14 Ingredients for a Positive Work Environment

As a respiratory therapist, you spend the majority of your waking hours at work, so it stands to reason that a positive work environment would make a big difference in your life. But what does “positive working environment” really mean?

Dutch researchers who conducted a three-round Delphi study, including a literature search and 17 semi-structured interviews with experts on positive work environments in health care, identified 36 individual elements that define “positive” in this setting. The elements were ranked according to the consensus reached on each by study participants.

These 14 elements were scored at 85% or above:

1. Autonomy in accomplishing tasks and making decisions within one’s own work area.
2. Promotion and career development are possible in the organization.
3. Having fun and being challenged at work.
4. Each profession has sufficient professional status in the organization to influence others and to deploy resources when required.
5. Employees are viewed as valuable partners and therefore represent value for the organization.
6. Others give you the feeling that your efforts and contributions are valuable.
7. Intrinsic work motivation of employees.
8. Satisfaction with the content of the work, salary, and secondary employment conditions.
9. Formal and informal leaders in an organization (or unit) take actions to influence change and facilitate excellence in practice.
10. Good multidisciplinary relations and collaboration based on mutual respect and trust.
11. Equal and open (blame-free) communication and feedback between professionals and between different organizational levels.
12. The care is tailored to the patient and their loved ones’ values, preferences, and needs.
13. Opportunities for personal growth.
14. Healthy physical work conditions.

The authors note that work environments that embody these and other positive characteristics have been associated with everything from better patient outcomes to the attraction and retention of health care professionals.

They believe the responsibility for achieving a positive work environment should be shared by all team members, including management, and that regularly discussing work environment experiences with all team members is necessary to reach a mutual understanding and develop improvement initiatives.

The study was published by PLOS One in 2021.