Listen to Moments Move Us Season 2 Episode 10: Reflecting on Moments of Connection with Rebecca Coren

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Reflecting on Moments of Connection with Rebecca Coren

 

New Podcast Episode: Reflecting on Moments of Connection with Rebecca Coren

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About Wambi
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Leaders Team Members Patient & Family Engagement
Why Wambi
ROI Calculator Testimonials Actionable Insights
Resources
National Nurses Week Blog Studies and Papers Podcast Events and Webinars Videos COVID-19 Resources
Request a Demo
5 Proven Ways Healthcare Leaders Can Bridge the Human Connection Gap at Their Organizations
Other Posts at Wambi
5 Proven Ways Healthcare Leaders Can Bridge the Human Connection Gap at Their Organizations
Using Recognition in Your Onboarding Strategy
Emotional Success: Harnessing Gratitude, Compassion, and Pride
Why Emotional Intelligence Matters for Healthcare Leaders
5 Proven Ways Healthcare Leaders Can Bridge the Human Connection Gap at Their Organizations
Wednesday, 22 September 2021
Meaningful Connection

Of the many lessons gleaned during the pandemic, one of the most profound is the importance of human connection. Human connection is vital in the promotion of health and wellbeing, not only for patients, but also for those that provide the care. In the context of healthcare, empathy indicates the presence of connection, while loneliness depicts the absence of connection. Over the past year, we’ve seen an uptick of loneliness within healthcare ecosystems. Between social distancing, masking, reduced visitation, and the overall limitations around opportunities to connect, COVID accelerated the feelings of loneliness and lack of connection that already pervaded our modern lifestyles pre-pandemic. The state of isolation precipitated by the pandemic has been the perfect breeding ground for loneliness.  

A member of the greater Wambi community asked, “How do you foresee patient and staff loneliness and the need for connection driving patient experience innovations in the upcoming year?”

The answer: Invest in a recognition solution to nurture meaningful connection.
 

Experts agree the #1 solution for addressing burnout, whether spurred by the lack of connection or high turnover, is to create positive work environments and develop opportunities for clinicians to give and receive meaningful recognition from peers, patients, and their families alike. It is crucial for healthcare leaders to provide a bridge between their team members and patients and families that is mutually beneficial to the wellbeing of both parties. And investing in a recognition system like Wambi, a solution designed specifically with the needs of the healthcare community in mind, is proven to mitigate the experience of loneliness and drive empathy among healthcare organizations. Here are more recommendations to strengthen human connection among staff and lend to better care operations:

Standardize Recognition Practices

It’s not enough to have a recognition program in place. In order to enact lasting, transformational change at your organization, an adoption plan must be shared out organizationally. Leaders can introduce a roadmap for how your recognition system works as early as the onboarding stage, as well as carve time out daily or weekly for veteran staff to devote to 15-minutes of recognizing a colleague. A user who is a nurse leader reads a Wambi every week at team huddles to celebrate the individual and establish a feeling of gratitude among all team members. When you standardize recognition practices org-wide, you are telling your staff that recognition is a priority.

Offer Employee Wellbeing Programs and Trainings

We’ve learned from past healthcare experience panels that targeted intervention programs are needed to mitigate burnout. On top of the social isolation, team members have expressed frustration in not having enough resources to help them handle their emotional needs. Educating team members through formal and expert-led skills trainings will only improve the quality of care at your hospital ecosystem, thereby improving feelings of isolation that tend to surface during volatile times. These well-being trainings, especially ones that develop and nurture emotional intelligence, teach team members coping mechanisms to better handle crisis while giving them a framework for how to be more empathetic.

Inspire Active Listening

A powerful way for your team members to improve active listening towards their patients’ stories is by witnessing their leaders displaying the same kind of undivided intention to their concerns.

Emphasize Emotional Intelligence

Discuss the role emotional intelligence plays in shaping experience with patients and among colleagues. Remind your staff to actively listen to their patients, and of its influence on patient health.

