June 29th, 2009 by cbarber
In our ongoing mission to understand the issues of our health care clients and be in a position to provide credible solutions, Bernard Hodes Group has been conducting 1:1 interviews with health care thought leaders on the subject of employee engagement. We’ve been fortunate to discuss the topic with Human Resources professionals from health care organizations around the country, and their valuable insights have helped us learn a great deal about one of today’s biggest issues.
Based on what we have heard, the health care industry is very forward thinking in its focus on employee engagement as a critical business imperative. With direct effects on patient outcomes/satisfaction, quality improvements, safety and financial performance, strong employee engagement is more than the “buzz,” it’s a necessary, measurable factor in overall success.
Of the HR leaders we interviewed, most self-assessed their employee engagement levels at 80% or better, which is impressive. But maintaining those levels requires tremendous energy and consistent focus, or as one person stated, “There’s no one-time fix; it’s a continuous effort.”
The Convergence of Two Forces.
The economy and the pending Employee Free Choice Act are both serious concerns, based on the feedback we’ve gathered. Today’s economic challenges are forcing health care organizations to do more with less, often impacting their employees’ pay, schedules and work/life balance. Even though four-day workweeks might sound attractive, they frequently involve increased workloads in compressed time periods, which can lead to stress, errors and burnout.
The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is viewed as a significant threat to currently non-unionized health care organizations. If employee engagement is not at strong levels, EFCA is perceived as having the potential to erode overall morale, quality/productivity and patient satisfaction.
Finding The Balance in Turbulent Times.
One interviewee commented that what keeps her awake at night regarding employee engagement is striking an appropriate balance between “keeping our people happy and still meeting our business objectives.” In a similar statement, another told us that her organization, though feeling the effects of the economy, is growing and has aggressive plans for the future. She stated that aligning employee engagement with the needs of the business is a full-time, top-down initiative.
What Tips the Scales in Favor of Achieving Workforce Engagement?
In reviewing the interview feedback in aggregate, the following ranked as the most important aspects of achieving and maintaining high levels of employee engagement:
1) Honest and frequent communication from top leadership: 100% of our interviewees stated that engagement is driven from the top down, and that good or bad, employees want to hear from their leadership about challenges, progress, opportunities and plans for the future. No news is NOT good news!
2) Solid opportunities for learning: Without exception, our participants agreed that continuing education is paramount in workforce engagement. Several described the diligence of their in-house education departments, the effectiveness of their mentoring programs, and the measurable ROI from tuition assistance for employees.
3) Employee surveys that bring visible action: Everyone concurred that when employees consistently provide feedback but never see changes, the process becomes frustrating and demoralizing. They said that even the smallest changes, if tied to employee feedback, produce positive results on engagement.
4) Sense of belonging to something special: Feeling like a part of greatness brings out the best in people. The quality of talent at every level of an organization has a huge effect on individual and team performance. No matter the economy, our interviewees believed that hiring and retaining the best people should always be a top priority.
5) The talk being walked: Saying one thing and doing another is the death knell for employee engagement. A number of our interview participants discussed their efforts to ensure that managers and supervisors are provided with the training needed to carry out their organizations’ missions, values and objectives with equity and transparency.
The Balance Beam: Step by Step, Day by Day
Everyone knows that there is no silver bullet, magic sauce or miracle potion available to achieve strong employee engagement. It’s brought as a result of consistent behaviors that demonstrate a “we’re all in this together” drive for excellence; appreciation for one another’s unique perspectives; and everyone’s understanding of how he/she contributes to organizational goals.
Employee engagement is not unlike nurturing any relationship – just more parties involved! It takes daily attention, open debate, fair compromise, respect, and most importantly, trust. Here’s to striking that healthy balance in your organization!
We’re compiling a list of best practices in health care employee engagement. To be included, send us an email to healthcare@hodes.com describing one of your initiatives and the results. Your name/company name is optional, but hey, we’d love to see you in the spotlight! So don’t be shy!
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June 22nd, 2009 by pdaurizio
A colleague emailed this morning about parents who need an assisted living center option. The colleague’s father, who currently lives with his wife in the family home, had fallen and this incident, combined with others, convinced my colleague she would have to consider alternative living arrangements for both parents.
More and more adults are caring for aging parents. When the time comes to consider moving a parent or parents to another setting, there are a plethora of issues to consider and resolve. Doing your homework up front and taking some time to decide on a facility can save you a lot of difficulty down the road.
