In the Know
Creating policies that meet these Joint Commission standards are an important step. However, if your workplace has been infected with incivility, it’s going to take more than rubber stamping new policies.
Workplace incivility. Adult bullying. Lateral harassment. These terms make the news nearly every day, headlining another story about employees who are dealing with a toxic work environment.
Jana Raver is an organizational expert and professor at Queen’s University School of Business. She has done research proving that sixty percent of employees are exposed to workplace incivility and that the bullies are often women. That’s bad news for an industry like ours which continues to be dominated by females.
And there is more bad news. While six of every ten employees are victims of workplace incivility, you can bet that the other four are affected by it indirectly. Harassing behaviors are distracting, especially for healthcare employees who must work as a team to meet the needs of their patients.
Ms. Raver says, “They start saying ‘this is not the place for me; I’m going to start looking for work elsewhere.’ And once you psychologically disengage from the organization then you’re not terribly motivated toward helping that organization to succeed, and you’ve always got one step out the door. Turnover is of course a logical consequence.”
This spells trouble, particularly for certified nursing assistants. As you know all too well, the annual turnover rate for CNAs can exceed 90%. If your organization has a revolving door when it comes to your nursing assistant staff, a culture of incivility only compounds the problem.
“Imagine how much more productive companies could be if they were to treat people with inclusion and respect and make sure that (workplace anti-harassment) policies are actually enforced,” Raver states.
This is exactly what the Joint Commission has in mind with their zero tolerance of disruptive or intimidating behaviors. Have you seen their statement on this issue?
Intimidating and disruptive behaviors can foster medical errors, contribute to poor patient satisfaction and to preventable adverse outcomes, increase the cost of care, and cause qualified clinicians, administrators and managers to seek new positions in more professional environments. Safety and quality of patient care is dependent on teamwork, communication, and a collaborative work environment. To assure quality and to promote a culture of safety, health care organizations must address the problem of behaviors that threaten the performance of the health care team.
The Joint Commission standards require that each organization institute code of conduct that defines acceptable and disruptive and inappropriate behaviors. They also require that the institution create and implement a process for managing disruptive and inappropriate behaviors.
Creating policies that meet these Joint Commission standards are an important step. However, if your workplace has been infected with incivility, it’s going to take more than rubber stamping new policies. Every employee, from administration to the front lines, needs to partake in civility training. They need to understand the importance of civility especially in a high stress environment like healthcare. The training should cover ethical behavior, professional relationships, teamwork and conflict resolution. And, it should emphasize this indisputable key point: that the power and the responsibility to overcome a culture of incivility rests within each of us.
If you would like to learn more about how embracing civility can inspire your employees to do their best work, check out the book “The Real Healthcare Reform” on Amazon. If you need assistance developing a civility training program for your organization, please give us a call at 877-809-5515. We’d be happy to discuss your options.