  • Express empathy. Listen for feelings. Try to understand each patient’s concerns from their vantage point. It’s critically important in establishing an emotional connection with patients. Author and consultant Wendy Leebov suggests handling the last few seconds of a seriously ill patient’s visit by saying “I realize today’s news has been very upsetting for you. I want you to know I’ll be with you every step of the way.” 
  • In a study published in the March 2011 issue of Academic Medicine, researchers from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia linked physicians’ empathy and compassion to the success of their treatment of patients with diabetes. “Our results show that physicians with high empathy scores had better clinical outcomes than physicians with lower scores,” reported Mohammadreza Hojat, PhD, a research professor, department of psychiatry and human behavior at Jefferson Medical College.  
  • Social connection can lower anxiety and depression, help us regulate our emotions, lead to higher self-esteem and empathy, and actually improve our immune systems. By neglecting our need to connect, we put our health at risk. The reality is that we’re living in a time of true disconnection that will take intentional effort to rebuild.  

Human connections are key to the promotion of health and prevention of illness; conversely, illness can deteriorate those connections. Healthcare professional–patient relationships are key to ensuring the preservation of adequate human interactions. It is important for healthcare professionals to continually develop their ability to foster gratifying human connections because they provide social support for patients during their time of need, and they help prevent work-related stress. By focusing on this basic human need, you can improve the human experience for all.

Want More?

Download The Evolved Leader’s Guide

Additional Resources
  • https://www.redoxengine.com/blog/human-connection-healthcare/ 
  • https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/keeping-the-human-connection-in-medicine-2016121210837 
  • https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/future-of-loneliness-social-connection-technology/ 
  • https://www.aha.org/news/headline/2021-04-21-coalition-launches-initiative-promote-health-care-worker-well-being 
  • https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5581877/ 
  • https://patientengagementhit.com/news/what-is-the-role-of-connected-health-in-patient-engagement 
Using Recognition in Your Onboarding Strategy
Thursday, 09 September 2021
Make Onboarding Feel More Meaningful

How do you welcome and integrate new employees into the fabric of your workplace? What can you do to make your onboarding feel meaningful? Human resource experts ERE Media disclosed that 67% of companies do not offer any kind of recognition during onboarding. Ensuring an excellent onboarding experience is key to your employee engagement and retention strategy. When new team members feel immediate connection to your organizational values and their team from day one, they are poised for long-term success.  

Invest in A Recognition Platform

To transform onboarding and orientation from a stressful time into a welcoming experience, leverage an established recognition platform like Wambi. Recognition platforms perfectly complement your onboarding strategy to make new team members feel a sense of belonging from the moment they arrive. Remember, first impressions count and are more important than ever in helping to increase retention in healthcare. Here are three ways having a recognition system in place to welcome team members will strengthen your onboarding experience:  

1. It gives new hires a headstart at building relationships with new colleagues 

Having an employee recognition solution offers employees a way to stay engaged and connect with colleagues they have yet to be formally introduced to. Wambi’s Client Relationship Director, Zach Falk, shared: “Early in my onboarding agenda, one of the top priorities was logging into our own Wambi site. Now I see why that was so important. It provided me a way to engage with my new teammates and get to know them straight away. The Wambi platform also set the tone, from day one, that a gratitude-centric culture pervaded this organization. Various team members offered me such a warm welcome through the Wambis they sent me, and every time I got that ping on my phone, it reminded me how happy I was about my choice to join this group.” Learn more about how Wambi works here. 

2. It provides transparency to a company’s mission, vision, and values 

Utilize an employee recognition solution to enable new hires to genuinely connect to company ethos. Wambi’s Senior HR Manager, April Rosentreter, expressed her gratitude for having the Wambi employee recognition platform internally for team use: “The Wambi platform has become a crucial component of our internal new hire onboarding experience.  I’ve heard from some of our newest team members that it really helps to set the tone for an “attitude of gratitude” and affirms their decision to join our mission-driven company.  It shows our core values authentically being lived, felt, and recognized versus a scripted façade.  It’s also an inspirational tool for learning about all the amazing progress across departments and even illuminates how the new hire might contribute or provide new perspective.  And last but certainly not least, as a remote team, it’s indispensable when welcoming new team members and making introductions.” Having an employee recognition tool as early as onboarding also demonstrates accessible performance metrics from the get-go, which means employees don’t have to wait until quarterly or annual performance reviews to get feedback from managers. 

