Beats, Breaths and Business – Keynote speaker, Dr Cheryl Fry

Dr Cheryl Fry is a veterinarian who pivoted from a career in animal health to veterinarian wellbeing. After over 11 years in small animal clinical practice, Cheryl qualified as a wellbeing coach in 2017, gained ACC accreditation with the international coaching federation in 2022, and completed her Masters in Applied Positive Psychology at Melbourne University in 2022.

Cheryl has worked at Make Headway since 2017, passionately striving to advance veterinary mental health and wellbeing in Australia and internationally. Her work in that role has included the development of wellbeing learning resources, workplace training, public speaking, facilitating recent graduate support programs, and coaching individuals to improve their wellbeing and overall life satisfaction.

^{Dr Cheryl Fry, Keynote speaker, 49th ASAV annual conference together with VBG}

Dr Fry will be presenting 2 sessions at the 49^th ASAV Conference together with VBG:

• Culture is Key | How everyone can co-create more positive veterinary working environments
• Managing strong emotions in veterinary workplaces

View the full conference program here.

You’re speaking at next month’s conference on workplace culture and how to create more positive working environments. What are some common indicators of a toxic workplace culture, specifically in the veterinary field?

In my experience, we commonly see a few toxic behaviours in veterinary hospitals. For example, I often hear about blame and finger-pointing when mistakes are made. This can be detrimental as people then learn to hide their mistakes, rather than admitting them, which may be dangerous to staff and patients in veterinary workplaces. Another example I see commonly is infighting and gossiping within employee groups. This leads to a lack of trust, safety, and respect in the team. Also pertinent to veterinary situations is a lack of support for less experienced employees and unrealistic expectations from management. Workplaces that encourage unethical or unprofessional practices are also toxic, but I hear about these less often, thankfully.

In your experience, what happens when toxic workplace issues aren’t addressed? What is the impact on people and profits?

Many workplaces are doing most things ‘right’ but allowing toxic behaviours to occur and spread can have a negative impact on all who work there. Unfortunately, toxic behaviours left unchecked tend to spread throughout a team. I think the most telling sign of a toxic workplace culture is a high turnover of staff. People don’t enjoy working in those places - there is low morale; their stress levels are higher; they are surrounded by negativity; they have low wellbeing; they are more prone to burnout; and they start looking for a better choice. Sadly, this is often when I meet individuals, when they have had enough and want to leave the profession entirely. Thankfully, we can often help them rediscover their love for veterinary work at another hospital with a positive culture (or help them improve their own workplace culture).

The research from Kim Cameron in medical hospitals shows a link between improving workplace culture and better patient care with higher levels of patient satisfaction. I believe the same is true in veterinary hospitals and that toxic workplaces negatively impact everyone who works there - impacting patient care, client satisfaction, and profitability. It’s expensive (and time-consuming) to replace staff, so if improving your workplace culture helps you keep great staff, surely it’s worth trying?

What tools can delegates expect to take away from this session and implement in their clinic?

We will discuss how to discover your ‘real’ workplace culture, and not just the culture that you think you have. What is happening under the surface is much more telling than what is proclaimed on a poster on the wall of your practice.

I’ll talk about those insidious toxic workplace behaviours and how to minimise them in your veterinary hospital; while also replacing them with evidence-based positive behaviours that are associated with increased wellbeing, better teamwork, and greater business success.

Building a positive workplace culture won’t happen overnight – but every step you take in this direction will bring rewards. I believe that improving workplace culture in Australian veterinary hospitals will positively shift the wellbeing of everyone who works in the profession. This is why I focused my Master’s project on the workplace rather than the individual – because my research and personal experience suggest it is where I can have the greatest impact.

We know the veterinary workplace can be a high-stress environment at times. Your session will look at building emotional intelligence. Can you tell us a bit more about emotional intelligence? How difficult is it to change the way we react to and process highly emotional situations?

The term emotional intelligence (EI) has been around for about 60 years but became popularised after the book “Emotional intelligence” by Daniel Goleman was released in 1995. There are several definitions of EI, with Salovey and Mayer defining it as “the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate amongst them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action”.

High EI is important to everyone as it has been linked to increased positive emotions and happiness, increased health and wellbeing, better quality relationships, greater empathy, lower stress levels, improved resilience and coping skills, better leadership potential, enhanced conflict resolution and improved job performance. EI is very important to professional success, job satisfaction and interpersonal functioning in the often emotionally demanding veterinary workplace.

While some people are more naturally emotionally intelligent, I believe that it is a muscle that most people can exercise and strengthen (and studies support this). Improving our EI starts with self-awareness, and then self-management. If we don’t know what emotion was triggered, why it was triggered, and how it impacted us, it is difficult to know how to manage it. Without self-awareness and self-management of our own emotions, we can’t read the emotions of others and manage tough emotional situations. Building EI starts with getting touchy-feely with our own emotions – something that many people find challenging. I believe the key is practicing EI in less stressful moments so that we have the skills to use when those inevitable high-stress veterinary situations arise. Changing our knee-jerk ‘reaction’ to a more thoughtful and measured ‘response’ in stressful situations is not easy, but it is possible.

Can you share any success stories, where significant improvements were made in workplace culture and staff well-being?

I’m glad you’ve asked this question!

At Make Headway we’ve seen many individuals improve their wellbeing through coaching and doing the hard work themselves to make changes. Our frustration has often been that these motivated individuals are working in places where the culture could be better. Sadly, these workplaces often see that individual as the ‘squeaky wheel’ needing to be fixed; rather than what they more often are, which is a symptom of a larger workplace problem.

I love working with hospitals around their culture and staff wellbeing. Most of those that engage me in this area have mostly positive cultures that support staff wellbeing already. I’m preaching to the choir, so to speak. They are looking to improve even more and do their best for their employees. So, while we can tweak those positive cultures and improve them, which is very rewarding, what I’d love is to work with those places with more toxic cultures to help them turn things around. However, in my experience, those who need us the most never reach out, because they are oblivious to the problem, or don’t believe they can change the situation. In my presentation, I will challenge veterinary hospitals to assess their ’real’ workplace culture, as I contend that even the best of them have room for improvement. Positive cultural change can improve staff wellbeing and client satisfaction, so is worth the effort.

Come and hear more on these fascinating topics at the 49th ASAV annual conference together with Veterinary Business Group, from 12 - 15 August 2024, at the stunning Novotel Sunshine Coast Resort, QLD.

Register before Monday 15 July to enjoy the great member discounts on offer!