Without a doubt, your mind is heavy with questions right now about how your organization is going to emerge from this crisis.
Could your organization emerge from this stronger than ever?
The word crisis has origins linked to the Latin word certus, which means to sift or separate. Like panning for gold, a crisis filters out the dirt and leaves you with what’s important.
What if through this crisis we are left with an actual treasure? A treasure that comes in the form of remarkable team members who are supported by their organizations like never before.
The current healthcare crisis has organizations taking another look at their commitment to their most important asset: their people.
The easy answer for many is to say, “We already have a great culture!” But not every organization can have an above average culture; it’s statistically impossible!
The reality is, assumptions are made about culture, about what is happening in an organization, and why. And you know what happens when we assume!
Yes, you can emerge from this stronger than ever.
Very recently, our phone started ringing again after weeks of silence. Leadership teams are talking about culture again. But the most forward-thinking leaders are not just talking, they are planning for the future with a strategic focus on their culture, specifically with their people in mind. Are you one of them?
What’s Next?
To survive this crisis, and the impending staffing fallout that follows, you need to take an active approach to improving your organizational culture. If you don’t, employees will feel disempowered and distant from the company’s vision (on top of reeling from their own PTSD). You risk not only losing them from your organization, but also chasing them from the field of aging services when they chalk up their experience in this crisis and how they were treated before it and after it, to the idea that this is simply a terrible industry in which to be employed.
So, the elephant in the room, what happens when you take away hero pay? Is your culture strong enough to retain those people who have, quite frankly, risked their lives for your organization?
Without a doubt, the answers to these questions are going to determine if you emerge stronger from this crisis or completely wrecked. And the answers depend on you knowing your culture: the one measurement that matters more than any other.
The current healthcare crisis is not what any of us want, but as Julius Caesar once said in his surely perfect Latin, “Alea iacta est.” The die has been cast. There is no going back. There will be a tragic staffing shortage if nothing changes. But there’s still time before those predictions are a reality, so take action.
As our field shifts during our crisis mode, all of the unnecessary bits, such as an excessive scrutiny of census and a disproportionate view of financials, will fall away.
The outcomes you desire will ultimately depend on what’s left in the sieve: team members who are worth their weight in gold.
