Creating and maintaining a healthy culture is important for all employers, including those in the Animal Health industry and Veterinary profession. Without a healthy culture, not only is it more difficult to retain your current employees (especially your top employees), but it’s also more challenging to recruit and hire top talent in a tight market.
Unfortunately, there are numerous variables associated with creating and maintaining a healthy culture. While employee burnout and turnover are more of a problem within the Veterinary profession, that does not mean the Animal Health industry is immune to the pitfalls of an unhealthy company culture. In fact, just the opposite is the case. After all, the Great Resignation was not that long ago, and the National Unemployment Rate is still hovering near an all-time low.
With all of this in mind, regular health checks of your Veterinary practice or Animal Health organization are critical in four key areas:
- Managing stress
- Preventing overworking
- Maintaining emotional health
- Reducing staff burnout
In this article, I would like to explore each of these four areas individually and provide strategies for addressing them within your organization. While there might be some areas of overlap, keep in mind that it’s better to have redundancy in these areas rather than having “holes” or “blind spots” that can negatively affect the long-term health and well-being of both your employees and your organization.
Assessing Stress Levels
Stress is an inherent aspect of Veterinary practices in particular, driven by high workloads, emotionally charged interactions, and demanding expectations from pet owners. Effectively measuring and managing stress within your team involves several key strategies, which I’ve listed below.
Surveys and Feedback: Implementing anonymous surveys that focus on stress levels and their triggers provides a crucial baseline for understanding the internal dynamics of your practice. These surveys should be comprehensive, covering various aspects of the job and personal responses to these stressors. Analyze the feedback regularly to identify trends and areas requiring immediate attention.
Regular Meetings: Consistent communication is vital in a high-stress environment. Hold frequent one-on-one check-ins and team meetings to provide a forum for discussing stressors openly. These meetings should not only serve as venting sessions, but also as opportunities to collaboratively seek solutions and make strategic adjustments to workflows.
Observation: Train managers and senior staff to recognize the early signs of stress, such as irritability, fatigue, or a drop in productivity. Observation helps in early identification and intervention, preventing the escalation of stress into more severe issues like chronic anxiety or depression.
Addressing Overworking
Veterinary staff often face long hours and unpredictable work due to emergencies, which can lead to overworking. And as I mentioned above, Animal Health professionals are not immune to overworking. To help combat this, effective management strategies must be employed.
Clear Scheduling: Develop transparent and equitable scheduling systems. Ensure that workloads are balanced and that there are clear expectations regarding on-call duties. Implement a rotating system to fairly distribute these more demanding shifts, reducing resentment and fatigue.
Time Management Training: Equip your team with skills to manage their workload efficiently. This can involve workshops on setting realistic daily goals, prioritizing tasks, and using time-saving technologies. Effective time management reduces feelings of being overwhelmed and enhances productivity.
Adequate Staffing: Regular assessments of staffing needs can prevent overloading your existing team. Consider whether your practice or organization has enough personnel to handle the volume of work without compromising on the quality of the results. Hiring additional staff or part-time support during peak times can alleviate pressure on full-time employees.
Enhancing Emotional Health
The emotional challenges for Animal Health organizations and Veterinary practices, such as dealing with suffering animals and emotional pet owners, are profound. Protecting the emotional health of your staff requires a multi-pronged approach, which I have outlined below.
Support Systems: Establish robust support mechanisms within your organization. This could include access to mental health professionals, creating peer support groups, or setting up regular debriefing sessions after particularly distressing cases. Providing these resources supports staff in managing the emotional demands of their work.
Training on Emotional Resilience: Offer regular training sessions aimed at developing emotional resilience. Techniques can include mindfulness, stress management, and effective communication skills. Training should also cover recognizing and managing compassion fatigue, which is prevalent in caregiving professions.
Creating a Positive Work Environment: A supportive workplace culture is crucial for emotional health. Strive to create an environment where kindness and mutual support are the norms. Regular recognition of staff efforts, celebrating team successes, and encouraging a friendly workplace can enhance overall morale and job satisfaction.
Preventing Staff Burnout
Burnout is a significant risk, especially in the Veterinary profession, characterized by exhaustion, cynicism, and feelings of reduced personal accomplishment. I have provided a list of preventative measures below.
Work-Life Integration: Encourage a healthy integration between personal life and work demands. Implement policies that support flexible working hours, encourage taking full lunch breaks, and strictly enforce vacation time. Promoting a culture where staff feel empowered to request time off for rest and recovery is essential.
Career Development Opportunities: Facilitate continuous professional development and clear career progression paths. Opportunities for further education, specialization, and leadership roles can increase job satisfaction and personal investment in the organization.
Regular Burnout Assessments: Integrate routine evaluations for burnout into your practice’s operations. This could be through self-assessment tools, manager evaluations, or discussions during reviews. Promptly address any signs of burnout with targeted interventions, such as workload adjustments, mentoring, or professional support.
Maintaining the overall health of a Veterinary practice or Animal Health organization through the building and maintaining of a positive company culture is a multi-faceted initiative. Only focusing on one area is not enough. Instead, focus your energy on the four areas outlined above—stress, overworking, emotional health, and burnout. Doing so will not only help to create a healthier workplace, but it will also lead to better overall results for your practice or organization.
And yes, it will require more time, dedication, and flexibility. But it will absolutely be worth it in the long run.
We invite you to find out more about our Veterinary recruiting services for employers and also learn more about our recruiting process and how we can help you hire more veterinarians this year.
We help support careers in one of two ways: 1. By helping Animal Health and Veterinary professionals to find the right opportunity when the time is right, and 2. By helping to recruit top talent for the critical needs of Animal Health and Veterinary organizations. If this is something that you would like to explore further, please send an email to stacy@thevetrecruiter.com.