How To Foster a Healthy Work Environment

Updated on March 11, 2021
How To Foster a Healthy Work Environment

Compared to other professions today, healthcare employees face many barriers that make achieving a safe work environment innately difficult. These barriers are created by individual and organizational factors that come together to form an unhealthy atmosphere.

Healthcare employees require a working culture that is safe and healthy for their well-being, as well as satisfying and fulfilling. To better improve the quality of care and staff retention, examine closely how to foster a healthy work environment.

Foster Skilled Communication and Feedback

Employees see daily operations in a different light and perspective than those in management or supervision. Therefore, skilled communication is the key to achieving solidarity between teams, which creates mutual respect. Proficiency in communication can not only strengthen collaboration but also optimize clinical outcomes for staff and patients alike.

Welcoming and encouraging feedback between employees provides opportunities for better productivity, boosted empowerment, and smoother operations. Skills in listening, conflict management, negotiation, and advocacy all contribute to ideal development—this development, in turn, fosters a flourishing environment.

Provide Appropriate Staffing

Appropriate staffing is another matter that assures a welcoming atmosphere. Adequate staffing assures that patient needs are equally matched with current staff competency. Providing support services at each activity level is one way to foster a healthy work environment. A healthcare facility should evaluate the direct effect of their staffing decisions to better manage workplace stress.

Being fully aware of OSHA’s regulated safety standards also helps to provide an environment that promotes safe practices for patient care. Just as healthcare workers are responsible for their patients, healthcare employers have a duty to provide a workplace setting that’s free from potential risks and threats.

Invest in Quality Training

If success and optimal outcomes are desired, then healthcare staff need everything provided for that outcome since day one of their employment. This means establishing and enforcing policies, as well as formal structures and processes. Healthcare organizations achieve this through quality training.

Training allows employees to truly flourish, as it directly gives them the information and hands-on approaches needed to thrive in their roles. When taken into account, that feeling of satisfaction is paramount to enjoying one’s work environment.