How Sweet Is YOUR Song?

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As the daughter of two Norwegian immigrants, I grew up hearing plenty of sayings from “the old country.”  For example, if I complained that my shoes weren’t the latest style or that my brother was teasing me, I heard:

“Aldri så vondt at det ikkje kunne vore verre,”  which translates “There is nothing so bad that it cannot be worse.”

Recently, I remembered another saying from Norway: “Some dei gamle sungo, so kveda dei unge.” In English, it means “As the old birds sing, so do the young ones tweet.”

The original saying was a cautionary tale to parents, warning them that their children would follow their example—be it good or bad.   But, as I pondered the harsh truth that the average nurse aide in this country is about 40 and the average nurse is pushing 50, I couldn’t help but apply this old proverb to the nursing profession.  Isn’t it true that as the old nurses “sing,” so do the young nurses “tweet?”  (And I’m not talking about Twitter!)

Consider these two examples:

Sharon has been a nursing assistant at the same facility for 35 years and is very proud of her career. She settled into her own way of doing things a long time ago and lets every new nurse aide know that her methods are the best.  Sharon has no time for small talk, tends to bark orders at her younger co-workers and sees no point in praising newly hired employees simply for doing their jobs.  Over the years, Sharon has chased away many young nurses and nursing assistants.  The ones who stayed have fallen in line with Sharon’s work style.

Just a year away from retirement, Milly can’t wait to leave her nursing career behind her.  She hates all the changes she’s been made to endure at her workplace and is very vocal about her feelings.  Negative energy surrounds her like a dark cloud.  For example, Milly warns every new employee that the administration doesn’t really care about the nursing staff and she laughs when she hears a group of nursing assistants talking about going to nursing school. “You are all crazy! Don’t do it…you’ll be sorry!”  Unfortunately, Milly’s constant griping is contagious and many of her co-workers voice their complaints, too.

In my opinion, all of us who fall into nursing’s “senior” generation have a responsibility to the profession—and to all the nurses and nursing assistants we will leave behind when we retire.  The “song” we sing now stands to impact the future of nursing for years to come. So, regardless of our personal feelings, we need to pay attention to how we behave around our co-workers, so that when we leave nursing, the refrain we leave behind is a positive one.

And, if that isn’t motivation enough, remember that if our song is “out of tune” and we fail to nurture and support our younger co-workers, someday those same unhappy and disgruntled people will be our caregivers!

So, fess up…how sweet is the song you’ve been singing about nursing?

And the Survey Says…

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If you were asked about the professionalism of your employees, what would you say?  That question was posed to hundreds of HR professionals, supervisors and managers across the U.S. by the Center for Professional Excellence at York College of Pennsylvania.  The researchers compiled the responses into their 2012 Professionalism in the Workplace Study.   

This is the third annual study done by the Center and, unfortunately, a large percentage of respondents believe that professionalism among new hires has decreased in the last five years.  Which unprofessional qualities were mentioned most often? They include:

  • Inappropriate appearance
  • Lack of dedication
  • Poor work ethic
  • Sense of entitlement
  • Disrespect
  • Poor communication skills
  • Being unfocused
  • Having a poor attitude

If you take a closer look at these eight qualities, don’t they all boil down to an employee’s level of self-awareness?  People who are highly self-aware understand that they are not the center of the universe BUT that everything they say and do can affect the people around them.  They recognize that their own thoughts and feelings can lead them to act in a way that is either helpful or harmful–to themselves and to others.

Consider CNA #1, Sara.  When she shows up for work, it’s usually ten to fifteen minutes late and she’s wearing stained, wrinkled scrubs.  As she completes her patient assignment, she does the bare minimum. Sara has a hard time staying on task, preferring to stand around and gossip about both patients and fellow employees.  She gets into shouting matches with her co-workers on a weekly basis.  Last week, when you counseled her about her work performance, she got defensive and acted as if she’s doing you a favor by showing up for work.

Obviously, Sara does not see herself as others do.  It’s doubtful that she has taken time to examine her personal values and to evaluate whether her behavior meets those standards.  Her actions reflect a lack of respect for herself and for others.  Her lack of self-awareness is contributing big time to her unprofessional behavior.

Compare Sara to CNA #2, Margaret.  While she makes mistakes and has bad days, Margaret acknowledges (and apologizes for) her failings and tries to learn from them.  Most days, she arrives at work with a smile on her face, ready to tackle whatever assignment she is given.  She is always eager to help out a co-worker and treats everyone on the team with respect.  She is proud to be a nursing assistant which is obvious by her neat appearance and caring manner.  She knows that her time management skills could be better and she’s asked you for tips to help her be more efficient.

Margaret isn’t perfect…but it’s clear that she has more self-awareness than Sara.  Margaret knows that she values efficiency but needs to improve her time management skills.  She values her job, a positive attitude and teamwork—and her actions reflect those values.  Her level of self-awareness adds to her professionalism and makes her a more valuable employee than Sara.

