Training the Healthcare Supervisors of Tomorrow Involves Recognition of Burnout and ‘Quiet Quitting’
A new buzz-term has found its way into the workforce lexicon of late: “Quiet quitting.” This term is loosely defined as what happens when someone does not outright quit a job, but instead shows up to work, does the bare minimum (perhaps even less), and continues to collect a paycheck.
Naturally, this phenomenon causes a conundrum for supervisors. The employee who has quietly quit typically does just enough to justify employment but is not productive enough to be a consistently contributing member of a team.
Rachel Ellison, Ph.D., author of Umiker’s Management Skills for the New Healthcare Supervisor, Eighth Edition, in an interview with Jones & Bartlett Learning, says quiet quitting is particularly emergent in healthcare administration.
“Most healthcare professionals are there to help people,” she says. “Quiet quitters are not the right type of people to be in the healthcare setting.”
Watch the entire interview with Dr. Ellison:
Healthcare Supervisors Should Listen to Understand, Not to Respond
Ellison, who is an associate professor in Healthcare Administration at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, says much of the quiet quitting phenomenon stems from post-Covid burnout. People get burnt out, but they don’t leave their roles, they just eke by. She adds that much of the discussion on burnout centers on clinical practitioners but it’s just as prevalent in the back office.
“Not many people chose to come back to healthcare,” she says. “We need more workers. There’s just not enough people to do all of the work.”
Ellison says it’s important for supervisors to recognize the signs early on. Most overt signs begin with absenteeism, disengagement, and higher sensitivity to feedback. Sometimes it just comes down to communicating with employees to gauge their stress levels.
“It seems like we listen to respond rather than listening where we want to react right away,” she says. “Active listening is a great skill healthcare supervisors need.
Ellison continues by saying supervisors need to develop their leadership skills and understand who they are as people managers.
“Supervisors really need to know what their leadership type is,” she says. “Once they know that they can easily lead their teams.”
Group Projects Are the Way to Go
Ellison admits this next idea may not be incredibly popular among students, but she says she’s a big advocate for group projects, both for online learning as well as in classroom.
“Group projects really help students build the skills they need because you’re always working in groups and on teams,” she says.
It’s for this reason Ellison has included case studies in each chapter of Umiker's which can be directly assigned as group project work. She says professors can opt for a “flipped classroom” approach, in which students are assigned the case study as self-study but then are asked to present their learnings in the classroom.
“This really allows students to learn the content, the material, and develop the skills they’ll need,” she says.
Compassion and Empathy Are Still Key
Ellison says that for leaders in healthcare administration, there is really no replacement for good old fashioned concern for our fellow person.
“At the end of the day we’re all human beings and everyone could really use some compassion,” she says.
Qualified instructors are invited to download a free digital review copy of Umiker's Management Skills for the New Health Care Supervisor, Eighth Edition in consideration of course adoption.
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