Tune in now to the final Season 4 Moments Move Us episode with Rebecca Coren 🎧
Wambi has been named one of “Best Fit” Mental Health Services & Solutions by ANA\California.
Real-time recognition is the driving force of the Wambi platform. Our holistic solution impacts patients, frontline staff, and every member of your organization.
Our innovative employee recognition solution leverages gamification to positively transform the employee experience. Calculate your ROI, explore data insights, and read more about our success stories.
New Podcast Episode:
Creating Change Through Connection: Leadership Lessons from Season 4 with host Rebecca Coren
Meet Dr. Scott Rissmiller of Atrium Health:
“With all we know about physician burnout, we want to be the absolute best place for a physician to care for patients. We launched a whole initiative two years ago, really focusing on caring for our physicians and our APS, breaking down the things that get in the way of why they went into medicine, which is to care for patients and to have that relationship with patients.”
Listen to the episode below to learn how Atrium Health has been able to provide workflow, focus, and a community to their employees in the struggle to combat healthcare burnout.
Dr. Scott Rissmiller exemplifies the Wambi value of fearlessness when speaking on the importance of sharing authentic stories as a way to call people in and reconnect to one’s purpose.
“It’s even more important today for leaders to show up with positive energy and optimism while we tackle these tough problems. And be real, just like with our courageous conversations, don’t shy away from the things that might be a bit uncomfortable, because again, in this time of virtual, it’s easy to just stay at the surface level. Dig deep, make it consistent, and build people up. Then connect back to why we went into this to begin with. There is a practice that is just incredible, which is called connect the purpose, where we start every meeting, and I mean every meeting, with a patient story of how we have delivered incredible care, and what we meant to that patient.”
Learn how University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health used Wambi to improve employee engagement and patient experience, and found that the Wambi platform is an early predictor of the HCAHPS. Download the case study here.
This Gut + Science episode is sponsored by Wambi. Don’t miss out on future episodes; subscribe today!
Achieve greatness, one task at a time. This month at Wambi is all about recognizing progress and charting growth. If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed by an out-of-control task list, one of the easiest ways to reduce stress is to get into the habit of mapping out your day. We’ve designed a free editable daily planner you can use on your desktop or tablet devices, or to print out whenever the need arises. Our one-page editable daily planner prioritizes mindfulness and gratitude. On top of outlining your day hourly, you can also list out your top priorities, chart your water intake, and keep track of any wellness habits. This is free for public use. Share this page with a colleague, friends, or family members today!
The benefits of being organized are countless, especially when it comes to overall mental health and well-being. Here are the top three reasons to use a daily planner.
Print-Ready Version – Fits on a standard A4 (8.5 x 11″) page Digital Version – Fully editable with a functioning .pdf viewer
How to use the digital version of the planner: Open your editable file in a .pdf reader and begin typing out the date. You can type out priorities, tasks, gratitude, and notes in the editable text fields. When you complete a task, mark the boxes under ‘Done.’ Keep track of your daily water intake and wellness habits by checking the boxes too. Feel free to save the file under the specific date or don’t save it to begin anew each and every day.
Download more free enrichment resources here:
Relationships bring richness to our lives, and move things forward, faster than anything else. Bring a passionate group of people together who share the same mission, using their ”ikigai”, and watch the profound impact that they have on the world. The ripple effect of energetic, cause-oriented people is astounding–individual interactions are energizing and the movement of a team like this is game-changing. Every business owner and CEO dreams of having this dynamic among their employees. Every job seeker hopes for this possibility. And yet, very few have this experience.
Watch this TEDx Talk by Chloe Wong to learn more about the power of ikigai.
Did you know that most Americans have two close friends? That’s it! What’s more, statistics show only 15-20% of employees have a friend at work. Bottomline: humans struggle to build relationships. Mix in the dynamics of a pandemic and statistics must undoubtedly dwindle ever more.
“Employee satisfaction increases nearly 50% when a worker develops a close relationship on the job. Relationships with coworkers are among the top drivers of employee engagement—77% of employees list them as a priority,” according to Quantum Workplace.
If we want to do incredible work and get incredible results, we must have incredible relationships.
Not simply acquaintances, but friends. People are much more likely to be real and admit mistakes or insecurities if they have a friendship with someone. And with friends, we are more likely to risks or try new things. Organizations crave innovation and people are stifled. Help people build relationships and watch the new ideas trickle in.
Workplaces must be a relationship-building platform and that starts with leaders being the example. Here are some ideas to move the needle:
Inspire all employees who have direct interaction with each other to have a conversation around commonalities. One idea, you could start with the Ikigai map as a conversation piece. The goal is to find a shared focus among both parties.
