By K. Richard Douglas
Aristotle once stated that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” The phrase describes what today would be termed “synergy.” In the workplace, this concept means that a team, or an entire workforce, combines to achieve more together than could be achieved by any individual.
This synergy, based on cooperation and interaction, provides a product or service that relies on the collective efforts of the entire employee contingent and management.
One of the elements that is intrinsic to the success of this synergy is the attitude and motivation of the employees.
In many jobs, the attitude is; “another day, another dollar.” Maybe the job involves monotonous work. Maybe it isn’t a worker’s dream job and/or maybe the job has even become a burden. There has to be a way to turn that image of work 180-degrees and make the experience enjoyable and fulfilling.
The important focus for organizations and leadership should be – What leads to job satisfaction? What type of environment lets employees feel appreciated? What can management do to show respect to staff and enrich their work experience?
While compensation is a variable that is unquestionably prized by workers, there are other components of the work experience that provide fulfillment and contribute to an employee feeling valued.
This is not a novel idea; it has turned up in studies of worker satisfaction over several decades. Employees like to feel appreciated. They are spending a third of their lives in the workplace and contributing intellectual capital, physical exertion and time away from family.
Appreciation is an important component of job satisfaction, and it turns up in studies consistently. Workers want appreciation from their bosses and colleagues.
Recognition and appreciation are intangibles that enhance the work experience and relegate remuneration to a distant second in terms of the job satisfaction. When the team and coworkers feel more like a family, the dynamics of the work experience change substantially and ownership of team goals becomes more personal.
“I have employed a number of techniques to keep my teams engaged over the years. First, an engaged leader helps keep the team connected and motivated. Stay positive – view the world as glass half full. Give everyone the attention that they need – not everyone is the same and some people need more or less attention than others,” says Greg Czajka, support services operations director of operations and strategy for Advocate Health in Wisconsin.
Czajka says, “Praise in public; coach in private.”
“Always assume the best intent and thank them often! Send out handwritten thank you cards to their homes. Always communicate the ‘why’ when asking them to do something. And last, but not least, spontaneous treats are always welcome in HTM,” Czajka adds.
Recognition and Knowing Staff Better
At the fall 2022 MD Expo in Temecula, California, Alan Gresch, then vice president of healthcare strategy for Accruent, gave a presentation titled: “How to Effectively Motivate Staff.”
This is a topic that Gresch has given plenty of thought to. In 2009, he wrote “Developing a Career Ladder” and “A Tale of Two Orientation Programs” for AAMI’s Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology publication.
Gresch says that one goal for any employer is to retain existing staff. He also says that leadership wants to create an environment where that organization is the “employer of choice.”
The gist of Gresch’s presentation is that if employees feel both satisfaction and engagement with their jobs, and they see their role as important in the organization, doing good for both patients and clinicians, then retention and job-approval are by-products.
As proof of the effectiveness of this approach, when he was in leadership with Aurora Health Care, his department’s turnover, apart from retirements, was zero.
One of Gresch’s points is that leadership really needs to “know” their staff. This doesn’t only mean knowing something about each person, but also being aware of accomplishments that really help the team and organization.
Yet, getting to know staff really well in an age of protected personal information and more impersonal means for communicating may make this approach challenging.
Gresch says that he has found several ways that work well.
“First, we held quarterly staff meetings where we brought everyone from across the system together in a large auditorium. In this meeting, I opened by providing updates on the things we had accomplished in the previous quarter and sometimes brought in guest speakers – often leaders of clinical departments – to talk about how the work we do has an impact on their ability to provide the best possible patient care,” he says.
Gresch says that at a point during the meeting, they would have breakouts that were dedicated to a specific area of the business (imaging service, biomedical service, business development and finance, operations support).
“It was during this time that I met with all the new hires from the previous quarter. It gave them a chance to get to know me on a more personal level and what I was all about. It gave me a chance to learn more about them individually, what brought them to us and what their long-term goals were,” he says.
He also points out that it was his expectation that every manager and supervisor on his team be constantly on the lookout for team members that went above and beyond.
“With this information, not only would I take the opportunity to thank them with a handwritten note and/or thank you card, but I would also report it to the regional vice presidents at the quarterly business review meetings I had scheduled. Regularly showing the team that all the credit for the great things we did was going to them and was extremely motivating,” Gresch says.
He says that a third point is that because his employer was a large system – 15 hospitals – he needed to regularly travel to the different sites for meetings with clinical leaders, financial leaders or administrators.
