Brown bag seminar: Rachel Gifford

This seminar will be provided online by Rachel Gifford from the Univeristy of Maastricht.

Title: The reality of essentiality: What turbulent times reveal about the necessity and value of essential work

Abstract:
Institutional custodians play a key role in institutional survival by upholding, reinforcing and repairing institutions. In healthcare, essential frontline workers such as nurses, doctors act as institutional custodians and uphold and reinforce institutional values by securing patients’ access to services, and providing safe, timely, and humanistic care. However, following the recent Covid-19 crisis frontline workers are experiencing high rates of drop-out, turnover, and burn-out. While research has often considered the important role and work of custodians, we believe it is important to consider what may prompt custodians to no longer be able or willing to engage in custodianship work. In the present study, we consider what the recent crisis reveals to us about our valuing of such custodians and custodianship work, exploring how the recent crisis influenced the way that essential work is perceived by essential workers themselves, and other stakeholders. We focus on nurses and nursing work given the current shortage of nurses and high impact of the recent crisis on this working group. Our study reveals the potential impact when essential workers are, or feel, undervalued and points to important directions for future research in both the custodianship literature and on the practical issue of workforce dropout.