Evidence-Based Practice to Improve Morale in a Team

I walked into the hospital passing by the fountain entrance, through the dull white corridors, up the stairs to the third floor, turned left. I held the door for a transporter who was struggling to move a bed through the standard double doors leading to the units. The door had a picture of one of my managers, taken probably 10 years ago, holding a finger to her lips asking to be quite to allow space for healing.

I looked into the eyes of a patient in the hospital bed. His brown skin and yellow sclera could not hide his high bilirubin. The buildup of bilirubin in the system means a severe liver damage. In many cases irreversible. It could be the cancer. It could be the chemotherapy we gave him. He was young. Too young for a cancer to eat him, too young for his mother to let him go.

His mother stayed behind and let the transporter take her son away. She was full of pain and was holding a tissue in her hand, whispering something I could not understand. “A prayer,” I thought. I walked with her towards the nursing station. I said nothing. She was walking by my side like an old friend. We both comfortable in our silence.

I have not clocked in yet. I planned to hit the restroom and fill my water bottle before I start. Her eyes told me she need me right now, and I walked with her to the room, grabbed the water pitcher and a cup from the patient’s table. She hugged the cup with both hands trying to receive the warmth and comfort from the cold water. She looked down on the empty space her son’s bed left behind. I looked into her brown eyes and put my hand on her shoulder gently, she covered my hand with hers, patted it and let go. I walked out to join the huddle.

A huddle is a five-minute meeting before nurses break into groups of two to receive a report from a previous shift on the assigned patients. These five minutes always feel like eternity. It starts with the general outlook of the unit, the highlights of “the hot spots” – the violent, the uncompliant, the sickest. The huddle continues with “the news” – the loses (deaths), the saves (codes), the needs (how many bodies we are short again). The huddle will conclude with a list of reminders of what we could do better. It is always the longest part met by rolling eyes, and smirks, and occasional dark jokes.

I spaced out during this huddle. I was still holding my empty water bottle. I robbed my neck and shoulder. I stretched my back and took a deep breath in to find the strength in my body for the third 12-hour night shift. I looked around the room and met tired eyes of another nurse. I did not know her, which meant we were short, and she was filling in. She was looking through me not realizing we made an eye contact.

Have you heard about compassion fatigue, burn out or the importance of building resilience this week? Perhaps today? The terms have been popularized and frankly overused lately. They are guaranteed trending topics sharing long lists of grievances with no solutions. Today leaders need to have practical and efficient solutions to the crisis. Is it possible to build wellbeing in a dysfunctional team? What if the team is affected by an institution struggling to float in the current realities of post pandemic world? The answers are yes, of course, and sure. It can be simple and require minimal effort.

First of all, it is important to understand what is within our span of control. The health of your institution is not within your control. As a leader, you can build wellbeing in your heart and in your team. You can empower your team to take small consistent steps towards the brighter future. What are those steps exactly? Well, we have strong consistent evidence for how to build healthful environment of wellness and civility with (not for but with) our teams.

I learned 3 secrets through the years. Small (very very tiny) but consistent steps work far better then grandiose plans. For example, if you like for the team to practice gratitude daily, you start with committing to say a meaningful “thank you” at least 3 times a day to your team. The second secret is to remove all possible obstacles before implementing new habits. People will not jump the hoops to try something new (especially of they are functioning in a survival mode, make it easy, make it simple… enough). The third secret is to tie a new habit to an old established habit. Look for established patterns in the current workflow and add a simple practice to it.

So, what does research say?

1.?????? Authenticity and connection.

This one is the first and is a hard work. It takes time to build meaningful relationships with your team. It might be worth it. When leaders and teams find themselves, are safe to express their authentic self, able to express vulnerability, and foster meaningful connections, they practice in the environment of wellness and civility (Ma et al., 2020). When teams work on building connections, they become more resilient in the times of crisis (HR News, 2023). The leaders need to come back to the moment, be present to engage in small meaningful gestures. It might be robotic and scheduled at first but with time will become a natural reality. Creating spaces for meaningful connections is a must for a successful team.

