Leading disengaged workers: Have your managers checked out?

Guest post by Darlene A. Cunha, MMHC, BSN, RN, a senior healthcare executive, who focuses on population health management and the patient caregiver experience.

I recently attended a gathering with many healthcare professionals and was saddened to hear one of the participants state, "My managers have checked out. They are doing what is minimally required and are biding time until their retirement."

Does this sound familiar? Have you ever looked at your work schedule to see whom you would work with on any given day, and then thought to yourself, "Tomorrow is not going to be a good day, Jane Doe is working." Unfortunately, this phenomenon continues to plague most, if not all, organizations, but why haven't we been able to get it right?

Although settings and circumstances may differ, there are many healthcare teams that operate with only partial engagement from their members. The 2013 State of The Global Workplace report, which studied 142 countries, found only 13 percent of employees were engaged at work. In the United States, Gallup data depicted 29 percent of employees as engaged, 26 percent as disengaged, and 18 percent as actively disengaged, or unhappy and unproductive at work. This means nearly three-quarters of employees are not fully engaged at work.

>> Read the full commentary at Hospital Impact