We’ve all heard about the importance of taking care of ourselves and our team, but so many professionals find it challenging to find the headspace and the time to dedicate to making the changes to do this. Although they’re certainly more likely to make them for their teams than themselves…!
In this article, we’ve complied some strategies that may assist you and your team to deal with the stresses experienced at work, and maintain the passion and enthusiasm that first drew you all to the healthcare industry to begin with.
Firstly, let’s focus on strategies to look after yourself, because when dealing with topics such as burnout, it’s important to prioritise yourself and your own wellbeing!
Remember your priorities
Take a minute to reflect here and think through the following:
What’s important to you and into what priority order do they fall? For example, your career, time with your family, going on that big holiday… whatever comes to mind! You may like to make a list here.
Does your current situation reflect and support these priorities? If not, what needs to change?
What do you want for the future and how will your priorities evolve? Think about where you want to be in 5 or 10-years’ time and what you want to achieve. Does your current situation align with these goals?
Set boundaries
Now, keeping in mind your priorities, think about what needs to be done to ensure your work life lines up and set your boundaries accordingly. This may include generally finishing on time, reducing your standard hours, working from home occasionally, or even taking on new responsibilities – whatever works for you!
Know your limits
Consciously maintaining an awareness of when to say no, when to take time off and when it’s time to quit can be extremely difficult in the healthcare industry, where there are often such high stakes involved. But at the end of the day, it’s only work and no one is irreplaceable - pushing yourself past your limits is simply not worth it.
Prioritise your wellbeing
The healthcare industry is known for high-stress roles and long hours, thus the nature of the work is not always conducive to wellbeing. So making a concerted effort to prioritise your wellbeing can go a long way. A few tips here include:
Getting enough sleep – we know, easier said than done!
Taking time off! If you’re feeling rundown, exhausted or overly stressed, working will likely only make it worse and lead to burnout, which is not good for anyone!
Introducing mindfulness to help relax and de-stress from work. You may like to try meditation, journaling, yoga or just getting out on a daily walk in the fresh air.
As they say, “teamwork makes the dream work”, so here are a few strategies to help support your team amidst the business of work.
Start the day with a group huddle
This has a number of benefits – team members can see who’s working that day and it provides an opportunity to share appropriate updates with the full team, ensuring everyone is on the same page and keeps working relationships strong. It only takes 5 minutes each morning and keeps everyone feeling more connected and in control.
Food is the key to the heart!
Providing your team with snacks, morning tea or even the occasional catered meal to help get them through the busy day can do a lot to raise moral. This is especially appreciated by team members during extremely stressful periods.
Integrate playfulness to boost morale
Introducing games into a practice can be a fun way to lift spirits - reception bingo is known to be a popular one! This involves creating ‘bingo cards’ with different situations that the reception team come up against in the practice, which can help to take a little frustration away from challenging situations when they arise, encourage sharing of positive occurrences, and bring a more jovial atmosphere to the clinic.
Introduce mindfulness techniques
Mindfulness is not only relevant to selfcare but is also wonderful for groups. It can help with both reducing stress and team bonding. A few ideas include group meditations before a busy day or yoga in the park after a shift. Hanging up some posters with breathing techniques (or other mindfulness strategies) in the breakroom can serve as a helpful reminder for team members to implement these techniques too!
Organise team social events
When you really get along with the people you work with it makes your job a whole lot more enjoyable and a lot less stressful, so investing in social events within your practice team can be really worthwhile. We’ve heard of one team that ran an extremely successful ‘art therapy’ session with their practice staff, to bond and relax simultaneously.
Foster an environment where it’s okay to reach for support
Asking for help can be a confronting and difficult thing to do, especially in your place of work, so creating an environment in which people feel comfortable and supported in doing so can make all the difference. You may like to share around resources that promote selfcare and wellbeing, create an opportunity for discourse on the topic, and/or implement policies and procedures centred on mental, physical and emotional wellbeing. Take the time to think about what would help your team members to feel supported in their wellbeing, and show them that you really do care. It can have a greater impact than you might expect.
The healthcare industry is notoriously stressful and is renowned of high rates of burnout. So, putting the time and effort into really caring for yourself and you team can be extremely valuable. Some of the potential benefits we’ve observed include a higher retention rate, reduced sick leave use, improved role performance, reduced workplace conflict and happier team members that really engage and are committed to the practice.
Have a go at some of the above strategies or let us know your own ideas that have proved successful!
Additional resources to support the wellbeing of yourself and your team:
Healthcare worker wellbeing resource from Safer Care Victoria
Self-care and mental health resources for general practitioners from RACGP
The Augmentum team provides a broad range of consultancy and management services, supporting healthcare business owners and decision makers in other key areas such as human resources, strategy development and action planning, building effective foundations and teams, supporting team members, and driving growth and success. Get in touch to find out more, or check out our website www.augmentum.com.au
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