3.3.e Workplace Culture: Efficiency or Feelings?

The organization of health care in institutions is often focused on efficiency and standardized operating systems, but the actual work of providing care is dependent on the quality of relationships. Building and maintaining positive relationships takes time, focus, and energy; hence ‘relationship’ is often de-prioritized in favour of action and expedience.  However, evidence shows that sacrificing the time required to establish and maintain relationships ultimately reduces both efficient delivery of care and worker satisfaction.

Anticipating and Debriefing

When teams are able to acknowledge their interdependence and attend to their own relationship dynamics, they function better. To improve team functioning, teams can use “process protocols” by talking about what the team members are going to do, or expect from each other, before doing it, and engaging in team debriefs to review how they functioned as a team after an event (1). By anticipating each team member’s expectations, roles and contributions, and by acknowledging successes and challenges soon after a shared care event, misunderstandings and confusion can be avoided. Well functioning teams are able to personalize care and problem solve creatively.

Relating to Others

Working conditions in health care also can have a significant impact on the options that are available to service users. Workplace-based reactions like burnout, compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, moral distress, lateral stress, workplace-inspired grief, depression, or anxiety can affect how care providers relate to each other, how they perform, and how willing they are to individualize care (1).

A holistic model of self-care includes a healthy relationship with oneself, a relationship with others, and a relationship with ‘that which brings meaning to one's life’ (2). This means that care providers must find meaning in their work that aligns with their raison d’être (or core values).