UTMB MyWellbeing Model

A subjective concept that can be different for every institution, department or individual, wellbeing has been studied and dissected for years to understand what influences it and what it entails.  

Through close work with the Professional Wellbeing Academic Consortium (PWAC) and partnering organizations, along with key leaders and stakeholders across the institution, the MyWellbeing team created a model with seven different “domains” or areas of focus. 

Click to learn more about each section and to find related resources

UTMB MyWellbeing  

System Optimization
Meaning & Value
Personal Resilience & Growth
Wellness-Centered Leadership
Sense of Safety
Work-Life Harmony
Connection & Community

Connection and Community

Individuals spend a significant part of their lives and their waking hours at work.  Feeling connected to the work and the people is critical to their wellness as human beings.  Bringing attention to whether interactions are transactional rather than relational is critical.   

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  • Create Cultures of inclusion and belonging
    • Create a workplace that values different perspectives and backgrounds
    • Foster firm boundaries against bias and discrimination and exclusion in the workplace
    • Employees feel their voices and concerns are being heard
    • Help ensure that employees feel connected with team building and work events
    • Build teams intentionally with clear roles, expectations, approaches for communication and feedback with time to get to know each other to build trust
  • Cultivate Trusted Relationships
    • Develop teams in which help can be requested and mistakes can be discussed freely without judgment.  Both create an environment geared towards improvement rather than shame. 
    • Develop clear understanding of everyone’s role to create culture of trust and accountability
    • Develop peer support mechanisms to address the moral distress and emotional distress that is inherent in clinical care
    • Create positive work culture that values and supports mental health and well-being
    • Encourage employees to work together, share ideas and collaborate on projects as well as cross functional collaboration.
    • Communicate clearly and consistently between workers and leaders, including explanation of key decisions to sharing small everyday interactions such as modeling sharing important moments from daily life
    • Develop mentoring relationships at all levels
    • Promote clear and consistent approaches to manage conflict as it arises
  • Foster Collaboration and Teamwork
    • Create opportunities for team building, social events, and networking
    • Include of remote and hybrid work environment when possible
    • Leadership values and supports relationship building among team members and recognizes employees’ contributions to one another.
    • Minimize power dynamics that diminish teamwork and collaboration
    • Provide opportunities to participate in system processes to improve patient care

Resources

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System Optimization

Workflow optimization is critical to a team’s sense of effectiveness, their ability to accomplish and their overall sense of meaning.  It impacts every domain, and every domain, in turn, impacts system optimization.   

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  • Workflow Optimization
    • Redesign workflows to eliminate unnecessary steps
    • Automate routine tasks
    • Assess frequency of interruptions and distractions from work; reduce where possible
    • Assess administrative burden for all and reduce where possible
    • Assess workload demand and reduce where possible (especially after-hours work)
    • Ensure supplies and equipment to provide efficient and quality work readily available
  • Efficient Use of Technology
    • Clinical Areas
      • Leverage telemedicine and other digital tools to support remote care
      • Utilize mobile devices that enable care providers to work more efficiently
      • Access EHR provider-level data to identify inefficiencies
      • Arrange for EPIC consults to streamline documentation and ordering
    • Continually upgrade technological abilities & interfaces
    • Identify and provide feedback to improve institution’s website functionality (does search function provide relevant information)
    • Identify ways to reduce email burden within work-units, Departments, Schools, Institution
  • Team-Based Care and Communication
    • Delegate tasks to appropriate team members to keep everyone working at the top of their education/license/training while also providing growth opportunities
    • Ensure team members know each other and have a sense of how to function together.  Does everyone know their role?
    • Assess effectiveness and frequency of team huddles and adapt to improve community
    • Design workspace for optimal communication and efficiency whether physically or through technology
    • Assess:
      • Are team members optimally positioned to use their unique skill sets? 
      • Are they able to do aspects of the work that bring them the greatest satisfaction?
      • Does everyone feel like they are providing quality work?
    • Assess efficiency of engagement with other services, teams, coverage and identify opportunities for improvement
  • Leadership Support
    • Create realistic staffing and scheduling that covers absences
    • Ensure everyone has adequate resources to do their job efficiently
    • Dedicate resources to implement technology solutions and redesign workflows
    • Provide training on workflow optimization and process improvement for work-units

Resources

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Meaning and Value

Doing work that is meaningful is imminently possible within an academic healthcare organization whether that work is in the support of patient care, education, or research.  Reminding people of their individual value and the meaningfulness of their contribution is critical to creating an engaged environment.

