View from the Board: Building a veterinary workplace where people can thrive

Veterinary medicine has always attracted extraordinary people. It is a profession built upon compassion, resilience, scientific excellence, and an unwavering commitment to improving the lives of animals and the people who love them. Yet behind every exceptional patient outcome is a team of professionals who routinely absorb emotional trauma, physical demands, ethical dilemmas, financial pressures, and compassion fatigue in ways few professions fully appreciate.

As leaders, we often focus our attention on patient outcomes, client satisfaction, operational efficiency, and financial sustainability. While each is critically important, there is another metric that deserves equal attention: the wellbeing of the people who make exceptional veterinary care possible.

The health of a veterinary hospital can often be measured by the health of its culture. Creating an environment where veterinary professionals feel valued, psychologically safe, and supported is no longer simply an employee engagement initiative, it is a strategic imperative. High-performing organizations recognize that investing in people is not merely the right thing to do; it is one of the strongest predictors of long-term organizational success.

The unique reality of veterinary medicine is that few professions ask so much of their workforce. Veterinary professionals routinely experience:

• High emotional labor associated with euthanasia and end-of-life care
• Client grief, conflict, and unrealistic expectations
• Physical injury risk from patients and repetitive work
• Long shifts, overnight schedules, weekends, and holidays
• Staffing shortages that increase workload
• Educational debt and financial pressures
• Ethical distress surrounding treatment limitations
• Compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and burnout

Unlike many healthcare professions, veterinary teams frequently move from celebrating a successful emergency surgery to helping a family say goodbye to a beloved companion, all within the same hour. These rapid emotional transitions require tremendous resilience. Unfortunately, resilience alone cannot compensate for an unhealthy work environment. Organizations must intentionally create systems that protect the people providing the care.

Psychological safety is an important foundation of every great team. Psychological safety refers to an environment where individuals feel safe to speak up, ask questions, admit mistakes, share concerns, and offer ideas without fear of embarrassment, punishment, or retaliation. In veterinary medicine, psychological safety has direct implications for patient safety.

When technicians hesitate to question a medication dosage…

When assistants are uncomfortable reporting unsafe equipment…

When interns fear asking for clarification…

When doctors feel unable to admit uncertainty…

Patient care suffers.

Conversely, psychologically safe organizations encourage curiosity, respectful challenge, continuous learning, and open communication. The strongest teams are not those that never make mistakes. They are the teams that identify mistakes early, discuss them openly, learn from them collectively, and continuously improve. Leaders set this tone every day through their responses. Do employees feel blamed? Or do they feel supported while being held accountable? Those are two very different cultures.

Employee benefits are important, too

Additionally, providing benefits that reflect the reality of veterinary professionals is also a crucial element to team sustainability. Competitive compensation remains important, but today’s workforce increasingly evaluates employers by the overall employee experience.

Benefits should be designed around the actual needs of veterinary professionals rather than a generic corporate package. Best-practice organizations increasingly evaluate offerings such as:

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Affordable mental health counseling with minimal barriers to access
• Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)
• Paid parental leave
• Bereavement leave that recognizes both human and companion animal loss
• Continuing education funding
• Student loan assistance where feasible
• Financial wellness education
• Retirement savings with employer contributions
• Flexible scheduling when operationally possible
• Paid volunteer or community service opportunities
• Wellness reimbursement programs
• Veterinary care discounts for employees’ own pets

Benefits alone do not create engagement. However, they communicate organizational values. Employees notice whether benefits were designed with their profession in mind.

Mental health is organizational health

The veterinary profession has made tremendous progress in openly discussing mental health. That conversation must continue evolving beyond awareness toward action. Wellness cannot exist solely as an annual lecture or Mental Health Awareness Month initiative. Instead, organizations should build ongoing systems that normalize support.