It occurred to me that as someone who has been intimately involved in caring for an aging parent, I could share some tips that may help others facing the same circumstances.
First, check your state for a list of senior housing/living resources. Frequently there is a website that will also list any complaints/charges against these facilities.
Another excellent resource is a directory entitled New Lifestyles: the Source for Seniors, published in many states. It is a comprehensive directory of everything from boarding houses to long-term care facilities. To see if it is available in your area call 1-800 869-9549 or visit their website at www.NewLifeStyles.com.
Steps to get you started:
Evaluate the need:
There are many levels of care available. What do your parents need? Is it gentle reminders and minor assistance with activities of daily living or do they require more comprehensive medical care? Determining the level of care will guide you as to the type of facility that will best suit their needs as well as your needs.
Resources:
You will need to determine how you will pay for the care. Long-term care insurance is a relatively new benefit and many seniors do not have that coverage. Generally speaking, Medicare will only cover a very small portion of either home care or long-term care. Medicaid, which varies from state to state, typically covers qualified individuals who require long-term care and, in some states, does provide limited coverage for assisted living facilities. The bulk of the costs usually fall to the individual. You may need to check with an attorney for specific information regarding financial assistance. Individual states’ Medicaid offices will also provide guidelines about qualifying for aid. Once the financial situation has been settled, the next step is to choose a facility. The financial environment has affected many facilities, especially assisted living, and many may now be willing to negotiate fees. They are not at peak census for the most part, as many people have had to delay moving in due to financial constraints.
Selection of Facility:
Generally speaking two major factors will determine your choice of facility. One is the level of care your parent/s need as contrasted to the level of care the facility can provide. The second consideration will be financial. Many of these facilities are costly and can range from $3,000 to $6,000 a month, depending on the type of services provided as well as the type of facility.
Once you know the level of care required: for example, assisted living facility, begin by looking at several in the area you have selected. The location you choose may be near their current residence. I would recommend if you do not live nearby, you seriously consider moving them where you and/or other family members can visit easily. Understand this is a move that is not usually reversible and it is important that you are able to get there easily.
Visit the facilities several times and go at different times of the day. Always go over a mealtime, look at what is being served, how attentive are the servers, is the food palatable?
Observe the staff- do they look happy and satisfied with their jobs, are they interacting with the residents or with each other?
Look for visitors; ask them how satisfied they are with the care provided to their loved one. Don’t take the staff’s word; if you don’t any see visitors, ask if there are family members of residents you can call to get a reference.
Additional Questions/Items to consider:
• What is the staff to resident ratio?
• Is there a nurse on the premises?
• Is there a medical director or do physicians come on site to see residents?
• Who provides transportation if residents need to go to a physicians office?
• Is a detailed list of costs provided and how often are increases implemented?
• How is the level of care determined?
• Is medication administration included in the daily cost and if not, how is that structured?
• Who provides the medications?
• What activities are provided and who is responsible for initiating and monitoring them?
• What is the room hold policy in the event a hospitalization is required?
Understand there may be resistance to the idea of moving initially, but most of the time once they are settled the resistance abates and they become adjusted to their new surroundings. One colleague’s mom recently said her assisted living center is the best place she has ever lived!
If you are not the single decision maker, it is much easier for all concerned if consensus between siblings and others can be reached before this process begins.
You are not alone. Thousands of adult children are making these types of decisions every day as our parents continue to age beyond what many expected. Many facilities offer support groups for the families of their residents as well. I suggest attending them if you can. A good deal of information, support and many great tips are shared as you transition into the role of caregiver for your parents.
The tips presented above are by no means all inclusive. We would love to hear other suggestions and experiences that could benefit all of us.
.
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June 15th, 2009 by khart
This morning I found myself listening to a video online while reading an e-zine. On many conference calls, I can hear the clicking of computer keys being tapped by those on the call as emails are being exchanged. And I must confess, I am rarely on a call when I am not either reading or responding to emails or playing solitaire on my computer while discussing, planning, coordinating. A few months ago, while on a call, I was so distracted I accidentally permanently deleted all 600 emails in my IN-BOX!
My Blackberry goes everywhere with me and I frequently email late in the evening to colleagues all over the country. I found myself doing that last evening while watching TV and having a discussion with a family member. To say it was difficult keeping the conversation going due to the Blackberry distraction is an understatement. And the family member was not amused.
The entire population seems to have adopted what we had pegged a Millennial Generation habit-multi-tasking, and taken it to the extreme. I don’t know about you, but I feel that recently, no one is PRESENT.