Remember, people love to talk about themselves, but we must ask questions with depth that get people to open and share. For example:
When you are asking the questions, talk very little. Concentrate on being a good listener. Write things down to show you care about what they are saying. Reflect back what you heard when appropriate. And in future interactions, try to recall things they said to show you were listening. Listening illustrates care.
With a new appreciation for the power of relationships in influencing your success in business, practice your connection skills. Each time to launch a new project or meet a new potential client or coworker, pause to consider how you can connect with them more deeply—whether to build a friendship or to create a strong ally in future partnerships. Odds are, your efforts will improve both of your days and it will have lasting impact on your success at work.
Nikki Lewallen is passionate about leadership, business development, innovation, efficiency, and philanthropy. Nikki’s known expertise in relationship-building enables her to find and nurture strategic connections that result in meaningful business outcomes. Her mission to help people “love Mondays” keeps her career focus always grounded in employee engagement. Nikki is always seeking the “win-win” and stays focused on results. As Director of Partnerships at Wambi, Nikki works nationally alongside the best and brightest advisors to people-first leaders in healthcare, collaborating on the shared mission of improving experience for patients, employees, and all people in the healthcare ecosystem. She is the show host for Gut+Science, a series of podcasts that provide a platform for people-first leaders to share their stories and inspire others to build more engaging workplaces. Nikki serves on multiple nonprofit boards to fulfill her core value of service, and her board roles fulfill her priority life categories of faith and entrepreneurship.
In a normal climate, our revered healthcare workers are warriors. The everyday obstacles they face in the workplace are regularly challenged by a lack of resources, lack of appreciation, staffing demands, and poor team morale. Now topped off with a global pandemic and many nurses are beginning to literally throw in the towel. A recent survey found “just 35% of nurses said they felt like their work had meaning, and only one quarter of all respondents said they were optimistic about the future.” Leaders must acknowledge the true impact of turnover and the trickle-down effect it has to proactively mitigate further damage.
“Staff turnover in hospitals is estimated to cost at least two times the pay of a regular employed nurse” (1) and is triggered by a myriad of issues:
In addition to the adverse effect turnover has on organizations and teams, research indicates patients take the brunt of its impact, which often manifests as infections, medical errors, and an overall poor experience. While there is no quick fix, the key to slowing the spread of turnover lies in small strides and day-to-day changes at all levels in the healthcare ecosystem.
Many hospitals and health systems already have robust staff retention processes in place: a shared governance structure for feedback, staff involvement on key topics that impact their work, and adjusting ratios when possible to ease feelings of burnout. However, a novel approach to fighting turnover that is gaining popularity is sharing recognition with staff. While negative feedback is common, shining a light on positive interactions in a systematic way is not widely adopted. However, to ensure healthcare workers feel valued on a daily basis, recognizing moments that create positive patient outcomes is key. Simple, individualized gratitude from patients can be the one thing that connects and motivates team members.
“The greatest motivator for my teams is to be recognized by their peers and patients through Wambi. It makes them feel valued and helps them realize their hard work really does pay off. —Kathy L. Lynch, RN, MSN, Nurse Manager, 4T and ICU/IMC
“9% of millennials say they receive routine feedback; an even smaller percentage of millennials (17%) say the feedback they do receive is meaningful.”(3)
When wins are celebrated in real time, team members experience strong positive reinforcement. The result: long–term positive behavior, feelings of being appreciated, and retained staff. Systems like Wambi enable healthcare team members to receive recognition and gratitude immediately and on an ongoing basis from their patients and families, peers, and leadership. Organizations implementing recognition systems are beginning to see how important it is to provide individualized real-time feedback and praise to their most crucial asset – their team. In fact, hospitals and health systems who prioritize recognition have a competitive advantage over others that do not. Staff who feel they are seen, appreciated, and valued stay at their employer and ultimately provide better care to their patients.
At East Orange General Hospital (EOGH), real-time recognition from patients and families captured in Wambi was one of the major contributing factors that led to a 53% improvement in RN Annualized Voluntary Turnover.
In devising a turnover and retention strategy, perhaps the most important thing to remember is that while nurses, physicians, and other staff in healthcare are not admitted to the hospitals in which they serve, they too are suffering and need care and attention to heal from the physical, emotional, and mental toll COVID-19 has taken on their lives. Let’s give them the care they deserve.
Hausknecht, J. (June 2017). How do leader departures affect turnover among those employees left behind? Cornell University.
To improve healthcare quality outcomes, we must focus on turnover. (2017, October 11). HealthStream.
Managers: Millenials want feedback, but won’t ask for it. (2016, June 2). Gallup.