Dive Brief:
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A new LinkedIn survey found that 86% of healthcare professionals report that having pride in their employer matters to them. The biggest factor keeping those in their job for five or more years is having coworkers they enjoy and feel they can be themselves with.
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The biggest drivers in healthcare professional pride in their company are feeling they are having a positive impact on society (64%), good work-life balance and flexibility (55%) and a positive workplace culture where they can be themselves (45%).
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Atmosphere is valued. The survey found that 84% of healthcare professionals said they would not tolerate a toxic corporate culture — even to work for an industry leader.
Dive Insight:
These results suggest that workplace environment can be even more important than pay and benefits.
The LinkedIn survey of 3,010 full-time workers across multiple industries found that workplace culture affects employee retention. They also broke out findings among health sector workers.
Letting employees be themselves and having colleagues they enjoy are the most significant factors in keeping healthcare professionals in their jobs for at least five years, the survey found. More than half (55%) said that’s the number one factor in keeping them at their job long-term.
There was also a connection between pride in their work and leadership. Some 60% of people surveyed, who are not proud of their company, blamed a lack of strong and inspiring leadership as the reason. Other reasons employees aren’t happy are lack of compensation and promotion opportunities (54%) and poor workplace culture where employees feel they can’t be themselves (39%).
A positive workplace culture doesn’t just improve employee retention. For hospitals, it can influence patient outcomes. A 2017 BMJ Journals report found that organizational and workplace cultures can lead to positive patient outcomes. Researchers reviewed literature of healthcare cultures across multiple healthcare settings, mostly hospitals.
They found that organizational and workplace cultures positively affected patient outcomes in 74.2% of studies that the report analyzed. Specifically, the report found that culture is connected to mortality rates, failure to rescue, re-admission rates, adverse events/medication transgressions, patient satisfaction and quality of life. Drilling down further, the researchers found clinical outcomes affected by culture include pressure ulcers, falls, hospital-acquired infections, depression, pulmonary embolism/deep vein thrombosis and incontinence.