Perspectives and Practices of Healthcare Leaders in Supporting Healthcare Worker Well-Being: A Reality Check

The well-being of healthcare workers (HCWs) is a critical concern. While healthcare leaders can play a crucial role in influencing employees' well-being, it remains unclear how leaders are leveraging this influence. This study aims to unravel the current perspectives and practices of healthcare leaders in supporting HCW well-being.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with healthcare leaders at various levels within a university medical center. The interviews focused on exploring three key topics: factors influencing HCW well-being, data sources utilized for information gathering, and strategies leaders employ to influence HCW well-being. Our study design was grounded in constructionist epistemology and adopted a phenomenological approach. The methodology primarily involved a data driven, inductive thematic analysis to discern patterns and themes from the collected data.

Fifteen interviews with healthcare leaders revealed a multitude of factors influencing HCW well-being, categorized into three domains: personal, socioeconomic, and work-related factors. Leaders reported a variety of data sources, including "contact data", data derived from regular and sporadic interpersonal interactions, and "investigation data", entailing formal inquiries conducted within the healthcare organization. Interestingly, while leaders acknowledge their potential to positively influence well-being, particularly in work-related aspects, there was a notable trend of deflecting responsibility, often redirecting it towards other leaders or placing it back on the individual employee.

Healthcare leaders show a comprehensive understanding of factors affecting employee well-being. However, healthcare leaders have a predominantly reactive approach to managing employees' well-being. Data collection is often sporadic, lacking consistency, and there is a tendency to redirect responsibility for well-being, revealing a discrepancy between acknowledgement of influence and its actual implementation. We argue that it is essential for leaders at all hierarchical levels to assume responsibility actively and collectively for employee well-being, transitioning to a proactive approach in promoting and safeguarding the well-being of HCWs.