Best Place to Work

Eager for strategies to tackle workplace stress, a group of nurses in Southern California—including Denise Duncan, RN, president of UNAC/UHCP—sought out a workshop on the issue.

Workplace stress undermines employee health and safety, they knew, and erodes patient care and service.

But what they learned at the conference, which was offered by an outside organization, rang hollow.

“They told us the work isn’t going to go away: Have a hot bath, light candles and take a deep breath,” says Duncan. “You can work a 12- or 14-hour day. Go home and relax. The same workload is going to be there again the next day.”

A majority of workers in the United States—especially those in health care—tell researchers their main source of stress is at work, not home. Long hours, job insecurity, poorly designed workflows and fear of violence or injury top nearly every list of common causes.

Focusing on the individual’s behavior may help a person cope with such issues, Duncan says, but does nothing to address the root of a problem that some studies suggest affects three in four U.S. workers. Part of what’s needed, she says, is more accountability from both management and the unions to fulfill the National Agreement’s commitment to fixing backfill shortages. The safe-staffing campaign UNAC/UHCP ran last year was part of that call to action.

Duncan and her fellow leaders in the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions want to step up the conversation on workplace stress and make sure it:

• includes worker voices on scope of practice and other issues
• addresses unhealthy work environments
• develops resources in partnership

 “We have talked about work-life balance. I am not sure there is one yet,” Duncan says. “We are at a tipping point.”

Opportunity for action

“Issues related to workplace stress are often collectively caused,” says Ron Ruggiero, the president of SEIU Local 105 in Colorado. “They need a collective solution.”

Kaiser Permanente is not immune. In a survey done before 2015 National Bargaining, 94 percent of workers represented by a coalition union placed a high priority on reducing stress in the workplace. Scores on the “KP supports me in having a healthy and balanced life” question on the annual People Pulse survey have stayed flat, with mid-range favorable ratings, from 2007 through 2015. 

But partnership and unit-based teams offer an opportunity for action, says Ruggiero, whose union represents 3,000 KP employees.

“At each and every worksite,” he says, “workers should be listened to and solutions could be figured out—and implemented.”

Part of a manager’s job is to look at the big picture—and job stress and burnout are usually part of the picture in health care. Operational leaders from two regions share their thoughts on keeping workplace energy and morale high.

Wendy Watson (Northwest)
Regional vice president, Professional, Clinical and Continuing Care Services 

There’s very little downtime in our work. We want to deliver great service, quality, affordability. The pace is fast, as our industry is changing rapidly. That can be a formula for stress. No one can do this work alone—we all need to support one another.

Build strong teams

High-performing unit-based teams are part of the solution. Solving even one problem at a time can help a team increase job satisfaction and get results, and that reduces stress. If you are leading teams you have to be very purposeful—making time with your team, creating space to talk and making our meeting time productive and solution-focused.

Some of our facilities have Living Room huddles, where people from all departments gather before the start of business, and one department presents a topic. It’s an opportunity to learn and build relationships across the facility. The more connected we are, the more we can support each other.

Make time for yourself

Running is my No. 1 antidote to stress. I try to run regularly—early in the morning before the workday, and longer on weekends. It’s my way to expend physical energy and feel mentally reenergized.

You have to make time for yourself, and that includes exercise. It’s not easy to do. But when you make exercise a priority, you create energy to be able to deal more effectively with stress.

Corwin Harper (Northern California)
Senior vice president, Area Manager, Napa-Solano

It’s hard to generalize about stress because everybody has a different stress meter. We all handle things differently. It’s an issue of work-life balance, and we’re in an industry where we all invest our personal energy, because health care is about caring for others.

People have to be aware of that and think about what they can do to manage their energy and stress levels. We should proactively manage things at work that sap energy and invest in things that raise our energy.

How do you help others?

As a leader, I have to be aware of what I can do to minimize energy-wasters and reduce job stress.

We talk about stress in our workplace safety conversations. I address it as part of leadership rounding. And rounding is not just checking the box. It’s focused on engaging with people about how they’re doing, letting them know you care, encouraging them to spend time with their families and calling out work-related issues that are barriers to performance.

We focus on creating a culture where we understand and respect one another.

Know yourself

I hate sitting all day long. I do core exercises at work in my spare moments. You have to know when to step away and recharge. I try to eat right, exercise, listen to music and pray. I’m still working on getting enough sleep.

Rounding for results

Rounding is a powerful tool for creating a culture where employees are free to speak. Having a short list of open-ended questions to ask each person on a regular basis makes it easier for staff members to raise concerns—and that, in turn, helps reduce stress levels.

Katie Richardson, MD, is a master juggler: She’s a pediatrician at Highlands Ranch Medical Office in Colorado two days a week and the director of Physician Experience for the Colorado Permanente Group (CPMG) the rest of the week; she’s a sponsor of the CPMG Physician Wellness Committee; and at home, she’s the mom of an 11-year-old daughter. Dr. Richardson recently talked about the pressures of practicing medicine and what the Colorado region is doing to help its doctors sidestep stress and burnout.

