81 - Compassion Fatigue and Compassion Satisfaction for Lab Animal Professionals: a program to bring Culture of Care to a global team

Background:  Compassion fatigue (CF) and compassion satisfaction (CS) are concerns for employee wellbeing, animal welfare, and retention of staff. A Culture of Care team was formed to evaluate best strategies to mitigate CF and increase CS. Initial focus was local to the R&D headquarters, with intent to globalize.

Methods:  Methods included data collection via participation in a national study (baseline data collection), internal “road show” presentations to scientific leadership and supporting organizations (leadership awareness), and in vivo associates (roundtable events). Additional awareness campaign activities included posters, discussion at Biomedical Research Awareness Day (BRAD) events, connecting with existing mental healthcare offerings and allied employee resource groups. In addition, an effort to globalize beyond the initial site has included team collaboration to implement tailored programs.

Conclusion:  Compassion satisfaction is a driving force for many who work in the lab animal field but is difficult to measure. While many exhibit high empathy and caring traits, this is also a risk factor for developing CF. CF is a difficult topic for many people to discuss and recognize, especially in a professional setting. There is often perceived stigma around expressing concerns for one’s mental well-being, as well as consideration that doing so may impact career development and progression. Some people experiencing CF may not express their feelings to maintain a positive work culture. Nonetheless, CF is a significant challenge for many and needs to be addressed at an institutional level. Institutional impacts include low productivity, high absenteeism, reduced collaboration, loss of morale, lack of vision for the future, and reduction in speak-up culture. Scientific output may be diminished, and animal welfare impacted, which can lead to downstream regulatory and reputational risk. Institutional support to uphold a positive ethical environment can counterbalance some of these impacts. Initial activities have included benchmarking at the R&D headquarters site, rollout of resources to staff, and presentations to leadership and associate teams. The next phase is a transition into a global program across all sites with in vivo activities. This approach includes insight into experience, resource materials and discussions to catalyze programs bespoke to site needs. Considerations include local site culture, collaboration with established CF/CS programs and supporting each site through centralized executive sponsorship.

Limitations: Limitations of this work include accurate measurement and tracking of CF/CS, translatability of success across cultures and global sites, availability of resources and tangible/accessible materials, level of leadership buy-in between departments, programmatic willingness to accept mental healthcare as part of an occupational health program, and lack of regulatory drivers to establish CF/CS programs.

Discussion:  Future work includes globalization of outreach and resources to address CF/CS for personnel at all R&D locations. We acknowledge that each location has a distinct culture and not all resources or methods may be met with the same enthusiasm. Each location is provided with guidance and resources to develop a self-owned and driven program connecting to the wholistic Culture of Care within the organization. Centralized executive sponsorship serves as a touchpoint for all individual programs, resulting in shared values and meaningful impact. It is important that tangible measures are visible to the staff as evidence of action taken from input.