Healthcare Culture Series Part 1: Is nearly 25% of your workforce toxic?

Allow us to state the obvious: working in the healthcare field is stressful.

Healthcare professionals first enter their field with a noble mindset: to tend to the health and wellbeing of their patients. And yet, metrics like patients seen per hour or average procedures per patient billed are what more frequently get discussed. In this difficult healthcare climate, operational and financial metrics seem to get preference over patient care outcomes.

This focus can be demoralizing to anyone that simply wants to provide the best care for his or her patients.

Is it a wonder then that nursing recruitment is a challenge? And once you recruit a nurse, there is that constant pressure to keep them on your team. Factors like a practice’s autonomy, inclusion in decision-making, management’s respect of workers, workload, and shifts worked all affect retention.

In this environment, you’re bound to struggle with nurse apathy and disengagement. And this disengagement is very expensive, both when it comes to recruiting new nurses and for your organization as a whole. According to a study in the Journal of Nursing Administration, it can cost between $62,000 and $67,100 to replace a single RN. Compounding this is findings from the journal Nursing Economics which found this rapid churn impacts patient outcomes, lack of continuity of care, and loss in staff productivity.

While you’re feeling the brunt of this in nursing, it is a global epidemic. According to a recent Gallup survey, nearly 90% of employees worldwide are disengaged. Of those, 24% are “actively disengaged,” meaning they are unproductive at work and likely to spread their negativity to coworkers.

And this disengagement is hurting you. In another survey by Gallup, organizations that skew higher on engagement have double the odds of success when looking at metrics like financial performance, retention, and absenteeism metrics, amongst others. For those in the 99th percentile, that success rate is 4 times as high!

Interested in learning more?

Stay posted for Part 2, out on Thursday, where we focus on vital trends disrupting today's workplace.

http://vimeo.com/52587746