Are you the leader of a busy OR whose employees are showing signs of being disengaged at work? Maybe a recent employee satisfaction survey had disappointing results, or perhaps you are hearing complaints about your employee’s attitudes and apparent lack of commitment. Worst of all, maybe a patient experience was not handled with the tact and diplomacy you would have expected. Does this sound familiar? You may well be suffering from poor employee engagement.
What is employee engagement?
Employee engagement has been described in many different ways, but it boils down to how passionate employees are about their jobs and how much commitment they feel to the organization. This is often manifested by individuals taking on additional tasks over and above the minimum needed to perform their job.
How do you fix it?
Employee engagement is a complicated issue and there is no magic bullet designed to solve these issues. Departmental culture starts at the top. It’s leadership’s responsibility to develop an atmosphere of collaboration and commitment, which is probably not what you were hoping to hear. So, what can you do to make your department a great place to work where employees enjoy their work so much that they want to go above and beyond?
1. Care for your employees.
No one wants to work for a leader who they believe does not have their best interests at heart.
One way you can demonstrate caring for your employees is to get to know them a little better. Start by calling individuals by name, it will go a long way. If you know they have a relative or a pet who is having health problems for example, ask about them and how things are going.
Take the time to get to know them and what their wants and needs are as an employee. Most importantly, take care of your team and don’t allow them to be treated poorly by colleagues or physicians.
2. Communicate
Your staff wants and needs to hear from you frequently via appropriate channels. Rounding, staff meetings, newsletters, emails, attending daily huddles and shift reports are some great options. Be sure to update staff on the good, the bad and the ugly and give praise publicly when warranted. Remember, communication is a two way street. Be sure to listen and solicit input from all levels.
3. Set Expectations.
Not understanding what your leader’s expectations of you are is a recipe for confusion.
Been in to the ORs and had a look lately? If everything was in order, congratulations! You have to set clear and understandable expectations.
If not, it may be time to re-set what the expectations are. It’s hard to hold someone accountable when they aren’t clear on what the expectation is.
I once had to resort to writing the expectations for medication labeling into memo format, had each staff member sign and then filed the memo in their employee record. A strong step to take, I realize, but with days and weeks of talking about and still finding outliers, it was the only sure way I knew of to be certain the expectation was understood.
Setting clear and understandable expectations is a key step to an engaged workforce.
4. Hold staff accountable.
Now that your expectations are understood, you must hold the staff accountable.
Monitor routinely and do not be afraid to use the corrective action process. It can be time consuming and tedious when you have a thousand other priorities, but it is the only way to change the culture.
Your top performers will welcome your resolve and it will set the compass for a collaborative culture.
5. Develop the team
Find out what development opportunities the staff members would like to see and work with them to make it happen.
I developed a career ladder for surgical technologists at one institution. The technologists were involved in developing the criteria and I negotiated the job descriptions through my leadership and HR. The result was a much more committed and engaged technologist team, who were helping to lead the way of the department with their nursing and other colleagues.
6. Put the staff in charge.
Not literally, but do include the staff in making developments and improvements in practices, akin to the surgical technologist ladder above.
Magnet organizations use shared governance and this is a valuable tool for all institutions. You can put together collaborative practice councils (OR/SPD is a great example) led by front line staff to make important changes to practice.
Treat staff like they are professionals, and once they know the expectations and understand you will hold them accountable, they will become very creative in solving long standing problems.
Suffer No More…
While it sounds like a very difficult problem to address, employee engagement is fundamentally about the employees feeling cared-for enough to care.
As the outstanding author and speaker Fred Lee states, “You have to inspire staff to care. Your diligent and steady leadership will inspire your staff if you engage them in a transformational way. Cultural change takes time. Be available, be open, be bold enough to take a chance on them and be amazed at how they react. This is not an overnight battle; this is a long term project.”
For more great tips on engaging your staff, collaboration and improving your performance, be sure to check out: /the-essentials-building-blocks-of-collaboration-in-the-operating-room
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