Your hardworking healthcare employees deserve to have someone in their corner who understands what it’s like to be in their shoes. As a manager or business owner in this type of establishment, hopefully you have had plenty of experience as a healthcare worker yourself. Being a source of support in this type of industry is incredibly important due to the nature of the work they are doing. When it comes to the healthcare industry, it is so important to prioritize the wellbeing of the employees first and foremost. After all, if they aren’t receiving the right type of treatment, they won’t be able to provide a high quality service to their patients. There are a number of ways in which you can support healthcare employees in your establishment, from in depth training programs to proper scheduling practices.
Ultimately, going above and beyond for these hard working members of the healthcare industry will result in better care for the patients, higher staff retention levels, and boosted morale in the workplace. When you choose to prioritize all of these important aspects, you will soon have a more cohesive, healthy and happy workforce.
- Provide Thorough Training
As soon as you hire someone new to join your team, it’s so important to provide them with thorough training. If they are unable to undertake the role they have been assigned to do, they are not going to feel very well supported. This may involve creating a clear and consistent training program for each segment of your team. Putting the work in now will certainly pay off in the end as it will mean that every employee has the same knowledge. Obviously, as time goes by their experience will enhance when they’re working in a real life healthcare environment. However, they will only start to thrive in their role when they are given the proper training from day one.
- Put Effective Management Into Place
Although you may be very well equipped to provide support to your employees by yourself, this isn’t going to be sustainable for the long haul. Putting effective management into place from day one will not only give you peace of mind that everyone on your team is taken care of, but it will also give them a variety of people to go to when they need it the most. Putting effective management in place from the beginning will help you to build a strong leadership team to guide all of your workers through each stage of their career.
- Be Mindful of Their Working Hours
Supporting your employees is more than just providing them with the right tools and equipment to do their job, it’s about laying the foundations of a healthy and thriving work environment. It can often be difficult to keep track of their working hours due to the round the clock nature of their jobs, but it’s so important that they are compensated for their time at work. If you don’t already have scheduling tools in place, you may want to consider time clock software for healthcare employees. This type of invaluable software will help you to create an ideal schedule so that your team can check their shifts, receive reminders and carry out swaps with their colleagues. This will also prevent issues with regards to tight turnaround times so that your workers are always getting an adequate amount of rest in between shifts.
- Offer Progression Opportunities
In order to keep morale high in the workplace, you need to offer some sort of career progression or learning opportunities in other departments. This will not only help every member of your team to have good prospects in the healthcare sector, but it will also give them goals to work towards. You may want to open up the chance for each employee to spend time shadowing a senior member of staff for a day. Listen to what your workers are asking for and try to be flexible with their requests as much as possible. Ultimately, this will lead to heightened motivation too as this will provide everyone with a clear direction for their career.
- Make Policies and Protocols Clear
Making your policies and protocols abundantly clear from the outset goes hand in hand with providing the right training. Your healthcare employees need to have clear guidelines to follow, otherwise they won’t know how to do their jobs properly. Policies and protocols are such a fundamental part of running a healthcare department, as they guide everyone in the right direction and provide support in the places that truly need it the most.
- Encourage Team Resilience
When there isn’t a senior person available at that moment, it’s so important to create a workplace that encourages everyone to support each other. This will not only encourage team resilience all round, but it will also create a team full of supporters. In an industry that is so physically and emotionally demanding, you never know when you need a support system to guide you through a tough day. All of your employees will be in the same boat and will hopefully understand all of the common stresses and strains that each other are facing. This means that support levels should be high between everyone in your team.
- Be Mindful of the Emotional Strain
When working in the healthcare sector it is so important to consider the emotional strain that each of your workers could be going through. Having a particularly tough day at work can be extremely difficult to manage when your role is so demanding, so you should always show compassion to your employees. Be mindful of what their day to day working life entails and make sure you’re there to support them through each moment. They will appreciate having someone calm and understanding on their side.
- Create a Supportive Culture at Work
From the moment your new employees start working for you, it’s important to set a standard for the support you want to give to them. When your managers show their support regularly, everyone else on your team will soon follow suit too. A culture cannot simply be created overnight; it needs to be nurtured over a prolonged period of time to make a real difference to the ethos of your department.
- Protect Staff Resources
Making sure that your employees have everything they need to carry out their role is so important when it comes to helping them feel supported. Protecting their resources and equipment will give all of your employees trust that they are being taken care of at work.
- Offer Bonuses Wherever Possible
Most workplaces offer some sort of rewards and recognition scheme, or bonuses so that it keeps their employees happy and motivated. Although this isn’t an essential part of supporting your workers, it will actually help them to become more settled in their place of work. There are a number of different ways in which you can offer bonuses for your hard working employees in the healthcare sector. Whether you’re offering paid time off, or a gift card to a high street store, you can show your valued team members how much you care in a number of ways. Speak to your team and see how they would like to be rewarded and recognised for their efforts; you might be surprised to find out what they’re really looking for!
- Lead By Example
In every sense of the word, you want to create a supportive and enjoyable work environment for your employees. You want your managers to learn from the best and create a place where everyone feels safe and understood. This type of culture can only begin from the very top of the company. As the main manager or business owner you need to lead by example and make sure that everyone else on your team is aware of the expectations. Being able to support your employees in a positive way is easy as long as you show others how it’s meant to be done.
No matter what kind of role you are undertaking on a day to day basis, it is so important to understand the foundations of supporting your team. Whether you’re running the business from a high level, or you’re a senior manager working alongside everyone else, it’s so important to take a proactive approach. It is clear that you can provide tailored support to your healthcare employees in a number of different ways that are beneficial to hardworking individuals. As long as you are setting a good example yourself, providing rewards and recognition and taking the correct steps to schedule your employees in a fair way, you will soon have a team of thriving healthcare workers. Having a willing and motivated workforce that wants to do their best in their job is so important, as it helps to cultivate a positive work environment all in all. Once you have achieved this, it will be so much easier to stay on top of all of the other important practices that are required in regards to employee wellbeing.
