Do You Praise Good Efforts?

My Dad was a no-nonsense Army Officer who ruled his household with a firm hand. He was not abusive but expected high standards from all his children.  Despite his instructions and acts of discipline, one thing I loved about my Dad was the fact that he always rewarded good behavior. The highlights of my childhood were those times when he praised me for excelling in school or for doing a particular task well. His words of praise made me forget all the pain of discipline and motivated me to always strive to do better.

I have since discovered that praise is a critical but often overlooked aspect of motivation. Praise as a motivator comes under the third aspect of HR management - performance appraisal and motivation.

 Performance appraisal involves the assessment of employees to determine their current knowledge, attitude and skills. Assessing employee performance will also provide awareness of opportunities for training and development. Evaluations lead to efforts to improve performance problems.

Motivation describes the reasons why your employees do the things they do or refrain from doing what they ought to do. The motivation of your employees is a major factor that determines the quality and consistency of service delivery to your patients. A poorly motivated employee may not give his/her best to the patients and this may result in the loss of lives.  

There are many theories of motivation in the literature but without praise or commendation, these theories are largely useless.

Praise as a motivator

Praise is an expression of admiration or approval for somebody's achievements or for something's good qualities. We often forget to praise good efforts but always remember to blame bad mistakes. Praise is a potent but often overlooked motivator. A hospital employee who is well paid but seldom appreciated will not remain motivated for long. A combination of good salaries and merited praise is necessary to sustain motivation. You should realize that you have an obligation to not just to pay salaries but also to commend the positive efforts of their employees. Doing this will produce several effects.

Effects of Praise

Courtesy: Ohi Ohioze

Adapted from: Hospital Management Made Easy © 2012HospitalmgtNigeria

Praise creates a feeling of importance in employees. When employees feel important, they develop a positive attitude. This positive attitude is reflected in their behavior towards the job, the patients, and fellow colleagues and even towards management. A positively minded employee will be willing to do more work. More work coupled with efficiency and effectiveness increases productivity and profit. The praise cycle begins again when management commends the increased productivity (see the diagram above).

Psychologists claim that for praise to be effective, it should be done in public. Praise must also be earned. It is important that you do not make praise continuous but occasional so that its effect is not lost. Another thing worthy of note is that praise should be timely. It should be done as and when due (not many days after the incidence).

In addition, praise is better done informally because calling formal meetings where you heap praises on a particular employee could be counter-productive (the exception being during annual award ceremonies for diligent employees). 

Praise should be based on specific things and results. You should be consistent in praise and recognition. This means that you should avoid the mistake of praising an employee for something and not praising another for the same thing.

In contrast, blame is the direct opposite of praise. It should always be done privately so as not to dampen employee morale. As with praise, blame should be timely. You must immediately recognize substandard work and correct it before the end of the day. This is to ensure that employees can connect the blame received with the work done.

Organizations with a culture of praise and commendation usually place emphasis on finding loopholes in the system (that leads to errors and mistakes) rather than blaming the individual worker. Hence, to enhance a culture of reporting errors and learning from mistakes, individuals should seldom be blamed. Your emphasis should always be to help the worker improve rather than make him/her feel small.

Remember, you can get the best out of your employees by imbibing a culture of praise in your hospital..

See you soon….

What do Patients Need?

Many physicians have asked this question countless times in exasperation. What do patients need?! It seems when you’re nice to patients, they take you for granted and call you at odd hours for the most trivial of issues. Conversely, when you are not so nice, they call you a snob.

What do patients really need? Can you ever please them? Do they need treatment in the form of drugs, counseling, surgery, physiotherapy, or a combination of all these? Or is there something deeper that they need?

I usually tell physicians that the most basic need of any customer/patient is EMPATHETIC HELP! You certainly cannot cater to their every want but you will do well to offer them emphatic help.

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Usually, patients cannot do much for themselves. When they come to the hospital, they often feel like crap and cannot make themselves better. This helplessness may be physical, mental or emotional. My little daughter’s dictionary says to help is ‘to make it easier for someone to do something, by doing part of their work or by giving them advice or an object they need’.

Empathy means the ability to identify with and understand somebody else’s feelings or difficulties.

Empathetic help therefore means the ability to do something, give something or give advice from a point of understanding to a patient. For example, when a patient comes in vomiting all over the couch, empathetic help means providing relief and cleaning up without being rude or impolite. It also means a woman who is in labor is not screamed at or slapped on the laps. Rather counseling and some form of acceptable pain relief is offered. In addition, empathetic help means putting yourself in the patient’s shoes and giving the treatment and attention you would expect to receive if you were a patient.

The components of empathetic help are:

—  Friendliness:

The act of being nice to patients and being receptive to their queries

—  Understanding:

This is having the right attitude towards patients based on your ability to interpret or infer their feelings.

—  Fairness:

This means providing a balanced and impartial service to patients regardless of their gender, color, creed, ethnicity, religion or political leaning.

—  Confidentiality:

This means not divulging the patient’s medical history or condition to unauthorized persons.

—  Information:

This involves providing facts and data about the patient’s condition in terms they can understand so that they can make informed choices.

—  Control:

This is allowing patients or their guardians to make informed decisions at each point in their treatment process.

—  Options & Alternatives:

This implies providing equally beneficial treatment choices to patients as well as directing patients to another service provider when you cannot manage their specific health issues.

Beyond the aesthetics and facilities of your hospital, empathetic help is a culture that your hospital must imbibe. To remain competitive, you should learn it and train your staff to give it.

So, when next you get exasperated by your patients and wonder what they actually need, read through this article. That way you can keep on providing quality healthcare with a smile.

Cheers!