Hospitals aren't like other workplaces. There aren't any beer taps, swanky office furniture or even foosball tables in a healthcare setting. Employees typically work on shifts and there are no "holiday office closings" - at least not for medical staff.
The industry itself presents unique challenges when it comes to maintaining and boosting employee engagement given the structured and sometimes rigid nature of the work. With fluorescent lights, beeping machines, plainly colored scrubs, and plentiful procedures - how can hospital administration and HR professionals create a culture that drives employee engagement and satisfaction? Furthermore, why are these metrics mission critical to the success of the organization?
In this article, we seek to answer these questions and provide context that will help you to better understand the topic of employee engagement. If you stick around through the end of this article, we’ll provide a free culture health check to help identify areas in your organization's culture that can be strengthened.
According to a Gallup study of more than 200 hospitals, nurse engagement was the number one predictor of patient mortality. Let that statistic sink in for a minute.
Clearly a healthy hospital culture is essential to ensuring the health of the patients served.
However, creating an engaging hospital experience is a challenge for many hospitals. In a Towers Watson’s global workforce study, less than half (44%) of the U.S. hospital workforce overall was highly engaged. Communication is a Critical Aspect of Culture.
Workplace relationships shouldn't be treated as a nice ‘side effect’ of a positive company culture - these personal relationships are a top driver of employee engagement.
In SHRM’s 2016 Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement Report, relationships with colleagues were identified as the top driver of employee engagement, with 77% of participants listing these connections as a priority.
The quality of these connections can also have a major impact on company loyalty, job satisfaction, and productivity. Strong relationships in the workplace are often tied to prosocial behaviors like collaboration and camaraderie, which deepen employees sense of loyalty to their company and each other as they perceive more personal value in their daily work.
According to Bonfyre, a high-functioning workforce is driven by having a relationship-centric organization first and foremost.
In a recent article, Bonyfre describe relationships in the workplace as “a byproduct of two primary factors: interaction, how often two people connect and communicate, and relatedness, or how much two people have in common.”
Without some degree of interaction employees never have the opportunity to learn about their common interests.
The Bonfyre chart below displays where different varieties of relationships fall on this spectrum. For example, a coworker with similar interests that you collaborate with regularly would rank high in both relatedness and interaction. Conversely, an acquaintance from another department might rank low in both areas.
So can you help to foster relationships across departments in order to maximize engagement?
Removing barriers that prevent communication and create spaces around your workforce where employees can build connections with their colleagues. Identify opportunities for conversation starters amongst employees who might not traditionally communicate on a personal level with colleagues.
Employee engagement directly impacts the key aspect of hospital success - patient outcomes. For that reason, it’s imperative that hospital administration takes swift and considerable measures to identify and resolve engagement issues within their workforce.
Being that personal relationships are a critical driver of employee engagement and positive company culture, creating opportunities for employees to both communicate and relate to one another on shared commonalities is essential for fostering strong workplace relationships.
Interested in determining the health of your hospital culture? Download our handy 'Culture Health Check' by clicking the button below!