Thanks to the efforts of healthcare market research, we now know the tremendous impact employee satisfaction can have on patient outcomes. Because of this correlation, healthcare market research should also measure the happiness of employees if it wants to truly examine ways providers can improve upon patient experiences.
To help you target problems in your organization that could lead to dissatisfied employees and subsequently dissatisfied patients, here are three qualitative questions to ask that pinpoint common healthcare employee complaints:
1. Do You Feel Your Training Has Prepared You to Cooperate with Other Positions?
A major problem that has come to light in the past few years is that many healthcare employees are trained how to do their jobs in isolation. When two positions who are both doing what they think is right come into conflict, they have no set way to resolve their differences or come to a mutual understanding. Power struggles and repeated complaints usually result.
Ask the above question to highlight which positions experience the most frustration when their duties clash with other staff.
2. Would Adding the Following Break Durations Make You More or Less Productive?
Healthcare staff have been in a bad way in recent years. Underperformance of financial goals and the looming threat of consolidation has forced many administrators to freeze wages, cut positions and even reduce salaries. These actions have consequently weighed heavily upon the workers, who are often being asked to work more hours for less pay.
One solution many have suggested is allowing staff to take more frequent breaks that reduce fatigue. Asking employees to rate the effectiveness of adding short breaks can determine how overworked staff feels and how much time they may need to recharge. If many employees think just a 15 minute break would suffice, the problem may be simple. If they all think an hour or more is needed, your problems extend beyond breaks and into staffing.
3. Do You Feel Your Input Is Valued by the Organization?
The bureaucratic nature of hospitals and other healthcare services can make staff feel like they are one microscopic cog in a colossal machine. Absent leadership and the appearance of apathy towards employee concerns can all lead to disgruntled emotions. Worse, the problems employees want to voice can often be very valid and directly affecting patient outcomes.
Asking employees to rate how their input is received along with follow-up questions on feedback methods can help your organization make employees feel more valued.
Ready to learn more?
These healthcare employee satisfaction questions are not a cure-all for the ailments of our medical industry, but they can be a great start to finding issues that affect patient outcomes and experiences. Healthcare market research teams can peruse our guide to survey design and best practices to learn more about how to yield stunning insights from simple questions.
