Company Culture

Healthcare workforce shortages are affecting all aspects of patient care, and the shortages are only expected to get worse. The American Nurses Association recently called upon Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to declare the ongoing nursing shortage to be a national crisis.

Many organizations commit to enhancing both diversity and inclusion, but most companies end up pushing diversity measures while falling short on improving inclusion. Diversity is easier to measure concretely through data collected from applicants and employees. As long as people are willing to disclose demographic information, you can monitor diversity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has vividly illustrated the high-stakes complexity of healthcare ethics and compliance. In the face of supply shortages, healthcare organizations have been forced to make life-and-death decisions regarding who can receive complete care and who can’t. But when confronted with these incredibly difficult decisions, a strong culture of ethics and compliance provides guidance.

Recruiting and retaining top candidates has long been a challenge for the healthcare industry. Besides the risk of working around patients with infectious disease, as seen in the COVID-19 outbreak, healthcare organizations and their workers face a number of other difficulties:

“Put yourself in the other person’s shoes” is commonly expressed to someone who lacks understanding or compassion for another person’s situation or point of view. In fact, to have compassion, experts say is to be able to live with the other's misfortune but also to feel with him any emotion such as joy, happiness, anxiety, pain and even fear. Not only is compassion important for effective team building in the workplace, but in healthcare, it’s also critical for developing empathetic employees who care for vulnerable patients every day.

A lot of organizations boast about having a people-centered culture, but how does that apply in the healthcare sector, where outcomes can literally mean life or death, and workers are under constant strain to deliver top-quality care?

At its core, a people-centered culture is one that puts the human element at the top of its strategic priorities — the patients they serve, of course, but also those internally and externally who get the job done of serving those vulnerable populations. It promotes open dialogue, constant feedback, mentorship and transparency.

In a highly regulated industry where privacy is a mandate, cultural transparency might seem like an odd fit for healthcare organizations. But a transparent culture can foster trust and collaboration, and result in improved quality of care and outcomes. That’s because a culture of transparency, when implemented correctly, is all about learning and improving.

Company culture has been a hot topic for employers across all sectors in recent years, and for good reason. According to Josh Bersin, Founder and Principal at Bersin by Deloitte, there is a retention crisis and research reveals that establishing a successful culture is among the top three talent challenges facing business leaders today.