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  • Alignment with Values
    • Communicate in relationship to the shared purpose of our work and common goals to instill pride, fuel motivation and also reduce stress
    • Avoid abuse of altruism by expectations that employees will repeatedly go above and beyond for the sake of patients, students, or research goals.  Repeated self-sacrifice, especially when it becomes the norm, fuels resentment and burnout.
    • Ensure competitive wages and routes to advancement to reinforce the value of employees
    • Engage employees in generating mission, vision, goals and objectives within their work-units
  • Culture of Respect
    • Respect the capabilities of employees by avoiding asking them to work below their educational and skill levels.
    • Respect input and ideas offered by employees as they are a gift of engagement
    • Respect employee’s ability to work autonomously whenever possible (minimizing micro-managing)
    • Respect employees by providing them with the resources and opportunities needed for success
  • Create Culture of Appreciation & Recognition
    • Know the names and responsibilities of your staff members as a simple sign of respect
      • Recognize contributions and achievements
    • Ensure that employees feel valued. This leads your employees to more frequently appreciate others and contribute to a positive work culture
    • Recognize that employees benefit from regular feedback as a means of staying engaged
    • Acknowledge the different work of individuals and teams in achieving organizational goals

Resources

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Personal Resilience and Growth

Academia is, by definition, a place for growth and learning.  The more opportunities for growth, the more employees become optimistic about contributing to their organization and the more resilient the individuals and the organization become. Effective leadership can create an encouraging environment for growth and learning. 

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  • Offer & Encourage Opportunities for Growth in Multiple Domains
    • Emotional Intelligence
    • Social Intelligence
    • Intellectual Intelligence
    • Experiential learning including procedural skills
  • Offer & Encourage Professional Development
    • Ensure opportunities for further education and expansion of knowledge exist for all employees
    • Provide clear communication regarding opportunities, processes, and requirements for advancement
    • Provide time and resources for continuing education requirements
    • Provide time and resources for career advancement opportunities
    • Encourage participation on local committees and society engagement
    • Encourage participation in professional societies
    • Encourage opportunities for promotion and educational/career advancement
  • Offer & Encourage Development through Individual Relationships
    • Arrange mentoring relationships as growth opportunities for both mentor and mentee
    • Encourage growth through collaborative projects
    • Address barriers to learning and growth.  This might include improving language skills, allowing hybrid work situations, and identifying resources.
    • Recognize accomplishments and growth
    • Provide feedback and request feedback
    • Encourage stretch goals for all employees with increasing responsibilities

Resources

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Wellness-Centered Leadership

Wellness-Centered Leadership is a shift in messaging from goal or fiscal-focus priorities to one of creating a positive environment.  Within this environment, goals are still reached, and fiscal priorities are still honored, however the message and day-to-day engagement recognizes our most valuable asset, our people.   