Q: Why do so many doctors suffer from stress and burnout?

A: As physicians, in general we are not as good at taking care of ourselves as we are at taking care of others. We don’t tend to ask for help—and we need to change that culture. There are a lot of clinicians out there who are suffering and they don’t recognize the signs of burnout or know what to do.

Q: What happens when physicians are burned out?  

A: We are the leaders of the health care team. We’re trained to solve diagnostic dilemmas and do what is best for our patients. If we’re burned out, we may not think through our decisions as well. Healthy, happy physicians take better care of their patients. We want to make sure that we take care of our physicians.

Q: How do you help doctors deal with stress?

A: We know this is a high-pressure environment and look for resiliency in our physician hiring process, which helps us identify candidates who have experience managing stress. In addition, our yearly physician survey includes questions around burnout and resilience. We use that information to identify strategies to improve the physician experience.

We are trying to foster conversations around stress and burnout. We’re encouraging physician chiefs to meet with their physicians regularly and ask, “How are you doing?” Educating providers to look for signs that they might be experiencing stress, as well as providing education about available resources, will help. The first step is letting people know we are aware there is an issue.

Rotonya Parker decided her journey to a healthier lifestyle could use some traveling companions.

She was already eating better and being more active when she learned that her unit-based team needed a Health and Safety Champion.

“I thought I should volunteer because doing it as a team would be an extra incentive,” says Parker, an external referral coordinator in Atlanta and a member of UFCW Local 1996. Since stepping up, she’s shared healthy recipes with her team and is planning a contest to see who walks the most.

Her activities help her UBT fulfill part of the 2015 National Agreement: The latest Path to Performance requires that Level 1 UBTs identify a Health and Safety Champion, who will help build the “culture of health and safety” required of Level 5 teams.

UBTs began identifying champions last fall. In January, they all received “Walk & Roll” buttons to help encourage their colleagues. They got going with an emphasis on walking and moving. In February, the theme was speaking up at work about safety concerns. Each month has a new focus.

With 32 years at Kaiser Permanente in Los Angeles under his belt, Darren “Tree” Wallace, a lead attendant in environmental services (EVS), offered to be his UBT’s champion. EVS departments frequently have a higher rate of workplace injuries, Wallace notes, so safety is key. Members of his UBT share daily tips about everything from how to avoid needle sticks to the proper way to push and pull.

“You don’t want to be old, retired and injured,” says Wallace, a member of SEIU-UHW. “You have to make sure your body is safe at work and at home.”

Take a break to thrive

For Johnyia King Turner, RN, a UFCW Local 400 member in the Mid-Atlantic States, volunteering to help her UBT as a champion was an obvious choice. Turner, who recently began working in Gastroenterology at Largo Medical Center in Maryland, frequently held two-minute thrive breaks when she worked at Capitol Hill Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

“We did squats, wall push-ups or ran in place,” Turner says. As lead nurse, she also presented safety messages in UBT meetings and paused during the workday to have quick safety conversations.

She says the messages were well received: “If you are not healthy and you are not safe, it decreases productivity and we can’t assist the members.” 

She’s excited to have a formal title to go with her passion. “I have my Walk & Roll button, and I encourage everyone to walk the stairs,” she says—and adds, laughing, “Now that I’m official, I can really go run my mouth and tell people what they need.”

The chances are good you are a person who deals—directly or indirectly—with life and death every day. You might be an EVS worker who keeps patient rooms germ-free to reduce the odds of infection, or an ER nurse helping a baby with a high fever. If you are not on the clinical front lines, you likely support this honorable work from behind the scenes.

We put others first. We give everything to give the best care to our patients. But far too frequently, we don’t leave anything in reserve. We neglect to take care of ourselves. This imbalance undermines the admirable ethic of our modern health care system.

One survey showed 60 percent of health care providers are burned out. In this issue of Hank, we provide practical tips and tools that individuals, leaders and teams can use to reduce workplace stress.

But more than that, we challenge the notion that the responsibility for preventing burnout lies solely with one of these groups. Let’s call it the “yes, and” approach. Yes, individuals need to eat better, exercise more and cultivate a positive outlook to reduce their own stress. And, leaders need to ensure safe staffing levels and create a solution-oriented workplace culture.

Our Labor Management Partnership gives us a third “yes, and”: Yes, individuals and leaders matter. And, our unit-based teams can fix inefficient processes that cause unnecessary stress and interpersonal conflict.

Every day, Kaiser Permanente’s 3,500 UBTs use performance improvement tools that make our work go more smoothly. Moreover, those tools and the foundation of trust and openness fostered by partnership give everyone a voice in making improvements.

And that also reduces our stress.