A thriving shared governance model requires intentional strategies. Here are six expert tips from the Forum for Shared Governance to strengthen your organization’s governance program.

Shared governance has been around for more than 40 years. Although we have long known where issues in implementation lie, innovative solutions have only recently emerged. Here are six surefire tips to strengthen any organization’s shared governance program.

1. Invest in dedicated shared governance facilitators.

New positions dedicated to shared governance are ideal, but new employee hours can be pricey. If your organization lacks hours for a new position, consider designating existing hours to a dedicated shared governance facilitator instead. For example, you can create an internal expert by carving out formal job duties within the existing hours of an educator, Magnet coordinator, or clinical nurse specialist. Some organizations even rotate people through the hours on a periodic basis, leaving a wake of experts as the years progress. Consequently, within a few years, you build a network of internal consultants within your own organization.

2. Evaluate the effectiveness of your communication mechanisms with staff.

Knowledge is power, but only when it is effectively communicated. While surveying organizations to evaluate shared governance implementation, we sometimes find that professionals don’t realize they hold decision-making authority — simply because no one told them. It can be that straightforward. Therefore, make sure that communication mechanisms such as blogs, newsletters, listservs, email chains, and meetings effectively convey the decisions, successes, and changes that result from your shared governance model.

3. Focus on middle managers to fully implement shared governance.

Everyone knows that a toxic manager can sabotage just about anything. On the other hand, a supervisor who understands the manager’s role in enacting shared governance can make all the difference, cheerleading a unit’s staff to effective participation levels. However, managing in a shared governance environment is not intuitive. Managers need onboarding and then continuing education to learn how to facilitate, integrate, and coordinate shared governance activities, as well as take ownership of leading and making operational decisions. Additionally, the chief nursing officer should set aside alone and group time with managers to set clear goals and objectives that can be embedded in performance appraisals and peer reviews. Give your managers a chance to shine this year by providing the education and time they need.

4. Ensure that shared governance is a component in every employee’s job description, peer review, employee evaluation, and performance appraisal.

Just as expectations for new management behaviors should be clear to managers, the same applies to professional clinical staff. Shared governance depends on effective participation by everyone, so organizations should set goals and behaviors for every employee in their job descriptions, peer reviews, and evaluations. Because these documents and processes exist in a shared governance environment, teams should revisit and revise them frequently to keep stride with a progressive staff and a constantly changing environment.

5. Market the importance of your shared governance program to your clientele through your staff.

Again, knowledge is power. An empowered staff should be able to articulate concepts and the importance of shared governance to just about anyone — including its cost effectiveness. As a result, there is no need to worry about marketing shared governance to staff who can already speak to its worth.

6. Hang tough; the COVID environment will get better.

History tells us that crises, such as a pandemic, eventually end one way or another. When the new normal emerges, you will need a structure and processes to move forward. That is precisely where shared governance comes in.