Healthy workplaces are paramount to organizational success yet fewer than 3% of organizations enact strategies to transform workplace culture (personal communication, C. Clark, workshop presentation, 2017). This subject has been recognized by the United Nations as a priority for the post-2015 sustainable development era. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG #8: Decent Work and Economic Growth, emphasizes that promoting a safe, sustainable and inclusive work environment can be achieved through the integration of essential elements such as good governance, social dialogue and sound policies that collectively help in creating a resilient infrastructure that is responsive to any internal or external forces that drive organizational change. Thus, leading to a more sustainable productive employment and economic growth (United Nations, 2015).
Today, there is strong momentum for healthcare organizations to build healthy workplaces. Over the past ten years, professional healthcare organizations have actively advocated for transformational change to enact civility and respect in the workplace. In the United States, the American Nurses Association (ANA, 2017) describes a healthy work environment as, "safe, empowering, and satisfying—a place where all members of the organization perform with a sense of professionalism, accountability, transparency, involvement, efficiency, and effectiveness while being mindful of the health and safety of all people" (Clark, 2017b, para. 2). To that end, the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN, 2016) have developed six standards for establishing and sustaining healthy work environments listed as a) skilled communication; b) true collaboration; c) effective decision-making; d) appropriate staffing; d) meaningful recognition, and e) authentic leadership (Clark, 2017b). Additionally, tools designed to help organizations build healthy workplaces are now available to organizations. For example, the National League for Nursing (NLN) Task Group on Healthful Work Environments has newly published a toolkit designed to bolster change efforts in organizations (NLN, 2018) and the RNAO in Canada published Best Practice Guidelines (BPGs) for workplace health (Registered Nurses of Ontario, 2013). In 2008, the Canadian Council on Health Services Accreditation identified the primacy of healthy workplaces in healthcare organizations. Moreover, a Joint Statement by the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) and the Canadian Federation of Nursing Unions (CFNU) underscored that, "every workplace should have a culture that promotes and cultivates a respectful workplace" (CNA & CFNU, 2018, p. 1) and that it was “unacceptable to work in, receive care in, govern, manage and fund” health-care workplaces where violence and bullying exist" (p. 2).
Today's organizational contexts, however, actually contribute to the creation of unhealthy work environments marked by increasing complexity, fast-paced change, and ongoing uncertainty. It is in this milieu that executive leaders, faculty and students are charged with creating and sustaining healthy work environments. Current evidence supports the use of strategic, intentional, and ongoing planned change initiatives to create, nurture, and sustain civility in organizations.
To transform healthcare work environments, leaders must commit to employing evidence-based change processes for quality improvement and to impact positive outcomes. Hence, the use of strategic, intentional, and targeted system-wide change processes is key. Change leadership and management and the use of frameworks and tools with established reliability are vital to the process of eliminating behaviours by employees associated with bullying, horizontal violence, and incivility (Clark, 2017). In fact, whereas past change leadership models underscored how it could take up to several decades to change a culture, contemporary change leadership models call for adaptability, flexibility, agility, and a commitment on the part of organizations to change quickly (Kotter International, 2018). A recent literature search by the authors of this abstract on the topic of incivility in nursing education produced hundreds of articles that highlight the need to create healthier learning environments. Therefore, nurses in academic environments are advocating for and working to enhance workplace health and foster civility in academia. For example, Clark, Ahten, and Macy (2014) report on the outcomes of a 10-month study featuring the implementation of a classroom-based, problem-based learning intervention on civility with undergraduate nursing students and describe its positive impact on behaviours. What we now know is that healthy work and learning environments do not just happen spontaneously: they exist because of targeted efforts to create, nurture and embed healthy workplace practices within the organizational culture, policy, and processes where civility becomes a way of knowing, doing, and being. Vera, Rodríguez-Sánchez, & Salanova, (2017) report that organizational leaders can do much to improve workplace health and build resiliency in the teams that populate them.
This conference presentation outlines the strategic pathway used by one Faculty of Nursing in Canada to foster a Spirit of Well-Being for faculty, students, and staff. Presenters will share personal narratives, insights gained, and the methods used to spearhead and measure change. Presenters will also highlight select targeted efforts used to enact this change including such initiatives as adopting the Pathway for Fostering Organizational Civility (PFOC) (Clarke, 2017b) as their change leadership/management framework, the use of valid and reliable tools for measurement such as the Clark Workplace ‘Civility Index’ [Revised] ©, (Clarke, 2013) and wide-scale collaboration to build a Civility Charter. Presenters will summarize by providing participants with an update on the current state of Spirit of Well-Being based on updated metrics and goal attainment.