Why organizational culture matters to non-patient-facing staff
Substandard culture can greatly influence support staffs’ desire to stay with a facility, and their work can fall on clinical staff.
Healthcare delivery is often solely associated with doctors, nurses and frontline caregivers.
But beyond those important roles, half of a health system’s workforce consists of non-patient-facing employees – the behind-the-scenes professionals in departments like IT, finance, HR, analytics, environmental services and more. These are the schedulers, analysts, custodial staff, administrators and others whose work is essential to keep hospitals running smoothly.
I have worked in and with these roles throughout my career, and I’ve seen how critical they are to patient outcomes. They are the “hidden heroes” of healthcare, ensuring that clinicians have the support, data and clean environments that are needed to optimize patient care.
Despite their importance, non-patient-facing staff often operate under the radar. Organizational culture – the shared values, norms and practices in a workplace – profoundly affects all employees’ morale and performance, whether they interact with patients or not.
The impact of culture
However, most prior studies on healthcare culture focus on nurses and physicians, leaving a gap in understanding how culture is perceived by those in non-clinical roles. This gap matters because culture isn’t only about the frontline; it permeates the whole organization. A data analyst or hospital environmental services associate experiences the culture daily as much as a surgeon does. If they feel unheard or undervalued, the consequences ripple through the system.
Consider what happens if non-patient-facing employees become disengaged or, worse, leave because of a toxic culture. Research shows that if these behind-the-scenes workers have a negative view of their hospital’s culture, they are more likely to quit.
When those staff leave, the burden falls on patient-facing staff to pick up extra tasks – nurses and doctors might find themselves doing clerical work, cleaning or transport duties, detracting from their ability to focus on patient care. This not only pulls them away from their primary roles but also contributes to burnout among frontline caregivers.
In short, a poor culture for non-clinical staff can snowball into staffing shortages, overwork and compromised patient care.
This issue became even more pronounced during the COVID-19 pandemic. That cataclysm forced healthcare organizations to adapt rapidly, speeding up decision-making, forming agile teams and sometimes encouraging more collaboration and mental health support.
But the pandemic also created new stresses. Many hospitals faced hectic, high-pressure work environments and communication breakdowns under crisis conditions. Most research on pandemic-related cultural changes centered on doctors and nurses, not the finance officers, IT teams or unit secretaries who also experienced these shifts. We didn’t fully understand how non-patient-facing staff perceived the cultural upheavals of COVID-19 or how it impacted their work lives.
Considering that these employees often could not work remotely and had to keep hospitals operational during lockdowns, their perspective on organizational culture during the pandemic remained a critical blind spot.
Looking at tough questions
All these factors motivated me to delve into the organizational culture experienced by non-patient-facing health system employees. I wanted to shine a light on these unsung professionals and answer the following questions.
By answering these questions, the intent is to help healthcare leaders recognize the cultural needs of all their staff. After all, building a positive culture for everyone in the hospital isn’t just a nice-to-have option; it’s pivotal for retaining talent, preventing burnout and ultimately ensuring better patient care.
In this three-part series, I will share the journey and findings of my doctoral research on this topic.
In this Part 1, we’ve discussed why focusing on non-patient-facing staff and culture is so important. In Part 2, I’ll dive into how I conducted my study – a mix of surveys and interviews – and what I discovered about the cultural experiences of these behind-the-scenes employees. We’ll uncover the key themes that emerged, from communication breakdowns to the power of supportive leadership. In Part 3, we’ll explore what these findings mean in practice and how healthcare organizations can foster a healthier, more inclusive culture that benefits not just employees, but the patients they ultimately serve.
The answers to these questions, as delivered in the research, has profound implications for hospital operations, as powered by non-clinical staff, in the years ahead.
Teray Johnson, PhD, MS, MBA, FACHDM, is a director of healthcare analytics and operations. She drives organizational transformation by facilitating data-driven decisions.