Noticeably, the pandemic has the whole world looking up to healthcare professionals. Amid the pandemic, the fear of a deadly virus confined people to their homes. After losing their loved ones to Covid-19, they avoided hospitals, even when they needed medical aid. It resulted in healthcare organizations facing a decline in screening, medical evaluations, and other services. The decline in patient footfall caused healthcare organizations to suffer financially. On the other hand, the pressure of rapidly growing cases crumbled medical personnel’s mental health, further adding to the overall decline. Even now, when workers seem close to overcoming the shock of the pandemic, some traces can still be seen. 

Unfortunately, those traces resulted in a sharp decline in employee productivity and performance. Overtime shifts and prioritizing patients’ care over their well-being led to workplace burnout. Moreover, the growing workforce shortage and an increasing number of unidentified mutants also aggravated employee burnout. Since the workforce is a significant contributor to ensuring smooth workflow, healthcare organizations witnessed a major setback due to a lack of productivity. 

The pressure to boost patient outcomes while simultaneously overseeing all operations feels overwhelming. Fortunately, below are some points that employers may benefit from:

Invest In Training and Development

As healthcare adopts newer patient care models, it becomes significant that employees’ training also aligns with it. Knowing how to operate and use advanced tools, techniques, and systems is vital to enhance work performance. For this purpose, healthcare organizations must focus on the training and development of their employee base. Alongside instilling clinical skills, training and development initiatives prepare doctors and nurses to take on higher roles. As such, employers can sponsor online master’s programs for nurses and tend to their master’s in nursing online program FAQ or query. 

Since these programs are online, it enables healthcare professionals to expand their knowledge base without compromising work commitments. Nurses, doctors, healthcare administrators, and other professionals can benefit from eLearning to hone essential skills and ultimately boost workplace productivity and performance. 

Focus on Employee Satisfaction 

Workplace burnout has been plaguing the healthcare sector for decades. And this emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion can be due to dysfunctional job dynamics, demanding work nature, or workplace stressors. For this reason, an employer must monitor employees’ job satisfaction and eradicate any workplace element that causes burnout. For instance, limiting work hours, providing regular incentives, establishing reward systems, and the like can help reserve declining productivity. Employers can also offer monthly or yearly bonuses to encourage them to work more eagerly. 

Similarly, organizations must identify workplace issues facing employees through one-on-one discussions alongside boosting mental health at the workplace. To deal with workplace stress and the rollercoaster of emotions that a healthcare worker witnesses regularly, organizations should hold workshops and awareness programs. Such programs may also teach staff members to handle panic-inducing situations well. Overall, the improved mental health of workers will lead to enhanced patient care and outcomes.

Innovate Workplace and Work Cycles

As it is the nature of this sector, healthcare facilities generally rely on gruelingly hectic schedules to meet patients’ demands. However, this unpredictability poses an imminent challenge for the frontline workers. For example, they get fewer hours of sleep while emotional distress is limitless. Given this reason, schedule stability may assist healthcare workers in striving for a healthy work-life balance. Likewise, innovating the workplace by providing resting areas and recreational activities will help lessen the work burdens. 

Another important point to note as an employer is the work distribution among workers. If workers are overburdened, ensure that your facility is adequately staffed with a reasonable workload.

Leverage Technology

Technology is rapidly penetrating the healthcare industry with every passing year, providing avenues for growth and expansion. Healthcare organizations worldwide are leveraging technological tools and systems to improve routine procedures and innovate workplace practices. As such, it’s only viable to benefit from advanced systems and solutions to boost worker productivity. Organizations can provide various tools and resources to their workforce, such as Telehealth, to enhance work performance. Likewise, digitize systems and procedures to lessen work time. 

Nowadays, robotics and artificial intelligence have made surgeries possible without relying on the human touch. Use automation to reduce the unnecessary workload on workers. Not only just for assistance, but simulation techniques can also easily duplicate real surgical, suture, and transplantation experiences. Have it help workers gain experience and acquire the latest and accurate knowledge without an application on real human models.

Conclusion

Boosting employee productivity remains to be a challenging undertaking for healthcare organizations worldwide. Even before the calamities of Covid-19, healthcare facilities struggled to meet patient expectations given the decline in workers’ performance and productivity. However, the pandemic only further worsened and aggravated the situation. Nonetheless, healthcare employers can invest in employee development initiatives, focus on job satisfaction, and innovate work cycles to enhance workplace productivity. They can also leverage and benefit from advanced systems and tools to lessen employee work burden and ultimately improve patient outcomes.