Showing Appreciation in the Workplace | Episode 8 | Reviving Vet Med

Veterinary team members are struggling with burnout more than ever before, thanks to an excruciating caseload and staffing shortages. More and more veterinary professionals are choosing to leave their jobs, further exacerbating the burnout of those left behind. 

Research shows that one of the biggest reasons that employees leave their jobs is because they feel unappreciated or undervalued. And we also know that giving feedback and showing appreciation to employees is an art that requires dedication and care. 

Not every employee feels appreciated in the same way, which is why understanding how employees want to be recognized or acknowledged is so important. 

During this episode, we review the research around employee appreciation and share practical tools and tips for recognizing the important work of each veterinary team member. 

Video Version 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwImTe3Htww 

Resources
A systematic review including meta-analysis of work environment and burnout symptoms (BMC Public Health 2017): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5356239/

The role of veterinary team effectiveness in job satisfaction and burnout in companion animal veterinary teams (JAVMA 2014): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25148093/

Evaluation of team effectiveness and personal empathy for associations with professional quality of life and job satisfaction in companion animal practice personnel (JAVMA 2019): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31039097/

Veterinary technicians and occupational burnout (Front Vet Sci 2020): https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2020.00328/full

Five Love Languages: https://www.5lovelanguages.com/store/the-5-love-languages

Appreciation in the Workplace: https://www.appreciationatwork.com/

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Transcript

Hey everyone and welcome to another episode of Reviving Vet Med. In this episode we are going to be discussing showing appreciation in the veterinary workplace. This is a really great episode. We get into all sorts of topics including the link between burnout and not feeling appreciated, the different ways that people want to feel appreciated, and how we can more effectively give feedback to the people that we work with. So, I think that this episode has a lot of really great practical applications for everyone working in the veterinary space.

Believe it or not, there is a lot of research looking at team effectiveness, individual engagement, and measures of appreciation on burnout amongst vet techs, veterinarians, and kennel attendants in the veterinary industry. So, I will be reviewing all of those studies, and I will be giving you some practical tools for how you can show appreciation to the people that you work with or who work for you in your veterinary workplace. Now please note that this episode was recorded using live video, so some of the audio might not be of the best quality, or you might hear me clicking my mouse as we move through the episode. And with that said, I think there's some really great content here, and I'm excited to share it with you. So, let's get into the episode.

This is the Reviving Vet Med podcast, and I'm your host, Dr. Marie Holowaychuk. My mission is to improve the mental health and well-being of veterinary professionals around the world. This presentation really came about because of this being veterinary technician week. So, this is a week where we in the profession really wanna celebrate our amazing vet techs, vet nurses, RVTs. Here in Canada, we actually celebrate RVT month.

So, the whole month of October is dedicated to our amazing RVTs. I know in The United States, it really is this week that is the big focus. So, if you haven't already done so, you know, find a way to thank your vet techs that you work with. They really are essential to the work that we do in this profession. And you can visit the AVMA website for more information about how you can support your technicians and how you can spread the word about the amazing things that they do.

So, knowing how important appreciation is, especially with all that we are dealing with in the profession right now, I thought that time was of the essence to present this information. So, you know, for those of us working in the profession, I mean, we've been living this for the last eighteen plus months. We are feeling more burnt out now than ever before because of the high caseloads. Everyone during the pandemic has decided to adopt puppies or kittens and other pets and it's, you know, placed a tremendous burden on our system, which was kind of already at its breaking point, I would say, even before the pandemic, in terms of staffing shortages. And now, of course, with burnout, we've had people leaving the profession, going to different jobs, cutting back their hours, and that has really placed a tremendous strain and a backlog.

So, we are struggling more than ever before. This article was in Fortune magazine back in May and really highlighted it well. This information has been highlighted in Time magazine, you know, on the in the pages of the Washington Post. Every mass media outlet has brought this to light, which is great for our clients to know, to be a little bit more patient with us, to be a little bit more understanding. But what can we do within the profession to make sure that our team members are feeling appreciated and feeling acknowledged?

Because I do think that it's unrealistic for us to just expect that our clients are always gonna show up with gift baskets and thank you cards and, you know, gratitude’s, you know, spilling over. I think it behooves us as team members and especially the leaders amongst our teams to really be taking this on themselves. So, a little bit on burnout because I am going to discuss how showing appreciation mitigates burnout. And when we think about burnout, we typically see it characterized by one of three symptoms. Now you can have one of these symptoms or you can have all three of them.

