Wellness/Well-Being Programs to Address Staff Burnout
arlene trimbleAssistant IT Director| Local GovernmentAlamo, Ca, United States
The pandemic has dramatically increased the levels of physical and psychological burnout of staff. Appreciate all your responses to the following questions based on your lessons learned/best practices in your respective organizations (health care, wellness, or social services spaces)
1. What are your most effective wellness/well-being programs to combat general staff burnout?
2. What are the known/newly discovered causes of physician burnout?
3. How did you successfully address physician burnout?
Thank you so much. I can exchange ideas/network with interested parties as well. Saving Changes...
Hi Arlene. I am currently conducting some interesting research into Emotional Intelligence (EI) in project management. EI has been shown to reduce burnout and occupational stress as well as many other benefits. 'Job Burnout of Construction Project Managers: Exploring the Consequences of Regulating Emotions in Workplace' by Zhang, Yao and Yiu (2020) may be of value to you.
Regards,
Cian.
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1 reply by arlene trimble
Jul 11, 2022 7:27 PM
arlene trimble
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Thank you for the Emotional Intelligence (EQ) component of Wellness. Yes, this is definitely an important part of wellness. In your experience, what was the best way for EQ to be delivered and accepted by your team members in the organization. Do you want to share the activities and steps that you did in the organization post-survey to achieve towards EQ? Thanks.
Our Canadian province is losing physicians and, in some cases, physicians are choosing to reduce their workload (i.e. clients) to deal or avoid burnout. The province is trying to move to a less physician-centric health care delivery model. The idea is to integrate the various health care practitioners into teams.
This is still work in progress and I suspect it may take years before it can truly have an impact on reducing stress and burnouts across all health care practitioners.
From a more general perspective, I find employer-sponsored wellness initiatives can go a long way. One of my employer covered 50% of employee's fitness centre memberships. Another employer, offered its own fitness centre at minimal cost to its employees. I found both initiatives a great motivator to fit wellness in my life.
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1 reply by arlene trimble
Jul 11, 2022 7:42 PM
arlene trimble
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Hi Stephane,
Thank you for sharing your healthcare feedback on wellness and the current state of your physician burnout in your area. Yes, taking care of the physical dimension of wellness is an important factor. Glad that this is offered. If there are other best practices from your healthcare setting, please feel free to share.
recreational events: fun day, ice cream truck hours, after work evenings, etc.
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1 reply by arlene trimble
Jul 11, 2022 7:43 PM
arlene trimble
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Hi Abolfazi,
Thank you so much of the fun response! Yes, including fun at work and even after work is very important so we can allow our adult selves an element of play. Your suggestions are great! Send some more if there are other practices that work in your organization.
Band-aid programs usually have limited if not no value. You have to go back to the basics of what inspires and engages people.
If there isn't psychological safety, rewards/recognition, a sense of purpose, a chance to grow one's skills and some autonomy over how work gets done, folks will disengage regardless of the wellness programs provided.
Kiron
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1 reply by arlene trimble
Jul 11, 2022 7:36 PM
arlene trimble
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Hi Kiron,
I totally agree with you. Bandaids do not work on a short-term or long-term basis. We administer surveys with actionable results to make sure that we take the pulse of the staff at certain points in terms of interests and needs. Yes, psychological safety, meaningful work, and work autonomy are certainly important to make the staff experience better in the organization. What specific activities/steps that you did in your organization to work towards these significant elements? Thank you.
Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Arlene,
I fully support Kiron's point.
The best cure for burnout is to establish a culture at work that supports people to emotionally and safely engage with their work.
And this needs leadership from the top.
Thomas
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1 reply by arlene trimble
Jul 11, 2022 7:33 PM
arlene trimble
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Hi Thomas,
Thank you for your insightful comment. Yes, culture with psychological safety plays a significant part in managing workload stress. What specific steps did you do in your organization? Thanks.
Saving Changes...
Peter RapinSubject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent ConsultantOntario, Canada
People need to feel useful, appreciated and respected. Which is basically what Kiron writes. When that is lacking what we now call burnout takes hold. Burnout is a bit like a virus, once it takes hold its hard to get under control. I also think it is contagious. Don't address the symptoms get to the rout cause - see first sentence.
It sems this is a relatively new concept or did I just not see clearly in my 50 plus years of professional life. maybe its the computer era/exposure that fries our brain cells?
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1 reply by arlene trimble
Jul 11, 2022 7:31 PM
arlene trimble
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Hello Peter, Thank you so much for the thoughtful comments. Yes’m, the soft skills are very much needed so staff are not triggered. In addition, user-unfriendly technology has placed a great demand and burden unfortunately to staff. Gratitude and Compassion are very important. Please feel free to share what specific activities you implemented to work on these work soft skills to enhance wellness?
Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Is not the pandemic. Is the work environment itself. So, my recommendation, is doing an enterprise analysis, evaluate your organizational architecture and then act in consequence.
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1 reply by arlene trimble
Jul 11, 2022 7:29 PM
arlene trimble
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Thank you for the suggestion. Yes, we attempt to be data-driven in planning and implementing our wellness program up to now. What specific wellness data-gathering tools did you use and how did you implement it?
Saving Changes...
arlene trimbleAssistant IT Director| Local GovernmentAlamo, Ca, United States
Jul 08, 2022 5:46 AM
Replying to Cian Camplisson
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Hi Arlene. I am currently conducting some interesting research into Emotional Intelligence (EI) in project management. EI has been shown to reduce burnout and occupational stress as well as many other benefits. 'Job Burnout of Construction Project Managers: Exploring the Consequences of Regulating Emotions in Workplace' by Zhang, Yao and Yiu (2020) may be of value to you.
Regards,
Cian.
Thank you for the Emotional Intelligence (EQ) component of Wellness. Yes, this is definitely an important part of wellness. In your experience, what was the best way for EQ to be delivered and accepted by your team members in the organization. Do you want to share the activities and steps that you did in the organization post-survey to achieve towards EQ? Thanks.
arlene trimbleAssistant IT Director| Local GovernmentAlamo, Ca, United States
Jul 09, 2022 6:09 AM
Replying to Sergio Luis Conte
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Is not the pandemic. Is the work environment itself. So, my recommendation, is doing an enterprise analysis, evaluate your organizational architecture and then act in consequence.
Thank you for the suggestion. Yes, we attempt to be data-driven in planning and implementing our wellness program up to now. What specific wellness data-gathering tools did you use and how did you implement it? Saving Changes...
arlene trimbleAssistant IT Director| Local GovernmentAlamo, Ca, United States
Jul 08, 2022 7:50 PM
Replying to Peter Rapin
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People need to feel useful, appreciated and respected. Which is basically what Kiron writes. When that is lacking what we now call burnout takes hold. Burnout is a bit like a virus, once it takes hold its hard to get under control. I also think it is contagious. Don't address the symptoms get to the rout cause - see first sentence.
It sems this is a relatively new concept or did I just not see clearly in my 50 plus years of professional life. maybe its the computer era/exposure that fries our brain cells?
Hello Peter, Thank you so much for the thoughtful comments. Yes’m, the soft skills are very much needed so staff are not triggered. In addition, user-unfriendly technology has placed a great demand and burden unfortunately to staff. Gratitude and Compassion are very important. Please feel free to share what specific activities you implemented to work on these work soft skills to enhance wellness? Saving Changes...
