No shortage of workplace pressures.

Photo by Mark Thomas/Science Photo Library.

In virtually any health care setting today, nurses are under pressure to increase efficiencies, improve quality, and cut costs. The nonstop pressure to always do better comes in the midst of staff shortages, repeated changes in clinical protocols, struggles with EHRs that are incompatible with our workflow, and even concerns for our own physical safety. It’s no surprise that nursing turnover rates are increasing.

With all of this raining down on our heads, is it really possible to experience joy at work?

In “Finding Joy in the Workplace” in this month’s issue (free until May 7), Rose Sherman and Cynthia Blum tell us that it is. And, they argue, the work experience of nurses influences the quality of their interactions with patients:

If clinicians don’t feel hope, confidence, and psychological safety in their work, they can’t in turn offer these to their patients.

An evidence-based framework for improving joy.

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is known to most of us as an organization that focuses on patient safety issues like CLABSIs, surgical site infections, falls, and medication errors. But increasingly concerned about clinician burnout (which is, after all, a patient safety issue), in 2017 the IHI published a white paper, The IHI Framework for Improving Joy in Work, that presents evidence-based ways in which we can cultivate joy in the workplace.

Committing to small changes at work.

Sherman and Blum use this IHI framework to illustrate that if we commit to even small changes at work—changes that are “no big deal” and can easily be worked into the day—we can get back on a path to finding joy in our work, even when the stressors don’t change.

They suggest some thought-provoking questions that can lead to productive discussions among workmates:

What matters most?
When we are at our best, what does that look like?
What gets in the way of having a good day?
What can be done right now to get the (more-joy-in-work) process started?

Making joy a priority, despite ongoing challenges.

The work of nursing is not likely ever to be “easy,” even under the best of conditions. The ongoing crises of cost and access that plague U.S. health care are likely to be with us for a long time. Can we commit to making joy a higher priority?