Either way, you would be considered to be experiencing burnout. The first symptom is emotional exhaustion. So, this is where people just feel emotionally drained, exhausted by the work, just completely overextended, nothing left to give, no cares left to have. The second symptom is cynicism, and we all know what it feels like to be cynical, you know, to be questioning things. When we see this in the veterinary workspace, this really shows up as a distancing or an impersonal response, whether it be towards our clients, our patients, or the people who we work with.

Just really a sense of, you know, it's just a dog. This is just another client. I don't care. Who cares about this anyways? You know, what does this all matter?

That sort of thing. And then the last symptom is a reduced sense of professional efficacy. Meaning, we don't get the same sense of accomplishment as we used to in the work that we're doing. So, when things go well or we have successful cases or, you know, we achieve something as a team, it's like, meh, who cares? Or, well, what does it matter anyways?

And for some people, it's actually a feeling of incompetence where they just feel like no matter what they do, they're not being successful in the work that they're doing as veterinary professionals. So, if any of these ring true to you, then you could be experiencing burnout. And again, if not for yourself, then maybe you're seeing these signs amongst some of your team members. So, it is shocking to me. Once I dived into the research on this, I couldn't believe how much information there was demonstrating a link between burnout and a low sense of reward, support, or appreciation in the workplace.

So, there was a huge meta-analysis published back in 2017 that reviewed studies investigating the link between burnout and work-related factors in various different work environments across the world. They included workplaces in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. And what they found is that employees that had any of those burnout symptoms that I mentioned were most likely to not feel supported by their coworkers or supervisors or to not feel rewarded in some way for their work. And I think we can all attest to this. I think we've all been in a job where we just felt like we weren't appreciated.

And it made going to work not as much fun and not as rewarding and therefore easier to fall into that burnout trap. Now we also have research to demonstrate this in veterinary medicine. So, there was a paper published in JAMA back in 2014, out of Ontario that looked at the role of veterinary team effectiveness in job satisfaction and burnout among companion animal veterinary clinics in Ontario. So, there was almost 55, there was 48 companion animal teams in Ontario. They surveyed 274 team members in total, and they included everybody on the team, vets, techs, and kennel attendants.

And the surveys asked questions about their burnout levels, their burnout symptoms, how effective their team was, and how engaged the individuals were. And they described or defined individual engagement as, you know, basically how, invested in the work that these individuals were. And there were different things that that was tied to, and I'll get to that in just a moment. But what they found was that individual engagement was associated with higher job satisfaction, higher professional efficacy, and lower emotional exhaustion and cynicism. So, all better burnout symptoms of those three burnout symptoms that we demon that we talked about and higher job satisfaction.

So, the more engaged they were, the more happy they were at work and the less burnout they had. Now what did individual engagement look like as per their definition? Well, they said that individuals who were engaged were given important tasks and relevant responsibilities within the practice, so they felt like they really had the chance to contribute where it was needed and where it was important. They were appreciated and recognized for their work, and they were recognized as valuable members of the team. So, again, if we want our employees, our team members to be engaged, we need to show appreciation.

We need to recognize them, and we need to give them opportunities that we can recognize them for. Now in 2019, so about five years after that study was published, we had another study published. And this was a study evaluating once again team effectiveness and how that was associated with job satisfaction and burnout amongst companion animal practice people. And again, this was an online survey. This included 10 companion animal teams in The United States.

Two Hundred and Thirty-Two team members participated. Again, vets, techs, and kennel attendants. And what they found is that when there was a sense of team effectiveness, there were lower burnout symptoms and increased job satisfaction. So not just this individual engagement, but now effectiveness as a team. So, what is team effectiveness?

What does that look like? Well, when a team is effective, they have a so-called coordinated team environment where people are communicating in a structured way, meaning, you know, they the things are transparent. They get frequent meetings, frequent newsletters, frequent emails, whatever it is to keep everybody looped in. There's also a sense of teamwork. So, people working together, generally towards shared goals or common goals, and there's recognition of individual contribution.

So, yes, they're working well as a team, but they're also for a team to be effective, there needs to be recognition of what each person is bringing to the team. Again, appreciating and recognizing our team members. The flip side of that is what a toxic team can look like. A toxic team environment is where we have communication breakdowns, the team is not working together, there's often unconstructive behaviors that are pervasive amongst the team, and there's conflict. Okay?

