2018 Healthcare Marketing Trend #2: Internal Cultural Problems

A blog series giving you an inside look at our top three hospital marketing trends for 2018. Here’s our second trend!

This is an issue that seems to be inescapable for almost all businesses, including healthcare organizations. Fortunately, hospitals and health systems have recently started to direct more of their efforts in determining how to fix their internal cultural problems. 

Hospital CEO’s are running into a number of concerns regarding their hospital’s performance, many of which are attributed to their company culture or lack thereof. The American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) found that personal shortages ranked #4 of concerns for the second year in a row, suggesting that CEO’s are intent on retaining and attracting talented employees.

What factors contribute to a poor internal culture? There are a ton, but according to Inc., these are three of the most visible concerns that might be affecting your company culture:

1. Overworked employees

An overworked employee feels unappreciated and overused. And even more importantly, an exhausted employee can make dangerous mistakes, especially when working in a healthcare environment. Nurses and doctors are regularly working grueling shifts and hours. Your employees aren’t robots, give them time to recharge!

2. Leadership doesn’t set positive examples

If leadership isn’t setting good examples, how do employees know what the “right” thing to do is? A psychological phenomenon known as ‘negative social proof’ says that “the behavior of leaders cascades down to the rest of the group”, arguing that the “right” thing to do can become questionable when people see leadership doing the wrong things.

3. The culture is unclear, no core values

Where can your employees find your organizations core values – hidden deep within your website’s ‘About’ page? Or perhaps in page 35 of the employee handbook? If your core values aren’t front and center in both conversation and in visibility, they’re probably not making an impact on you or your employees.

To find out more about our emerging trends, download our “2018 Healthcare Marketing Trends Playbook” here!