PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
Slowing the “Doom Loop” in Public Health Labs
The 2016 Gallup report How Millennials
Want to Work and Live points out that
it isn’t employee satisfaction that
keeps Millennials in their jobs, it is the
opportunity to learn and grow. Even if a
job is satisfying, in the absence of career
development and opportunities to learn
and practice new skills, boredom will
eventually develop and lead to frustration,
which leads to turnover. This is not a new
concept, nor is it unique to Millennials.
In the 1970s, Charles Cranston Jett
described a similar phenomenon in a
model that he called the Doom Loop. The
Doom Loop is a tool that can help both
employers and employees to identify
strategies to address boredom and
frustration and to ensure that employees
are able to make tactical career decisions.
The main message of the Doom Loop?
Employees need a “new mountain to
climb” every two to three years; if the new
opportunity is not provided within their
current laboratory, then they will seek
that mountain elsewhere.
In this issue of Lab Matters, we examine
workforce retention in public health
laboratories. A recent employee survey
conducted at the Minnesota Department
of Health revealed that more than 90
percent of our public health laboratory
staff feel that their job is important to
the public health mission. These staff are
motivated by a sense of purpose and our
job as laboratory leaders is to help them
grow in their current position as well as
to prepare them for future roles. While
it may not be possible to create defined
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LAB MATTERS Fall 2018
career paths for all of our employees,
it is possible to provide coaching and
opportunities for staff to develop new
skills and capitalize on unique strengths.
To that end, we have an Everyday Leaders
Program that enables non-supervisory
staff to hone their leadership skills and
collaborate on a project with individuals
from across the agency. I have seen staff
come out of this program with renewed
energy, motivation and confidence to take
on new tasks and develop new skills.
Besides creating retention programs at
public health laboratories, encouraging
staff to become APHL members and
to participate in APHL committees is a
great way to provide staff with career
enrichment while helping APHL achieve
its vision of “a healthier world through
quality laboratory systems.” APHL’s
Emerging Leaders Program offers another
chance to give staff a career development
opportunity. Individual states may
also have leadership and/or career
development programs.
Employees need a 'new
mountain to climb' every two to
three years; if the new opportunity
is not provided within their current
laboratory, then they will seek that
mountain elsewhere.”
Joanne Bartkus, President, APHL
However, once a learning opportunity
is identified, the challenge becomes
providing staff with the time to learn
new skills while still doing their job. Our
challenge as laboratory leaders is to
find a way to provide these committed
individuals with career coaching and
development opportunities to ensure that
their job not only has meaning, but also
builds upon their strengths as the next
generation of leaders. n
PublicHealthLabs
@APHL
APHL.org