Meet Your National Agreement: New Standards for All

More rigorous team assessments

The agreement adds new requirements to the UBT Path to Performance. To be rated high performing, teams must now:

• Get direct input from the voice of the customer (in teams that work directly with Kaiser Permanente members and patients): For example, through patient rounding or co-designing a process or service, as the Capitol Hill team did.
• Spread or adopt a successful practice: Such as replicating an improvement project listed in UBT Tracker.
• Demonstrate a culture of health and safety: Includes having a team health and safety champion.
• Have face-to-face assessments: Team co-leads now must meet in person with their UBT consultant and union partnership representative, rather than assessing themselves.

Facility and regional ratings

In addition, the National Agreement now extends partnership assessments to higher levels of the organization. A scorecard, called Pathway to Partnership Performance, enables KP and union leaders to determine how well KP facilities, service areas and regions are working in partnership. The assessments include the following measures:

• Culture: Employee turnover rates and People Pulse scores on speaking up and workplace safety.
• Governance and structure: Level of LMP Council participation, diligence and results.
• Speed and agility/Change readiness: Level of labor engagement and speed of issue resolution.
• Continuous improvement infrastructure: UBT performance levels; integration with KP performance improvement efforts.
• Workforce planning and development: Effectiveness of training, career development and redeployment processes.

“The scorecard is a step forward,” 
says Joan Mah, a Northern California optometrist, senior UBT consultant and IFPTE Local 20 steward, who helped develop the scorecard. “It brings more consistency and accountability to the partnership and lets regions and facilities document their achievements and identify gaps.”