Somehow I doubt my experiences are unique, which begs the question: how much more productive (and safe) would we be as a nation if everyone stopped and paid attention? You’ve doubtless seen individuals driving cars while on their cell phones or texting. And probably had a few close calls with those distracted drivers. (I am giving you the benefit of the doubt and not accusing you of being one of those drivers.)
We eat food that we don’t even look at (or chew 28 times as directed by our mothers) while driving, texting, chatting on the phone. Tasting and savoring are habits we have lost. We shop in the grocery or department store while on the phone with someone. We fail to notice the most simple and beautiful things like a new peony in our gardens or a robin’s nest filled with hungry baby birds.
What kind of quality of life is this? Our personal and professional lives are being marginalized by all this frenetic activity. And to what avail?
Are we fooling ourselves that all this busyness is making us more productive? Or just keeping ourselves overbooked and distracted so that we can avoid thinking about what really matters?
Health care has historically been an industry with lots of activity and distractions. Call lights ringing, pagers going off, overhead paging and announcements. Some of the more forward thinking hospitals have recently begun to tame the noise and create quiet patient environments.
Perhaps the same thinking could help those of us who toil in the office setting. Self-discipline is needed to quiet the mind and help us focus and be PRESENT. After all, when you are interviewing someone, you don’t want to be composing laundry lists in your head. Recruitment is all about people, using your intuition, and listening. The technology that is now part of every company’s recruitment process has already threatened the person-to- person interaction that is the bedrock of recruitment.
I urge each of you to think about the sturm and drang in your lives and come up with anti-distraction solutions that will bring you more personal and professional satisfaction. We may not be able to stop the world, but we should be able to make our own work environments more peaceful and serene.
Turn your phone and computer off while you are interviewing. Post a sign on your office door saying ‘Interview in Progress’ so that colleagues aren’t knocking on the door or inadvertently barging in.
Whether you bring in a small Zen water garden and put it on your desk, meditate for a few minutes in the midst of your day, or simply make the decision to concentrate on the present and the now, without doing a hundred things at once, I think you will find your life will be more fulfilled. I plan on doing the same.
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June 8th, 2009 by khart
I was on a conference call last week with ‘civilian’ (those without a health care background) colleagues in our company and found myself explaining the unique bonding that occurs among caregivers in health care.
We were discussing employee engagement, which is a topic the recession has brought to the forefront as more and more employers (health care and non health care) grapple with not only retaining their best and brightest, but also actively engaging them in their companies’ missions.
What I described to my colleagues was the esprit de corps that develops among caregivers who together face down life altering situations. And how that particular life experience is unique to this group and perhaps equaled only by those who have served in combat together.
Does this circumstance factor into health care employee engagement? Do health care employees by virtue of being sisters and brothers in ‘combat’ already have a leg up on employees in other industries and is there an intrinsic engagement already present that we only have to tease out?
Researchers tell us engagement consists of feelings (feeling energized, absorbed and involved in one’s role in the company) and behaviors (persistent, proactive, and adaptive behavior aligned with organizational goals and values). If that doesn’t describe a large segment of the health care workforce, I don’t know what does.
And while it may be true that health care professionals and others working in health care enter the field because of altruistic reasons (we see time after time in our research that the number one reason for becoming a nurse, for example, is to help people), that doesn’t explain the sense of ‘being in it together’ that is a common thread in the industry. Is it virtually in the DNA of those who choose health care to be engaged?
An engaged employee is the nurse who arranges for a terminally ill oncology patient to be transported to the loading dock so this patient can see her beloved horse for the last time. An engaged employee is the nurse aide who rocks a dying baby. An engaged employee is the housekeeper who befriends a patient who doesn’t get visitors. An engaged employee is the supervisor who figures out a way to get one of his staff the sick time he needs by getting other engaged employees to donate their sick time. In some fortunate organizations, the culture of engagement extends from the CEO’s office to the volunteers distributing mail to patients.
If the feelings and behaviors listed above do not seem to apply to your workforce, what can be done to elicit them?
According to the Best Practices Institute, these elements help to foster employee engagement:
• Understanding the company’s mission and goals
• Performing work that affects the goals
• Belonging to something larger and meaningful
• Enjoying the company of colleagues
• Working in an environment of trust
• Being trained/developed for larger responsibilities
• Being rewarded for meeting specific objectives
How do these elements compare to practices within your facility or system?
