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Your culture determines many things, but today especially, it is a determinant of how well your organization will fare through the pandemic. What you say and what you do always matter.
When people face fatigue and become somewhat fragile, a leader’s actions become crucial in maintaining a positive culture and one of compassion. Over the past six months we’ve all been put to the test as we deal with new and demanding pressures imposed by COVID-19. Healthcare workers have been tested in their professional as well as personal lives. There has been well-deserved attention on our healthcare heroes honoring the service and sacrifice, but even superheroes need a break, a shoulder and even a good cry. Healthcare jobs are stressful on the best of days, but when you add the fear of contracting COVID with the additional burdens placed on working families, many of our brightest and best team members are stretched to the max. I recently had a discussion with a nurse manager whom I will call, Ellie. Ellie had been working 12 plus hours per day for months before leaving her position for good. “I was spent,” she told me. “I had to create an adult ICU in my children’s hospital in a matter of days. My team was amazing and rose to the challenge. We set up the ICU. Then we treated dozens of critical care patients for weeks. We did a fabulous job and had great outcomes with zero turnover in staff. But the truth is, I was burned out – mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted. I have four young children at home and just hit a point when I couldn’t do it anymore.” This nurse leader’s story isn’t that unusual. In crisis, healthcare workers are trained to step up, stay calm, and deal with the issue at hand. Ellie did just that, getting great results and earning kudos from the executive team. But at a cost. Day after day, leaders make rounds on their units and throughout their organizations. Those rounds provide an ideal opportunity to observe team members and identify subtle changes in behavior that indicate fatigue and even burnout. That is, only if the rounder engages in meaningful conversation instead of the proverbial drive-by consisting of, “How are you?” A question which will almost always receive the perfunctory response, “Fine.” Stop asking, “How are you?” or “How’s it going?” You know you won’t get into real feelings. Instead, ask the employee if she/he can take a few minutes to sit down with you. Use open-ended conversation starters such as, “Tell me about your day so far.” Then listen with your ears AND your eyes. Non-verbal cues speak louder than the words. According to an article in Nursing.org, there are specific signs and symptoms you should observe for including:
Leaders like Ellie often put on a brave face for the good of their staffs. While the leader may be checking in and taking good care of her team; who is checking in on the leader? It is vital that leaders look out for one another as well and practice the same self-care they would recommend for their staff nurses. Society loves our superheroes, but you’ll rarely see headlines celebrating the caregivers who take breaks, practice self-care and set limits. Remember that burnout is caused by many stressors beyond the work-related ones. We’re more isolated than ever before and restricted from many of the social activities we enjoy ranging from church services to sports, family gatherings and shopping. Many times, employees are caregivers for children and aging parents. Virtual learning for school-age children has created childcare and tutoring responsibilities that weren’t issues a year ago. The demands can build up over time pushing them to the tipping point. Leaders can help by:
Planning your virtual event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to book your healthcare speaker!
