When you’re working hard to address staffing shortages in your SNF, efforts to improve workplace culture can fall to the wayside. This is especially true in large companies with multiple facilities. However, a healthy, comfortable, and nurturing environment is mandatory if you want to help your employees do their best work. Strong culture can also prevent burnout in times of stress and create a sense of community cohesion between your facilities.
1. Strengthen Your Workplace Values
What does your ideal workplace culture look like? How would you like to improve workplace culture? Create a mission statement that answers this question. If possible, it should also be created with the input of your employees. What are their values, and how do they overlap with yours?
Make sure the managers at your facilities are on the same page about your mission statement. This is something to share with your employees and return to regularly, especially in stressful times.
2. Start Building Culture During the Hiring Process
For a candidate, workplace culture becomes important as soon as they begin to consider working at your company. A job ad is often your first touchpoint with a candidate. Clearly stating your cultural ideals in the job ad (and elaborating on the company website) can engage candidates and improve workplace culture.
With a clearly stated mission, you can attract candidates who are invested in your ideals. An interview is also a good place to learn what a potential hire wants from their workplace culture.
3. Take Time to Build Community Across Facilities
In a larger company, employees from different facilities may never get a chance to connect with each other. This disconnect can hamper your goal of building a healthy company culture.
Hosting events that involve people from multiple departments and facilities can help create a sense of cohesion and company unity. Have a mentorship or skillshare program in place? Try opening it across different facilities, so mentors and mentees can connect even if they work at different locations.
4. Clear Lines of Communication Improve Workplace Culture
Communication is especially important when you’re juggling multiple facilities. Be intentional about establishing lines of communication. Company-wide newsletters, town halls, and virtual or in-person meetings are all valid ways of reaching out to staff. Try to give your staff plenty of options to both receive and submit feedback, even if this means getting creative about communication.
5. Onboarding is Key for Building First Impressions
First impressions are important. Digital or physical onboarding give you a chance to set the tone. By making time during the onboarding process to review workplace values, you can ensure employees understand your company culture right away.
Not only can onboarding create employee investment in the company, it can also help you understand how your employees like to be recognized. Onboarding can’t be underestimated when you’re looking to improve workplace culture.
6. Recognize Individual Staff Members
Celebrating individual staff members can be a great way to boost morale and improve workplace culture. Recognizing staff across your different facilities can boost these positive effects further.
Help workers find role models in the workplace by showcasing the employees who best embody your ideals. But don’t let individual celebrations become a competition. Instead, these should be a way to show appreciation without comparison.
7. Support Staff With Flexible Benefits and Competitive Wages
With inflation on the rise, your staff may be worried about finances. Supporting your staff to the best of your budget and abilities is important. Even if you’re unable to boost salaries, uncommon benefits or perks can let employees know that you’re there for them.
Offering flexible benefits can make a huge difference in times of stress. With flexible benefits, your employees get to decide on the support they need for themselves. That’s better for them, and removes a lot of guesswork for you.
8. Check in With Staff Regularly
With a large staff across multiple facilities, informal conversation-based temperature checks aren’t always possible. Surveys can be a great way to understand how your staff is feeling. USe surveys to ask employees on all levels how they’re feeling, where they need support, and if anything needs to change.
Anonymous surveys can also help your employees feel free in expressing themselves. 89% of HR leaders agree that ongoing feedback and check-ins are necessary for success. Chances are, your employees will be more comfortable providing honest feedback if they know it won’t be attributed to them.
9. Prioritize Mental Health
Mental health is a huge pain point among healthcare staff. 38% of nurses meet the criteria for anxiety, and 41% for depression. Burnout can exacerbate these problems.
Nursing burnout has become even more prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s important that you create a judgment-free dialogue around mental health for staff members in any position. Dedicated initiatives, such as a wellness stipend or anti-stress workshop, can help. Supporting work-life balance is also crucial when it comes to preventing burnout.
Better Hiring With Apploi
A fast and thorough recruitment and onboarding process can leave you free to improve company culture and think about other big-picture tasks. Interested in learning more about how you can recruit, hire, and onboard healthcare staff quickly? Contact us today for a free demo of our end-to-end talent management solution.
