#quality of work

[howieabel]

But quality of work can be expected only through personal satisfaction, dedication and enjoyment. In our profession, precision and perfection are not a dispensable luxury, but a simple necessity.

Niklaus Wirth

[nurse-x-ramblings]

“Quittable”

Two years ago, I was ready to quit nursing.

Not in the conventional, end of shift, I can’t wait to get out of here, way.

Not in the new graduate, holy hell, I can’t do this, I’m quitting sort of way,

Not in the burned out, I’m so tired of it all, way.

All legitimate, except there are people who will tell you, no, you just need to suck it up. “Nurses aren’t quitters.”

Two years ago, I contemplated quitting the profession,

I didn’t care that I had earned two degrees, it didn’t matter that I was a Masters prepared nurse.

It only mattered I wanted to quit, and there would be something better out there, something I wasn’t failing at.

And so, I quit.

I spent time without employment, without prospects, without a clear direction of where I was heading. The people closest to me at the time suggested, perhaps it’s time to look into other professions, sustainable ones. I was met with pity, which is by far, exponentially worse than any misery met in the employ of a dictator.

But you see, I didn’t just quit the profession, I had quit the part of me that wasn’t “quittable.”  

I spent time explaining, soon realizing you cannot explain rock bottom to people who haven’t experienced it, you cannot explain the despair incomparable to the daily frustrations everyone surely feels. You cannot explain, to those who are insistent that if you simply change your attitude, all will be peachy.

And so, I learned you cannot explain.

But i contemplated attitude.

I contemplated that you can be the most motivated person,

...and walk in the door to a group of consistently negative people

You can have great ideas,

...and face an employer who shoots every one of them down, autocratic style

You can greet each day with hope, a quiet sort of new beginning,

...and still face the same  snide remarks, running commentary, ad nauseam

I contemplated what it means to spend an hour, a day, a week, a working life in an unhealthy environment,

and I quit.

I listened, as my employer called me “a quitter,”

But, I saw it as escape.

You see, we sometimes misinterpret the idea of quitting - and its nuance; the difference between what your gut instinct tells you is not inherently a good place to be, to grow - and experiencing tough times,  perhaps being exceptionally tough on yourself for where you are in that moment.

I was relieved, but I didn’t know it yet.

Fast Forward one year

I’m in a chair, a panel, being interviewed, but really, I’m interviewing them. Nurses are champions at assessing people without giving away what they’ve seen. My mistake? Just over a  year before I didn’t trust my instinct when in precisely the same position. I didn’t trust the raw instinct that whispered... ...something is amiss.

I’m in this chair, as they speak, I’m observing their interaction with one another, I’m observing reactions of others when someone speaks, what they say, tone, what they choose to tell about their organization, what they choose to keep silent about.

I’m in this chair, contemplating if this is an environment that I will be safe to be me.

Fast forward  almost two years from QUIT

I’m safe.

And I know this, as I’ve experienced it before. I’ve felt this before, I’ve worked with nurses, on nursing units, in hospitals where I’ve felt safe and supported. I knew this was possible, but I quit that part of me that handn’t remembered this is also an important part of nursing structure, and it does exist.

I’m safe, for now, in this moment, and this is what counts.

Yesterday

I walked onto one of the units I cover, and was met with a registered nurse who was experiencing difficulty with some recent education, although as I looked into her face, I read an all too familiar look.

I took her nurse manager aside.

“I know this look,”I said.

“No, she’s just stressed about the changes here.”

I pulled the nurse aside, away from the exposure of the unit, the spotlight of being watched by coworkers, and she spoke. And I listened. She spoke about being the target of her coworkers, people who had been her friends, her confidants, people she trusted, an environment she trusted to go to for 12.5 hours each day  an environment that was now unfamiliar, and cold. And my heart broke for her. It wasn’t pity, it was understanding. My heart broke for how long she had possibly been feeling like this, and expected to perform her duties, nurse mask on, expected to work alongside people who smiled to her face, and cunningly targeted her when the curtain areas, medication room, supply room doors were closed.

I stood for a moment, at the door of the unit, and thought about this world of  nursing, the most “trusted profession in America,” and as much as I thought I had closed my own door to this, my work was just beginning, work that was decidedly more important to me than some of the most arbitrary inservices we do over, and over again.

Nurses work too long,  and too hard in what they do to be in places or positions that are uncomfortable or unsupportive. I have more work to do, and I’m grateful I’m in a position to not just speak out about this, but act on it to support others through their own trials.

So the next time someone tells you they want to quit, listen....maybe we need to take them seriously. Take their concerns seriously. Burnout, feelings of failure, unsupportive work environment, autocratic employers. Take them seriously, without offering platitudes that “everything will be ok, just suck it up.” 