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By Kristin Baird
As we approach Thanksgiving during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s important to recognize the healing power of gratitude, both for ourselves, and for those we lead. Gratitude is both something we feel, and something we express. Leaders intent on building an engaged, high-performing workforce AND having high personal satisfaction will benefit from both. FEELING GRATITUDE – THE “INSIDE” GAME Let’s start with feeling gratitude. That’s the inside game. Robert A. Emmons, PhD, a psychologist from the University of California – Davis, is a leading expert on gratitude and its effect on the body and mind. In his article, Why Gratitude is Good, Emmons identifies how gratitude improves physical, psychological, and social wellbeing. I have included Emmons’ summary below. As you read the lists citing the physical, psychological, and social benefits, I encourage you to put the information in context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We all need these benefits to nourish our weary minds and bodies, especially as we face another surge. PHYSICAL BENEFITS
SHOWING GRATITUDE THROUGH RECOGNITION Feeling gratitude has the potential for making YOU feel better. Showing gratitude to others will give both you and the recipient a boost. One of the best ways to show gratitude to your employees is through personal recognition. It is a low-cost, no-cost, yet effective method of generating employee engagement, but sadly underutilized. According to Gallup’s analysis, only one in three workers in the U.S. strongly agree that they received recognition or praise for doing good work in the past seven days. At any given company, it’s not uncommon for employees to feel that their best efforts are routinely ignored. Further, employees who do not feel adequately recognized are twice as likely to say they’ll quit in the next year. Recognition should be prompt, personal, and plentiful in order to be most meaningful. Gallup conducted a workplace survey where employees were asked to recall who gave them their most meaningful and memorable recognition. The data revealed the most memorable recognition comes most often from an employee’s manager (28%), followed by a high-level leader or CEO (24%), the manager’s manager (12%), a customer (10%) and finally, peers (9%). Worth mentioning, 17% cited “other” as the source of their most memorable recognition. The pandemic has placed additional stress your employees who are likely dealing with stress about physical safety, finances, and parenting, making it all the more vital that they feel valued for their contributions. Gratitude is good medicine. Take a large dose and pass it on. Planning your virtual event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to book your healthcare speaker and make your next event a success! By Kristin Baird
Employee engagement is at the core of any company’s performance. But in healthcare, where the patient experience drives loyalty, trust, and even reimbursement, engagement is paramount to success. A disengaged employee needs coaching right away. Spotting and addressing disengagement can make the difference between a team’s success and failure. My colleagues and I regularly coach healthcare managers on how to improve engagement - like providing the employee specific, concrete examples of problem behaviors. SHORT CONVERSATIONS A few years ago, I was coaching a department manager who had two very disengaged staff members. This particular manager wasn’t a good communicator, so we were working on improving his coaching conversations with his team members. He was to have a coaching conversation with one of his most disengaged team members, then call me to discuss how it went. He called on schedule and reported that the discussion went well. “It was short and sweet,” he said. “I just said, ‘Your attitude sucks. Fix it or you’re out.’” Well, he was right about one thing: it was short. What he described was an edict or threat, not the coaching discussion we assigned. In a coaching discussion with a disengaged individual, it is important to clearly state your concerns, but give specific examples of problem behaviors and how they affect others. I’m happy to say that this particular manager made great progress in his coaching conversations with staff over the next year. He learned that if wanted to see change, he needed to clearly state his expectations, identify unacceptable behaviors using specific examples, and explain consequences. Short and sweet isn’t necessarily the best approach. In contrast, specific, actionable steps get you further, faster. Looking for your next healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success! By Kristin Baird
How does a leader get everyone to achieve optimal performance? One sure way is to make clear expectations from the beginning. Over the past several years of coaching leaders, I’ve noticed that many coaching conversations center on setting clear expectations. I’ve observed a distinct pattern that leaders aren’t clear about their expectations until a team member fails to meet his/her expectations. “ISN’T THAT JUST COMMON SENSE?” I was recently talking with a leader who was very frustrated with one of her supervisors. When she relayed examples of things that were irritated her, I asked if she had been clear about her expectations from the beginning. “Well, isn’t this just common sense? I shouldn’t have to micro-manage him,” she said. First, there is a big difference between setting expectations and micro-managing. Additionally, the word “common” in common sense means shared or similar. Similarly, expecting common sense to prevail is expecting staff to be mind readers. I’ve never seen that work. After further discussion, I learned the managers clear expectations, but they resided quietly in her mind. These expectations remained unspoken until her supervisor failed to live up to them. From his vantage point, there weren’t clear expectations. His common sense led him in an entirely different direction. Above all, think about the expectations you have for your team. Have you been clear about them? If not, you could be disappointed to discover they aren’t mind readers.
