Abstract
Background: In the past year low staff morale has had a profound effect on our department. Low morale is causing low productivity, increased turnover, un-engaging peer to peer encounters and an overall decline in leadership approval. Low morale makes our employees not want to be their best! Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center is ranked #2 by US News World Report. In our ideal staffing model our respiratory therapist should be boasting with pride in regards to their employment at Children’s. However, recently at Children’s we were having a difficult time retaining and recruiting new employees. Everyone knew that morale was low and needed to change in order for our culture to change. Leadership and shared governance believes that employees with high morale levels are more productive, engaging, works as a team and have a sense of self-worth. We want our employees to invest in themselves and be the best they can be! Methods: Based off our survey results we are focusing on recognition from peers, patients and families. Team building and serving others was also a request from our RTs. We believe that if we increase morale we will increase staff retention. In order to get a baseline of staff morale a survey was sent to staff prior to research being done. Results: Since the results of the survey were unsatisfactory, stating the obvious that staff morale is lower than anticipated. We decided that we will use this as an opportunity for a QI project for our division. Multiple things will be implemented throughout the year by the shared governance team and the leadership team will increase recognition of employees. We will re-survey and trend the data to see if it worked. We will then need to determine which programs facilitated the increase in employee satisfaction. The following programs will be implemented: Grab and Go Cards, Code Lavender Bags, Serving Others, Sunflower Award, RT Outings, Liberty Branch of the Sunshine Club, Monthly Raffles, Leadership sponsored one a month drawing for RTs that pick up extra shifts, we appreciate the way you ventilate bags and setting up a core planning committee for Respiratory Care Week. Conclusions: The results of the study showed us the single most important factor was staff wanted recognition. Our next resurvey will be in July 2019.
Footnotes
Commercial Relationships: None
- Copyright © 2019 by Daedalus Enterprises
