Your employees are your most excellent resource. In recent years, the animal care industry has faced significant recruitment and retention challenges due to heightened market pressures, workforce shortages, and the inherent stressors of working in animal care.
Designing for the team's well-being can work in any budget environment. Physical spaces can be updated and/or designed to support practice goals and provide your staff with a safe, healthy, and nurturing workplace.
A team-centric approach starts with the layout of the floor plan. View each task in a hospital with a team approach. When focusing on operational efficiencies, identify which team members and roles are needed for each procedure or task. Take a closer look by analyzing the proximities these tasks need if a team member needs specific supplies, equipment, or help from other team members. This analysis helps create shorter distances between areas, allowing for greater efficiency.
For example, consider placing a true nurse's/technician station close to the exam rooms and stocking it with the most needed supplies (rather than having the team walk back and forth to the treatment area to obtain supplies). Consider sound control for this space and efficient use of technology and storage. A small folding exam table could be added to this area to reduce the need for the team to take an animal to the main treatment room for quick procedures. See "Nurses Station" below in the Resources section, highlighting a nurse's station that increases the team's efficiency.
Ergonomic considerations should also lead the decision-making process to assist the team in doing their jobs in the safest way possible (see Resources below).
Find room for spaces and design concepts that work dynamically with the culture of the practice to help retain staff and draw in new team members (see Resources below):
Wellness rooms that provide for personal needs and respite.
Daylighting that provides improved well-being (see article below).
Sound control to lower stress for animals and humans.
Actual break areas for the team to connect and relax.
