Category: Customer Case Studies – Entry-Level Healthcare Employee

Main Line Health in metro Philadelphia has been recognized by the ANCC and U.S. News & World Report as one of the top health care systems in the country.The organization aims to provide the highest quality and most compassionate healthcare possible to patients and their families. To accomplish this, Main Line Health has included strategies for advancing a group that touches patients frequently, but is often overlooked – frontline workers.

Frontline employees are the largest associate group at Main Line Health and are an incredibly diverse population. Main Line Health CEO Jack Lynch has been outspoken and intentional about achieving more diversity at the leadership apex of the health system. According to Lynch, the workforce has been diverse overall, but not in terms of job categories and pay.

“There’s a problem in healthcare with the approach we’ve taken in the past to have diverse leadership teams with everyone competing for a small pool of external candidates,” Lynch said. “If we’re going to develop more diverse team leaders, we have to grow our own. Top to bottom, employees must see opportunity. We want all employees to know Main Line Health is interested in their growth.”

Lynch believes in investing in programs that promote diversity, foster collaboration, participation and respect in the organization, while reducing turnover costs. Under his direction, Main Line Health’s Human Resources and Diversity, Respect & Inclusion Strategy teams took a deliberate step in 2013 to develop leaders within the organization who mirror its patient population, as well as the demographics of Philadelphia. With many Baby Boomers retiring soon, leadership development was also crucial to building a base of engaged workers for the future.

Main Line Health partnered with Catalyst Learning to implement “School At Work” (SAW) and “Expanding Your Career and Healthcare Opportunities (ECHO)”, programs that aid in the career development goals of entry and mid-level healthcare employees. Main Line Health’s goal is to begin building a pipeline for a more inclusive leadership team.

Both SAW and ECHO sharpen key behavioral skills to optimize employee performance and put them on a path for career advancement in healthcare. Modules such as “Principles of Patient Satisfaction and Safety” help employees understand their link to and accountability form the success of the health care system.

Along with SAW and ECHO, Main Line Health instituted a Career Advisor program, giving frontline associates access to an advisor who assists them in pursuing new roles and exploring opportunities for up to one year. Main Line Health’s HR team has found this added layer of support helps employees overcome obstacles they may face when applying for other positions. Career Advisors, for example, help SAW and ECHO participants navigate internal HR systems and bring greater awareness to employee benefits such as tuition reimbursement.

Employee Advancement Programs have Positive Impact
Main Line Health’s Talent Management Team tracks employment patterns and measures the impact of employee advancement strategies like SAW, ECHO and Career Advisor. Associate Administrator Jameyshia Franklin says her goal for leadership training programs is for frontline employees to have better visibility of opportunities available in the health care system. She also values seeing employees gain confidence as they develop a better understanding of their strengths. With more self-assurance, Franklin says, employees are more willing to speak up about ways to improve processes and be part of solutions that benefit Main Line Health patients. “These programs encourage participants to discover new interests, pursue growth and development opportunities, and be more open to new things,” said Franklin.

Employee satisfaction has also improved among SAW and ECHO participants. Chris Robinson, a recent SAW graduate who reports to Franklin, worked in Environmental Services but had a goal to move up within Main Line Health. Robinson wanted to be more involved with patients and their families. Robinson’s initiative led him into a position at the reception desk, where positive interactions with patients and families are vital. Robertson credits SAW for giving him confidence in a new role. “I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it. It was a struggle, but it was worth it. SAW helped me think about what I really wanted to do,” said Robinson. Robinson’s success was acknowledged with the Genuine Excellence Moment (GEM) award, which recognizes employees who exhibit the excellence, innovation, integrity and communication values of the organization. Dominic Kayatta, Manager of Education and Development, has also seen the benefits of Main Line Health’s career development efforts for frontline workers. More employees, for example, are interviewing for jobs, job shadowing and making time for informational interviews. Frontline employees are being recognized more for going above and beyond with patients as well as their co-workers, and hospital volunteers are noticing a difference in morale and customer service. “These programs keep participants from feeling stuck in one role,” said Kayatta. “I’m seeing engagement at a different level, and people have renewed hope in their careers—both in their present jobs and as they think about the future.”