3. It empowers new employees to feel compassion for their team members 

From the first moment a new hire joins your team, you should be working to foster a sense of inclusion and support. At Wambi, cultivating compassion encourages employees to be more patient with leadership and other departments alike, which in turn leads to a healthier and happier workforce. Showing compassion not only has helped build understanding and resilience but is a constant reminder of the importance of Wambi’s work and elevating moments that move us as a community of like-minded individuals. It gets people pumped to contribute and perpetually reminds us why we are all here.  

Foster Resilience with Recognition at Onboarding

According to Renee Thompson, CEO at the Healthy Workforce Institute, the importance of welcoming new employees cannot be overstated because onboarding is a tremendous opportunity to instill a sense of belonging to foster resilience. We challenge you to treat someone’s first day/first week/first month as a long-awaited special occasion deserving of attention and invite you to note how your workplace morale improves!  

Interested in building resilience? Download the Resilience Workbook for more ideas on how to build a more resilient workforce.

Wambi Building Resilience Workbook

Support Your Onboarding Efforts with Wambi

If you want to highlight a culture that is built on gratitude, inclusion, and compassion, invest in a recognition solution today. With Wambi, you’ll be giving an Onboarding Strategy roadmap as part of your client onboarding experience. The tool will give you specifics on how to incorporate Wambi into your onboarding strategy. Plus, Wambi is the only healthcare-specific recognition solution that connects patients, peers, and leaders through the power of gratitude to improve the human experience for everyone in your organization. Request a demo with us to get the ball rolling on enhancing your onboarding process. 

Emotional Success: Harnessing Gratitude, Compassion, and Pride
Tuesday, 31 August 2021
When all else fails, try emotion.

Ready to achieve emotional success?

So many of my conversations lately are with exhausted healthcare leaders who are very concerned about their teams. They worry about their team’s wellbeing, stress levels, and susceptibility to burnout. Retention is a huge issue pretty much everywhere, and recruiting new team members is challenging as well. At the same time, leaders are concerned about patient outcomes and their budgets. They want to know how to help both themselves and their teams get back to a place where everyone feels seen, valued, and engaged – connected to both each other and their purpose. There isn’t an easy solution, but we can leverage three key emotions to get the ball rolling in the right direction.  

Harnessing gratitude

1. Lean Into Gratitude

Emotional success through gratitude

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” – Cicero 

Gratitude is a great place to start, even when (and especially when) things are tough. For exhausted teams, it also has the huge bonus of being easy to do and intrinsically motivating. Dr. Sara Algoe calls it the “find, remind, and bind” emotion. In gratitude, we find the good in our lives, are reminded that this good exists outside of ourselves, and this binds us to the people who are the source of this goodness. Gratitude makes us more generous, compassionate, and optimistic. And the recipients and witnesses of our gratitude are similarly impacted. Our relationships are strengthened, ensuring we have the support we need in challenging times. Pretty powerful stuff from a simple thank you.  