How self-aware are your employees? Here’s a simple, non-threatening way to begin a discussion of self-awareness among your staff.  Download and distribute our questionnaire, How Self-Aware Are You?  You could hand it out at your next staff or inservice meeting or include it with a paycheck.  To save paper, you could email it to employees or post a copy of the questions—and answer key—in the employee breakroom or bathroom.  No matter how you use it, this questionnaire can help get the self-awareness ball rolling by offering some food for thought for both you and your employees.  What have you got to lose except maybe some unprofessional behavior?

Top 5 Benefits of Civility Training

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Does your organization suffer from a hidden culture of incivility—opening the door for dangerous medical errors, poor patient satisfaction and higher employee turnover? If so, you are not alone. In 2008, The Joint Commission recognized the widespread problem of “behaviors that undermine a culture of safety.”  In fact, uncivil behavior among healthcare employees now constitutes a sentinel event!

To combat this pervasive problem, The Joint Commission recommends that all accredited healthcare organizations be responsible for handling and preventing incivility in the workplace. In the Know’s REAL Healthcare Reform Civility Training Program makes fulfilling this recommendation easy.  Based on our popular book, “The REAL Healthcare Reform,” ITK’s program is a complete turnkey solution that contains everything you need to get a civility training program up and running immediately.

So, aside from meeting TJC’s recommendation, what’s in it for you? Healthcare organizations that implement civility training find that it:

  1. Reduces costly medical errors. Incivility ruins communication among your employees and poor communication is a direct threat to patient safety. Civility training decreases dangerous and potentially deadly medical errors by improving teamwork and communication.
  2. Increases employee retention. A staggering number of healthcare employees report having quit a job because of incivility. Civility training improves employee retention at every level, saving your organization the precious time and money involved in hiring and training new employees.
  3. Cuts down on “call-outs” and absenteeism. Working in a culture of incivility leads to more absenteeism.  As many as 47% of healthcare employees report spending less time at work because of incivility. Civility training creates an atmosphere that energizes and inspires those who are in it. Employees who are energized and inspired will look forward to coming to work, thus reducing the rate of absenteeism.
  4. Eliminates conflict and drama. Incivility leads to conflict and conflict equals DRAMA! Healthcare professionals who embrace civility are less likely to burn out, bully or “eat their young!” This means less conflict and drama among your employees!
  5. Improves client satisfaction and enhances the organizations reputation. Disgruntled, dissatisfied and disengaged employees don’t provide quality care to the clients they serve.  This leads to a decrease in client satisfaction. Clients who are dissatisfied with the care they receive share their negative experience with others in the community.  If your organizations embraces civility, you will enjoy improved client satisfaction and an enhanced reputation in the community.

Our Civility Training packages are available for as few as 12 learners and come complete with a copy of The REAL Healthcare Reform for each learner plus an Instructor’s Manual for the educator. You will find the Instructor’s Manual full of engaging classroom activities, thought-provoking discussion questions, convenient PowerPoint presentations, tips for improving participation and a CD with master copies of all the handouts and presentations.

The program materials are appropriate for every individual in your organization, clinical and non-clinical alike. Administrators, managers, nurses, aides, secretaries, and everyone in between, will find the program easy to use and understand. In addition, the program provides six hours of inservice credit for all your Certified Nursing Assistants.

To learn more about In the Know’s Civility Training Program, visit Embracing Civility then call 877-809-5515 to order your program today!

Nurses: Don’t Slam the Door Shut!

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“When you’ve…walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you. You reach back, and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed.”  ~ Michelle Obama

Regardless of your politics, it’s impossible to deny the truth of Mrs. Obama’s recent statement. It’s a truth that all of us who work in healthcare need to keep in mind. As you know, there is an epidemic of incivility racing through healthcare workplaces everywhere. Get a group of nurses together and, before long, the personal experiences with incivility come out:

“My first nursing job was in a toxic environment.  I was warned about the ‘strong personalities’ there and that I would need to learn to ‘stand my ground’ to succeed.  The worst offenders were two experienced, middle-aged male nurses who called themselves ‘silverbacks.’ They felt it was their responsibility to weed out the new, young nurses with disrespect and harassment. Those who could cut it were worthy of working there; those who could not had no choice but to leave.”

“Every morning, the charge nurse lined up us new grads and asked, ‘Ok, who’s gonna cry today?’ It was awful. Since I am not the type of gal to cry at work, I had an immediate target on me.  This nurse went nose-to-nose with me in front of all my co-workers and told me it was going to be her mission to make sure I failed at my job.”

“When I started my first job, there was an experienced nurse who terrified me—and that was 20 years ago.  I still remember her clearly and, when I think about her, I feel like a shaky new grad all over again.”

