Tools - Color

Course description

The goal of this course is to teach employees about issue resolution (IR)—a system for quickly resolving workplace issues by those directly involved with the issues. This course helps learners to understand best ways to manage conflict, the IR components, and the benefits to use this system as an alternative (not a replacement) for the grievance process.

Path to Performance

N/A

Duration

45 minutes

Who should attend

UBT Co-leads, stewards and management leaders who work with teams to resolve conflicts

Course requirements

Labor Management Partnership Orientation (LMPO)

What does it mean to work in partnership?

It’s a joint commitment to collaborate, enshrined in the Labor Management Partnership’s national agreements.

It’s employees, managers, physicians and dentists building on common interests to make decisions and solve problems.

It’s Kaiser Permanente and the Partnership unions finding creative, mutually beneficial solutions that result in improved care, service and affordability.

There's never been a better time than right now to shine a fresh spotlight on the basics — the team-tested tools and practices fundamental to a strong partnership, such as the Rapid Improvement Model, consensus decision making and interest-based problem solving.

Whether you’re new to partnership or well-versed in its ways, use these performance improvement tools to identify issues, test changes, solve problems, make decisions, deliver better care and service, and enhance your work life.

LMP tools are designed to help you work together when things are going well — and bridge differences when the going gets tough. This approach addresses the needs of union members and helps the organization improve performance — which ultimately benefits Kaiser Permanente’s patients, members and communities.

For Carolina Aceves, technology and health care go hand in hand.

Shortly after completing a new online digital fluency course for Kaiser Permanente employees, she saw firsthand how technology can transform a life. Her mother needed a kidney transplant, but neither she nor her siblings were a match. In October 2017, however, in a series of matches orchestrated through a national computer system, she donated a kidney as part of a chain of donations that resulted in her mother receiving a kidney.

In December, she returned to work at the California Service Center in San Diego, where she is an account administrative representative, fielding calls from KP members and answering their questions. She also chairs a young leader council for OPEIU Local 30 — and is leveraging that role to mobilize all represented members of her unit-based team, urging colleagues of all ages to take the digital fluency course.

“Health care is changing,” Aceves says. “Be current. Do your homework. Advance your career.”

At ease with technology

Digital fluency is one of four critical skills that will be essential in the health care of the future. The new online program, which helps participants understand the role of technology in health care, is free to workers represented by a union in the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions through the Ben Hudnall Memorial Trust, the SEIU UHW-West & Joint Employer Education Fund, and National Workforce Planning and Development.

The national workforce office also is developing programs for the other three critical skills — consumer focus, collaboration and process improvement — as part of a larger strategy to encourage employees to upgrade their skills, advance their careers and meet the changing demands of health care.

“Whether you work in a medical center, clinic or office, we encourage employees to take the digital fluency program,” says Monica Morris, the director of National Workforce Planning
and Development.

Digital fluency skills are good for workers, KP members and the organization, says Jessica Butz, the coalition’s national coordinator for Workforce Planning and Development. While some may fear technology will eliminate jobs, the push at KP is to use it not to replace workers but to enhance the care and service they deliver.

“Learning these critical skills will prepare our workers for jobs in the future and give them the tools to shape and improve care for our members and patients,” Butz says.

Course description

This course is designed to help frontline staff understand their role in a unit-based team

Path to Performance

Level 1

Duration

4 modules, approximately 1 hour each

Who should attend

This course is intended for KP employees who are represented by a union in the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions

Course requirements

Labor Management Partnership Orientation (LMPO)

Course description

Team Leadership for Co-leads is designed to bring labor, management and physician co-leads together to facilitate conversations about the performance of their unit-based teams. The co-leads receive information about high-performing unit-based teams at Kaiser Permanente and then review a 360 feedback tool to use with their teams after the course. Participants will learn a basic coaching model and practice role playing UBT coaching scenarios. Participants also will learn the fundamentals of how people adapt to change, review a change management model for leaders, and make agreements on how to manage change in their role with their unit-based teams. In addition, participants will learn the fundamentals of Emotional Intelligence and how to use “EQ” when leading change.

Path to Performance

Level 3, 4, 5

Duration

8 hours

Who should attend

This course is intended for participants who are experienced co-leads of unit-based teams. Job categories who should attend union, management and physician co-leads.

Course requirements

• Labor Management Partnership Orientation (LMPO)
• Co-Lead Workshop
• Labor and management co-leads attend the training together

Course description

It is critical for steward sponsors and management sponsors to invest in the development of the unit-based team, which will have a long-term impact on the organization, and to learn about tools and resources available to them in their sponsor role. This course is designed to help union, physician and management sponsors discover the benefits of effective sponsorship and how it can help them develop successful, sustainable unit-based teams.

Union and management sponsors will gain an awareness of how their role is critical to the transformation of how the work at Kaiser Permanente is done.
 

Path to Performance

Level 2

Duration

3 hours

Who should attend

This course is intended for participants who are sponsors of unit-based teams. Job categories who should attend labor, management and physician.

Course requirements

Labor Management Partnership Orientation (LMPO)

Course description

The Co-lead workshop exposes co-leads to the skills and knowledge needed to make unit-based teams work together effectively. The skills the co-lead learns are discussed and agreements are made regarding implementation as he/she returns to the unit-based team.

Path to Performance

Levels 2, 3

Duration

Two 4-hour modules (8 hours total)

Who should attend

This course is the first of two workshops intended specifically for all labor, management or physician unit-based team co-leads. The workshop builds on previous LMP orientation training co-leads may have attended. Following this course, co-leads are encouraged to attend the advanced course titled: Team Leadership for Co-leads: Leading Your Team to the Next Level. 

Course requirements

• Labor Management Partnership Orientation
• Labor and management co-leads attend the training together

Requires basic knowledge of:

• Consensus Decision Making (CDM)
• Interest-Based Problem Solving (IBPS)

Course description

Issue resolution/corrective action is one of the foundation blocks for success of the partnership. The course explores how issues are discovered and together labor and management determine root cause, working with the employee. Also covered is how creative problem solving is used in the workplace to resolve team issues to individual performance in a non-punitive manner.

Path to Performance

Level 1

Duration

8 hours

Who should attend

Job categories include stewards, union representatives, managers and human resources consultants

Course requirements

Belong to a union in the Alliance of Health Care Unions or the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, or work with an Alliance- or Coalition-represented employee

Course description

During this lesson, you will learn how the Rapid Improvement Model Plus (RIM+) provides you and your team an easy, structured way to quickly identify and test ways to improve your department’s performance.

Path to Performance

Levels 1, 2

Duration

• 4-hour full course; modularized delivery can be scheduled to adapt to teams’ availability (classroom)
• 40 minutes (online)

Who should attend

Labor and management members of a unit-based team.

Course requirements

• Labor Management Partnership Orientation (LMPO)

Course description

Interest-Based Problem Solving offers labor management partners a method to solve problems using a non-adversarial process. This training program provides guidance in the four-step interest-based problem-solving process, along with a simulation exercise that gives participants an opportunity to practice the process.

Path to Performance

Levels 1, 2 

Duration

• 4 hours (classroom)
• 30 minutes (online)

Who should attend

People engaged in problem solving at the unit-based team level up to regional Labor Management Partnership committees should attend this training, along with any union and management staff members working on issue resolution and corrective action. Job categories who can take this class are labor, management and physician members of a unit-based team, Labor Management Partnership and unit-based team consultants, improvement advisers and Union Partnership Representatives.