Changing Workplace Culture

A Case Study:  Floyd Memorial Hospital and Health System

Background

Floyd Memorial Hospital and Health System has a strong history of growth since opening in 1953 with 70 bed and 24 physicians.  Now Floyd Memorial is a 215 bed facility known as a regional health system serving seven counties with over 400 health care professionals representing a variety of specialties. Numerous facility expansions over the years and 1700 associates enable Floyd to according to their Mission “deliver the highest quality of comprehensive services to their local and extended communities with compassion and competence.”

Situation

Senior Leadership decided to address the work culture of Floyd Memorial Hospital and Health System to strive to be the choice employer in their area. In a competitive market for health care professionals, leadership wanted to be proactive in assessing their work climate to determine key areas for improvement.

Role of The Jackson Group

Since 2004, The Jackson Group has provided associate work climate surveys, management training, focus group facilitation, and overall consulting on work climate change.

Development of  The Plan

Following the first work climate survey in 2005 and focus group meetings with leadership and associates conducted by The Jackson Group, the leadership team with input from associates at Floyd developed an action plan for 2005 and 2006 to change the culture.

First  Action Steps

2005 Prioritized Areas of Focus:

      Communication/expression of opinions

      Effective departmental leadership

      Reward and recognition

      Fairness

      Associate involvement

      Compensation

Key Action Steps 2005

      Implement daily department rounding (with log book) by directors and managers

      Restructure department meeting agendas to include an “open forum” for discussion

      Develop associate education program focused on interpersonal skills, conflict resolution, and team-building

      Provide educational sessions for Management Council

      Create a tracking system to assure consistency with reward and recognition

      Restructure management council meetings to provide for global reporting and a working session

      Develop a systems approach to goal-setting with quarterly review by respective VP and review of all goals by the Executive Council

      Establish a program to recognize and reward entrepreneurship and innovative thinking

      Conduct a Work Force Summit  with leadership and 50 associate participants to focus on culture issues, i.e. empowerment, participative management, fairness and recognition

2006  Continued Areas of Focus:

      Learning

      Work Force Summit

      Communication

      Associate Feedback

      Reward and Recognition

      Competitive Salaries

Strategy for Change

Survey data changes nothing; the careful use of the data as a learning tool leads to change through action plans, implementation of plans, and monitoring regularly the plans for change.

By conducting two work climate surveys in 2004 and 2005, Floyd leadership was able to measure improvements in the work climate and plan for further action on areas in need of continued focus. Driving the change included setting goals organizationally based on The Jackson Group database for the Organizational Health Index and the Work Environment Index. The second survey exceeded the goals set following the first survey. Over this year Floyd Senior Leadership is working with departmental leaders establishing departmental goals using the TJG Work Environment Index as a benchmark and comparing departments through out the organization to set realistic attainable goals for all departments and holding managers accountable for attaining these goals. The strength in the Floyd strategy is their commitment to provide financial support and if needed developmental opportunities for their associates and managers in order to assist them in working to meet the goals. Secondly, the Work Force Summit that brought senior leadership, department leadership, and fifty associates together for two days to plan for this culture change exemplified true associate involvement in the change process. The focused attention from Senior Leadership attributed greatly to the success of the middle management efforts.

Results

Survey Results

      71.4% participation level by the Floyd Memorial Hospital associates and the use of a tested, valid, reliable set of inquiries support a 95% confidence level that the survey’s mean scores approximate the mean scores of the total population.

      Every associate survey inquiry in the 2005 results scored higher than the 2004 associate survey except two inquiries with insignificant negative variances, -0.4% and -0.1%. The positive variances ranged from +0.4% to +12.0%.

      Of the 73 scaled items in the associate survey comparable to The Jackson Group’s database, 60 numerically met or exceeded the mean score of the current database.

      Three (3) of the four key indices in the associate survey numerically exceeded the TJG data base mean and increased from the 2004 survey results.

      The Floyd Memorial Hospital Organizational Health Index is 4.8% above the existing Jackson Group OHI database, and is a statistically significant variance.

      The Organizational Health Index score attained in the Floyd Memorial associate survey places it in the 74^th percentile of healthcare organizations surveyed by The Jackson Group, Inc. over the past two years increased from the 2004 ranking of 60th.

      Key drivers of the OHI are confidence in the direction of Floyd Memorial Hospital( 10.1% improvement from 2004); associates feel Floyd Memorial Hospital is a quality organization worthy of their pride of affiliation(4.6% increase) and where they feel valued by leadership( 8.4% increase).

      Overall, Floyd Memorial Hospital’s Work Environment Index scores are higher than the database.  The aggregate score of 77.4 is 3.1% above the database average of 75.0 and places Floyd in the 68^th percentile, improved from the 2004 ranking of 55^th.  

      Job satisfaction is strong and communications improved.

      Associates appear engaged and share favorable views of their work environment; Engagement Index moved from the 46^th percentile to the 57^th.

Operational Results

      Overall turnover 11.8% in 2005.

      All Human Resources Metrics improved in 2005.

      Successful opening of Heart wing.