WORK LIFE CHOICES

Mary Magee Gullatte, PhD, RN, ANP-BC, AOCN, LSSYB, FAAN

A skilled, strong, diverse, and healthy workforce is imperative to a thriving and successful healthcare system responsible for care of patients to achieve best health outcomes. Healthcare workers have faced unimaginable physical and emotional challenges, including labor and supply chain shortages, over the past three years working in conditions never faced in our lifetime due to the novel COVID-19 pandemic. Healthcare systems have incurred billions of dollars in unexpected expenses and lost revenue, over the past three years, resulting from direct and indirect effects of the pandemic. A healthy, empathetic, and compassionate workforce are foundational to a strong and vibrant healthcare system and access to quality and safe patient care.

The compassion fatigue, grief, burnout, and stress expressed by healthcare workers are real. These challenges and conditions have resulted in high turnover and reduced staff satisfaction and engagement as hospitals and healthcare systems face ongoing labor shortages. No one could have predicted that the pandemic would last over three years and counting. Workforce resiliency and physical and mental self-care have been top of mind for healthcare organizations trying to recover and rebuild a stable and viable workforce. The focus on creating and sustaining a healthy work environment is one strategy to strengthen & rebuild a healthcare workforce, and reduce turnover and burnout among workers.

Healthcare colleagues have expressed being challenged with trying to find work-life balance in an effort to reduce stress, compassion fatigue, and burnout and restore engagement, compassion, and empathy. I contend that work-life balance begins with personal work-life CHOICES. Those choices have to be made by the individual not declared by the employer. Each healthcare worker has to make personal choices as to when to take some time away from work to reflect, rejuve- nate, restore, and regain inner peace and tranquility. These choices need to be intentional before one is at the breaking point. Without caring for self, one cannot care for others including those we love and the patients entrusted in our care and our coworkers.

Strategies to consider for self-care begin with a conscious CHOICE. A choice to plan a long weekend or an extra day off just to care for yourself and spend quality time with your loved ones. Consider a staycation. When was the last time you took a real vacation with family and or friends? Reflect on what is fun for you. Take a walk and enjoy some private time to reconnect with what makes you happy. Enjoy the sights and sounds of the change of seasons. Spring is a time of nature’s expression of renewal and rebirth as evidence by the flowering trees and the return of green grass and colorful spring flowers. Enjoy some ‘me’ time to remind yourself what is important in life and what legacy you want to leave for your family. For some it might be reconnecting with your mind, body, and spirit. Schedule your annual physical and above all take care of your mental health. Perhaps a visit to a spa to pamper yourself. Meditate. Read a book for fun. Visit a fitness center to shed those extra COVID pounds☺. Reconnect with your spiritual self and what makes YOU happy and fulfilled. Considering and being intentional about the CHOICES we make will translate into balance in your life of all the things that are important to you. A healthy and self-fulfilled workforce will translate into reduced burnout, restored capacity for compassion and empathy, retention, reduced turnover, improved job satisfaction and organizational financial health. Remember the road to restoring work-life balance begins with personal work-life CHOICES. Make a CHOICE to care for your physical, emotional, and spiritual self. You are the only one who can decide when and what that entails. Just do it!