With inpatient, outpatient, home health and palliative care services, Mercy Health Youngstown is the largest employer in the Mahoning Valley region of Ohio. Investments in employee development, therefore, have a positive impact on both the health system and on the community at large, making this a top priority for senior leadership.

Mercy Health Youngstown has expanded access to skills and leadership training for entry-level workers with education programs, college tuition reimbursement and opportunities for career advancement. Entry-level employees with leadership potential, for example, are encouraged to enroll in School At Work (SAW), a training and career development program created by Catalyst Learning Company.

SAW participants complete a series of modules led by a Learning Coach in the Culture and Learning Department at Mercy Health Youngstown. The Principles of Patient Satisfaction and Safety module has proved to be especially valuable.

“We found the Patient Satisfaction course very useful because entry-level employees didn’t realize how the little things they do affect patients and patient satisfaction. Sometimes patients arrive at the hospital frustrated and hard to please, so this particular course made a big difference,” said Learning Coach Georgette Peters. “This course also showed entry-level employees the importance of their work and its impact on HCAHPS reimbursements.”

To demonstrate program value and return on investment, Mercy Health measures impact and tracks aggregate success among SAW participants. Of the 35 students who graduated from SAW last year (20 from Mercy Health Youngstown and 15 from Mercy Health Cincinnati), nine are now enrolled in higher education and pursuing further training to move up within the organization.

SAW graduate Janet Johnson found similar success. She started in an entry-level position at a Mercy affiliate hospital in 2009. With a grant from the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, she trained to be an entry-level healthcare associate. This resulted in a promotion to Environmental Services, where managers recognized her leadership potential and recommended Janet for SAW. She completed SAW and is now enrolled at Penn State, pursuing a career as an occupational medicine assistant at Mercy Health Youngstown.mMercy Health is proud to see employees like Janet advance.

“When speaking with our employees who complete the SAW program, I always thank them for bringing me along on their journey. I hope to assist in lighting the flame, and I hope the students keep it burning,” said Peters.

Mercy Health Youngstown plans to continue offering SAW courses and hopes to expand the curriculum to smaller regional partner facilities. Additionally, senior leaders hope that by offering upfront college tuition reimbursement, they can help employees overcome barriers to advancing their education, particularly those who earn the lowest wages.

The health system aims to enroll up to 45 percent of their employees in skills training programs and help more employees pursue advanced educational opportunities. As employees succeed and move up within the organization, senior leaders are seeing morale and retention rates improve, resulting in better patient care. Mercy Health Youngstown believes that employees are their most valuable resource, and by investing in them they hope to make lives better and the community stronger.

University Health System’s (UHS) focus on its front line employees is delivering outstanding outcomes that it’s Talent Development strategy has been designed to deliver. With an 81% student/employee job advancement rate for a group of its frontline employees, UHS has created an environment that is supportive of employee growth and organizational success. Appropriately termed their “Talent Garden”, UHS has created an environment where everyone can thrive.

The Talent Garden’s recently graduated its first ECHO skill development cohort for mid-level associates who are now well on their way to achieving big career dreams and goals. And, while turnover costs make retention an obvious organizational priority, UHS’ efforts are still at the cutting edge of frontline engagement trends.

Studies show that highly engaged employees report that they experience ALL of these and more:

• an opportunity to learn and grow,
• are encouraged to seek development,
• have a manager that cares about them
• they view their job as important
• and someone talks about their progress

The Executive Director of the Center for Learning Excellence, Jacque Burandt, provided all of these when she chose to offer the ECHO program. “We have lots of programs, not just for directors and managers, but also for the front line,” says Jacque. “We are always working on two paths, better skill development in whatever your job is, then secondly, where do you want to go in the big vision of the health system.”

According to Jacque Burandt, Executive Director of UHS’s Center for Learning Excellence, “the ECHO program supports their philosophy of promoting from within. ECHO offers a unique opportunity for the organization to fill a gap that often prevents non clinical employees from having the tools and educational foundation necessary to successfully transition to more advanced roles within the system, should they so choose.” ECHO’s delivery format is designed for the adult learner, incorporating multiple learning modalities while at the same time providing a foundation for increased confidence, academic discipline, and formal career planning.

