Engagement is no longer an option for you or the patient. With service expectations continually going
up, an engaged workforce may very well make the difference between you being a profitable, well
thought of hospital and clinic, or not.
As it is the front line employee who has the most contact with the patient, it is their interaction with
your patient that makes the difference between creating a successful, well understood, meaningful
relationship and the return visit or referral or not.
It is the patient’s opinion of the quality of the
interaction with all your people that matters more, from a HCAHPS measurement point of view, than
the given success of the actual medical treatment they receive.
The quality of the interaction, the interpersonal relationship starts with the degree of engagement your
employee has and shows each patient and their visitors. The all-important ‘patient experience’ is
determined by the level of engagement shown by all your employees with the patient. Another way of
looking at it is called: “knowledge translation”. The patient can tell when the employee is not there for
them by the lack of communication, empathy and understanding of their inexperience in what can be
for them a very frightening and intimidating health care environment with unknown causes of their
symptoms or a fear of a repeat of the worst that has happened to others in similar situations.
The bad news of engagement:
Recent surveys show that only 30% or employees are fully engaged. That means the majority of your
employees are either fully disengaged, doing all they can to drag down your facility, or at best, just
bidding their time until something better comes along. A consulting company report states: “50% of
healthcare workers do not intend to remain with their current employer”. How well do you measure
your employees’ commitment to you and the patient?
The good news of engagement:
A highly engaged workforce, that really understands what it takes to create and maintain trust in the
patient and co-workers, will on average improve your bottom line by: generating 20% higher revenue,
create a better reputation for you, go above and beyond the expectation of the patient and the job,
have better soft skills (communication, listening, empathy, responsiveness, time to visit), have fewer sick
days, be more creative and have much higher morale. There is a greater commitment to the
organizations mission and fellow workers, personal growth is championed and there are fewer
complaints to deal with, meaning your strategic goals are achieved quicker and customer / patient /
resident satisfaction scores and retention levels go up!
What does it take to create a culture of engagement?
It revolves around three key ideas:
- Total management engagement and accountability. This means everyone being committed to
providing the resources, support and training to all employees, regardless of their role and
responsibility to the patient experience.
- Having empowered, enthusiastic front line employees that understand just how important they
are to the success of their facility by how well they perform their job, regardless of the
circumstances that make it less than ideal for them or the patient. A 1% change in an
employee’s attitude translates to a 2% change in patient/ resident satisfaction scores. How well
are you measuring your employee’s attitude? When anyone understands their role and impact
they have and get acknowledged and supported for it, their personal productivity can jump up
by 40%. Think of the impact that will have.
- Execution of the cornerstone of engagement called “K.E.E.P.”. It is paying attention to the
details as noted in the following section.
The Magic of Engagement is “K.E.E.P.”
K: Keep
the good people you already have by supporting, educating and promoting them. De-staff your
negative performers by corrective action planning. Track complaints, measure productivity, set up
accountability agreements so that when they are not met, can validate their termination. As healthcare
speaker Brian Lee has stated: “The problem may not be the ones who quit and leave for more pay, it’s
those who quit and stay.” How many people do you know who exhibit this attitude? You can’t afford to
keep them on any more. If you do nothing to eliminate the negative people in your workplace, that
means you consent to that attitude and performance level. As you probably pay those
underperformers the same amount you pay the good performers, you raise the level of dissent and
lower the level of performance, as it is the bottom dwellers that set the level of delivery for everyone
else.
E: Empower your people.
Empowerment means seeing the best in others, helping them see it in
themselves and then holding them accountable to bring that every day. I have an acronym that sets out
what that should look like and is easy to remember, S.A.M. “S” means set high expectations of the
work day, performance levels, quality of work, patient engagement touch points and attitude. Be sure
to measure it by one or two of the resources I can provide for you. “A” means provide lots of
acknowledgements and appreciation. We grow up by responding to acknowledgement and it means as
much today as it did when we were children. We thrive on knowing we did a good job. When someone
does a good job, exceeds the expectations, goes out of their way to assist a patient, let them know how
much you appreciate it and of the difference it made. Go into detail as to what it was they did and
share that with others on the team so they can be reminded of what good performance looks like.
Rude, negative or indifferent employees are not acceptable and should not be tolerated by anyone.
Get rid of the unwritten rules that chip away at a culture, such as: smokers get more breaks, letting
employees complain about patients openly, or not acknowledging someone quickly at your work station
or by the call light. Make people feel important by what you say to them and how you say it and the
return will be immediate. Be sure to provide the financial resources to allow them to step up to assist
the patient, such as providing cab fare, a phone call to family, a toy for a scared child, or a meal. “M”
means make a difference by believing in them more than they believe in themselves. Help them step
up and take on new duties and activities by making the time available to learn it correctly and practice it.
Show them a better career awaits by what this new skill will allow them to do in the future.
E: Education makes the difference.
Apart from the required ongoing professional education
requirements, the best way we have found to educate and inspire consistently better service, is to
deliver a customized three hour workshop on customer service by teams of four of your employees to
all your employees annually, and have it included as part of the onboarding and orientation sessions.
When your people are learning, they are not leaving. By having your front line employees deliver the
workshop, your front line employees will own the customer satisfaction problems and that is how you
win every single time. We call these front line trainers ‘service excellence advisors’. Combine this with
the best ideas, scripts and strategies from our HCAHPS webinars and you will see your scores shoot up.
Ensure the new ideas you want to get implemented and the HCAHPS scores specific to a department
and hospital wide get shared at service huddles so everyone knows where to focus on next.
P: Play.
Make your workplace time together ‘fun’ by playing together. Loyalty at work is crucial and the
impact one employee can have on another one is significant. ‘Sticky Relationships’ or friendships,
ensure you want to stay where you know that you matter, that you make a difference in the lives of
others. In an environment where no one cares about the culture or their co-workers, it is easy to decide
to leave as you know you won’t be missed. Plan quarterly (or more) department wide events where
everyone turns up and has fun. Have time set aside to acknowledge the great performance stories by
individuals or departments since the last quarterly get together. Get creative on what the event theme
will be and where it should be held. Do not scrimp on the cost as the return will be immeasurable in
attitude, appreciation and increased teamwork.
Conclusion.
Done properly, a ‘K.E.E.P.’ culture of engagement will ensure you grow, sustain and
maintain motivated, customer driven employees that improve on the care they provide that creates a
better patient experience, improves communication, reduces stress, empowers all other employees, and
effectively deals with the non-performers. Engagement means better individual performance, higher
productivity and improved profitability – it pays off.
