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Culture of Engagement in Hospitals: How to Be a Positive Leader

Having a culture of engagement is a critical factor in achieving a five-star experience. It is also the biggest impediment to moving to a five-star experience.

It takes three years to change a culture, and it all starts with taking care of your caregiver.

To Create a Culture of Engagement, Start With Your Caregivers

All hospital staff members play a vital role in a hospital. According to PressGaney, a 1% change in employee morale equals a 2% change in the patient experience. Happy employees equal happy customers.

Remember: disgruntled employees result in unhappy patients.

Service Recovery

To create a culture of engagement, we must also practice service recovery. All employees should make it a part of their daily practice that when they “mess up, they fess up, and dress up.”

When we make this a part of our practice, habits, and culture, it displaces the old behaviors and becomes our cultural practice.

Culture change means consistently practicing new behaviors. It takes three years for a hugely complex organization to make these changes, which is why we have to stay focused on it.

If we want empowerment, we’ve got to create a culture of engagement. You have to continue to educate leadership, educate the frontline, and hardwire best practices. It’s all about the execution of the strategy.

The Attitudes of Engagement

Did you know that there are five types of attitudes working in hospitals?

  1. Superstars: 3% of the workplace.
  2. Winners: 20% - they come early, they stay late, they’re positive, they want to get ahead, and they want to make a difference.
  3. Grinners: 50% - they are just sitting on the fence. They’re here for a paycheck. They're not here to change the world,
  4. Whiners: 25% - everything’s wrong, nothing’s right. They want something for nothing. They do as much as they can to do as little as they can. They’re negative, and they’re often proud of their negativity.
  5. Slugs: Between 2 and 10% of the workforce - they shouldn’t be there, but we keep them there because they’re live, warm bodies.

It is crucial to have a positive attitude in health care. To create a culture of engagement that brings about a five-star experience, we have to work on who we have employed. The slugs have to go. Whiners have an opportunity to change their behaviors, which is why we have something called corrective action coaching. We can help the grinners turn into winners through education and culture change.

What do you think is your attitude of engagement?

Never Be Silent About Negative Behaviour

As a leader, your role is to understand your employees, where they fit in their roles, and how you can create a culture of engagement. Silence about negative behavior implies approval of negative behavior.

It is your role to notice these things and have confidential coaching sessions about them. Silence, when it comes to this issue, means consent. You need to use your code of conduct as a living tool to choose staff better. It should orient staff better, educate staff better, recognize and appreciate staff better, do better performance evaluations, and to above all, have a more thoughtful tool for discipline.

Negative behavior is not complementary to wellness and healing.

The Service Empowerment Leadership Course

A hospital environment must have a great leader, so it is vital to allow everybody to get into a classroom and learn how to be a leader, more than just being a manager.

We call this the Service Empowerment Leadership Course.

Reimagining Healthcare Engagement Summit

In June, we are holding a special one-day summit called “Reimagining Healthcare Engagement,” which will be 100% live streaming. Register to learn more about how to refresh the workplace through resilience, agility, and kindness.

Everyone’s a Caregiver: Providing Education for Healthcare Workers

Everyone's a Caregiver provides education to healthcare workers to better improve their patient's overall experience. We understand the time constraints placed in today's workplace and have customized microlearning videos to help you gain the skills you need to be a better, more positive healthcare worker. Contact us today to see how we can help, or click here to learn more.

Are you interested in patient care? Check out these articles!

How to Lead in the New Normal
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How to Win Back Every Single Patient