How Can I Better Engage My Staff

Question I am the director of volunteer and pastoral services at our hospital. I automatically applied everything you said to both my departments. I feel that the Nine Principles are just as applicable to volunteers as they are to employees and physicians. How does the role of volunteers differ from that of physicians and employees [...]

Question Our patient satisfaction scores are at an all-time high: the 85th percentile. Our challenge, however, is turnover at the nursing director and manager level. Have you seen any good interim solutions (i.e., outside help) to temporarily fill positions in organizations focused on continued culture change? Answer If the vacancy is temporary, see if someone [...]

Question I have a situation in which the entire customer service initiative is very difficult for employees from certain cultures. Do you have any information on customer service and cultural diversity in the workplace? Answer Many organizations have a “Cultural Diversity” Team, which is a good way to help people learn, respect, and integrate their [...]

Question We have established a team to redesign our performance appraisals for frontline employees. We want these appraisals to be effective and meaningful to employees and managers alike. Any advice? Answer To start, identify expectations on the part of the manager and employee when they do sit down together. Then, review the overall performance of [...]

Question Do you have some advice on working with multiple managers and a large number of employees? I am a department secretary and I handle plenty of issues in my department. I am an assistant to my director and two coordinators. I also make sure that the employees are taken care of. Do you have [...]

Question I do report development for my supervisor, who recently mentioned to me that I have not been completing this responsibility on time. But I get the requests in bunches and am given only a short time to complete them. The fact is, supervisory retaliation occurs in my organization. How do I express myself to [...]

Question We are embarking on the quality journey and have certain department directors who think they get it, but in reality they aren’t even close. How do we help them recognize that their autocratic style doesn’t fit the new reality? Answer Your best indicator is to look at staff turnover, staff satisfaction, and exit interviews. [...]

Question Personally, I believe in your Nine Principles to creating a Culture of Excellence, but my VP doesn’t believe in this approach. Explain to me why I should once again attempt to be a leader when the person I work for doesn’t support my efforts. Answer Do the best you can to be a great [...]

Question Although we have tried, we cannot seem to successfully motivate our staff to use and update white boards we have placed in patient rooms to keep patients updated on their nurse’s name/extension and other information that helps them feel informed about their care. Do you have suggestions? Answer I am not sure that it [...]

Question I have been on the Recognition and Recovery Team for over a year now. I enjoy being on the team and doing the rounding, but lately we have been getting complaints that we do not recognize people on the night shift. Answer Treating all employees equally is very important. Here’s how: Make sure the [...]

Question Our Customer Excellence Team is struggling with ways to recognize and reward non-patient care areas that are not part of the patient satisfaction survey process—finance, information systems, material management, etc. We are wondering about specific criteria, tracking systems, reward ideas, and lessons learned. Can you give us any guidance or “best practices”? Answer First, [...]

Question How do you handle anonymous complaints made against specific Management Team members? In our case, these take the form of anonymous letters to the administration. The charges are incorrect and cannot be validated. Answer Unless the complaints involve ethical issues that need to be addressed, I would ignore them. In my two-day sessions, I [...]

Question I am the “working supervisor” of a small department. My problem is that I don’t know how to approach a staff member when I have a complaint against him or her. In order to counsel staff members, I feel like I need to be in “boss” role, but because I must also work shoulder [...]

Question Our area recently decided to incorporate peer review, sometimes called a “360,” in our review process. Do you have a list of questions to use in this type of process? Answer Ironically, I was just interviewed by a reporter on 360-degree evaluations. My feeling is that people may be rushing too quickly to the [...]

Question What is the best way to develop a Standards Team (to set organizationwide standards of employee behavior) within a hospital setting? Answer The team should be a cross-section of about 10 hospital employees, including physicians. Because standards will touch the lives of all employees by establishing behaviors that will be expected of everyone, it [...]

Question What should a new supervisor do to be successful? Answer Let me address this question from this angle. These are the reasons I see new leaders struggle: They talk way too much about themselves and their last place of work. They talk about their area in a way that may be perceived as negative, [...]

Question We have a bright ideas program and have received many great ideas from employees. But how do you encourage employees to submit ideas that are financially sound without discouraging them from the program or making them think that the program is only a way to save money? How can we encourage employees to think [...]

Question Our COO has been conducting employee forums for about one year. At the forums she reviews organizational information and results based upon the Five Pillars. We report the work that work teams are accomplishing and the results of the organizational measures for the Five Pillars. The time is balanced between reporting and other creative [...]

Question How do you make this journey contagious and genuine? We have many great minds here who can be quite cynical and who may have been disappointed in the past. Answer Making change contagious takes time. Momentum seems to naturally pick up when an organization captures the critical mass. There will be skeptics. I find [...]

Question What kinds of questions can we ask to get interdepartmental feedback to improve the service we give to each other on a day-to-day basis? We have an “Internal Report Card” that we feel could be more useful, with categories such as service attitude, service orientation, communication, and teamwork. Answer I recommend questions that speak [...]

Question Based on your advice, I have changed a lot of things that I do. The biggest change I’ve made is asking people, “What is the one thing that I can do to make your job easier?” I have even incorporated that question into my annual reviews. I ask my doctors and all of my [...]

Question I am looking for some ways to measure the costs of poor customer service and teamwork, particularly in terms of employee turnover, for hospitals. Answer Estimates of the total cost of losing a single position to turnover range from 30 percent of the yearly salary of the position for hourly employees (Cornell University) to [...]

Question We have just formed a sub-team of our Service Team to look at continuously impacting and improving employee satisfaction. Do you have any “best practice” ideas we should consider first? Answer The number one method for continuously improving employee satisfaction and reducing turnover is to hardwire leader rounding on staff. This is not an [...]