So, in this particular study, toxic teams had higher burnout scores and lower job dissatisfaction, whereas coordinated teams or teams with high team effectiveness had lower burnout and higher job satisfaction. And again, part of that was that recognition of individual contributions. Now, thankfully, we're starting to see a lot more research being done specifically looking at vet techs and burnout. And there was a really large online survey study that was published just recently, in 2020, surveying more than 1,600 vet techs, mostly in in the USA, but also in Canada. And 47% of those vet techs have been working in the vet field for more than ten years.

So, there was some very seasoned techs, and 43 of them were in companion animal practice. And again, they looked at burnout and different, you know, characteristics of professional fulfillment. And what they found is that a perceived absence of appreciation and support was associated with higher levels of emotional exhaustion and cynicism. So, texts that did not feel appreciated or supported were more likely to experience those burnout symptoms. So, again, this is something that we're seeing a great deal supported in the veterinary literature and why it is so important to show that support and appreciation for our team.

And, of course, you know, we honor vet techs during the month of October, because they are so important to our team. And sadly, we do have a tremendous amount or a high level of vet tech attrition. And the statistics would suggest that about half of vet techs burn out and leave the profession within five years, which is devastating. And it's not something that we want. We want our techs to have longevity in this profession and to feel fulfilled, you know for the duration of their career and if we can help them along by ensuring that they feel supported then maybe this can help to lower these, statistics when it comes to attrition.

Now of course, the crisis is not just amongst veterinary technicians. This is everyone. We are short veterinarians and other staff members, everybody from receptionist to leadership roles. And so again, I can't stress this enough, but we want our team members to feel appreciated. So according to the Oxford dictionary, appreciation is a recognition and enjoyment of the good qualities of someone or something.

So, we are recognizing individuals. We're celebrating them, you know, for what they bring to the table. So, I wanna share some really important points about appreciation because what I see often happening in veterinary practice is that, you know, we do these sort of grandiose general broad gestures, you know, like, I appreciate you. We appreciate you. You know, thanks for what you do.

And unfortunately, those tend to fall flat. And what we would hope to demonstrate when we are showing appreciation for someone is that we do this frequently. It's not just once a year on Vet Tech Week or, you know, during veterinarian day. This is something we do all the time. We make this a habit.

We try and offer this, as close to the situation that we wanna thank the person for as possible. So, we're feeling appreciative of somebody. Why is that? Can we really enunciate it into words about what they do that makes our life better? So being specific, being sincere, and doing this frequently and as close to the incident that generated these feelings of appreciation and gratitude as possible.

So, I'm gonna give you some examples of wording of how you might share this. So, you might say something like, you know what? I really appreciated that you stayed, like, to help with the end of day emergency yesterday because that allowed me to leave to pick up my daughter before the day care closed. So, you're really being specific about what you appreciate and you're following it up with why. Like, that really allowed me to do something that was important to me, and I appreciate that.

Another example might be, you know what? You are such a thoughtful colleague. You always check-in with the team before you leave to make sure that everyone is taken care of. Again, you're not just saying, you know, I appreciate you. You're so thoughtful.

It's like, you know, when a person hears that, they're like, am I? You know? And this way you can actually give an example. And you know what's so great about this? Is it shows that you're really taking notice of what they're doing, and you're really taking it to heart.

And you're also having the courage to share that with them. You know? It's not always easy to give someone feedback or to give someone a compliment. I don't know about you, but I don't know what it is that there's this thing. Even if I pass a stranger on the street and, you know, I like their outfit, it's like I feel so uncomfortable to say, you know, great outfit.

And I've really worked to kinda get over that. But, again, I don't know what it is about showing appreciation and what the vulnerability specific about what we appreciate about our team. Now I see all sorts of things that practices do to demonstrate appreciation for their teams. You know, there's good job boards. There's, you know, little gatherings that the team might have.

People might be giving high fives, you know, if the COVID protocols support that. You know, even gifting people things. And all of these things, you know, I think about all of these things, and I think, wow. You know, some of these are great. But then I think, you know what?

Some of these, I'm like, meh. That doesn't quite resonate with me. And you might be thinking about some of the examples that I provided or even thinking about some of the things that you've been given to you or has been shown as appreciation for you working in practice, whether it's a pizza lunch or a gift card to a coffee shop or whatever, and sometimes it falls flat. You know, I think about the time that I got, you know, like, a really, big Tim Hortons gift card. For those of you watching in the US, you might not know Tim Hortons or Timmy's is like our kinda main coffee chain here in Canada.

