Everyone deserves to work in a healthy and supportive work environment, especially those who provide care to vulnerable and dependent individuals. Supporting healthcare workers within a facility or organization is essential to a positive workplace culture and is the best way for healthcare organizations to retain quality staff. With that in mind, if you’re seeking a position as an LPN, you should look keenly for a supportive work environment that respects the work you do, in a workplace culture that advocates strongly for their nursing staff.
A Rewarding Career Can be Yours
When you’re called to a career in nursing, the support you receive in the workplace makes a huge difference in your career. As an LPN, a supportive work environment can make the difference between the fulfilling, lifelong, and rewarding career you imagined and the stress and compassion fatigue that eventually burns you out and undermines your career goals.
But how do you prioritize finding the ideal supportive workplace in a healthcare organization before you join their staff? And just what do you look for to ensure your future work environment offers the professional support and type of culture you need? Here is an in-depth dive into what you should look for in a supportive work environment. We take that broader term and break it down into bite-sized, real-life evidence of healthy support and respect for the LPN in a work environment.
LPNs Are Essential to Healthcare
As a Licensed Practical Nurse, you occupy an essential role in healthcare. Each and every shift, you support your colleagues and the medical team, your patients, and their families. How do you make sure you’re getting the support you need from your workplace? There are several areas you can review, whether you’re recently hired, working for an organization that’s going through changes, or looking at a new career path.
A supportive work environment for LPNs is built on positive and healthy priorities. The core principles of any supportive healthcare environment are designed to reduce burnout caused by workplace stress and improve patient care. It seems simple enough, but there are key elements that promote these principles, among them shared decision-making, adequate staffing, and plenty of opportunities to grow in your career, if you like. In addition, a supportive work environment promotes a culture of mutual respect and recognizes excellence in job performance.
What Makes A Supportive Work Environment
Here, we take a more detailed look at the key considerations LPNs should look for in a supportive work environment.
Clear Communication
You are more than someone who executes tasks as they are assigned. You are a healthcare professional and should be included as a vital part of the healthcare team. In a supportive work environment, that means RNs, supervisory staff, doctors, and administrators communicate with you openly and clearly, explaining their decisions and valuing your input as well.
Mutual Respect
Your workplace culture should foster respect for all staff members. As an LPN, that means you are recognized as an essential and specifically-skilled member of the healthcare team. Your expertise, professional insight, contributions, and the scope of your practice are valid. Treatment in the professional setting supports fair compensation, professional development, safety, and recognition of your contributions.
Reasonable Patient Loads
One of the biggest stressors that LPNs have to deal with is unsafe staffing ratios. Supportive healthcare organizations actively monitor workloads and adjust accordingly when census numbers go up. During busy times like cold and flu season, or in the summer when the staff members schedule their vacations, the unsupportive workplace will simply expect LPNs to double their own workload. This leads to short staffing, which can result in sub-quality patient care, mistakes made by staff, and burnout. A supportive work environment assumes the responsibility of keeping adequate staff at all times.
Clear Scope of Practice
A supportive work environment has clear, easy-to-interpret, written policies that inform staff of what they are and are not authorized to do in specific settings. Some workplaces request LPNs to go beyond their scope of practice with little to no supervision. Other employers in the healthcare arena underutilize their LPNs regarding the skills and knowledge they bring to the workplace. When your specific duties are clear, and you approach your job confident in the knowledge that you know your scope of practice. And what is expected.
Supervision and Mentorship
When LPNs have access to RNs and nurse managers, they can perform their duties knowing guidance is available. Understanding that your superiors are approachable and willing to guide you matters a great deal, especially when you’re new to the team. Healthcare organizations that already have a program in place that begins with onboarding and continues through mentorship, preceptors, and a culture that welcomes asking questions are absolutely supportive work environments.
Opportunities for Growth and Professional Development
When you interview with a potential employer, find out if they invest in continuing your education, obtaining certifications, offer tuition reimbursement, or support LPNs in a bridge to RN program. Do they typically promote from within? Do they value your professional growth and development by offering opportunities? This work environment supports LPNs.
Prioritizing Your Emotional Well-being
Your safety and security are extremely important to your physical and emotional well-being. Feeling isolated or even bullied in the workplace has no place in a supportive work environment. Should you need to raise concerns, you want to know that your employer has your back. A supportive employer encourages you to speak up and express your concerns to the right person in the chain of command. That employer listens, considers your concerns seriously, and finds the right way to resolve the issue without you having to fear retaliation.
Employers should observe practices that don’t put additional or unmanageable pressure on LPNs. This includes no mandatory overtime, access to assistance programs, mental health programs, and peer support groups. Those LPNs who work in facilities that experience frequent loss, such as skilled nursing facilities, should place a high degree of importance on their nurses’ emotional health. These employers must have clear and open discussions about stress and compassion fatigue in these settings. That’s support in the work environment.