Quitting doesn’t mean you’ve failed. Sometimes you need to quit to move forward.

[mental-food]

You're not necessarily paying for hours of my time. You're paying for years of my experience. Invest in quality because quick and cheap can be costly in the long run.

-Davy Green

[worklabournewsresearch]

Bargaining Tech: Shaping New Technologies to Improve Work, not Devalue It

"The Centre for Future Work has published another major paper in its PowerShare project, dealing with the impact of new technology on the quantity and quality of work in Canada – and strategies for ensuring that new technology produces more benefits for workers."

"The paper is entitled Bargaining Tech: Strategies for Shaping Technological Change to Benefit Workers, co-authored by Jim Stanford and Kathy Bennett. It provides an overview of the complex, contradictory ways that technological change is affecting jobs in Canada. It also discusses how technology could be better managed and implemented to achieve better, fairer, more inclusive high-tech outcomes."

"Major findings include:

Fears that tech change will produce mass unemployment are not consistent with statistical evidence from Canada’s recent economic history. Instead, a bigger economic risk is that investments in innovation by Canadian businesses (both in tangible machinery and intangible research) have been too weak – weaker than at any time in the postwar era.

While fears of mass unemployment are misplaced, implementation of new technologies can certainly cause disruption and reallocation of work. And technology can also have negative effects on the quality of jobs: including speed-up of work, fragmentation of tasks, new health & safety risks, and the expansion of insecure employment (including gigs) through digital management tools.

For all these reasons, whether technology leads to better jobs or worse jobs is indeterminate: depending on whose interests prevail as new tech is unrolled. For that reason, giving workers more say in negotiating how technology unfolds is vital to enhancing the benefits and reducing the costs.

Canadian unions have been heavily engaged in negotiating technological change in their workplaces. There is no evidence unions are trying to “stop” technology. Instead, they are trying to shape and manage it: through measures like notice, adjustment supports, access to training and redeployment, limits on surveillance and digital discipline, provisions regarding work from home (which expanded under COVID), and more.

The authors’ survey of union bargaining strategies has identified one important shortcoming: the issue of reducing regular working hours has largely fallen off the union bargaining agenda. The authors urge unions to seek ways of revitalizing the campaign for shorter working hours as one key strategy for sharing the productivity gains of new technology, and avoiding unemployment."

Centre for Future Work, June 15, 2021: "Bargaining Tech: Shaping New Technologies to Improve Work, not Devalue It," by Jim Stanford and Kathy Benneti (175 pages, PDF)

Centre for Future Work, 2021: "Who Will Shape the Future of Work?"

Photo Source: Meyer, Marvin. (2018). People sitting down near table with assorted laptops [Photograph]. Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/SYTO3xs06fU

[ruchikakamat]

WFH can put a break in your employee productivity. Here's how you can arrest it.

7 months into Pandemic and there seems no ray of hope to see an end to this and the WFH has turned into a nightmare for Monica (name changed).

Monica remembers how excited and motivated she was to try distance working and virtual meetings when lock-down was announced in India back in March for 21 days. Monica is a Manager of the Marketing team where she has few people reporting to her and she has to coordinate with interdepartmental teams as a part of her work. Monica is an introvert and empathic in personal life, but is assertive, vocal and proactive when it comes to work and is highly organized.

But the past few months have profoundly changed her life. Now she has a list of things in her bedside table that are reminders about checking her tasks. “I’m not a lazy person, but the past few months have turned me into a lost soul” says Monica.

At the same time, her role in the company was elevated when others were getting laid off, where she had to perform more tasks than before. She has her department head’s support, but more responsibilities surely made her juggle a lot, which could have been a lot different if the new role had come onto her plate when things were normal. She is now putting more time into learning and then executing the work.

She also takes out some time on weekends to finish up her work. Monica suffers from Fear of taking annual leaves (FOTAL) where she struggles to even apply for a leave which leaves no room for her to release her stress and feel fresh and tuned with her work. The question of spending some time with her friends and family is out of the picture with the struggle she is going through. She is now struggling to meet her deadlines and her mind is not able to focus on everything together. At times, she declines her meeting or tries to postpone the meetings to avoid any questions. This is another signal she gave out.

All these things together are making her feel burnout and resulting in workplace fatigue.

Do you know someone who is going through the same feeling as Monica? Have you noticed any such signals in your employees or your colleagues?

Read full story here — https://bit.ly/BringBestOutOfYourEmployees

[bestdigitalmarketinghub-blog]

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Can you improve accuracy at work to market better? The simple answer is that you can. One way to do it may include outsourcing.

[odesind-blog]

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