Healthcare Staff Burnout: Caring for Care Teams

Published on : 11/10/21
  • By David M. Stewart, Sodexo Patient Experience, Customer Experience & Team Engagement

     “Distressed staff provide distressed care.” 

    This quote from Mark Greenawald, MD, Vice Chair of Family and Community Medicine at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, hits at the core of the current situation many healthcare leaders are facing today. If you work in healthcare, you absolutely relate to words like burnout, engagement, fear, and being valued. 

    The past year has taken an enormous toll on our healthcare workers. Recently, Sodexo has hosted and participated in several virtual events with the American Medical Association, Limeade, and Kantar, to share insights on the current state of our healthcare staff across North America. 

    Read Sodexo’s report on these conversations and the ongoing research on this issue, Healthcare Burnout: Supporting Staff and Anticipating the Next Crisis for 2022 and Beyond.

    But there’s good news. We have the power to make significant, systematic change to adapt our organizations to better support our teams. The healthcare industry created the extant systems in which our healthcare staff are surviving – so we have the ability to make necessary alterations so our teams can be thriving. A few ways that you can make a huge impact on the wellbeing of your people can be as simple as daily communication that’s structured to include a few topics for micro-learning and team engagement in areas such as: personal wellness, open dialogue exchanges on service behaviors, safety, and especially regarding recognition to drive culture shifts. And don’t forget to inject FUN! Yes, we’re in a serious business, but keeping people engaged and passionate about compassionate human connected care requires leaders to take the initiative to bring joy into the workplace so frontline workers pay it forward to each other as well as to our patients-consumers - organically. 

    • Are your staff feeling stressed and burned out? 
    • Are you struggling to attract and retain staff? 

    If you answered Yes to either of these questions, here are a couple more: 

    What changes have you made to support your staff? What more can you do?  

    Not sure? Sodexo can help. Together, we can make the changes needed to support our healthcare heroes, because we understand that if we are going to drive improving satisfaction as an end-in-mind, then we must identify our opportunities and tap into the different ways leaders are changing cultures in our healthcare environments. Powerful connected care starts with leaders creating environments where teams can perform their best service and safety moments to those we are called to care for. So, talk to your teams. Get their feedback and do something to drive amazing experiences. Rounding truly begins with employees, so we can celebrate what’s happening in top-box ways for them, and more importantly, drilling down with purposeful conversations for the opportunities. Enjoy the journey. Every chapter is another chance to make a difference in the quality of life for others.