Getting a true picture of your workplace well-being

While NIOSH Total Worker Health? (TWH) approaches offers health and safety clarity, accountability, and productivity to both employers and workers, it can be hard to apply, particularly in high stress industries such as healthcare.

Large healthcare systems face numerous challenges regarding health, safety, and well-being including the unique characteristics of the industry, rising societal issues like crime and mental health concerns, incidents of workplace violence, the residual impacts of pandemics, and considerations related to operational structure. These issues have resulted in heightened levels of workplace stress and burnout concerns, as well as increased turnover among senior staff members.

Although some hospitals’ TWH efforts have shown promise, they often remain only partially developed, or focus on compliance-only measures and leave gaps in addressing broader employee well-being. Despite there being some notably effective initiatives, the responsibility of employee well-being for many organizations often falls on several departments - leaving no formal centralization of responsibility, accountability, and resources. This means the safety and health support functions of these initiatives are stretched thin and not staffed to a level aligned with other sectors.

Healthcare has historically been a desirable place to work, due to being associated with dedicated leadership and an engaged workforce. However recent years have seen a decline in these qualities, highlighting the need for renewed emphasis on leadership involvement and employee engagement.

Common TWH gaps found in the healthcare space include:

• A lack of commitment to health and well-being across all levels.
• Unified systems are not designed or deployed to support employee engagement.
• Measurement and tracking of relevant factors are lacking.
• Continuous improvement across disciplines is not fully embraced.
• A lack of balance between small and large efforts.

Performance improvement systems alone have not been able solve these challenges. Reaching lasting success in TWH will require a greater level of commitment with senior leadership taking a central role. A commitment to partnership between leaders, subject matter experts, and stakeholders is necessary to adopt a collaborative approach to addressing workforce well-being. This includes:

• Strategic resource allocation.
• Systemic support.
• Organized program design and implementation.
• A heightened focus on psychological safety.

If properly supported and fully implemented, comprehensive well-being initiatives can offer the healthcare sector staffing-retention support; greater productivity; less waste; longer healthier careers; better staff and provider physical and mental health; greater attraction of top talent; and improved patient outcomes.

Watch the full recording of Total Worker Health? assessments that really work: Getting a true picture of your workplace well-being.