Looking for your next healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success! By Kristin Baird
We all have those experiences as consumers when things don’t go as expected. We might be disappointed in a meal at a restaurant, or wait longer than expected in line or in the waiting room. But then there are times when disappointment becomes a full blown service failure. In both the small disappointments as well as the service failures, service recovery efforts matter. I recently had two incidents that were handled at opposite ends of the service recovery spectrum. One was excellent service recovery while the other was the worst. My husband and I were staying in a hotel in Colorado Springs. We had a room that, when we arrived had no light bulbs or TV remote. They quickly fixed the bulb problem but the remote wasn’t the correct one for the TV. My husband needed to unplug the device just to turn it off. Then, in the middle of the night, the toilet wouldn’t flush and was threatening to over flow. We were both too exhausted from our travels to deal with it at 2 AM so waiting until morning to talk with the front desk. The clerk at the front desk was apologetic and promised to get right on it. By the time we returned from breakfast, she had a new room for us just across the hall. She then went on to talk to us about their fair trade policy that promises guests that if they are not fully satisfied, they will be expected to pay only what they feel the stay was worth. She encouraged us to exercise that policy at the time of check out and gave us a $15 credit to their in-house store. This was an example of service recovery at its best. She took ownership, acted on behalf of the organization and corrected the situation. My second example didn’t turn out quite that well. I was recently doing a webinar when the audio dropped out. No one on the webinar could hear me. Fortunately, attendees began posting alerts to me in the chat box so I could try to fix it. When I dialed back into the webinar, nothing happened. It took several tries and 8 minutes of dead air time to regain connection. It was embarrassing and frustrating for me and a major inconvenience for my attendees. When I began exploring the root cause, I was met with serial finger-pointing. Zoom, the webinar platform, blamed AT&T our internet provider. AT&T blamed Zoom and the phone software company and so on. No one took ownership or tried to help resolve the issue. Through all my calls and emails, I never once heard the words, “I’m sorry.” Nor did any one of the vendors take accountability. This is after investing thousands of dollars in my phone system and having 2 internet accounts so that if one signal weakens, the other will take over. For those of you old enough to remember the Lily Tomlin skit where she plays Ernestine the telephone operator, you may recall one of her famous lines, “So, the next time you complain about your phone service, why don’t you try using two Dixie cups with a string? We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the Phone Company.” That was 1976 and it appears we are still getting the same level of service in 2019. Apparently Ernestine must do the customer service training for all these vendors. There are some important lessons in service recovery here. Take ownership, apologize on behalf of your organization and strive to make things right. When you do, you create raving fans. Looking for your next healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success! By Kristin Baird
While healthcare grapples with the COVID-19 crisis, it’s difficult to focus on anything else. At the same time, it is important that leaders begin thinking about, and preparing for, the inevitable recovery period that will follow. Prior to COVID-19, there was universal concern over burnout across healthcare, particularly among doctors and nurses. Turnover goes hand-in-hand with burnout. Our healthcare professionals have never been as taxed as they are in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Their stress has been compounded by both the volume and acuity of patients as well as concern over shortages of PPE. My fear is that many organizations were dealing with staffing issues prior to the crisis. Today, the workers at the epicenters are suffering from “battle fatigue.” What will the aftermath be? How can we help them recover once the crisis has subsided? The physical and emotional toll is very real. One thing I know for sure, is that when the crisis passes, the doors will still be open and beds will still be filling with patients in need of medical and surgical services unrelated to COVID-19. We’re going to need our team members on board and ready to serve them. The challenge facing leaders is to keep one foot in the present and another in the future. "What's next?" is a question weighing on everyone’s minds today. As more and more news reports tell us there will be no “getting back to normal”. We must ask; what is the new normal? Good question, but no clear answer. The new normal is what we create and based on how we, as leaders, answer these questions:
These are just a few questions to consider. What’s next is up to us. Looking for your next healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success! By Kristin Baird
