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If you’re like me you spend a great deal of time at work. More than your high school guidance counselor would confess to. Given that, you might wrongfully think that everyone would get along since we all have the same mission statements. My guidance counselor forgot to inform me about that too.
The words “staff” or “FTE’s” is a very weak label when you consider that a hospital is made up of people. Big ones, tall ones, short ones and round ones as well as ADHD, OCD, and a host of other qualities which can make work a place where tension is just as prevalent a disease among caregivers as infection is among patients.
When my coworkers punch in, they bring they’re skills. They also bring family problems, financial woes and cell phone bills that are past due. None of this is ground breaking news but sometimes reality has a way of hiding what’s important. The folks you work along side are also patients... eventually.
I play semipro football, and modern healthcare requires a bit of sports psychology to be successful. Don’t laugh. People want a leader... but not to be led. If you’re a manager, take a close look at your players. A good coach takes an average player and makes him/her great. A player that resides on the bench will not do your bidding when the call for compassion comes. Take a look at what you do, as a manger, to foster good relationships between your coworkers. If you don’t know what inspires and motivates your crew to be their best you might be doing your patients an injustice.
Don’t look for anything to be deregulated in healthcare anytime soon to make your life easier. With all the stress life brings after five o’clock, the future will still expect you to make more hay with less sunshine when you punch in. The economic denominator no doubt weighs heavy in your personal as well as professional life. If you’re like most departments, your people are stretching. As a leader, your calling isn’t to legislate compassion on a budget. Lead by example. The honey you reap from listening as a leader might just get you more than fear from your whip as a dictator.
Effective managers aren’t born from lightning strikes. If that’s your plan for leadership, then stand aside. Read a book on how to motivate people. Learn your management style. Crunching numbers is only one tool in your bag. Patients don’t benchmark how good their healthcare experience is, or whether the numbers are good. They demand to see the manager when they’re not happy... and that’s in addition to being sick. A woman scorned has nothing on an irate grandmother when you call her name 45 minutes late.
Today’s workforce is most certainly volatile, and job satisfaction plays a role in retention its true. So it’s little surprise that employees measure success in ways that go beyond the paycheck. In healthcare that’s a good thing. But the rewards of good patient care will only be felt in a place where people want to come to work. Chances are, your facility hasn’t given you the resources to understand how to be an effective manager. That onerous is on you. Regrettably it’s not a birthright. Being kind or smart may have gotten you the position, but that won’t prepare you for leadership. You still have some earning to do to bring out the best in your staff. Your patients just might appreciate that idea. You will too... when it’s your turn to be a patient.
Trey has had a long career as a medical technologist, and currently works at SRMC in West Virginia as the Senior Nuclear Medicine Technologist. He is a highly published executive manager with Masters in Health Administration. Some of Trey’s articles have appeared in Radiologic Technologist Image, Advance for Administrators in Radiology, The Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology and several other highly regarded publications.
The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.
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