Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/665044
53 10 Free (Or Very Inexpensive) Ways To Engage Staff A Quint Studer Classic By Quint Studer, Founder of Studer Group W hat does it mean to be a great hospital or healthcare system? ere are as many ways to answer this question as there are patients, industry professionals and or- ganizations with great stories to tell. But if asked to sum up what makes a hospital great I would do it in a single word: engagement. When employees and physicians are engaged and aligned with the mission, patients thrive. is truth can be seen in the metrics we use to grade organizational perfor- mance: clinical outcomes, HCAHPS results, safety results and so forth. ere's plenty of evidence showing that when engagement improves, performance follows. For example, a study from e University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Business shows a connection between engagement and safety. It suggests that employees with low engagement are more likely to work around safety protocols, while highly engaged employees are not. 1 e good news is there's plenty your organization can do to engage employees. e best news is that most of these efforts won't cost you a penny. You'll just need some deliberate, focused effort from leaders. Here are a few examples: Make sure the "fit" is right from the beginning. It's important to hire the right people for your culture. Studer Group recommends that a team of high performing employees give a candidate their stamp of approval before you hire. Peer interviewing at the beginning of the selection process can prevent a lot of pain later on. Hardwire leader rounding for outcomes. is may be the single most critical thing you can do to engage employees. When practiced daily, it improves staff satisfaction and decreases turnover. It also im- proves patients' perceptions of the quality of their care. Here's how it works: Leaders consistently ask staff specific one-on-one questions and act on the answers. e questions are really simple: • What's working well today? • Is there anyone I should recognize for doing great work? • Are there any systems or processes that need improvement today? • Do you have the tools, equipment and information you need to do your job today? • Is there anything I can help you with right now? is tactic packs a lot of punch — it's a "foundational" strategy that every organization needs to start with when seeking to improve engagement. Respect people enough to tell them the truth. Uncertainty creates anxiety and muddled thinking. Transparency and clarity allevi- ate our worries and sharpen our focus. ey also create a needed sense of urgency to help us meet the big challenges we face. John P. Kotter, the author of A Sense of Urgency, says the biggest mistake we make when trying to drive change is not creating a high enough sense of urgency. I agree. I find when leaders are transparent about challenges their organization faces, it pushes employees out of their complacency and compels them to act. is is also why evaluations based on objective performance metrics work so well — knowing what "success" looks like is extremely motivat- ing. You can't hold people accountable until you tell them the truth about how they're doing. is isn't always fun to hear, but it's always beneficial. Most people really want to know the truth, even if it's "bad news." Stop letting low performance slide. Employees notice when coworkers are slacking off or performing poorly in other ways. When leaders let bad behavior slide, it harms morale and demotivates the rest of the team. e fact is, good employees will "disengage" when low-per- forming coworkers aren't addressed. Low performers drag everyone else down to their level. And many high performers will simply leave. e other problem is that leaders spend far too much time and energy dealing with issues created by the 8 percent of employees who are low performers. ere is little le for the 92 percent of high and middle performers who deserve far more attention than they get. Leaders can correct this imbalance by holding highmiddlelow® con- versations with all employees. e idea is to recognize and re-recruit high performers; reassure, re-recruit and develop middle performers, and move low performers either up or out. Not only do low performers finally get dealt with (oen aer years of incompetence or laziness or both), the entire organization improves. Don't underestimate the power of a front-line supervisor. In 2008, Studer Group conducted a study on "Work/Life Blend Among Women in the Healthcare Industry." Among other findings, it showed that the number one factor determining employee satisfaction is the supervisor relationship. In other words, most people don't quit their job; they quit their boss. is is why it's critical to make sure supervisors "Make personal connections when you can. People want to know leaders care. And the way we show people we care is by letting them know we see them as a person, not just an employee." — Quint Studer