When it comes to improving the patient experience, don’t forget volunteers. Healthcare organizations benefit from millions of hours of volunteer time and energy every year, yet I rarely see stellar training on customer service. They are often the first faces that patients and family members see upon entering hospitals. They are the face of the organization and yet I am consistently stunned by how few have good customer service training and feedback systems. Hold Everyone to the Same Standard We were recently rolling out Power of One customer service training for a system with thousands of employees. As we discussed plans, I asked about volunteers, wondering if they would be included in the training. The answer was no. That soon changed when staff noticed the standard to which they were being held seemed to be different for volunteers. They realized that as long as a volunteer serves in a patient or customer-facing position, they should be held to the same service standards. Just like the employees of the organizations, volunteers need to know the standards and expectations for service excellence. And, like employees they benefit from feedback and coaching. A volunteer often makes the first impressions. Make sure they have the tools they need to be successful. Looking for your next healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success! By Kristin Baird
Empathy is an essential element in a good patient experience, yet many providers miss important cues. In the past few weeks, I have shadowed a number of hospitalists to help them improve their patient interactions. During hours of observation, one common theme emerged. They missed important cues from patients and family members where they could have expressed empathy. The good news is that when I pointed out the situation in our feedback sessions, every one of the doctors recognized the missed opportunity and were receptive to suggestions. How to Show Empathy In one situation a young woman was admitted the night before. She had cardiac symptoms. Her husband called 911. They were frightened by the ordeal. The physician did a great job explaining the physiology of what had transpired. He also clearly outlined the next steps in the treatment plan. What he missed was the cue that both the patient and the husband were really worried. He could have said to the patient and her husband, “That had to be really scary for you both.” That simple statement would have opened the door to the emotional impact of the medical situation. In several other situations, the patients offered cues that they had children or elderly parents at home. The doctors never asked about their home life or if they had the support they needed. It was evident that they were so focused on the physical and medical situation that they were missing out on the emotional aspect. I firmly believe that everyone can learn to pick up cues that will lead to more empathetic interactions. Shadow/coaching is a great way to help nurses and doctors improve communication and empathy. Looking for your next healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success! By Kristin Baird
Employee engagement is at the core of any company’s performance. But in healthcare, where the patient experience drives loyalty, trust, and even reimbursement, engagement is paramount to success. A disengaged employee needs coaching right away. Spotting and addressing disengagement can make the difference between a team’s success and failure. My colleagues and I regularly coach healthcare managers on how to improve engagement. Providing the employee specific, concrete examples of problem behaviors. Short Conversations A few years ago I was coaching a department manager who had two very disengaged staff members. This particular manager wasn’t a good communicator, so we were working on improving his coaching conversations with his team members. He was to have a coaching conversation with one of his most disengaged team members, then call me to discuss how it went. He called on schedule and reported that the discussion went well. “It was short and sweet,” he said. “I just said, ‘Your attitude sucks. Fix it or you’re out.’” Well, he was right about one thing: it was short. What he described was an edict or threat, not the coaching discussion we assigned. In a coaching discussion with a disengaged individual, it is important to clearly state your concerns, but give specific examples of problem behaviors and how they affect others. I’m happy to say that this particular manager made great progress in his coaching conversations with staff over the next year. He learned that if wanted to see change, he needed to clearly state his expectations, identify unacceptable behaviors using specific examples, and explain consequences. Short and sweet isn’t necessarily the best approach. In contrast, specific, actionable steps get you further, faster. Looking for your next healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success! By Kristin Baird
My team and I have been on the road doing culture assessments for various health systems recently. We've found some common denominators among the organizations that struggle with engagement, patient satisfaction and financial performance.Among other things, these cultures don’t foster recognition and gratitude. Show Appreciation It saddens me when I see healthcare workers starving for even the smallest crumbs of appreciation. After all, they are the ones on the frontline creating the customer experience. When workers feel appreciated, they engage and deliver better patient experiences. Let them know how much you appreciate them – that you’re thankful to have them on your team. That they make you proud. In this time of thanksgiving, make your gratitude known. It will not only inspire your team members, it will help you appreciate all the good that is happening around you. Happy Thanksgiving! Looking for your Nurses Week healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success! |
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