Following my internship, I was posted in a setting where I was to function as a doctor and a manager. I was quite prepared, at least in my head, about taking the role of a doctor. However, taking the latter role is not something I imagined while getting ready for rural posting. To think back, all the leadership and public health classes should have prepared me - maybe in a subconscious way it did - but for me, it really took being in the spotlight to learn my lessons.
Author Dale Carnegie rightly points out in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dealing with people is the hardest thing to do. I used to consider communication easy. Almost primal and intuitive—certainly not cognitive. For something that we do so much of, one would think we have enough practice in talking with each other, but it turns out communication cannot be practiced enough. Relying on our desire to do good and ability to keep calm amidst chaos can prove futile exactly when it matters the most - during the busy hour. To take a more intentional and systematic approach to improve communications among our staff, we came up with the following ideas:
Event Board
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Our PHC included around 26 staff. Whenever we had a meeting or a training program, it was common for some of the staff to not be informed. As the head of the PHC, you are also responsible for deciding if a staff gets leave or not. It is quite difficult to inform everyone about who is on leave, who has gone for training, and who is on duty. This lack of communication created friction among the staff. A single person on leave would mean extra work for the others. The event board did the trick for us. We used to write down every such detail, and staff would just have a look at it at least twice a day - while giving attendance and signing off. Details would include everything concerning the PHC - the name of staff on leave/training/attending EPI/PHC-ORC clinics (including duration), future events, and things to be done at the PHC (repair works, stuffs to buy).
In charge for each staff category
It was quite difficult to address issues (leave/training/resources) with each staff. We started by appointing an in-charge for every staff available - an in-charge for paramedics, nurses, office assistants, and ambulance drivers. Any individual issue they have would affect their immediate coordinates. Hence, this worked wonders. If an office assistant were to ask for leave - he/she would coordinate with his/her in-charge and circle of other office assistants. We would issue a leave only if the whole circle agreed and came up with a plan to divide their share of work when the staff is away. This workflow didn't work as smoothly 100% of the time, but as people got used to it, everything pretty much fell into place.