Promote a positive workplace culture and stop healthcare burnout when you lead by example.
While problematic in every industry, a toxic work environment in the medical field is especially concerning. It has a negative impact on medical professionals’ wellbeing and causes chronically high levels of healthcare burnout. Additionally, it results in harmful consequences for patients.
If medical professionals dread coming to work, don’t get along with their teammates, and have trouble communicating with one another, they deliver lesser patient care and commit more medical errors as a result.
Furthermore, patient care needs to be approached from a team-based perspective. Multiple disciplines must work together to give patients the best treatment possible. The importance of interprofessional collaboration in healthcare is increasingly recognized and to operate in this manner a healthy workplace culture is required.
Those in leadership capacities within the medical field, such as team supervisors, can promote a healthy workplace culture and stop healthcare burnout by following and recommending the below three strategies. One of the most effective ways to encourage change is to lead by example.
Three Work-Life Balance Strategies to Stop Healthcare Burnout
1. Respect Your Free Time
Achieving work-life balance in healthcare is possible when you limit your interactions with colleagues while off the clock. With the constant access smartphones give us, this can be a challenge. Even more so for those in leadership positions with people reporting to them.
Make it clear to your teammates that you do not check your work email or want to receive work-related texts during your free time. Let them know that if there ever is an emergency, they may certainly give you a call.
Setting these healthy boundaries will let you recharge during your free time so you can show up your best for your colleagues and your patients. It also sets a great example for your teammates of what a healthy work-life balance looks like.
Already know you’d struggle to not read work emails off the clock? In an article on how to actually stop checking your email all of the time, four helpful tips are given:
- Turn off the push notifications on your phone
- Remove email from your phone
- Block off dedicated time for checking and answering emails
- Install management apps to increase your efficiency
2. Make Time For Your Health
An article on ways healthcare workers can maintain a healthy work-life balance notes that “while taking care of other people, often both at work and home, some studies point out that hospital workers are generally less healthy than workers in other industries.”
Having both the head knowledge and the heart to care for other people’s wellbeing is noble and needed. But like putting your mask on before assisting others in an airplane emergency, you must take care of your own health first. If you suffer from healthcare burnout, you simply can’t take care of others well — at work or at home.
Make sure to carve time out for exercise, meal prep, and routine care visits or needed procedures for yourself. You will feel better, work better, and set a great example for your colleagues, patients, and family members.
3. Get to Know Yourself and Your Teammates Better
Collaboration and communication are critical to providing quality healthcare to patients and stopping healthcare burnout amongst medical professionals. Taking the time to get to know yourself and your colleagues better will do wonders in both areas.
True Colors addresses ineffective communication at the individual, team, and institutional levels with the results of improved collaboration and transformed workplace cultures. Our online personality assessment is a great place to start. You’ll receive unique insights into your own personality type, strengths, and weaknesses through the True Colors methodology lens.
The next step is our Personal Success Workshop. We’ll teach why people behave and react the way that they do so you and your teammates can increase your self-awareness, improve your communication skills, and elevate your ability to empathize with one another. This knowledge can be utilized in everyone’s personal and professional lives and is incredibly beneficial for improving collaboration and stopping healthcare burnout.
Healthcare Burnout Doesn’t Have to Be Inevitable
Healthcare burnout is common, but it doesn’t have to be inevitable. Help yourself and your colleagues and lead by example. Respect your free time, make time for your health, and get to know yourself and your teammates better. Your actions will have a ripple effect, making a positive impact on the wellbeing of the medical professionals in your circle, their patients, and their loved ones.