Supportive Leadership
True leaders in any healthcare organization will always support, recognize, and encourage their nursing staff. They are present, approachable, listen, and are committed to fostering a safe and trustworthy work environment. A worthy leader will prioritize your well-being and ensure your work-life balance meets your expectations. They advocate for their staff. Their integrity and unwavering commitment to transparency and clear communication forge a workplace culture that is healthy and supportive for all.
Competitive Compensation and Benefit
Don’t overlook the idea that financial compensation and benefits are key. Any healthcare organization that doesn’t prioritize its nurses by paying them for their skills and knowledge, experience, and the day-to-day challenges of emotionally demanding work, is not supporting its staff. Although compensation may vary according to region, special skill requirements, and setting, a supportive organization offers compensation that is competitive in the area. And reflects the local market.
Competitive compensation is supplemented by benefits that can cover real-life needs in a supportive work environment, including:
- Health insurance with reasonable coverage and affordable premiums
- Accessible paid time off that isn’t difficult to take or get approved by authorizing admins
- Contributions to a 401k or similar retirement account
- Disability overage
- Shift differential pay for evenings, weekends, overnights, holidays
Be aware that these are not, nor should they be considered, perks. Competitive compensation and meaningful benefits should be the baseline, acknowledging the value of your work. Any employer that disregards shift differentials and basic compensation shows an utter lack of respect for your time and work-life balance, as well as the essential role you fill in the organization. Move on, as this is not a supportive work environment.
Manageable Expectations for Charting and Documenting
All nurses know that charting and documentation are as much a part of patient care as being at the bedside. But poorly designed electronic health records systems, out-of-date software, and redundancy that leads to charting pile-ups not only take away from patient care but can lead to costly and devastating mistakes. Many former nurses cite this very scenario as a reason behind their burnout.
Supportive healthcare organizations approach charging and documentation with their nurses’ workflow in mind. These employers regularly audit their charting system to ensure redundancy doesn’t waste time; they value feedback from staff and listen to their ideas for making the process more efficient.
During your interview, ask your prospective employer about their EHR system. Inquire about how much time nurses spend on their charting and documentation each shift. If something seems amiss, don’t be afraid to ask if there are any plans to streamline the charting and documentation process to make it more efficient so nurses can spend their time on more pressing matters like patient care.
Sustainable and Flexible Scheduling
Employers demonstrate their support when they ensure a sustainable scheduling practice. Nurses’ schedules are created and enforced with breaks in mind, no mandatory overtime, and no rotating shifts that make unreasonable demands on their well-being. A workplace that honors work-life balance and encourages PTO is doing the bare minimum to retain its nursing staff. Look for an employer that offers more accommodating scheduling opportunities, such as split shifts, self-scheduling, compressed work weeks (three 12-hour or four 10-hour shifts), and float pools or per diem roles.
A Supportive Work Environment Has Low Turnover Rates
High staff turnover is a glaring red flag when it comes to a toxic, unhealthy, or unsupportive work environment. When nurses leave consistently, it shines a light on problems within the organization. This can be due to poor management, a toxic workplace culture, poor communication, and failure to recognize, or choosing to remain ignorant of unfair compensation or workload. On the other hand, if you find a team that enjoys working together and has for years, it shows the workplace is pretty healthy and supportive.
When you interview, ask the hiring manager how long the nurses have worked there, and don’t be afraid to ask directly about their turnover rate. If they don’t seem to want to share the information, or they appear somewhat evasive, you can pretty much assume the news isn’t positive. Should the opportunity to speak directly with the nurses who work there present itself, ask the direct questions. Are they happy in their job? What would they change if they could?
Be Confident in Your Value
Healthcare needs skilled and professional LPNs who look forward to a long and full career. To that end, it’s the responsibility of the workplace to support these professionals. Be confident in your value when you go into your interview and ask the hard questions. If something doesn’t feel right, trust your gut and move on. You are a skilled and knowledgeable healthcare professional who deserves a respectful and supportive work environment.
Of course, finding the right workplace environment that supports you in each aspect of your career isn’t about perfection. Every workplace culture is going to have a few issues from time to time. But when you know what to prioritize in our search for the right career path, you can find a supportive work environment that meets your needs.
At BOS Medical Staffing, we understand the workplace environment can make or break your nursing career. Healthcare organizations must support their nurses so that their nurses are free to perform the main objective of the job: patient care. That’s why we offer many opportunities for you, as an LPN, to grow in your career as you are valued and supported. For more information or to find that ideally supportive work environment for your LPN career, please contact BOS Medical Staffing.