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  • Emotional Intelligence
    • Recognize the pivotal role leadership behavior plays in the professional fulfillment, vitality, and wellness of their team
    • Possess strong emotional intelligence, including self-awareness, empathy and the ability to manage their own emotions and those of others
    • Continually seek to understand and validate the complex needs and contributions of individuals and teams
    • Demonstrate respect, integrity, and servanthood
    • Create environment/culture in which employees feel valued and cared for as individuals
  • Advocate for Employee and Clear Communication
    • Communicate clearly and effectively with employees, including setting expectations, providing feedback, recognizing employee contributions
    • Ensure access to food and water throughout the day with appropriate breaks, including lactation support
    • Create schedules to ensure adequate breaks during the day along with adequate sleep cycles
    • Create schedules that ensure reasonable staffing and workload along with flexibility for the unexpected
    • Demonstrate commitment to the professional development and well-being of individuals
  • Empowerment
    • Engage in behaviors that cultivate individual and team relationships
    • Understand what motivates each individual team member, the aspects of their work that bring them the greatest meaning, and their professional ambitions
    • Develop and articulate the vision and mission for the team and guide the process of achieving it
  • Prioritize Work-Life Balance
    • Create environment that recognizes, respects, and supports home-life demands and also encourages use of paid-time-off (PTO) and appropriate respite
  • Prioritize Wellness Initiatives
    • Provide wellness resources and programs that support employee wellbeing, promoting healthy behaviors, and encouraging a culture of wellness

Resources

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Sense of Safety

Safety is the basic pillar of any workplace and many of the topics related to a sense of safety are inherent in requirements set forth by Equal Opportunity Employment mandates, the Americans with Disabilities Act, OSHA, JCAHO, and the array of Institutional Compliance and Human Resource requirements. The current priority within this domain that needs to be better addressed is psychological safety.  

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  • Physical Safety
    • BASICS
      • Fire, Police, and emergency providers available
      • Equipment, resources, and training to address clinical, research and educational emergencies
      • Clean and well-maintained work environment
      • Appropriate ADA access to all building and parking structures
      • Policies and training for prevention and also management of chemical, infectious and other exposures in the workplace
    • Ensure access to food and water throughout the day with appropriate breaks, including lactation support
    • Create schedules to ensure adequate breaks during the day along with adequate sleep cycles
    • Create schedules that ensure reasonable staffing and workload along with flexibility for the unexpected
  • Emotional Safety
    • Ensure employees’ protection from harassment, bullying, discrimination.
    • Ensure equality and equity of policies and responsiveness to all needs
    • Ensure clear, consistent, and confidential reporting mechanisms and management of inadequate performance, unprofessional behavior, illegal activities, or any violation of workplace policies
    • Communicate pathways to address and support work-related stress and burnout (EAP and other)
    • Develop civil and professional environment in which concerns can be raised comfortably
  • Job Security
    • Provide clear expectations for each employee
    • Provide resources and equipment for each employee to do their work effectively and efficiently
    • Provide mentoring and growth opportunities
    • Recognize employees regularly to create a positive and appreciative culture/environment
  • Financial Security
    • Create competitive compensation and benefits package
    • Communicate UTMB’s retirement plans with provision of retirement planning services
    • Communicate UTMB’s disability and malpractice coverage policies

Resources

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Work-Life Harmony

Creating an environment that expresses care about the employee as an individual helps people be valued.  Valuing our workforce requires recognizing the demands on everyone both at home and away from home.  Respecting boundaries and being clear about expectations is an integral part of creating work-life harmony. 

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  • Provide more autonomy over how work is done
    • Increase opportunities for worker control over how, when and where work is done. This helps mitigate life conflicts, build trust within the workplace, and improve health
    • Be flexible regarding remote participation in meetings whenever possible while also respecting community building that occurs in-person.
  • Make schedules as flexible & predictable as possible
    • Consider personal interest, family responsibilities and obligations when creating work schedules
    • Create schedules at least 3 months in advance to allow vacation scheduling and planning
    • Allow flexibility for shift changes with colleagues to accommodate life events
    • Allow input of team members regarding schedules (Shift length, numbers of days per week, days of the weeks worked) whenever possible
  • Respect boundaries between work and non-work time
    • Implement a culture of respect for personal boundaries
    • Establish workloads that can be accomplished during the workday to minimize work at home
      • Prioritize decreasing EHR related work for clinicians after hours (consider EPIC consultation)
    • Be mindful of any work-related conversations during nonwork hours
    • Set clear expectations regarding work related communications when work being done from home
    • Do not discourage vacation time due to RVU productivity goals

Resources

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