Fostering employee engagement includes surveying your staff on a regular basis to determine the level of employee engagement and determining what measures need to be taken to increase engagement. In health care, there is a definite correlation between engaged employees and patient satisfaction, so the drive for engaged employees is of an even more urgent nature.
Look at how, when and who communicates with your employees. Best practice facilities and systems have frequent communication both from the top down and from the bottom up.
Does your company recognize and reward employees and do you celebrate and commiserate together? Is there laughter and fun? Do your employees trust your administration and feel their best interests are being considered? Are there career path opportunities for all levels of staff and a clear understanding of what those opportunities are and how to access them? Are opportunities for advancement clear and transparent?
If you have mentally answered yes to these questions, there is a good chance you are working in an environment with engaged employees. If not, now is the time to strive to increase employee engagement. The future of your facility or system depends on it.
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June 1st, 2009 by khart
Tuesday, June 2 marks National Health Care Recruiter Recognition Day, an annual recognition day held the first Tuesday of June each year and instituted by Congress in 1991.
On this recognition day and this week, the Hodes Health Care Team salutes our recruiter friends and colleagues across the country for all you do. We have walked in your shoes and know the challenges you face on a daily basis and the energy and talent you bring to the table every day.
Health care recruitment is a challenge when the economy is strong; when the economy is struggling those challenges become even more daunting.
We are sure many of you have been faced recently with assisting with RIFs and counseling both those laid off and those whose partners have lost jobs. To say nothing of having to turn prospective employees away because either your openings are filled or you are holding open positions due to the economy and its impact on your facility or system.
Many of you have been involved in recruitment through cycles of shortages and ‘oversupply’ and know that what is true today may not hold true tomorrow. You have learned to ‘go with the flow’ with that knowledge.
I was reminiscing yesterday about some of the ‘interesting’ times I had as a recruiter and how the experiences shaped me professionally and personally. I am sure all of you have had similar experiences and have your own stories to tell.
All those campus career days-dragging displays and boxes of materials around campuses, up stairs to the exhibit area, through rain, sleet and sometimes snow. Just like the USPS, you delivered, even if you looked like a drowned rat by the time the students actually stopped by your booth.
Interviewing schedules that started at 7 am and continued non stop until 4 pm. Schedules so intense that one late candidate could throw your entire day off and leave you breathless by end of day. And while you were interviewing, emails piled up and the message light on your telephone kept blinking like some dreaded monster. Trying to keep up with hiring manager needs in the midst of all this. (I once had the ED nurse manager follow me into the ladies’ room to discuss a staffing issue between interviews).
Operating with just a little knowledge on big recruitment assignments. Like details about a new unit you are recruiting for. I once filled every position for a new unit without ever getting the information I needed from the doc heading up the specialty about patient acuity and scope of practice on that unit. Tap dancing, indeed. Am sure you have scuffs on the soles of your shoes from similar experiences.
Adventures on the road. We’ve all had these traumas. Late or turbulent flights, missed connections, lost luggage, hotel rooms that made you want to cry or sleep in your clothing. In the upscale hotels, trying desperately to figure out how to eat on your per diem allowance. Finding a grocery store or fast food place near the hotel and having an ‘aha’ moment. Running out of brochures in the exhibit hall. Dealing with a display that didn’t arrive for the show. Needing a foot massage after hours standing in a booth on a concrete floor in heels. A hotel shower stopping or running out of hot water when you’re in the middle of a shampoo. Trying to get a decent cell phone connection to catch up on phone calls between exhibit hours.
Planning, analyzing and reporting-just getting all the metrics done in a timely manner and then dealing with the ramifications of problem units and possibly managers with retention issues. Stepping carefully amid a thousand political minefields. Keeping managers and other internal customers informed and engaged. Being your employees’ and especially your hires’ advocate and champion -keeping your office Kleenex box accessible and refilled because God knows it is well used.
Recruitment is all of these things and more. It requires the patience of a saint, the tenacity of a bulldog, the intuition of a genie, the organizational skills of Mother Teresa (and her vision).
Recruiters need to be able to interact successfully from the boardroom to the boiler room, to be able to giggle when others would weep, and to know both how to pick their battles and when to fold and move on.
May you all enjoy a well-deserved day of recognition and know that we are your greatest fans, your supporters and your grateful colleagues.
Your Hodes Health Care Team
Karen Hart, RN
Kate Christmas, RN
Cathy Swenson, RN
Pat D’Aurizio, RN
Judith Russell, RN
Margie Kasse
Steve Mitchell
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