In the healthcare industry, the pressure to maintain productivity, safety and efficiency is intense. Employees are often working in challenging situations, often times in critical life and death situations. This unique blend of circumstances makes nurses and doctors most susceptible to burnout.
By taking an organizational approach to the occupational health and wellbeing of your staff, you are increasing the chances of tackling the problem head-on, rather than waiting for them to seek help. The phenomena of organizational health and individual health are often presented as having a symbiotic relationship (MacIntosh, McClean & Burns, 2007). In order to support employees health and wellness in the workplace, we need to move beyond current conceptual “health and safety” limitations and move towards a more strategic model of engaging employee wellbeing. Healthy behaviour change in the workplace requires a strategic and a sustainable health strategy. If you want to gain a competitive advantage in health human resources and retention, take an organizational approach, such as The ProMind Experience.
Consider incorporating these 4 ways to support your teams to build healthy mindsets and behaviours that keep them working productively throughout their hospital shifts.
Here are 4 Ways To Keep Employees Healthy In The Workplace:
Practice Healthy Leadership
Healthy leadership and workplace health promotion go hand-in-hand. Increasing stress levels affects organizations on all levels. By ensuring that leaders manage their own health, and lead by example, leaders essentially hold the keys to improving health in the workplace (Koinig & Diehel, 2021). Occupational health as a subject area was first introduced in the 1990s. It has accounted for some contribution to creating healthy workplace practices. Due to rising concerns for individual well-being throughout COVID-19, workplaces across all industries recognize the value of healthy leadership. As much as we know about increased work demands and poor work–life balance, workplace initiatives have yet to really support employees in a proactive way. Once organizations shift their priorities on practicing healthy leadership, and recognize that the employee is not separate from its environment, organizations could have the “ultimate competitive advantage” .
Engage Leadership Through Health & Wellness Committees
Creating a health and wellness committee that’s led by employees is a great way to support the organization at large and create better states of health equity. The first place to start is to assess if you have the support from your organization. Knowing this can tell you a bit about the values of your organization. If you know what support you have, you dig a bit deeper into what kind of financial resources might be available within your organization. If there’s a lack of consciousness around the value of organizational development, as is related with health promotion programming, you may need to start with speaking with your Occupational Health & Safety Dpt. This will help you decide where to start with employee leadership and wellness initiatives.
Find out how much time and resources your employer would allow you to develop something? Might you start with a small committee on mindfulness or healthy nutrition dedicated just for your hospital unit, instead of the hospital at large? Can you lean on the private sector to help you get such an initiative started?
Promote Work-Life Balance
Given the demanding nature of the health industry, promoting work-life balance is essential. Whenever possible, offer flexible scheduling to accommodate personal needs and reduce stress. Team leaders also need to ensure adequate rest breaks so their employees have sufficient downtime between shifts to recover physically and mentally. We see the challenges occurring in non-union environments, where nurses are working steady for hours on end. If at all possible, demand you or your staff take at least a 10-minute break to allow your nervous system to recover physically.
One very important aspect of work-life balance is having access to healthy nutrition resources that can support stress management and wellness programs. Take note of the type of nutrition your staff is consuming. Is it coming from the vending machines on-site, or is it coming from a veggie tray in the staff room? If you have regular sugary snacks and sodas, then you can start by promoting water intake. This might be an easy place to start (or not). While food is a highly political issue to some, simply promoting healthy and nutritious snacks and reducing the amount of sugar and pesticide intake can build awareness around healthy nutrition lifestyle choices.
Engage The Private Sector To Address Employee Burnout
While there are many components to creating a thriving workplace health & wellness initiative, one key resource to help you get started is by leaning on the experts in their field. I like to draw on the analogy of doing a DYI on your bathroom or kitchen renovation. You know you’ll save money by doing it yourself, but you’ll save yourself a whole lot of mistakes and frustration if you lean on the experts. Most importantly, adjust your “mindset” around what workplace health and wellness programs can do for your teams – and who is the best person for the job. It’s important that employer-provided efforts “enhance awareness, change behaviour, and create environments that support good health practices” (reference). Often times, internal resources are insufficient to support teams at large. Employers believe that these programs reduce medical spending and increase the productivity.
The Path Forward
As the ProMind Experience™. prepares to scale, our dedicated team is on a journey that’s true and authentic to creating a more supportive and sustainable environment for health practitioners. Each of us holds a personal stake in The ProMind Experience™.’s Mission; to get off the stressed-out treadmill in 7 weeks or less. Inside of this experiential program, your workplace learns the tools and strategies to build a life of peace, joy and happiness.
I want to help you reach your organizational goals and grow. There’s always a gap between where you are and where you want to be. If you’re interested in evaluating that gap so you can starting building better (team) habits, and shifting your mindset, connect with me @ info@thepromindexperience.com