Well, I don't even drink coffee. So, what am I gonna do with a Tim's gift card other than give it to somebody else? So, you know, we wanna be really mindful when we're showing to somebody about how we're doing that. And this is where the appreciation languages really come into play. So, I'm gonna spend the rest of our time together talking to you about the workplace appreciation languages.

Now many of you are probably very familiar with Gary Chapman's the five love languages. And this is a very similar adaptation. So, the five love languages, for those of you who don't know, these were developed to basically demonstrate that in romantic partnerships that we all have ways that we perceive love. That might be if somebody buys me flowers or somebody says I love you or somebody gives me a hug or somebody does something for me, somebody spends time with me. We all have different ideas about what really demonstrates love.

And the kicker is that we tend to show love in the ways that we like to receive it. So, if I'm a big fan of hugs, for example, as a way to show affection, appreciation, or love, I'm gonna be more likely to hug other people. But let's be honest. We're not all huggers. Right?

For somebody, they might be like, woah. You know? Stay out of my bubble. Like, I don't I don't need a hug from you to know that you appreciate me. You just need to tell me.

Versus other people might say, words mean nothing. I need you to show me. This is a really important sticking point for couples because very often, couples don't feel loved or appreciated by their partner if they're not being shown it in their own language. So, you can go online to the five love languages website. You can take a quiz.

There's actually a quiz now, for children that parents can do because children also perceive love in different ways than we might perceive it, as their parents. So, find out your love language. If you don't already know it, there's probably one or two dominant languages, and be mindful of the other languages and that other people in your life may need you to speak to them in those languages. Now how does this translate to the workplace? Well, similarly, there is initiative called appreciation at work, which is really meant to help organizations build healthy workplace cultures.

And a part of that is finding appropriate ways to show appreciation. So, recognizing the five different appreciation languages. So similar to the five love languages, we've got words of affirmation. We've got gifts. We've got quality time, acts of service, and physical touch.

And I'm gonna break down each one of these with examples. So, when it comes to words of affirmation, this really resonates with team members who like to be singled out due to a specific accomplishment or task. Okay? So, they want somebody to say, you know what? You're amazing.

You know, you are such a rock star when it comes to catheter placement, or you know what? I have never heard anyone speak to clients, you know, as eloquently as you do or, wow. You know, you're the best my favorite receptionist because you always talk the clients off the ledge, so to speak, you know, whatever it might be. This particular practice that's pictured here, they have a shout out board. So, they just, you know, shout out to the people.

You know, it says, for example, for being so cheerful and positive despite how busy we are. You know, all of these really great things that you're basically calling out and hopefully individuals, again, because of that individual recognition and how important that is. So, you wanna match the level of appreciation with the significance of the task. So, if this is a really big deal, you wanna make a really big deal of it. Versus if this was something little, you know, we don't need to throw a party and make a PA announcement across the hospital, but we wanna give kudos, nevertheless.

So, examples of words of affirmation include recognizing someone during a meeting, mentioning somebody in an electronic newsletter, or having some sort of gratitude board, gratitude jar, shout out board, that sort of thing. Tangible gifts. What does that look like? Well, just as the word is, it is a gift. It is something you are giving to somebody.

The big important thing with gifts is to make sure that the receiver values the gift. Ideally, these gifts will create some sort of experience that is important to them rather than just a thing. Okay? So, for example, the individual likes music, you might give them an iTunes gift card. Or you know that the team member is likes to go to the yoga studio, you might give them a yoga class pass.

Show that there was time, thought, energy, and initiative that went into choosing the gift. And you probably know people who are great gift givers in your life. Those are also probably people whom gift, receiving gifts is their love language. We tend to really work at the things that really speak to us. And so, if you know of someone who really gives good gifts, those are the people that you really wanna be intentional and thoughtful when you're gifting things back to them.

Now quality time. In the veterinary space, this is for individuals who just want to feel valued and appreciated. How do we do this? We give them our undivided attention. So, this is really on the part of leaderships in terms of, you know, helping them out with something or not even really helping them out with something, but just working alongside them, showing that you care, showing an interest, having a conversation.

