Workplace Engagement Around Stewardship and Recyling in a Healthcare Setting

Abstract

The healthcare industry is second only to the food industry in overall waste production, and there are many opportunities to mitigate the environmental impacts of waste through waste reduction and recycling programs in healthcare. Beaumont Royal Oak is a 1,000-bed hospital in Southeast Michigan that is part of an eight-hospital, non-profit health system called Beaumont Health. Beaumont Royal Oak is unique in that it has a voluntary training program that educates employees on environmental stewardship in the work place. The Green Officer program is administered by a Green Team made up of leaders in the hospital. In addition to running the Green Officer training program, the Green Team also implements other environmental stewardship initiatives at the hospital. While the Green Team had been successful in recruiting 483 employees to undergo the Green Officer certification program at Royal Oak, as of January 2015, they lacked information about whether Green Officer’s attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors differed from non-trained employees. At the same time, data on the hospital’s waste management revealed that the hospital’s recycling rate was lower than other hospitals with dedicated stewardship programs. This master’s project attempted to answer two questions: (1) how do Beaumont Royal Oak staff perceive and engage in environmental stewardship in the work place, and (2) how can Beaumont Royal Oak increase its recycling rate? To help us answer the second question, we used the Community-Based Social Marketing (CBSM) framework to give us guidance on how to address recycling in particular. The framework helped us focus on identifying barriers and benefits to recycling and engagement in environmental stewardship. We employed a wide variety of methods, including site visits, a literature review, an online survey, and employee interviews to answer our two questions. Our survey formed the crux of our data collection process and the findings from it provided the foundation for our recommendations. We used Qualtrics software to design our 10-minute, online survey which we distributed to both Green Officers and non-Green officers within the hospital. The goals of this survey instrument were two-fold: one, to gather data about environmental stewardship among employees at Beaumont Royal Oak, and two, to identify reasons why employees were not recycling at Beaumont Royal Oak. The first half of our survey measured whether there were differences between the environmental behavior and attitudes reported by Green Officers and non-Green Officers, while the second half narrowed in on recycling and measured employee knowledge and awareness of recycling procedures, self-reported recycling behaviors, and employee perceptions of barriers to recycling. We conducted our analysis based on a sample of 294 responses, composed of 116 GOs and 178 non- GOs. Based on our analysis, we saw that attitudes towards the hospital’s work in environmental stewardship were positive across all employees suggesting ample support for future stewardship programming. Green Officers, however, reported practicing environmental stewardship behaviors in the work place more often than their colleagues who are not Green Officers. This finding suggested that Green Officers are a key group to include in developing and rolling out behavior change interventions. The second portion of the survey focused on recycling, and for all items that we asked about, we found that Green Officers recycle them more frequently than employees who have not been trained. Our survey findings demonstrated that Green Officers are also more knowledgeable about what is recyclable in the hospital. However, across both groups we found that there was a lower level of knowledge about how recycling worked in the hospital. When we asked about barriers to recycling, we found that non- Green Officers reported finding recycling more difficult than Green Officers. They consider it more inconvenient, they are more confused about labels, and they do not feel it is as worthwhile as their Green Officers counterparts do. They also reported feeling less encouragement from supervisors and colleagues to recycle. The barriers identified by respondents demonstrated a need for greater communication about how the recycling program works and how the hospital is performing over time. The physical infrastructure of the recycling bins could also use greater standardization, while still keeping unique needs for different types of workspaces in mind. Based on our site visits, survey, literature review, and interviews, we created six recommendations that fit into three themes: convenience, awareness and knowledge, and motivation. These six recommendations are to increase bin availability, standardize bin appearance, inform employees how and where to recycle, tap into effective communication channels, renew commitments regularly, and to recognize recycling leaders for their efforts. A summary table of recommendations is shown in Section 7.3. After describing our recommendations, we provide guidance to Beaumont for completing the final steps of the CBSM process. This includes piloting, evaluating, and adjusting strategies, then scaling them up across the hospital. In conclusion, this project helps the Beaumont RO Green Team understand the current state of attitudes, knowledge, and engagement regarding environmental stewardship and recycling. After investing heavily in training hundreds of GOs, a feat unique in healthcare organizations across the country, there is still much more to do to help GOs succeed in helping their peers be better stewards at work. This project contributes to the small body of knowledge surrounding healthcare professionals’ opinions on environmental issues. This is an important contribution because healthcare professionals are trusted members of the community and can be strong environmental leaders with the right support and direction.