Where to start: 

  • At the start or end of each day, set aside a moment for gratitude. Think of three good things in your life. These can be small to start – your morning coffee, a beautiful sunset, a coworker who was kind to you. This practice helps make gratitude a habit, flipping your thought process from what is going wrong to what is going right. If you’re someone who likes to journal your gratitude, download our free Gratitude Toolkit here. 
  • If it feels hard to think of something you’re grateful for, try going through the motions to start. Make it a point to say thank you for every small kindness (someone holds the door for you in the rain, a team member delivers a report on time, a colleague greets you with a warm smile.) Eventually, these small kindnesses will be easier to spot, until suddenly you’ll see them everywhere.  
  • If you are grateful for certain people in your life, let them know! You can tell them how much you appreciate them or write a note of gratitude to increase the impact. Wambi makes it easy for patients, team members, and leaders to share their appreciation, initiating a virtuous cycle of gratitude across organizations. Sharing gratitude with others will make their day, and yours, too. Use the Carepostcard.com to send a Wambi note of appreciation today. 
Harnessing compassion

2. Cultivate Compassion 

Emotional success through compassion

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” – Dalai Lama  

Like gratitude, compassion makes us feel good, activating the pleasure and reward centers in our brain. It strengthens our relationships and makes us more resilient to stress. Compassionate workplace cultures have been linked to improved collaboration, increased employee engagement, and reduced burnout. When we move to ease another’s suffering, we also heal ourselves. And compassion can spur gratitude and vice versa. These superpower emotions build on each other, creating environments that foster deep connection and a sense of belonging.  

Where to start: 

  • Look for commonalities with others. We tend to feel most compassionate towards those we see as similar to ourselves in some way. But we can hack the system by always looking for the things we have in common. For example, your new coworker may have a very different background from your own, but you might both love the same sports team. Leaders: learn more about the importance of being compassionate to new coworkers on page 5 of our Resilience Workbook. 
  • Think about the people who have supported you through challenging times. This one has a double bonus – you’ll likely feel gratitude for these people (write them a thank you note!), and you’ll also feel more compassion for others who are suffering and in need of support.  
  • Try Lovingkindness meditation. This mindfulness practice involves repeating a series of phrases to wish another well. Examples include, “may you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you live with ease.” With time and practice, this form of meditation can significantly increase feelings of compassion, both for self and others. You can find guided examples here and here.   

Loving Kindness Meditation on Wambi.org

Harnessing pride

3. Enable Authentic Pride

“You were designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness.” – Zig Ziglar 

It may feel odd to throw pride into the mix with gratitude and compassion. After all, it is one of the seven deadly sins. But as Dr. David DeSteno notes in his book, Emotional Success, that negative connotation stems from conflating pride with arrogance. Most of us can feel the difference between these two when we think back on our achievements. Feeling authentic pride in our accomplishments increases our motivation and our ability to persevere against incredible odds. It also encourages us to help others by sharing our expertise, inspiring gratitude in those we’ve helped. In the workplace, we know that praise for work done well is a key driver of engagement. The pride triggered by this recognition helps our team members feel like they are contributing in a meaningful way, connecting them to purpose. 

Where to start: 

  • Recognize team members for work done well! Make sure your praise is timely, specific, and focused on effort as opposed to ability. Wambi gives users the ability to share meaningful recognition in the moment and to amplify its impact by elevating that praise across your organization.  
  • Keep a journal to track your own goals and successes. This allows you to feel pride in your past accomplishments, as well as anticipate the pride you’ll feel when you reach future goals. Make this exercise even more powerful by showing yourself compassion when you fall short. Bonus points if you share your gratitude with the people who help you along the way! 

 

Achieve emotional success today

These three emotions of gratitude, compassion, and pride are a powerful combination. As Dr. Barbara Fredrickson notes, they build on each other to create upward spirals of positivity, broadening our view of what is possible. They inspire creativity and innovation. They help us persevere as we solve seemingly impossible challenges, all while feeling seen and connected to others. At Wambi, we see this every day as our clients use our platform to elevate these emotions, enabling their team members to be their best selves. We’re inspired by the results, and we think you will be, too. 

