Who takes care of the care?

At the end of last year, FNV Zorg & Welzijn sounded the alarm: according to the latest forecasts, the staff shortage in healthcare will rise to more than 250 thousand healthcare professionals in the next ten years. This raises the question not only of whether everyone will receive the care they need in the future, but also of how healthcare professionals can sustain themselves. The workload is already enormous and will only increase. You can feel that in the workplace. Tensions rise, employees do not feel seen and can even lead to confrontations.

We cannot solve the staff shortage in healthcare. What we can do: find ways to deal with the pressure better. Hoping to prevent dropouts. Because it is precisely in healthcare that they know all too well: prevention is better than cure. To tell you more about this, we zoom in on the hospital as an institution. It is precisely in these kinds of complex organizations, with large teams and many different disciplines, that all problems come together. High work pressure, clashing work cultures and emotions running high.

Obstacle 1: everything is important

Most healthcare professionals consciously choose their field, out of a need to help other people. For some, it is even a calling. They feel responsible. That is very nice, but also has a downside. Because those who feel involved quickly tend to bite off too much hay: everything becomes important.

And with an overcrowded schedule, that becomes a problem. Due to the staff shortage, schedules are fully scheduled. If something runs late, you will soon be late for your next appointment. As a result, the work piles up. In addition, some activities are emotionally charged. To process everything, you need space for reflection. And in a working climate where every minute of your agenda is fully planned, there is no time for that.

Obstacle 2: Managers who don’t really lead

The teams in hospitals are large and diverse. Departments have a supervisor or manager. Above that is a manager. And above that the next manager. The managers often come from the field. And as is often the case with managers who lead the kind of team they were in, they find it difficult to distance themselves. They often participate themselves. They throw themselves into all operational tasks, which means that their teams receive less attention. And expect their team members to have the same work ethic as they once had themselves.

The managers above that, on the other hand, often only have an eye for the big picture. When the workload becomes high, it can go in two directions: or the processes are completely boarded up. Or it is completely abandoned. In both cases, employees experience a lack of recognition. In the first case, because they have no room to give substance to their own work. In the second case, because they cannot focus on improvements, but only run production.

Obstacle 3: informal hierarchy and many unwritten rules

Because the teams are so large and managers are either very close to them or are at a great distance, a hospital has its own dynamic. With an informal hierarchy in which some doctors are higher in the pecking order, veterans sometimes have more say than new people and there are many unwritten rules. Which is not always easy for newcomers and substitutes. When the workload is high, it can quickly lead to annoyances, tensions or conflict situations. And that can lead to a psychologically unsafe situation or a diseased culture.

Better safe than sorry

Conflicts and diseased cultures do not arise overnight. It often starts small and goes underwater. It slumbers for a while and then suddenly escalates. And then it is too late. How to prevent that? As mentioned, we cannot reduce the workload. We also cannot make the teams smaller and we will not interfere with the unwritten rules and the informal hierarchy. But we can help to map them out. And we can help individual employees reflect on that. Actually, it’s about this:

Learn to lead

As mentioned, in many hospitals the head of department is often too operational, while the manager only has an eye for the big picture. But those who lead must also know what moves people and how to motivate people. We can provide managers with practical tools to recognize tensions and to start a conversation in the right way.

Learn to rest

It’s like the story of the lumberjack who wants to cut down more trees every day. The first day he does ten and thinks: I can add a few more. The second day he chops fourteen and still feels space. The third day he wants to cut down seventeen, but he gets stuck on twelve. What turns out? His axe is blunt. It is the same with the human mind. You sometimes have to sharpen your mental axe. And you do that by reflecting. With a colleague. Or with a coach who can help you create some order, understand processes and keep you sharp where you want to go in life. Every person needs space.

To ensure that healthcare remains intact, healthcare should sometimes take better care of itself. We are happy to help with that.