‘We Can Do Better.’ Why the Cook Children’s Burnout Survey Matters

As director of Spiritual Care, Jennifer Hayes spends much of her time at Cook Children’s serving as a confidant to you, our employees.

She talks to us enough to understand how burnout has impacted so many of our lives.

“We hear about it every day … multiple times a day … and yet, here we are … still burned out … surrounded by good, even great intentions, but still burned out,” Jennifer said.

Jennifer understands that an upcoming survey to address burnout may be met with skepticism, since, after all, lots of us don’t need a survey to let us know we are burned out.

So, why do we bother taking a survey at all?

The survey results and findings will give us a detailed snapshot of where we are at this moment in time in regard to burnout throughout the entire system. It will allow leadership to gain an idea of the scope of the issue and prioritize targeted initiatives.

Simply put, we need to hear from our employees to know how big the problem is and what areas are currently the most impacted by burnout.

This issue is prevalent throughout not only Cook Children’s, but health care organizations across the country. The survey is the first step in addressing burnout in a systematic, meaningful way.

“The thing is, we realize that what we have been doing is not enough. The good news is there are many people across the system who are working together to improve wellbeing ….and we are deeply invested in working with you to create a better workplace. Because we can do better as a system. We have to.”

But to get better, we have to first learn more about the issue at hand.

Please take the time to complete the survey.