Research shows that healthcare workers’ positivity is essential for providing exceptional care to patients. It impacts how they interact with their colleagues, management, patients, and families, and it plays an important role in keeping them engaged, happy, productive, and fulfilled.
The reality is that, in recent years, healthcare organizations have often been forced to do more with less due to labor shortages, budget constraints, supply chain difficulties, changing standards of care, and so much more.
Factors like these often risk overshadowing the importance of more fundamental values that are essential in the healthcare industry: things like positivity, teambuilding, compassion, and cultivation of essential soft skills (like a good “bedside manner”).
Let’s take a look at some of the advantages of maintaining a positive mindset in healthcare.
Boosts Productivity
The word “productivity” is a popular buzzword in most workplace environments, for understandable reasons, but in healthcare it is especially important because the stakes are so high. If positivity is absent, and employees feel psychologically unsafe, burnt out, or unappreciated, it will be difficult for them to keep pace with the demands of a modern healthcare system. But if there is a positive work culture in place, this will often keep employees motivated, engaged, and committed to stay through even the most trying times.
Helping healthcare workers feel confident about what they do boosts their productivity in many ways. It stimulates their cognitive ability and desire to function at their best, and it also boosts their energy levels, making them more alert and better equipped to perform their duties. Finally, it reduces their stress, which makes it easier for them to fully engage with their work and provide quality care to patients.
Manage Attitude
The workplace is full of unique personalities with different attitudes about how to go about serving patients, and those attitudes can have a significant effect on overall productivity. Like most people, healthcare workers aren’t exempt from having a bad day at work, whether because a supervisor yelled at them, a colleague gossiped about them, or they slept through their alarm. Whenever these sorts of things happen, an entire workplace environment can be affected by how that employee manages their attitude.
Those employees with a positive attitude can identify challenges as minor setbacks rather than stress triggers. Rather than letting outside issues affect their work, they tend to feel happy no matter their circumstances, and are therefore able to consistently navigate the obstacles that are constantly thrown in their way. Because positive thinkers don’t dwell on the inevitable problems that are bound to arise, they are more resilient and committed to improving their emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills.
Positive work environments foster:
- Maximization of each employee’s potential
- Increased engagement
- Increased retention
- Growth of workplace creativity
- A reputation that attracts new staff
- An ability to respond appropriately to constructive criticism
Improved Communication
Positivity in healthcare organizations enables employees to feel more connected and engaged. As a result, they will go above and beyond to provide quality care by communicating effectively and viewing feedback as an opportunity for growth rather than something to be feared.
With proper communication, healthcare managers can mentor colleagues so that they can better identify their own strengths and weaknesses—the kind of honest feedback that builds high-performing teams. Conversations like this can be difficult, but one important thing to keep in mind is that different people may hold slightly different values, and that’s ok. Healthy, but respectful, disagreement about tough issues is what separates great workplace cultures from the merely good ones.
Final Thoughts
Healthcare workers can achieve and maintain high productivity levels though positivity. Although new problems are emerging all the time in today’s demanding workplace environments, positivity can help encourage colleagues to listen and learn from each other in such a way that, together, they can overcome even the most difficult challenges.
The power of positivity can impact a workplace in so many ways, from boosting overall productivity to fostering cohesion and teamwork. Most importantly, by opening people’s hearts and minds to the insights of their fellow healthcare workers standing right beside them, positivity ultimately makes its way to where it matters most: to the patients entrusted to their care.
To learn more about our people-centered approach to workforce training and development, visit www.dbelitegroup.com.
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