Examples include:

• Routine wellbeing check-ins during leadership meetings
• Peer support programs following difficult cases
• Critical incident debriefings
• Leadership training on recognizing burnout
• Confidential access to counseling resources
• Education surrounding compassion fatigue and moral distress
• Encouragement to utilize PTO without guilt
• Normalizing conversations around emotional wellbeing

Importantly, leaders should model these behaviors themselves. When leaders openly discuss work-life balance, encourage vacation use, and demonstrate healthy boundaries, employees recognize that wellness is genuinely supported rather than simply promoted.

Furthermore, creating sustainable workloads for your team is also paramount. Burnout is rarely caused by a single difficult day. More often, it results from chronic imbalance. Sustainable staffing models, realistic appointment scheduling, adequate support personnel, and thoughtful workflow design are among the most effective wellbeing interventions available. Hospitals should regularly evaluate:

• Patient-to-clinician ratios
• Technician utilization
• Administrative burden
• Documentation requirements
• Overtime trends
• On-call frequency
• Break compliance
• Schedule predictability

Operational excellence and employee wellbeing are not competing priorities. They are mutually reinforcing. Organizations that optimize workflow frequently discover improvements in patient care, employee satisfaction, financial performance, and client experience simultaneously.

Team recognition matters more than we often realize. Veterinary professionals are frequently motivated by purpose rather than praise. However, that should never be interpreted as not needing recognition. Simple, authentic appreciation remains one of the least expensive and most effective leadership tools available. Recognition does not always require awards. Sometimes it is:

• A handwritten note.
• Public acknowledgment of exceptional teamwork.
• Celebrating professional certifications.
• Recognizing years of service.
• Thanking an overnight team after an exceptionally difficult shift.
• Sharing positive client feedback.

People remember how leaders made them feel. Feeling valued strengthens engagement far more than many organizations realize.

True leadership sets the emotional climate for your team. Culture is not determined by mission statements displayed in the lobby. It is determined by daily leadership behaviors. Employees observe whether leaders:

• Listen before responding.
• Address conflict respectfully.
• Admit mistakes.
• Maintain consistency.
• Demonstrate fairness.
• Communicate transparently.
• Follow through on commitments.
• Support professional growth.

Trust develops through consistency. When employees believe leadership genuinely cares about both organizational success and individual wellbeing, engagement follows.

The metrics of wellbeing

Measuring wellbeing like any other strategic initiative is important. Organizations routinely measure revenue, profitability, productivity, and client satisfaction. Employee wellbeing deserves similar attention. Leaders should regularly monitor indicators such as:

• Employee retention
• Voluntary turnover
• Internal promotions
• Employee engagement survey results
• Sick leave utilization
• Workplace injuries
• Exit interview trends
• Continuing education participation
• Employee referral rates

These metrics provide valuable insight into organizational health long before larger problems emerge.

The future of veterinary medicine will not be determined solely by advances in technology, diagnostics, or medical innovation. It will also be shaped by our ability to recruit, develop, and retain exceptional people. Every hospital competes for talented professionals.

Organizations known for supportive leadership, psychological safety, meaningful professional development, and genuine investment in employee wellbeing will possess a significant competitive advantage. More importantly, they will create workplaces where veterinary professionals can build long, rewarding careers without sacrificing their health in the process.

As board members, executives, practice owners, and hospital leaders, we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to shape those environments. When we take care of our teams, our teams take extraordinary care of our patients. Ultimately, that is the foundation upon which every great veterinary organization is built.

Gregory Carastro, LVT, is a director on the AAHA Board. He is the hospital administrator and director of human resources at the Veterinary Medical Center of Long Island. He has over 20 years of experience as a licensed Veterinary Technician and Hospital administrator in the Long Island Veterinary Community.

Photo credit: © American Animal Hospital Association

Disclaimer: Trends content is meant to inform, educate, and inspire by providing an array of diverse viewpoints. Any content published should not be viewed as an official stance, position, or endorsement by the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) or its Board of Directors.