Managing Professional Burnout: Strategies for Healthcare HR Professionals
Due to increased demand for care, healthcare staff face high workloads, irregular schedules, and stressful situations. This often leads to professional burnout and high staff turnover rates, compromising care quality and job satisfaction. What strategies can be implemented to preserve the mental health of medical personnel?
Healthcare: A Stressed Sector
According to the WHO, professional burnout is "a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed." Several factors contribute to this:
Staff shortage: In the medical sector, all positions must be filled to care for patients. Staff shortages result in overtime and increased workloads to manage a higher number of patients, leading to physical and mental fatigue, decreased productivity, medical errors, absenteeism, and departures.
Innovation: Besides constant advancements in medications and treatments, the medical sector increasingly relies on technology to modernize equipment and surgical techniques. Staff must adapt to these innovations while maintaining transparent and connected patient relations, adding to stress.
Exposure to risks: Staff are continually exposed to health risks (infections) from contact with sick patients in overcrowded facilities where protective equipment, safe facilities, and prevention measures may be insufficient. Psychological risks also exist due to the emotional burden of the job. Patient deaths or verbal abuse can be stressful and traumatic, influencing staff well-being.
Professional Burnout: A Problem in Healthcare
Alarming Figures
According to surveys, nursing has the highest professional burnout rate at 70%. Nurses often feel they can do more than permitted or are unable to provide adequate care due to high patient loads. Overwork triples the risk of professional burnout, leading to intentions to leave the job. About one-third of nurses (32%) consider leaving the profession, while over half of physicians and other healthcare professionals feel exhausted, stressed, and ready to quit due to factors such as staffing shortages, low salaries, mental and emotional strain, job insecurity, inflexibility, and lack of support.
Cause and Effect
Staff burnout results from both staffing deficiencies and high turnover rates, causing a cumulative effect. Burnout affects patients as medical staff struggle with emotional, mental, and physical fatigue, impairing patient relations and care.
Tips to Prevent Healthcare Staff Burnout
By actively listening to staff, considering their needs, and supporting their learning and career development, HR managers can prevent burnout:
- Encourage open dialogue to assess well-being, understand needs, and listen to improvement suggestions. Tools like 360-degree surveys or motivation and satisfaction questionnaires for employees or teams are useful for empathy.
- Provide recognition and rewards (praise, bonuses, promotions) for highly engaged employees.
- Invest in training and professional development to keep staff up to date on industry trends, best practices, medical and technological advancements. Motivation and satisfaction measurement tools help tailor career development and training programs.
- Reduce workload: Use advanced analytics to anticipate care demand and align resources in real-time; rethink roles and processes with new technology (digitization, automation of administrative tasks) to reduce working hours; explore reliable and efficient recruitment methods. Psychometric assessment tests (personality inventories, cognitive ability tests) can assist in this.
"Every member of the healthcare team is crucial to patient outcomes and experiences," says Dr. Lisa Rotenstein, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. "It's vital to remember this as we strive to optimize both patient outcomes and our staff's experiences." Healthcare staff burnout is a significant issue facing healthcare facilities and HR professionals in this sector. It is imperative to address it to preserve employee mental health and ensure exemplary care quality.