Employee Recognition & Engagement Resources

National Nurses Week (May 6-12, 2023) and National Hospital Week (May 7-13, 2023) is the perfect time to give your healthcare employee an extra dose of appreciation.

 Nurses play a vital role in the healthcare system, providing essential care and support to patients. They work long and often grueling hours, and they often face challenging and stressful situations.

National Nurses Week (May 6-12) is an opportunity to show appreciation for the dedication and commitment of nurses, and to raise awareness about the important work that they do. It is also a time to celebrate the profession of nursing and to recognize the many achievements of nurses.

Learning to adapt to a flexible work schedule in healthcare became even more important with the outbreak of Covid-19 at the beginning of 2020. We quickly saw that the healthcare sector is in dire need of reorganization and restructuring. 

Nurses, physicians, and other medical staff were overworked, and many countries experienced a lack of medical professionals. Since patient care is always a priority in healthcare, staff coverage and proper scheduling are crucial.

Let’s dive in and look deeper into all the ways the healthcare sector can adapt to flexible work schedules. 

The long shifts. The missed breaks. The grumpy patients. There are many reasons why burnout and fatigue run rampant in the healthcare industry. While we’ve covered in great detail how these issues impact nurses, they aren’t the only ones taking a hit. Emergency medical services workers are also feeling fatigue in record levels.

Luckily, there are steps your organization can take to help them!

2018 Safety Awareness Week is right around the corner, and that means your organization should be making plans now. While there are many ways to take part in the celebration, it’s important your awareness week focuses on the one area proven to improve patient safety more than any other — engagement.  

If you’re human, chances are you’ve suffered from burnout at least once in your professional career. But, the good news is it probably never put anyone’s life in jeopardy. However, the same can’t be said for workers in the healthcare industry. At any moment, their decisions can make the difference between life and death.

Unfortunately, burnout rates in the medical industry are among the highest on Earth. Luckily, there are steps your healthcare organization can take to significantly reduce employee burnout, and it all begins with employee engagement and recognition.

Here’s what you need to know.

Over the past few weeks, we at C.A. Short Company have focused exclusively on the role employee engagement plays in the healthcare industry. And, that’s because there’s a very good reason to do so. When healthcare employees are engaged, diseases decrease, profits soar, and lives are saved.

We have covered mortality rates, hospital-acquired conditions, medical errors, nurse and physician burnout, turnover rates, and the list goes on and on. While employee engagement in the healthcare industry is an incredibly serious matter, we’ve decided to have a little fun today, while also testing how well you’ve been paying attention.

You can take our 10-question quiz, “How Much Do You Know About Employee Engagement in Healthcare,” below.

“To save lives.”

Over our 80-year history in the employee engagement industry, we’ve spoken with thousands of healthcare workers. From doctors and nurses to CEOs of the nation’s largest healthcare providers, we always like to ask, “Why did you enter healthcare?” The answer is almost always the same – to save lives!

Patients desperately seeking treatment wind up getting worse, not better. Good nurses and doctors who sacrificed their lives to pursue a career in healthcare get so burned out they leave the industry they once loved. Hospitals that once prospered by providing their community with state of the art care now shutter their doors because they can no longer afford to operate.

These are not hypothetical scenarios, they’re what we’ve seen happen far too many times. Yes, we’ve seen the opposite too. C.A. Short Company has been blessed to work with some of the nation’s leading hospitals – ones who decided employee engagement would be a top priority and not just a bullet point on a meeting agenda.

This article isn’t about them -- or for that matter -- us.

It’s about what happens when employee engagement isn’t a priority. It’s about what happens when well-intentioned folks cause more harm than good. But, above all, it’s about how there’s still time to do better.