Resources

For more ideas, check out these great resources: 

  • Greater Good Science Center: Gratitude Defined, Compassion Defined 
  • Robert Emmons, 10 Ways to Become More Grateful 
  • Jill Suttie, Can Practicing Gratitude Boost Nurses’ Resilience? 
  • Kira Newman, Why You Should Love Thy Coworker
About Melanie Alm

As our Product Evangelist, Mel brings over 13 years of experience to support the growth and development of Wambi’s sales team as they seek to help healthcare organizations create cultures of appreciation and kindness. She is committed to helping both her team and Wambi’s clients achieve their business objectives while living Wambi’s values of compassion, imagination, gratitude, fearlessness, and joy. Mel’s sales experience spans healthcare, technology, legal, and academic content solutions. She has been a consistent top performer and is most proud of her work fostering innovation, evolution, and team cohesiveness in each role. Mel grew up in West Michigan, where she still lives and enjoys running through the beautiful wooded dunes. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan. When she’s not exercising or spending time with her family, you can find her indulging in her love of learning about anything and everything.

  • Connect with Mel on LinkedIn 
  • Learn more about the Wambi platform
Why Emotional Intelligence Matters for Healthcare Leaders
Wednesday, 25 August 2021
Did You Answer 'Yes' to Any of the Following Questions?

Are you the type of leader who performs well under pressure, is in tune with your teams’ emotions even though they aren’t vocalized, and/or prioritizes self-care to combat burnout? If you answered “yes” to any of the following questions, well then, congratulations! You are exhibiting high levels of emotional intelligence.  

 

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional Intelligence (EI), or the Emotional Quotient (EQ), is “the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions, and those of the people around you.” Coined by American psychologist, Daniel Goleman, in his 1995 book, ‘Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ’  emotional literacy is critical to leading a thriving workforce. And unlike IQ which evaluates intelligence through standardized testing, emotional intelligence can be learned and developed by anyone at any time. In fact, improving  emotional intelligence should be considered an ongoing company and personal goal, especially for leadership. When examining EQ as a form of social currency, consider this: 80-90% of the competencies that differentiate top performers from low performers are in the domain of emotional intelligence. 

Low Emotional Intelligence is Harmful for Leaders

Leaders with low emotional intelligence are typically resistant to change, demanding, confrontational, critical, and passive. A leader with low emotional intelligence leader can contribute to poor internal alignment and a decrease in staff engagement and productivity, whereas leaders with high emotional intelligence are usually the leaders that nobody wants to leave. High EQ leaders are distinguishable by their enthusiasm, patience, consistency, decisiveness, and warmth. A study by Initiative One found that workers are 400% less likely to leave a job if they have a manager with high EQ. For organizations suffering from retention problems, nurturing emotional intelligence among leaders can be a turning point when addressing turnover.  

Want to see how much turnover is costing your organization? Calculate your turnover costs with the ROI calculator. 

Two Emotional Intelligence Competencies

There are two types of EQ competencies: 

  1. Personal Competence: your relationship with yourself. Those with strong personal competence have the self-awareness to healthily name and navigate their emotions and can self-manage their emotional states in a calm and collected manner. 
  2. Social Competence: your relationship with others. Those who have high social competence  handle interpersonal relationships empathetically through social awareness and relationship management. 

Great leaders display both of these! Personal competence leads to more emotional resilience and social competence helps leaders cultivate individual, team, and organizational success without compromising their own well-being in the process.  

The Five Components of Emotional Intelligence

1. Self-Awareness 

Emotional intelligence is rooted first and foremost in our own emotional self-awareness.It’s acknowledging our strengths and weaknesses, naming our emotions, and still possessing a strong sense of self-worth. Those with strong self-awareness can provide valuable coaching and mentorship for others, as well as manage conflicts diplomatically. 

Ways to be a self-aware leader: Model a positive attitude but don’t fall prey to toxic positivity. Your staff wants to see vulnerability in action and nothing is more vulnerable than taking accountability. Don’t be afraid to own up to, and learn from, your mistakes. 

2. Self-Management 

Self-management, also known as self-regulation, is about how you control your emotions, inner resources, and abilities. This emotional self-control is key to ensuring that you can maintain your positive outlook with sincerity. It also helps to cultivate adaptability. Those with good self-management are agents of change because they are not fearful of risks or losing control. As a result, you’ll see leaders with strong self-regulation also be great problem solvers and embrace innovative solutions. 

