Minara Chowdhury and colleagues reflect on workforce motivation for quality improvement projects in maternal and newborn healthcare in Bangladesh
Standards for delivering quality maternal, newborn, and child care, such as those from the World Health Organization, emphasise the importance of a competent, motivated workforce.1 Given that the emotional state of health workers and burnout affects their motivation for quality improvement, meeting these standards requires influencing the health system environment.2 We argue from evidence and our experience from healthcare improvement that working to gain greater understanding of what motivates a workforce will help health systems develop improved services. Aligned with this, the American business theorist W Edwards Deming asserted that, to transform quality culture, every employee should be able to achieve joy at work and that joy would lead to improved quality and a high performing organisation.3
Limited resources and space, excessive demands on time, lack of supportive supervision or mentoring, and working in remote areas affect the ability of health workers to provide quality care (www.deliveringmore.org). The lack of willingness, tools, or mechanisms for learning …