The quotes below show some of the successes thus far and just how well participants used and appreciated the opportunity:

“I hope that UHS can continue with programs like this one, to show their employees this company cares about continuing education.” – Irma Beltran, ECHO graduate.

“I currently work in the Patient Business Services Department. The ECHO program has inspired me to go back to school. I plan to go to St. Phillips for nursing. I appreciate all you do for us.”

“The ECHO Program…was an opportunity I could not pass up. It has helped me in getting motivated to go back to school. I am enrolled with Concordia University and pursuing my Bachelors in Healthcare Administration.”

I am attending Southern Careers Institute and am working towards receiving my Medical Coding Certification. The ECHO program gave me the opportunity to see that I am not too old to go back to school and pursue my dreams.”

Looks like UHS certainly has some future leaders on their hands! Fifteen total employees were chosen to participate in ECHO, 12 of those completed the program – an 80% completion rate. ECHO was facilitated by a former School at Work program graduate, Laura Hernandez. She found her passion for helping others through that experience and has since earned a Bachelors in Healthcare Administration which she puts to good use at UHS.

Certainly outcomes are very important and the Talent Garden continues to track them for this first class. Be on the lookout for the continuation of this story as results come in!

TriHealth is a long-time customer and a top integrated health system in Cincinnati boasting over 10,000 employees. We’d like to share with our readers the most extensive Return on Investment study of School at Work that we’ve seen in our 11 years of focus on healthcare workforce development!

Three programs were evaluated by TriHealth: Patient Care Assistants; School at Work (SAW) participants; and Health Career Cohorts participants. If you’re looking for outcomes, look no further.

The study begins by stating its purpose: “The goals of TriHealth’s Health Careers Collaborative (HCC) programs are to increase access to healthcare careers by underutilized labor pools, alleviate regional workforce shortages, and increase the diversity of health care workforces in Greater Cincinnati.”

The SAW evaluation consisted of 3 classes held from 2009-2012. Employees were divided into two groups: 36 employees enrolled in SAW (“Treatment group) and 930 employees in similar job codes who did not participate (“Control” group).

SAW Conclusions and Outcomes

• Turnover Rate – 16.67%. That’s 40% lower
• Employee Satisfaction – higher participation and 78.9% positive survey results
• Diversity – higher in Asian, Black/African American and Hispanic populations.
• Employee Performance Scores – participants showed a lower presence of performance counseling
• Change in Pay Rate – the number of employees receiving an increase was 6% higher among SAW graduates.

Impressive numbers, if you ask us; and if you ask TriHealth, too. From the data above, it sure looks like School at Work helped them to achieve their goals!

“With such positive results, we can further encourage organizations and employees to take part in such programs. These programs will assist employees in furthering their work potential and knowledge and decrease costs associated with turnovers and new hires.”
– TriHealth Study

Here are some dollars and cents to back up this claim; how does saving $45,000 per year on turnover sound? Three years going, that’s a total of $135,000 the organization saved itself – and that’s just the SAW grads!

With RoI data like this, entry level employee development no longer sounds like just a nice thing to do – it sounds like a smart business plan.

Click here to download the full study

By: Carolyn Hardy, Regional Manager, Catalyst Learning

What’s the point? That’s what you’re wondering if you’re anything like me – a skimmer. Well, I’ll give you the gist; this is not about a quick fix to turn around your engagement scores or a miracle new process that promises to be the magic bullet for retention or patient satisfaction. This post is about a multi-year journey with an organization that placed a premium on culture and used accountability to take their place as employer of choice in the community. This is about the hard work and the metrics that prove the link between employee retention, investment and operational efficiency.

Rhonda is already talking as I enter the room, on this last day at the ASHHRA 2013 Conference. I begin to tune in to Rhonda’s clear, strong voice.

“The focus is here: to make every employee feel that they are part of what we do, no matter if they are a nurse, a doctor, a housekeeper, a parking valet. Connecting is what we need to do, regardless of our industry.”

