Why does Clalit need a nurses' community?
The organization always had a strong desire to support its employees. On top of that, in recent years it became clearer just how much the emotional toll of caring for patients drains people. We wanted to do something that would give them strength and support, and help them keep loving this incredibly demanding profession.
How was the community created?
One of our nurses, Tova Karero, was set on fire and killed by a 78-year-old patient. It left me, and every nurse in Israel, in terrible shock. I went to comfort our nurses, and I realized they weren't only mourning Tova's death. They were mourning the fact that something like this could happen to them at all. That they have no voice, and the public doesn't see them. That was the moment I understood I had a mission: to bring the world of nurses to center stage. That's where the idea for the community was born.
I knew the community had to live on a social network everyone could access, something that would feel like a leisure activity rather than another corporate email or a mandatory task. The first idea was a Facebook group. I had always been active on Facebook and saw that everyone was there. It's a comfortable medium, people check it often, and I also felt it was right for the platform to stay informal.
The first person I shared it with was the organization's chief nurse, and she was all for it. She understood the value, and she's always ready to innovate and go on an adventure. I brought in the organization's social media manager, who also said yes right away. The social media team took it to the CEO. He really wanted to reach Gen Y and Gen Z, so he was very open to it, and honestly he didn't take much convincing. I got the green light right then and there.
A month before launch, I reached out to the managers at all our facilities and asked each of them for a representative who loves social media. I set up a WhatsApp group for them, and they became the community's "founding fathers." Together we ran a kind of editorial team that guided the build and the launch, and we prepared all kinds of content we knew the community would care about. Once people started posting, I'd activate that WhatsApp group as a response team too.
What is the nurses' community and how does it work?
Beyond the posts that go up in the Facebook group on all kinds of topics, there are collaborations, challenges we run around the holidays, live sessions, connections and more. It's important to say that we're not here to replace the existing frameworks. We're here to add to them and bring a different kind of value. We're not trying to build something new from scratch and steamroll what already exists. We're a very important product, but one that complements what the managers do. We also wanted the group to be diverse: people from cities and villages, of all religions and genders. Diversity mattered to us from the very start.
When did you realize the community was succeeding?
One of the most moving events in our community started with a post about Dan Ariely's book. He suffered burns over 70% of his body as a teenager and spent years in hospitals. He writes about it in every one of his books and mentions the nurses who cared for him. He calls them "my nurses." One of the nurses wrote that she was the one who had cared for Professor Dan Ariely. So I emailed him and offered to bring him together with the nurses who had treated him. He agreed on the spot. It was moving beyond words. I organized all the nurses and brought them in from their homes. He came to Clalit's main building, deeply moved, agreed to let us stream it live, and they remembered every single thing that had happened to him. It was an event that changed the lives of everyone who took part.
On the organizational level, I met with all of Clalit's spokespeople. I invited them to join the group and take posts to use externally and to raise the profile of the profession. They were happy to. We can see that the group influences the spokespeople, and that they consult with us. When someone needs an expert nurse for TikTok, they come to me. When someone needs to write something for breastfeeding awareness week, they come to us. We're sitting on a wealth of talent and knowledge, and that versatility has become a pool of people who can make an impact and speak in national and even international media. We've become another communication channel for Clalit.
Later on, we opened the group to nurses from other organizations and to students too, so it would become a truly multi-generational, even multi-organizational, connection. We added an Instagram page to expand our reach, and I started bringing content to Twitter and LinkedIn as well. Clalit often shares things I write. It's good for us, and it's good for the organization.
The vaccination campaign was also one of the most beautiful things we saw in the group. The nurses began writing their COVID diaries: what it's like to be the last person with a patient before they die, when there's no family there and death comes quietly. The group turned into a support group. It was moving and painful, and I was glad they had somewhere to let it out. Beyond the personal side, I was really surprised to see people in the group talking about why the shot matters, encouraging vaccination, and explaining how much a nurse studies to give a vaccine properly. Vaccines are the bread and butter of the profession, and bringing health to the world is a nurse's true mission. That's the purpose they work from.
So our success is this: a community that feels like family, a truly nurturing place. Everyone feels they're in it together, inside this life, this profession, its challenges and its moving moments. That's exactly what people tell me when I visit the facilities: "The group is our home." When someone says that to me, I know we got it right.
Cracking the win-win: how do you make sure both the community and the organization get value?
The win for the community: the goal of the nurses' community is to give employees a place to express themselves, where they feel understood and seen. Our members enjoy being part of it, they meet and connect with new people, and a unique culture and sense of pride take shape. And of course it's a refuge from day-to-day challenges. They have fun, and it adds flavor to the work.
The win for the organization: employees who feel seen and who have an outlet for their difficult emotions burn out less and stay committed to the organization despite their demanding roles. On top of that, we became another communication channel for the organization and made a real impact on the ground that reaches other departments (social media, PR and more).
What challenges did you face?
- We were worried about inflaming the conversation. From the start we wanted to change it, from a bitter tone to a collaborative, proud one. Changing the language doesn't happen in a day; it's something you have to work at. Together we put together a set of tools for changing the conversation, and it was clear that some topics would stay off-limits. Some people see that as making the group less democratic, but as far as we're concerned, those rules serve the very purpose the community was built for.
- It was a challenge to get people to discover the community and want to join without any corporate campaign, because we wanted it to feel like leisure. At first it spread by word of mouth. A few weeks after we went live, we sent SMS invitations to join. The people who are in it really chose to be there.
- I worried about what a sector-specific, informal community would mean inside an organization of 40,000 employees that's used to doing everything together. I wasn't sure my idea would be accepted at all, and some people really did raise an eyebrow at first. The courage to go for it came from being senior and a veteran, from the credibility I'd built and the many things I'd already done in the organization. In the end, it worked.
Tips for community success
- Collaborations are truly critical to success. Bring along the people who will believe in the community you're building and become partners for the journey: social media people, HR people, people you have chemistry with and who might have a connection to senior management. Don't do anything alone.
- I brought the community leaders into the mission of building the community and into its purpose. I asked that we tell this story to ourselves first, and then to the world. Many of them felt exactly as I did and wanted to tell the story of what was happening in their own world. They connected to the mission and volunteered with incredible dedication for more than a year.
- Stay humble. The group isn't about me, and it isn't for me. Remember the "why" behind it. Keep the stage and the space for the people you opened it for.