“I never missed the opportunity to stop in the HTM department at that site to check in with the staff. Every one of these check-ins were personal in nature. Over time, I got to learn the names of their wives and kids and significant things that were going on in their lives. I didn’t need HR for that,” Gresch says.
“Lastly, if you take the orientation and onboarding process seriously, this is the best time to collect all the relevant information about your new team members. If you’re missing any information about existing staff, just ask them. None of this is prohibitive from a time perspective,” Gresch adds.
Recognize Different Personalities
Part of building synergy is building a team out of employees who enjoy their time together while bringing together different personality types.
“I think motivation is one of the components to a staff member being successful. Motivation is not just a great speech, but it’s about your actions. We have two types of motivations; positive and negative motivation. Some biomeds are introverts. Then you have people like myself who are extraverts (never met a stranger),” says Bryant K. Hawkins Sr., TRIMEDX biomed department site manager at Children’s Hospital of New Orleans.
He says that to motivate staff members, they must first be part of a great group.
“So, before we can motivate, we need to make sure they all get along. My first step for motivating my staff is making sure the group really enjoys working with each other,” Hawkins says.
Hawkins says that key components of motivation include a passion to achieve happiness and a passion to avoid negative things. He says that some technicians are motivated by the rewards of achieving goals while others simply want to avoid risk. He says that it is leadership’s job to know what motivates their staff members.
“We need to tap into our staff motivations instead of coming up with this great motivational speech. Why do we need to care about motivation if we were considering hiring someone? Their resume only shows what they can do, and not what they will do. So, when you hire someone to your team, make sure they will gel with your team,” Hawkins says.
He says that inspiring staff members is more likely than motivating them.
“People who are unmotivated does not mean they are not motivated. They may not gel with the team culture. They can also be scared or unprepared. We should not label them as unmotivated. To motivate someone, we need to inspire them. If you can accomplish that, they won’t take a job just to make more money, but would want to stay with the wonderful people they work for,” Hawkins adds.
Goals – One Step at a Time
An important component of motivating staff and new hires is to provide a concise career ladder for those who seek advancement in their careers. As mentioned earlier, Gresch wrote an article for AAMI titled: “Developing a Career Ladder.”
In the article, Gresch points out that a new hire would have to seek career advancement fulfillment elsewhere if your organization doesn’t offer opportunities to advance a career and move ahead. Some of Gresch’s requirements for a workable career ladder include: setting expectations for future performance, acknowledging an individual’s performance and accomplishments, providing career growth opportunities and linking the steps to job descriptions, competency standards and performance.
These things should be linked to department goals as well.
Gresch says that timeframes were irrelevant to achieving steps in the ladder. Instead, he summarized the criteria as: effort + initiative + business need = promotion.
Another component of staff satisfaction comes from a combination of the goals expressed during daily or weekly “huddles” combined with feedback and gratitude expressed by leadership for goals attained.
“This is something I got from ‘The 4 Disciplines of Execution’ by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling. It equates to a method of keeping score and is an indicator to your team that you’re winning. That in and of itself is motivating. Everyone wants to play for a winning team. The culture you create is that you all own the winning and the achievement of goals is a team effort. The huddles are a way to celebrate when you’re on track and give kudos to the team for their efforts. If you’re not on track, you provide a forum to brainstorm ways to get back on track and identify who needs help to overcome obstacles. This is a much more effective method than swinging a big stick,” Gresch explains.
Focusing on only offering the highest starting salary is mostly a non-starter in the totality of Gresch’s approach. Being competitive in the marketplace is OK, but a focus on salary as the only reward of employment does not draw the best candidates.
“I worked very closely with my HR department to complete a regular equity analysis every few years. This gave us assurances that we were in line with the going rate for positions. I also worked with them on developing verbiage for attractive postings. This is where we called out the quality aspects of the role. If you’re looking to make $1 or $2 more an hour and that’s your main motivation, I probably don’t want you on my team anyway. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a place that is intent on helping you become the best version of yourself, provides the greatest opportunity for growth if you apply yourself, and genuinely cares about you as a human being, then this is the place you want to be,” Gresch says.
He says that his staff members were absolutely the best recruitment tool he had. This was true also for former imaging field service engineers (FSE) who worked in the department and referred other OEM FSEs to the department.
A CE or biomed department, made up of self-motivated and satisfied staff members, will achieve a level of service for their customers that will be superior by every measure. When employees are completely satisfied and engaged in their work life, then the concept of a job changes and the focus is shifted to common goals and a positive environment. That’s when team members become the best recruiters.