We’re listening to Rhonda Larimore, Vice President of Human Resources and Support Services at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh (UPMC). She’s an excellent speaker and we’re all here to see what we can learn about “The Business Case for Employee Investment”. Much of Rhonda’s message can be summed up by what must be an easily recognizable state to us all; regarding the role of HR, she says, “There’s two kinds of HR departments – ones that do the paperwork and ones that do the vision work.”

Listeners are introduced to a series of areas that Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh identified for improvement in 2006 when Rhonda came on board. From annual turnover to patient satisfaction, from a lack of vision in learning and OD to a need to focus on values in daily practice, we got a pretty clear picture – Rhonda wanted to take it back to the drawing board.

This graph represents the rates for each measure in 2006 compared to 2013 at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, under Rhonda’s leadership, and the clear impact the improvements had on the operating margin:

Performance Comparison Graph
2006 to 2013<

Time to fill is measured in days, all other measures should be read in percentage.

So how did they do it? She shared CHP’s strategic plan:

1. Recruitment and Selection Improvement
2. On-boarding Improvements
3. Performance and Talent Management Improvements
4. Define acceptable service standards and hold accountable
5. Improve patient satisfaction results
6. Proactively seek feedback from patients, families, visitors, physicians, etc.

Of this plan Rhonda tells us, “It’s about packaging it so that people see not just the ones-ies and twos-ies of what we do but the whole picture.” She is speaking of the leadership in the organization as well as the employees who report to them. Getting an organization of that size on board with this kind of change can’t have been easy and she relied on support from other leadership and a values-based approach on which everyone could agree.

As this story winds up, I’ll highlight a couple of stories from items 1 and 3 in the strategic plan.

CHP wanted to hire talent whose values closely matched that of the organization. Enter Ted Kinney, Ph.D. and Director of Research and Development for Select International. These two formed a partnership and implemented a standardized hiring process and assessment. Hands flew up as Rhonda spoke of their success, their measures and their processes. In the end, everyone was quiet and you knew they’d been impressed by the staggering lack of complications or issues with the new process. Ted was present to answer questions and he had rapt attention from the audience; this guy was about to become very popular.

Since Catalyst Learning is a workforce development organization, I promised to address workforce development and here it is.

Learning & OD – ‘How can I focus on MY career?’

Again our speaker describes a dichotomy positing that there are two types of employees:
1) those who want to grow their career,
2) those who want to be the best at who they are in their current role.

Either way, Children’s of Pittsburgh focused on the growth of their employees by providing a continuing education fund for those that want to attend a conference or other learning opportunity. For loyal employees who want to stay in same position, the organization still challenges them to improve in that role every year.

CHP provides online learning opportunities, leverages leadership and mentorship programs in which over 1000 people participate each year.

Ted brought this all home by stating that, “Hospitals need highly skilled employees and Patient Satisfaction is still relatively new to the industry.” He spoke of combining “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches, identifying specific behaviors that drive outcomes, and building accountability through better staff communication which correlates with patient safety.

So, here is your challenge – where are you as an HR or OD professional doing “The Vision Work”? We’re all being targeted for improvement these days. I hope this post has inspired you in some way to take things to the next level, whatever your role in your organization.

Catalyst Learning’s Lynn Fischer recently had the honor of addressing over 50 Cleveland Clinic School at Work graduates.  It was an opportunity to reflect on Cleveland Clinic’s incredible commitment to School at Work; since 2005, the organization has had over 200 graduates!  As Catalyst Learning gears up for its 20th anniversary, it was also a time to be thankful for the many organizations like Cleveland Clinic that have helped us provide career development to over 14,000 employees.

Click here to read full transcript and the five pieces of advice Lynn offered graduates as they move into a new chapter.

With over 22,000 employees, Bon Secours Virginia is one of the largest employers in the Richmond, VA region.  The organization has achieved the “Triple Crown” from Thomson Reuters, and has been recognized three times this year alone – for excellence in overall organization performance in the 2012 Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals. Additionally, Bon Secours has previously been named a “Best Place for Hourly Workers” by Working Mother Magazine.  Catalyst Learning has been proud to call this award-winning organization a customer since 2004 when it launched its first School at Work session; the organization has since graduated seven classes.

