All the stories in the news are filled with sadness. Whether about the current economic climate, the gross failing of the NHS for elderly patients, or of the changes the National Health Service faces, changes which seem so unpredictable and unsafe. Morale is low and as a manager your team look to you for guidance, and yet as managers we often feel the most pressure in these times of uncertainty due to the responsibility we hold for our teams and departments.
With the pressure of one budget cut to the next whilst simultaneously trying, against the odds, to maintain a service of high quality, I can often find myself trapped in my office for days fighting the battles I am protecting my staff from. Yet this action, of sometimes becoming invisible, can dangerously loosen your teams faith in your control and management.
In the face of these difficult times there are two things you must remember.
Firstly, is that a gesture of kindness and thanks to your team can bring powerful reward. It may not be possible to have a visible presence every day and this is alright so long as the presence you have is sincere and inclusive. When I walk around my department and talk to my staff I find that they bring me solutions to problems that I would otherwise fail to find alone. I ask staff for ideas to improve patient experience and to improve efficiency and they are always eager to provide them. They thrive on being involved in the decisions I make and being listened to. As to be genuinely heard gives a sense of true importance and responsibility.
By involving your team in this way they are more forgiving of the times you have to distance yourself to manage the more complex and pressing issues alone. They trust that you are not abandoning them, and have trust in themselves that they can manage the service to allow you this time.
Thanking staff for the jobs they do and for the contributions they bring to the team takes no effort. Showing acts of kindness are simple, usually free and always powerful. I find bringing in donuts and getting staff together for a quick catch up on a quiet Friday afternoon works well, and always remembering to thank individuals for times they have been markedly hardworking shows you notice and are grateful for their efforts and this only encourages more hard work.
Secondly, is to remember that for every negative news story about the NHS, and every serious failing, there are hundreds and thousands of patients lives that have been improved, or saved, by the work we do. This is so commonly forgotten but it is our failure to keep this in mind that these failings occur at all.
My latest project is for my staff to submit a case report each month. This case report is a description of a patient interaction where they feel they have significantly contributed to a patients experience and well being. This may be a diagnosis made on a Holter monitor or on echo, optimisation of a CRT-P, making a cup of tea for a patient awaiting transport or volunteering half a lunch break once a week to sit on a ward and help a patient to eat their lunch when they might otherwise go hungry if left unassisted.
By submitting this case report my staff are able to highlight the good work they have done, but also by merit of this reflective practice they are incentivised to look at making each patients experience positive, not only for the benefit of the patient but for them as NHS workers. Complacency in our work is dangerous so sometimes we have to find incentives that appeal to the audience we have. All my staff strive to deliver good patient care, but giving them personal reward for the job they do can help prevent that complacency from creeping in.
Keeping this NHS from failing and positively encouraging it’s improvement starts from the bottom up. As a manager you must take responsibility for this and helping your staff to believe in the work we do is fundamental. We must all believe that we can improve and be the best we can be. For our staff to truly believe this they must see this conviction in you too. You must display this ethos proudly and reward them for each effort they make to bring your department up to the highest standard. Most importantly knowing that, as the manager, you hold responsibility for the success of your team and equally for its failings.
I think the moral here is to remember, despite the news and the negativity surrounding the NHS, that there really are people whose lives we change for the better, and we must equally not become complacent of that.
