When it’s Friday morning and you’re checking your calendar wondering how you are going to be at a strategy meeting downtown while presenting a long-service award at the annual general meeting, you may find it difficult to focus on what drew you to the job in the first place. Your employees have those kinds of days too. It is up to you to help them remember, and hold on to, their original hopes and desires for their job.

It’s no secret that increasing job satisfaction will create a loyal and productive workforce. A century ago, when the Saint Elizabeth Visiting Nurses’ Association was a team of four nurses making their way to patients’ homes on foot and by streetcar, staffing strategy was not a big concern. Today, at Saint Elizabeth Health Care (SEHC), a not-for-profit organization, we employ a team of 4,000 nurses, personal support workers and rehabilitation therapists, providing hands-on care in a variety of Canadian community settings, primarily throughout Ontario. Employee satisfaction is now a huge focus for us.

As we’ve won awards as an employer of choice, we’ve learned that keeping staff happy and fulfilled makes them more effective. It also produces leaders who inspire.

Our aim is to create a work environment that provides motivation and recognition, so we invest in areas like orientation and mentorship, leadership and e-learning.

Our preceptorship program, for example, a fundamental part of our nurses’ and personnel support workers’ orientation, plays a key role at SEHC in building a resilient team. Orientation for nurses and personnel support workers in the program includes in-class and field-based training with assigned preceptors, individuals who pass on their knowledge and make our new staff feel at home. Our program aims to orient staff to the organization and system as well as their job, and includes an extended mentorship that continues throughout their entire first year with us.

We’ve improved our existing preceptorship model, identifying a need for a formalized rewards and recognition package. Health professionals may be expected to pass on knowledge and lifelong learning, but we think recognition is not only nice but also necessary. For example, our preceptors receive continuing-education opportunities, a pin presented by their manager at a public event, and enhanced compensation.

In this time of health-worker scarcity, we’ve tried to attract nurses with all levels of experience by improving programs that support their entry to practice. Our preceptorship program has also been tailored to meet the needs of the new graduates. As an advanced practice consultant, Alison Macdonald manages our preceptorship program at SEHC as part of her portfolio. “You can lose staff when they do not feel supported and do not feel loyal to your organization,” she says. An inspiring preceptor sets an example for new hires, especially new graduates, making sure their practice is up to standard and socializing them to the organization’s culture.

Managers with strong leadership abilities bring out the best in front-line staff. So for the past four years, we have organized annual off-site leadership camps for all our leaders. These two-day events offer presentations, workshops and dinner and dancing, enhancing leadership skills and recognizing staff contributions and skills.

Sharon Robson, one of our regional service-delivery managers, has attended all four leadership camps. “It’s very encouraging that people recognize that as leaders, we need some growth and development too,” says Robson. It is very common for organizations to neglect the needs of those whom we expect to inspire and lead others; we should instead be making them feel valued.

The very nature of community health care creates an extra hurdle since our employees are geographically dispersed and often work “in the field.” So we make professional development and education a priority to increase employee satisfaction.

For instance, we have adopted e-learning as a primary method to educate and motivate our staff. Our web-based platform @YourSide Colleague includes orientation programs, courses and communities of practice for our health professionals and other staff. All employees can navigate it at their own pace and convenience, whether in a hotel room in Vancouver or at home in Toronto.

Linda Forster, our e-learning-system product manager, has been working for three years developing courses for @YourSide Colleague. “Because the marketplace is changing at such a rapid pace, you have to stay on top of what’s going on and develop yourself in order to keep going and stay energized,” she says.

To provide the best care from the best talent, we’ve found it’s critical to promote a career that feels good, in a lifestyle that fits. Developing incredible talent is not just a means to an end, but an end in itself.