One initiative that has helped the organization gain its accolades is its emerging leader program, STRIDE.  In 2009, Bon Secours launched STRIDE to support succession planning.  The STRIDE pilot revealed that stronger focus on career development was a top priority.  To augment these elements of the program, Bon Secours turned to Catalyst Learning to deploy another solution: CareerCare.  CareerCare is an online system that helps mid-level employees plan and manage their careers.  Like School at Work, it was designed exclusively for the healthcare industry.

Stephanie Davidson, Ph.D. is Director of Organizational Development & Learning for Bon Secours.

“We’ve refined STRIDE around CareerCare,” she said.  “In the beginning of the year-long program, the curriculum focuses on awareness building and personal branding.  Then we move on to career development; CareerCare’s modules are very self-reflective so they fit nicely with our curriculum and approach.”

With the help of CareerCare, participants learn how to establish relationships with mentors and contacts that can help create opportunities.  They develop an individual career plan to plot their next steps and meet with Bon Secours recruiters to get advice.

STRIDE participants have seen results: one cohort participant was promoted from recruiting specialist to practice manager for a physician practice; other participants have assumed leadership roles within their departments.  Overall, Bon Secours has noticed increased employee engagement, which has captured the attention of supervisors who now use STRIDE as a way to reward high potential employees.  This has won the support of executive leadership who has readily given approval to expand from one local market into two.

Bon Secours is in the initial stages using another Catalyst Learning product to boost its training arsenal: Catalyst Accelerated Performance Series (CAPS).  CAPS classes are two hour seminars delivered by a hospital-appointed facilitator.  Like SAW, CAPS uses a blended learning model.  CAPS will be offered to approximately 200 employees to help improve their critical thinking and problem solving skills.  Bon Secours Virginia’s inaugural CAPS seminars will take place over four sessions this year, after which it will be evaluated for long-term implementation in 2013.

Dr. Davidson says that “our partnership with Catalyst Learning continues to be an added strength to our organization.  After our success with School at Work, we are delighted to use the Accelerated Performance Series and CareerCare to provide development opportunities that allow more of our employees to grow within the organization.”

For more information about ways that Catalyst Learning can support employees beyond the traditional School at Work employee profile, or to learn more about STRIDE, please contact Catalyst Learning.

School at Work (SAW) participants at Heartland Health in St. Joseph, MO recently received an incredible graduation gift: college credit certificates.  A recent collaboration between Heartland and Missouri Western State University (MWSU) has assigned three credit hours to SAW.

Heartland, a former Malcolm Baldrige recipient, joins the growing list of Catalyst Learning customers to provide college credits to graduates.

“Obtaining college credit for SAW greatly increases the likelihood that students will earn a college degree.  It paves the way for successful long-term outcomes, which creates a win-win for the hospital and employee,” says Catalyst Learning CEO Lynn Fischer.

Heartland’s SAW Co-Coaches David Mueller and Mary Bryson championed the idea during a March meeting with MWSU officials. Heartland provided MWSU with several documents including a listing of current class participants, a copy of the pre-assessment, a copy of Modules 9 & 10 on-line self-check, and copies of the student work books.

Bryson says that shortly after the productive meeting, “We received an email that MWSU ‘would be glad to provide our colleagues with three credit hours of Continuing Education Department credit, upon their successful completion of the SAW course’… Heartland picked up all the expense associated with the credit hours – what a great gift to our graduates!”

Many Heartland SAW alumni were as pleased by the announcement as their newly graduating peers, such as former graduate Erynn Griffin.

“It’s awesome that MWSU and Heartland are giving that to the SAW students. I just finished my first year as a part-time student at MWSU and will be starting full-time in the fall.”

Another former student, Roxanne Maggart, recently received a BA in Social Work from MWSU. “My graduation from MWSU is a direct result of SAW and because of support from Mary Bryson and Dave Mueller,” she says.

To learn more about how to work with local institutions and bring this about at your organization, please contact Catalyst Learning. To speak with a representative from MWSU to learn about the process from the university perspective, Gordon Mapley, Ph.D., Dean & Executive Director may be reached at gmapley@missouriwestern.edu.

Congratulations to the Clevenalnd Clinic, School at Work Graduates of 2013. Catalyst Learning is proud of your accomplishments!