Compassionate love and human dignity in health and social care practice: A Q-methodology study in The Netherlands

The increasing employee shortage in the health and social care sector has led to more attention in organizations for re-humanization. However, there remains limited research on the ethical foundations of human-centric organizing, particularly concerning human dignity and compassionate love. In this paper we aim to address this gap by reflecting on the relationship between these ethical concepts and their implications for organizations. We present the findings of a study conducted in health and social care organizations in the Netherlands exploring the viewpoints of staff with managerial responsibilities on the importance and applicability of compassionate love and human dignity within their organization. Based on interviews with 40 managers from 11 organizations, we identified five viewpoints. These viewpoints focused on employee flourishing, the organization’s role in motivating loving and dignified conduct, the importance of ethical values and client/patient-centredness, respectively. These findings highlights that views on the importance and applicability of compassionate love and dignity in health and social care organizations differ substantially between managers, providing opportunities to improve employee well-being and retention. Practical implications include fostering a safe environment for providing feedback and sharing mistakes, reducing bureaucracy, and active engagement of managers with teams to improve relations and quality of work.