COVID-19 is disrupting all organizations and all workers’ daily lives in significant ways, including layoffs, shifts to working remotely, and other various challenges. However, healthcare workers are on the front lines, experiencing personally dangerous, overcrowded, under-resourced situations where they must use their unique skills to continue providing quality care and saving lives. Healthcare workers have the nation’s gratitude for their work. Their employers have the unrivaled challenge of supporting them in a situation for which there is no playbook.
The virus is atypical; the support organizations provide to healthcare workers must match the uniqueness of the challenge. Healthcare organizations have always looked for ways to enhance staff experience and engagement. In this circumstance, the primary drivers of engagement still apply: helping employees feel valued, communicating openly and providing space for new ideas, recognizing accomplishments, and showing respect. However, as the American Medical Association indicated in some recent guidance on its website, the list of factors that influence healthcare worker engagement must also include well-being factors.
Well-being factors may not have been in the forefront previously while leadership teams supported and prioritized other employee concerns, but the need to measure them is amplified now. Healthcare staff well-being factors focus on the basics of care and concern, including expressing empathy and providing enhanced support for safety needs, basic needs (e.g., meals, childcare, wellness), and mental health needs. In this pandemic environment, supporting basic human needs is as important – or possibly more important – than the typical work-related factors on which leaders have traditionally focused.
Organizations don’t want to interfere with the life-saving work their teams are doing, but need efficient ways to clearly hear the voices of these front line workers. This clarity will ensure that the support they provide is tailored to their employees’ current needs. One efficient way for healthcare organizations to establish an ongoing conversation with staff is to use a survey that can provide continuous feedback, so support needs can be met on a just-in-time basis. Now, more than ever, is the critical time to reach out and listen to those on the front lines.
We are providing the survey content, implementation, and live reporting at no cost to our healthcare clients and other healthcare organizations. This survey measures staff perceptions and needs over time and will enable users to compare to external benchmarks as the database grows. Users will have no-cost access to real-time insights related to shifts in employee sentiment on key staff well-being measures, including:
We offer these resources as part of our ongoing effort to help organizations and leaders listen during turbulent times. We want to help you and your teams see the way forward, together.
The Perceptyx platform gives you the flexibility to adapt your listening strategy to rapidly changing real time events. Combined with support from our analytics experts, our platform can help you keep your finger on the pulse of your people’s needs, so you can provide the support they need during these uncertain times. Get in touch to see how we can help your organization navigate successfully through the COVID-19 pandemic.