We’ve all heard the one about the teacher who asks one of her students which is worse, ignorance or apathy – his response “I don’t know and I don’t care.” Apathy is unfortunately one of the more prevailing negative attitudes we deal with in the medical community and often, the apathy is due to ignorance. Apathy can sap a business of new patients, can increase the practice’s malpractice risk and can permeate a workplace with negative thoughts and actions that can cause turnover and hurt your bottom line.
Apathy is defined as absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement. How many of us have walked into a situation, a business or even a customer service situation and seen the true epitome of apathy? Not only do we see someone who is void of interest in us, we sometimes even see an overt action of active resistance of the person to care. Apathy is a workplace killer, a job killer and a business killer.
How can we as managers lead others to erasing their absence of caring and compassion? First, we can start by not “pretending” to be concerned about our staff and actually show an emotional interest in their success, their failures, their stresses and their life outside of work. Take a moment to get to know your employees interests, their family situations, their likes, dislikes. Once you gain an understanding of this, make a point to inquire of them and their lives and then, take the time to listen. We often have to make withdrawals on our employee’s “emotional checkbooks” and this genuine show of interest can make deposits into their “accounts” that will assist us later in having to make the “withdrawals.”
Apathy sometimes can come from a person feeling overwhelmed. They think “I don’t have time to care; I don’t understand what I’m doing, much less care about this person in front of me.” Find the places in workflow where employees can feel overwhelmed and try to resolve them. Then, help them realize that no matter how much work is placed in front of them, or how many people may be waiting to be checked in or placed back in exam rooms, that they can only handle one of the tasks at a time, one person at a time. Once the feeling of being overwhelmed is mastered, employees will realize that they do have time to care along with the time to do their job well.
Ignorance or lack of knowledge can produce apathy in employees. Training them to do their job correctly can alleviate some of the lack of knowledge, but communication about the importance of caring and concern for co-workers and patients can impart the knowledge your employees need to erase apathy. Let employees know that each patient, no matter the attitude, social standing, dress, smell, etc. is a person paying their paycheck. Employees have to gain the perspective that each patient is ultimately paying their salary, not the doctors and not us as managers.
Apathy between staff or physicians can also be a business destroyer. How many times have we heard someone state “I don’t care about ________ and their problems.” “I’m an owner, doesn’t that employee physician realize……..”? Believe me, when/if patients hear attitudes of apathy between physicians and/or staff, it doesn’t take them long to wonder – do they really care about me if they treat their staff this way? Apathy can be reduced in your workplace by building community within the practice. Establish teams or committees of different classifications of employees and owners working on a common task together. Have non-work related events or times where each person can get to know each other better. We have started having a “welcome to our practice” afternoon reception for new employees so that the owners and employees can have a time to say hello, welcome new employees and get to know the faces around the practice better. It does take time, but it is time well invested.
Maybe one of the best antonyms to apathy is involvement. Involvement requires commitment and caring. As managers, get involved in the day to day operations. Don’t separate yourselves from the staff and patients – make yourself available and known. Let employees know that you care and let your owners know that you truly care about their business, the employees and their patients. As with many workplace events and attitudes, the cause and solution can begin with us. May we realize the importance of this and be the solution to the problems and the cause of the sought after things for our practices.