Children's Hospitals Today - Spring 2023 - 16

FEATURE / WORKFORCE
TAKING ACTION
4 steps to Joy in Work
To implement the program, IHI recommends following four steps
to ensure it meets the needs of each organization or team.
asking people, " What matters to you? " at
work. And they were surprised by what
they found.
" I thought it would be easy, " Sandhu,
who is known for engaging with staff
at CHOC, says through a laugh. She
quickly learned that some people hesitated
to answer the question or just
didn't know how to answer it. So, they
asked more specific questions like, " If
at the end of the day, it has been a good
day, what does that look like? " or " What
brings you joy at work? "
Through these conversations, the
Ask staff, " What
matters to you? "
Discovering what matters relies
heavily on trusting relationships and
assumes that leaders know how to
listen. Teams have found success
with using communication boards,
surveys, regular staff meetings or
more informal meetings to engage,
inform and listen. Some conversation
questions may include: What makes for
a good day for you? When we are at our
best, what does that look like?
Commit to shared
responsibility
Leaders at all levels must dedicate
time, attention, skill development,
and necessary resources to
improving joy in work. Although
there is a shared responsibility, not
everyone does everything. Different
leaders are responsible for different
components: senior leaders for all
nine components; managers and
core leaders for five components; and
individuals for three components.
team quickly discovered that the staff
felt closely aligned with CHOC's mission,
but there were gaps in recognition
and rewards. They asked the natural
follow-up:
" What kinds of
rewards
would be meaningful to you? " Based
on the feedback, the team started by
implementing some simple practices,
such as recognizing people for making
safety catches and writing personal
notes to staff celebrating milestones.
" In the beginning, we were not working
on these gigantic, fundamental
changes that were going to bring everyone
joy instantly, " says Sandhu. " We
did some of these quick things to help
people see that the organization really
does care about their joy at work. "
Lindsay Carter, M.D., a pediatric
Identify impediments
in the local context
Explicitly asking employees what
impediments they face in addition to
other real-time data collection and
surveys enables leaders to build a
comprehensive understanding of
what contributes to joy in work in the
organization, as well as what doesn't.
Leaders work with colleagues to
identify hindrances, set priorities, and
address them together.
Use improvement
science to test
Using principles of improvement
science, organizations can determine
if the changes they test are leading
to improvement, are sustainable, and
are effective in different programs,
departments and clinics. In all cases,
the teams set a goal for their work,
decide on measures of progress, and
select components of the framework
in which to test changes.
hospitalist and inpatient director for
Quality and Safety at MassGeneral
Hospital for Children in Boston, started
a Joy in Work program after attending
the IHI annual National Forum and being
moved to focus on staff well-being.
In line with the framework's method
to involve senior leaders, managers
and frontline workers within various
components, their Joy in Work implementation
team consisted of nine
members, including the vice chair of
the department, a speech language pathologist,
a pediatric pharmacist, and
an administrator from the quality and
safety team. They chose team members
based on their skills and personality,
which is another recommendation
16
CHILDREN'S HOSPITALS TODAY Spring 2023
Children's Hospitals Today - Spring 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Children's Hospitals Today - Spring 2023