Ways to be a balanced leader: Creating healthy boundaries that won’t burn unnecessary energy. Invest in a set of leisurely activities that will help you fill your cup and can be part of your arsenal of internal resources to tap into when chaos erupts. 

3. Social Skills 

In the context of emotional intelligence, social skills refer to “the skills needed to handle and influence other people’s emotions effectively.” For leaders, an infallible way to secure trust between staff and yourself is to actively listen and stay engaged. In a time rife with uncertainty, leaders need to be proactive about stressors on the floor that could be impacting the mental wellness of staff. Leaders must make their staff feel seen and supported and listen with intent. The more you condition yourself to see signs of distress, the more that you can handle the problem effectively and timely. Also don’t be afraid to ask questions. 

Ways to be a socially-skilled leader: Choose your words wisely. Words have power and can either build, or erode trust. Also, be aware of nonverbal cues from team members that something might be wrong. You can easily monitor withdrawn individuals through the Wambi platform. 

4. Empathy 

Empathy is the ability to understand how others are feeling and reading the environment around you. But empathy also involves the way you respond to others based on their feelings. Being empathetic is having the awareness for other people’s emotions, and taking the extra effort to helping them when their emotions are negative. When you help raise a demoralized staff member’s spirits by taking the time to hear their concerns, or go out of your way to attend to support a grieving family, those moments of empathy can help you leverage social relationships to incite lasting cultural change at your organization.  

Ways to be a more empathetic leader: Talk to new people.  Listen with intent. Quoting our Director of Partnerships, Nikki Lewallen: “if we want to do incredible work and get incredible results, we must have incredible relationships.” To learn more about the secrets of being an incredible business, click here. 

5. Motivation 

Another emotional intelligence component is internal motivation. Those who have a passion for what they do and are internally rewarded so long as they are aligned to their own goals, can in turn, motivate others to do the same. Motivation goes hand-in-hand with gratitude as those who are motivated are grateful about all their wins. This kind of mentality builds inspirational leaders and is great in boosting team morale and helping teams work together. Those with motivation are always finding ways to do, and be better. 

Ways to be a motivational leader: Encourage others to utilize meaningful recognition tools instead of chasing material incentives. Also, be generous with your recognition. Team members find value in being highlighted by corporate leadership, as displayed by Wambi user, Vito Buccellato, President and Chief Hospital Executive at Jersey Shore University Medical Center, who sent 533 recognitions through the Wambi platform. Vito shared, “If we want to create that experience for our patients, we need to do the same for our team members.  It’s a win-win to share recognition — the person you recognize feels great and so do you!”   5 Components of Emotional Intelligence for Healthcare Leaders Infographic

How To Identify Staff Members with High EQ

Leaders on a mission to improve their emotional intelligence can do so by surrounding themselves with people who demonstrated high levels of emotional intelligence. Because workplace success is contingent on understanding and connecting meaningfully with others in a way that creates operational synergy, it is highly likely that the more elevated the EQ is among your team, the more organizational wins you’ll have as a collective. According to the HR Source, EQ accounts for 58% of an individual’s performance while IQ only accounts for 20% of their overall efficacy.  Identify these attributes in your team members: 

  • They take the time for self-reflection. 
  • They know how to self-soothe in chaotic situations. 
  • They remain calm under pressure. 
  • They resolve conflict effectively. 
  • They lead by example. 
  • They are persistent even in times of duress. 
  • They are empathetic towards their colleagues and their patients. 

Ways to be a better leader: If you see any of these behaviors being displayed at your healthcare organization, spotlight a team member now by sending them a gratitude-filled Wambi through Carepostcard.com. 

A Final Thought

When we use emotional intelligence to guide our thinking and actions, we can take control of the situation instead of letting the emotions overtake our sensibilities. If this article inspired you to be a more emotionally intelligent leader, we invite you take our Leadership Self-Reflection assessment designed to help you reflect on your recognition style. 

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