Today in health it workforce wellbeing. Interesting article that Judy Kirby brought up in social media. We're going to talk about it. My name is bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week health set of channels dedicated to keeping health it staff current and engaged.

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So I was checking my social media today and Judy Kirby had an interesting post. About 13 hours ago. And she was quoting this workplace study that Deloitte put out there. And the title for the work force study is as workforce wellbeing, depths leaders ask what will it take to move the needle? And let me give you a little bit. , here, first of all, I want to give you the quote that she said 60, 60% of employees, 64% of managers and 75% of C-suites are seriously considering quitting. For a job that would better support their wellbeing. And I say, Quit and take care of yourself. The, , she goes on to say that she's seeing this in healthcare.

They say the path to progress. There's three key sanlitun workforce wellbeing. , empower managers to support workforce wellbeing, hold executives and their organizations accountable and embrace the broader movement toward han sustainability. I love that term han sustainability. Interesting. , I want to focus in on a couple of things. They say that the managers can do. They, , let me give you the paragraph in 1, 2, 3, 4. I don't know about eight of these things that say managers can do and just comment a little bit on them.

Nearly all employees, 94% feel their manager should have at least some responsibility for their wellbeing. And 96% of managers agree. However, a relatively low percentage of managers report that they support their staff in the following ways. And here are the eight ways. And I'm going to comment on.

On each of these, I think as I go through. 54% check in with employees about how they're doing. I think it's important to and important to make this systemic for managers. And I think it's also important to hold managers accountable to this kind of behavior. I think this may have changed. Over the pandemic.

But, you know, prior to the pandemic, what we did is we made sure that managers were meeting with their employees. Now we had at least twice a year that they met with her, with their staff. And they had conversations about their future. They had conversations about, , their current role. They had conversations about their work. They had conversations about what role they envisioned themselves in, in the future.

And how we could help them to get there. That's a small snapshot of systemically. What we did with managers. And then we held those managers accountable to docenting those conversations and ensuring that we were following up with that. That conversation to ensure that we were supporting that work.

Of that staff member to, , to their future. Again, small picture. The pandemic has changed this, and I think even more check-ins are required at this point. And I would make sure that managers are doing that. The manager role, I think has escalated. And it is really much more important than it even was prior to the pandemic. Especially with this remote work. It is so critical that , the managers.

I have the skills necessary to follow up with their staff, to have conversations with their staff about these things. Anyway, so that's just the first one. Let me hit a couple more here. 48% ensure that people's workloads are reasonable. It's so important that managers know , their staff.

Not all staff has the same capacity for work. They either may not have the same capacity. Just out of the shoot, but they also might be indifferent. , life situations that might be taking care of a, , Of their parents, they might be. Taking care of kids, they might be.

, having a baby, they might, you know, any nber , of life scenarios can impact. Someone's reasonable workload. And so it's important to have those conversations. First to understand what their capacity is. And then it's also important to understand our, have we reached that capacity or exceeded that capacity because everyone's capacity is not static. We have to keep checking in.

Next 47% make sure employees take breaks during their day. Again, I think this is interesting. I'm not sure in a remote work environment, what this looks like. Because I would asse that this is happening and if it's not happening, It's probably as simple as looking at the calendar and saying, Hey, are, are we putting too many things on somebody's schedule?

, But again, good. A good manager is going to have this conversation. If somebody says, oh my gosh, I haven't left my desk in 10 hours. , yesterday and I'm on that role again today. , I think it goes back to the previous one about workload and it's also really, , modeling and educating to that staff member.

The importance of taking breaks. I know when I'm trying to solve really difficult problems. One of the, one of the things I do pretty regularly is walk away. From work. Walk away from the problem. Take a walk. Read a book. Have lunch with my wife, whatever it happens to be. It's amazing how many times the solution to the problem comes to me.

While I'm doing something else. I'm not sitting in front of the whiteboard. I just, , Grin and bear it. Rifle through it. Find the solution. A lot of times when I allow my mind to swim in other areas and to think about other things. The solution just comes to me. And I think it's important for people to take breaks and to separate themselves from the work and the specific challenges and problems that they're trying to deal with.

It goes on 38% encourage employees to use. There are companies wellbeing, benefits, I would say. That's an interesting nber to me, I would say a majority of your employees and staff probably don't know your company's wellbeing benefits. And I would start there. , we talk about this pretty often within our company.

, I'm not sure I did talk about it when I was CIO at the health system and I'm not sure I would have known them that well. , we probably talked about them once or twice a year. Open enrollment was definitely a time where we would talk about it. And I'm not sure the, the managers were, , well-versed on the wellbeing benefits.

Again, that's where I would start. Make sure your managers understand your wealth being benefits, and then that they're having the conversations to communicate them out. And that's the leader take the opportunity in your town halls or whatever. , public for that you have to make people aware of the wellbeing benefits. , let me rifle through these last five, , 37% make sure employees use their paid time off or take time off.

I think it's, this is an interesting one to me. , You know, I there's so many people that are so proud that they don't take time off. And there's people that are proud that, they've stacked time up over, , I have this much PTO. In fact I'm even not accruing any more PTO because I have so much, I'm just so busy. I can't get away.

It is important to force those people to get away. It's good for your staff to see it. It's good for them to realize that, , They're not. I mean. That , there's a Superman syndrome that starts to set in with people. Like I am irreplaceable. I am the center of this organization. Nothing can happen without me.

And they need to get away. To diminish that somewhat. To see the value of the other staff members around them and to , see that the work can get done. And I think of this. That's a virtuous cycle. They get away. Things are good. They see that , they're not, , irreplaceable. The rest of the staff picks up the slack and it will start to function more as a team.

We, , We used to talk all a bunch about, we did not want superheroes in it. We wanted NASA. NASA functions as a team, everybody playing their role, doing their part. , carrying the load and that's much more effective than the superhero mentality that often exists within it. , let me go on 35% are open about their own wellbeing with their staff.

, again, Not something you can force. But, , you know, identifying managers that are able to share. In those ways with their staff is. I would think much more effective in terms of managing the staff and letting them know that there is empathy for the situations that they're in and probably opens up communication.

, due to that empathy. , 30% model, healthy behaviors, modeling, healthy behaviors. I, , Various points in my career did not model healthy behaviors. And I think it's important for leaders to get away, especially now I think , a lot of C-suites have gone to this whole concept of. As much vacation as you want as much PTO as you want. Now they're doing it because of the balance sheet liability.

But at the end of the day, we don't know how to function in that environment. It's like take as much vacation as you want. Just make sure you get your work done. That's essentially the sentiment that's being put out there.

You need to have your staff trained so that you can step away. You need to have the confidence in your staff so that you can step away. And understand you. Also can fall into that superhero mindset. I am the one that makes this happen. If you don't have a team. That makes it happen. You're not doing your job as a leader.

You need to have a team that can, I can pick up the work when you're not there. Just like you pick up the work when they're not there. And then finally, 26% lead team wellbeing, activities or challenges. Again, participate where possible with HR, with the benefits team, with the wellbeing team, to understand what that will look like and how that would play out.

, Again, I think really interesting. Interesting article. I appreciate Judy Kirby bringing this up great topic and important for us to get in front of work. You know, Han sustainability is a new concept for me and an important concept for all of us. All right. That's all for today. If you know someone that might benefit from our channel, please forward them a note making subscribe on our website this week health.com or wherever you listen to podcasts, apple, Google, overcast, Spotify, Stitcher.

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