The healthcare industry is one of India’s biggest and most prominent sectors, with professionals navigating through their busy schedules on a day-to-day basis.
Since healthcare is a rapidly evolving and dynamic sector, it often results in a hectic work-life for professionals. Due to this, healthcare professionals have adverse and far-reaching consequences that impact their lives.
According to a survey, 78% of frontline workers, primarily nurses, and doctors, want a better work environment driven by effective communication. Additionally, 23% of doctors want their organizations to pay more attention towards mental health. This clearly demonstrates that there are needs besides monetary gains which the healthcare workers require.
In April 2020, an association of registered nurses filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking the Central government’s intervention in framing policy for the welfare of healthcare professionals. The petition included several concerns, such as non-payment of salaries, shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), and long shifts.
Burnout, excessive stress, poor work-life balance, and low wage are among the many challenges healthcare professionals face in their professional lives. Yet, challenges such as these often go unnoticed.
But the real downside to this is that all these factors greatly affect the overall growth of a healthcare worker. Working round the clock and performing critical day-to-day chores, makes it extremely important that a healthcare worker is looked after.
Having said that, let’s explore the two most essential aspects of a healthcare professional’s life — adequate compensation and work-life balance. Furthermore, how can these two factors successfully contribute towards their career success?
Adequate Compensation
This one is a no-brainer. Offering good compensation is an excellent way to boost employees’ morale—that’s why the right pay and perks matter. Healthcare professionals bring an incredible difference to someone’s life, and rewarding them would keep their competitive spirit alive.
Healthcare professionals are the first responders at hospitals during any emergency, leaving no stone unturned to serve patients through a health crisis. Inadequate compensation can not only demotivate them but also hampers the healthcare industry largely.
Low wages come along with numerous adverse effects, such as:
- Increased stress
- Low self-esteem
- Lack of concentration on work
- Prevents upward mobility
- Disturbed physical health
- Affected psychological well-being
Let’s take a quick look at some of the benefits of adequate compensation that helps healthcare employers and employees both.
Benefits of Better Compensation
- Improved satisfaction with the job
- No additional psychological stress
- Healthy work environment
- Employees more focused towards work
- Increased employee motivation
- Boost employee loyalty
- Better employee productivity
- Increased hospital’s profitability
These benefits indicate how crucial better compensation is. But, healthcare institutions, too, can pitch in and reward employees for their hard work and perseverance. As discussed above, non-monetary benefits are as crucial for any healthcare employee as the monetary benefits.
The institutions need to inculcate some best practices which fill the employees with a feeling of belonging.
Fair compensation practice is healthier for healthcare institutions to sustain in the long run, ensuring employees deliver quality services to patients. But apart from appropriate compensation, another equally important factor is a healthy work-life balance of healthcare providers.
Let’s throw some light on it and understand how work-life balance is critical for healthcare professionals and how healthcare institutions can promote it at the workplace and reap the benefits of a productive and healthy work environment.
Healthy Work-Life Balance
Poor work-life balance leads to exhaustion and fatigue. With the changing dynamics of the healthcare industry, medical professionals work in a highly stressful environment, jeopardizing the balance between their personal and professional life.
Striking the right balance can be demanding for healthcare professionals. Still, it is vital to prioritize work-life to attain a healthy work-life balance and increased workplace productivity in the long run.
Below are some of the challenges that healthcare professionals may have to deal with due to poor work-life balance.
- Adverse effects on career longevity
- Impacts workplace productivity
- Sacrificing physical health has far-reaching implications, especially as one age
- Vulnerable to developing mental health issues
- Creates stress and tensions in personal relationships
Apart from professionals, the poor work-life balance jeopardizes the entire system, impacting healthcare institutions in more ways than one.
- Detrimental effects on the patient care delivery system
- Staff shortages due to burnout
- Declining patient safety may result in medical malpractice
- Challenges in employee retention
Healthcare professionals must find the right balance between work and personal life. On the other hand, organizations, too, need to ensure and promote work-life balance among their employees to achieve one of the objectives of the healthcare sector — improved patient outcomes.
Let’s have a quick run-through of how healthcare professionals can achieve a better work-life balance and how institutions can support their employees.
How can healthcare professionals help themselves?
Health professionals must prioritize their health and well-being as much as they give importance to their work.
- Exercise and meditate to boost physical and mental health
- Planning the work and practicing effective time management
- Organizing and following the set patients’ schedule
- Take restorative breaks to improve attention
- Unplug from work while at home
- Sleep well to boost productivity
On the other hand, healthcare institutions, too, can assist their employees in having a better work-life balance while enhancing the quality of patient care.
Here’s how:
- Frame HR policies to promote work-life balance
- Provide employer-sponsored employee assistance programs
- Encourage team collaboration and communication
- Boost employee productivity with recreational activities
- Allow flexible work schedules
- Hire a sufficient workforce or on-demand workers to ease the burden off existing employees’ shoulders, especially during a crisis-like situation
Having the right work-life balance and adequate compensation is necessary for professionals in order to achieve career success, but also critical for employers to improve the patient care delivery system and ensure better retention.
Conclusion
If you are a healthcare professional looking for more freedom over your career while receiving competitive pay and achieving a work-life balance in the healthcare industry, then Jobizo is your answer.
Jobizo is India’s first digitized flexible healthcare recruitment platform! A platform where healthcare professionals can find location-based nearby job posts by healthcare institutions, along with mentioned dates and compensation offered.
Yes, through Jobizo, healthcare professionals can search for and book on-demand jobs nearby without compromising their work-life balance. Additionally, the flexible recruitment platform empowers healthcare professionals to handpick part-time positions as per the date, time, and, more importantly, the compensation offered by institutions.
From on-demand job opportunities to industry-standard compensation, Jobizo has been transforming the lives of healthcare professionals in more ways than one.
Download the Jobizo app today (Play Store/App Store), say goodbye to all your job-related concerns, and achieve the career success you’ve always dreamed of.