Some nurses might claim to have the answer to this issue, but their “solutions” only serve to promote more incivility:

“I think to avoid getting ‘eaten,’ new nurses have to act like clean slates and really listen to what their experienced colleagues say. We have been around the block and back and can dazzle them with the information stored in our brains.”

“I am harder on new employees who can’t admit when they don’t know what they are doing. They are very easy to spot and will harm patients if I don’t knock their pride down a notch or two.”

“There are levels in nursing (CNA, LPN, RN, head nurse, supervisor) and you have to play the levels — it’s a skill and it’s one of the most important skills not taught in nursing school. You have to prove that you respect the levels below you, and you have to be humble to the levels above. If you get it wrong, you’re sunk.”

All of the above statements came from experienced nurses. Some of them have worked as a nurse for 30 years or more. While they may not look at it this way, they were given the opportunity to make their mark on the healthcare field. They chose their career paths among the countless possibilities open to nurses. The same goes for you and me. We “walked through the doorway of opportunity” and have made our career choices, practicing nursing in our preferred settings. Now, we must be careful not to “slam the door shut behind us.”

It’s vital that we extend our hands to new grads, as they are the future of healthcare. Here are a few suggestions for how we can accomplish this:

  • Take personal responsibility for becoming a better preceptor, mentor or manager. If you never received training specific to your leadership role, seek out resources. Look for seminars, online training or books that might expand your leadership skills. If you know someone who excels as a leader, ask for words of wisdom on how to be a better mentor.
  • Forget about the past. Just because you may have been hazed as a new grad doesn’t mean you have to run roughshod over today’s young nurses. Consider this: the new grads you are training today may be the nurses who care for you or your loved ones in the future. So share your skills and knowledge with them in a manner that exudes workplace civility.
  • Stay excited about change. Young nurses may have learned different patient care techniques and strategies. Before you dismiss their ideas out of hand, think about all the changes that have taken place in healthcare since your first day as a nurse. Maybe some of your own patient care ideas have been implemented over the years. So rather than feeling “put out” or defensive when a new nurse questions your work, take a moment to consider that there may indeed be a better way of doing something.

You probably have other ideas for how we can “reach back” and give new nurses the best chance to succeed in their chosen field…and we’d love to hear them! So, please add your comments below. All of us experienced nurses have the power to eradicate that old “nurses eat their young” saying. Let’s turn it around so that the widespread perception becomes “nurses nurture their young.” Are you with me?

In the Healthcare Workplace: Compliments that Count

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If you’re like most nurses, you are well-trained in goal setting. You know that, to be meaningful, goals must be both specific and measurable.  Have you ever considered that the same is true of compliments?  In general, specific and measurable compliments accomplish two things: 1) they demonstrate your sincerity to the recipient; and 2) they help the person feel deserving of the praise.

Think about it. You’ve probably had a friend say to you, “You look nice today.” While that’s a kind thing to say, a broad compliment like that opens the door to negative thoughts like, “Gosh, does that mean that I usually look like a mess?” or “She doesn’t really mean that.” or “She probably says that to everyone.” It’s easy to doubt the sincerity of the compliment and/or brush it off as undeserved.

Let’s make that same compliment specific and measurable.  Your friend says to you, “I really like that color on you. It makes your eyes pop.” Hearing distinct feedback like that usually leads to positive thoughts such as, “Wow, I should look for more clothes this color.” or “She really means that.” or “It’s nice that she took the time to notice what I was wearing.”

It’s clear that being conscious of how you word your compliments and praise is important. The same holds true in the workplace.  For example, Sandy, an RN, wanted to express her appreciation to Sam, a CNA who had gone out of his way to help her with a patient:

Sandy says, “Sam, you were a lifesaver today. Thanks!” While Sam says, “You’re welcome,” inside he is thinking, “Today? She appreciates my help today? What about every other day?”

Now look at the difference it makes to change the wording to make the praise both specific and measurable:

Sandy says, “Sam, you were a lifesaver with Mr. Reynolds. I was so impressed that you seemed to know what he needed before he said a word. You obviously pay close attention to your patients’ nonverbal cues.”

Admittedly, being specific in your appreciation of your staff and/or co-workers takes more time than just firing off a quick “thank you.”  But, try it and see if you notice a difference in how your words are received.  Remember Newton’s Third Law?  For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So, by giving compliments that demonstrate your thoughtfulness and respect for others, you should see an equal response coming back your way.

Need a little help getting started? Here are some simple phrases, courtesy of writer and motivational speaker, Glenn Van Ekeren:

  • “I appreciate the way you…”
  • “Thanks for going all out when you…”
  • “One of the things I enjoy most about you is…”
  • “Our team couldn’t be successful without your…”
  • “You did an outstanding job of…”
  • “It’s evident that you have the ability to…”
  • “I admire the way you take the time to…”
  • “What a great idea you had to…”
  • “You are doing a top-notch job of…”

Until next time, thanks so much for taking time out of your day to read this article!

Linda