Case Study
Animal Welfare Team
BACKGROUND
CHALLENGES
Poor staff retention
Lack of support from management
Bullying within the workplace
Low morale
EF training were asked to go into an organisation by the
management and human resources team as they were experiencing some difficulties which they attributed to Compassion Fatigue within the team. They were experiencing a high turnover of staff and some issues with bullying behaviour and low morale.
Prior to the training all staff were given a pre-course questionnaire designed to assess their level of compassion fatigue and how they were feeling about their job and the people/animals they were caring for.
PRE COURSE
FEEDBACK
”Staff are more likely to recognise when one of their colleagues has an issue, share their grief and help each other. We are working better as a team and overall work is a calmer, more enjoyable place to be.”
RESULTS
Cultural shift towards wellbeing
Bereavement Counsellor
Team wellbeing evenings
Better communication
The main findings of the questionnaire showed that the staff were feeling pressured to work when they were ill, working longer hours than they were paid for and thinking about work while they were at home on a regular basis. Almost half the team were considering leaving and the reasons they gave included issues with management, lack of support and guidance and feeling that what they were doing was not appreciated.
We delivered three 6-hour training session on Compassion Fatigue to a total of 53 staff who included the CEO, management team, animal rescue staff and admin and grounds staff.
POST COURSE
Following the training we spoke a few times to the HR manager and she said that it had stirred up a lot of emotions and the staff were openly discussing the themes. They realised that they were not alone in feeling the way they did and had started to come to HR more with issues as they felt more supported and listened to.
The atmosphere of the whole centre had begun to change and staff were looking out for each other and caring for each other better. Over the summer they had a tragedy and lost some animals and management team spoke to us for advice and we arranged for a bereavement counsellor to go in and work with them which was a very helpful and they said would definitely not have happened before the training.