Here are some ideas how to do it:

-????????? Set up an alarm clock twice during your workday with a reminder to connect with someone in person, over email, or a text message. Don’t make it about work. Really try to learn something personal about your team.

-????????? Ask an ice breaker question during the morning huddle, meeting: share a fun fact or simply something new, favorite music genre or an artist, favorite or a dream place to travel. Keep it light and fun.

-????????? Place a board in the breakroom. Do not fill it with work related reminders, please! Strip them down. Put some random facts about a team member (with their consent) and let the team guess who that is! Reveal the name in the end of the week.

2.?????? Regular practice of team building activities.

Resilience starts from a strong team. In the current realities, it is challenging to dedicate habitual time away from the work environment for team building activities. In the realities of a shift workers, it might be even pointless as the people you will do team building exercises might not be your crew on the floor. I advocate to infuse team building micro practices in daily work environments. Small and quick but regular team building exercises create stronger teams and are more impactful than once a year exercises during a staff retreat (Miller, 2017).

Here are some ideas how to do it:

-????????? Each team member can wear a paper on their back and teammates write something they appreciate and admire about the team member.

-????????? Remember that board in the staff lounge? Use it to write down, strong team dynamics observed during the day.

-????????? Use gamification to reward positive team behavior. We used a bingo card and outlined positive team dynamics (helped to pass medication, answered a bed alarm/call light, supported with a kind word)

-????????? Create time in the middle of the day for a 5-minute check in. We can call it a muddle (mid-day huddle)

3.?????? Autonomy building and growing strong performers.

Nothing kills the spirit of a strong team player as a tolerance of a bad one. When leaders identify, highlight, and invest into their strong team players, they promote the culture of excellence within their teams. When employees are valued, recognized, and feel that their leaders are invested in their growth, they experience higher levels of job satisfaction and stress resilience (Xu et al., 2023). The sense of autonomy is one of the top markers identified in promoting employee engagement, the sense of purpose, and job satisfaction (Savang et al., 2020).

Here are some ideas how to do it:

-????????? Create opportunities for the team to make meaningful decisions.

-????????? Understand individual career aspirations, values, professional goals and honor it. It is okay if there is no desire for professional growth at the stage of life, honor this decision too.

-????????? Create resources and opportunities for growth and achievement of goals.

-????????? Recognize individual contributions. Do recognize the whole team but also highlight those who put in the work. This is very important.

Today leaders are faced with high expectation of their roles. When we empower our teams to take small consistent steps towards their personal and professional wellbeing, we promote the environment of resiliency and civility. Building a strong team always starts with an authentic connection to understand the individual needs and aspirations. The team grows with an opportunity to learn about each other’s strengths, weaknesses and humanity through regular simple and fun team building exercises. The team thrives when the individuals are confident that their leaders invested in their growth.

P.S. Work-life balance and institutionalized gratitude create strong teams. We can talk about the practical ways to embrace those next time. ?

Visit my blog at Improving Team Morale One Simple Step at a Time (yelenalel.com)

References:

References:

Ma, J., Sachdev, A. R., & Gu, X. (2020). Being Oneself and Doing Great: The Effect of Authenticity on Job Performance and the Role of Supportive Leadership.?Journal of Personnel Psychology,?19(2), 75–85. https://doi.org/10.1027/1866-5888/a000246

HR News. (2023). Resilient Teams Are Key to Emerging from the Great Resignation: Senior leaders build resilience by establishing and promoting team stability, connection and agility. ?

Miller, B. (2017).?More quick team-building activities for busy managers: 50 new exercises that get results in just 15 minutes?(1st ed.). American Management Association.

Sawang, S., O’Connor, P. J., Kivits, R. A., & Jones, P. (2020). Business Owner-Managers’ Job Autonomy and Job Satisfaction: Up, Down or No Change??Frontiers in Psychology,?11, 1506–1506. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01506

Xu, L., Li, X., Sun, C., Sun, B., & Li, W. (2023). Relationship between professional identity, career satisfaction, value of competence and growth, and job burnout: A cross‐sectional study of primary and secondary school teachers in China.?Psychology in the Schools,?60(4), 1234–1248. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.22828