Managing Employee Recognition Programs
(Editor's note: This guest blog was excerpted from Real Recognition Radio hosted by Roy Saunderson and S. Max Brown of Recognition Management Institute. To hear the interview in its entirety, please click here: http://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/46414/healthcare-keeping-recognition-alive-and-well For more info on employee recognition, please click here: www.realrecognition.com.)
With healthcare providers facing changes and priority shifts to keep up with new healthcare laws, regulations and compliance issues, keeping employee morale high is critical for organizations to keep up and grow. Recently, Roy Saunderson and S. Max Brown, executives at Recognition Management Institute, a division of Rideau, Inc. (http://www.rideau.com/) and hosts of Real Recognition Radio (RRR), sat down with two healthcare recognition specialists to discuss how these two organization effectively implement recognition programs in today's healthcare environment. Below is interview excerpt from the radio show that featured Carol Erken, human resource director for Kaiser Permanente Antelope Valley and Panorama City. Keep watching this blog for part two with Sue Warwick, director of volunteer services at Faxton-St. Luke's Health Care.
RRR: Can you tell us about your recognition strategy and how it might differ from a normal strategy?
Erken: When recognizing people in the healthcare industry we have to address two different groups: our employees and our physicians. We support both by making them part of our culture of recognition. We create a shared vision based on our core values like teamwork, positive attitude, work place safety and member satisfaction. We accomplish this through our informal day-to-day recognition and our more formal recognition in all the departments. We also make sure to document everything so that there's alignment with a larger recognition strategy.
RRR: How do you get the doctors involved?
Erken: Our doctors serve on larger reward and recognition committees, as well as unit-based teams where they discuss individual recognition in their own departments. It's important that we get them involved -- everyone likes to be told when they're doing a good job and the more we involve them, the more they take recognition leadership roles and become role models.
RRR: How have you made recognition part of your culture?
Erken: By moving from the top down and securing senior leadership's support, as well as the union leadership's support. They are most effective at promoting this culture and ensuring that we have financial support. With their backing, we began training managers and labor leaders in how to effectively recognize employees and become role models for recognition. Right now, we're working on department-based forums where recognition can be discussed on the micro-level.
RRR: Is there any part of your program that you think is especially effective?
Erkekn: Our unit-based team deployment has been incredibly successful. In each department, we have a team made of cross-functional front line employees, managers and physicians that are accountable for the performance of their work unit. Each month, they determine the methods, metrics and outcomes to improve their services, including recognition, based on the organization's overall culture strategy. As a result, we're seeing more day-to-day, informal programs that increase employee satisfaction.
RRR: How do you make sure the goals you set for your programs evolve?
Erken: Every 2 years, we review our formal and informal programs through employee and manager surveys. With those results, we make adjustments, improvements and eliminations. For instance, one of our goals was increasing attendance, and once we did that, we increased the measurement to continue to push work performance higher.
RRR: You have a partially unionized workforce. Can you tell us how you address rewards and recognition in a union mindset?
Erken: The rewards you give employees are all negotiated through the unions: You have to have excellent benefits, competitive salaries and good continuing education opportunities.
On the recognition side, we partner with the unions, intricately involving them in all of our recognition committees. They help with the performance metrics and the communication plan.
RRR: You're adept at getting leadership involved with recognition programs. Do you have any tips for someone struggling with this?
Erken: Have one-on-one conversations with senior leadership. When I sit down with them, I ask them to give me specifics about a time when they felt truly valued and recognized. When they do, their faces light up, and it's easy to demonstrate the importance in recognizing their own team. Sometimes, we take a walk through the medical center, which gives them a sense of reaching out to the staff and acknowledging the great work they do.