 2016). Additionally, the nurse manager should consistently communicate the budget progress and results. This includes the current expenditures and the available resources that are still available for future projects. A breakdown of costs or resources utilized on current projects should also be shared with team members for the budgeting process's accountability (Ross, 2020). The team should also be aware of the available funds and the priorities in their allocation on projects. In case of shortages, it should be communicated in a timely manner to avoid paralyzing operations within the department.
3 References Ross, T. K. (2020). Practical Budgeting for Health Care: A Concise Guide. Jones & Bartlett Learning. Rundio, A. (2016). The nurse manager’s guide to budgeting & finance. Sigma Theta Tau.