So, from a leadership perspective, if you have team members who really, you know, resonate with quality time, you might take someone to lunch. Or you might stop in on the clinic floor and check-in with them regularly. Hey. How are you today? How are things going?

How's your week been? That's a really, a way that these individuals really feel recognized and appreciated. Then we have acts of service. So, these are the gestures where you show someone that you care for them. You're not just telling them, but you do acts of kindness or generosity that will generally make their life easier in the veterinary space.

And that is, you know, helping them out. So, you know, I think in my personal life, this would be somebody taking my dog for a walk or helping to babysit my daughter or dropping off some meals. But in the veterinary space, you could be helping someone to catch up on treatments, or you might be stepping in during a busy time of day so that they can take a break. Or if you know someone has to get out the door at 05:00 because they've got somewhere to be, that you're stepping in and saying, you know what? Let me take that last appointment of the day so that you can get out of here.

Those are acts of service, and they make they mean a tremendous amount to those who for whom that is their love language. And last but not least, we've got physical touch. So, this is really just as it sounds, this is where individuals really feel the love, they feel the appreciation, they feel valued when there is some sort of physical connection. So obviously, this varies from person to person. You know, we really wanna be mindful about consent.

You know, if we're ever going to offer someone a hug or whatever it might be. You know, in non-COVID times, this could be a handshake or a high five. Nowadays, it might be a fist bump or an elbow bump. You know, but this generally, these are just kinda spontaneous celebrations when we've done something. But for a lot of people, this is really the way that they connect and the way that they feel appreciated.

So again, in the workplace, we wanna be mindful about doing this appropriately, but recognize that some of your team members really may feel appreciation when offered something like this. Okay. So those are the five appreciation languages, and I really hope that you'll give some consideration to using those for your team. Now I often have people say to me, well, what? Now I'm supposed to, like, you know, talk to all 35 of my team members and find out what their appreciation language is?

Well, I personally would love if that was involved in the onboarding process that we kinda had on file, like how everybody wanted to feel appreciated. But that's not really what I'm expecting of you. What I, urge you to consider would be to just think more broadly in terms of how you show appreciation. You know, the pizza lunch is only gonna take people so far. You know, the gift cards to the coffee shop are only gonna, you know, resonate with a number of your team members.

Can you kind of cycle through or rotate through these different opportunities to show appreciation so that you know that you're more likely to really hit home for those individuals with potentially other, appreciation languages. Okay. So key takeaways for today's session are that showing appreciation in our veterinary workspace is more important now than it's ever been before, so let's make this a priority. If you are going to show appreciation, especially if it's in the form of feedback, make sure that it is close to what you are giving feedback for, that you do this as often as possible, that you are sincere and specific, and that it means something to that individual. And then again, if you can recognize the five languages of appreciation that people would experience and really try and tailor how you demonstrate appreciation to the language of the individual, you will really see a big difference in how that appreciation is received.

So that's it for this episode of Reviving Vet Med. I really hope that you took away some practical tips for giving feedback and showing appreciation in the workplace and also in your life and to the people who you live with and care for. I certainly enjoyed doing this episode. You know, it was a little bit of a light departure from some of the heavier episodes that we've had lately, and I learned so much about myself and the people in my life in the process. You When I did the five love languages quiz, I really recognized that acts of service are high up there for me in terms of my love language, and words of affirmation, not so much.

It's bottom of the list. And it makes sense for me because I've always been, you know, sort of an action speak louder than words kind of person. But even more importantly, it's really reminded me that not everybody is like me, and there are people in my life and people who I work with that really do, resonate with words of affirmation or they really enjoy gifts that are really specific and meaningful. And this has really changed the way I show gratitude and appreciation to the people that I work with and also the people that are in my life. It's even changed the way I write thank you cards and that I'm much more specific, you know, in what I'm thanking people for.

So, I hope you'll take away some of those practical points, and I urge you to check out the show notes for this episode. I will include all the links to the studies that I mentioned, as well as links to the five love languages quiz and the workplace appreciation information, so that you can dig into some of that if that's something that you're interested in. And if you really enjoyed this episode, please take time to leave a rating and write a review or share the episode with someone else. All of those shares and subscribes really help to build the audience for this podcast, and they really help to remind thank my podcasting superhero Darby Rolfe for producing this episode. And of course, thank you, all of listeners, for tuning in again.

I hope you'll tune in next month as well. And in the meantime, take care of yourself. Bye now.