Best Place to Work

All improvement requires making change — and change can be difficult. These practices are culled from Kaiser Permanente’s Organizational Effectiveness consultants and from unit-based teams that have moved through change successfully, developing new processes, transitioning to new leadership, etc. These tips are meant to support UBT co-leads and team members as they manage change — and the resistance that often comes with it.

For unit-based team co-leads and sponsors: Identify and manage resistance

• Clearly communicate reasons for the change.
• Make it safe to voice concerns throughout the change process.
• Identify team members mostly likely to resist the change and give them key roles.
• Involve naysayers as early and as often as possible to minimize grumbling.

For all UBT members: Assess the effects of the change and enlist support

• Develop a common understanding of the change, getting everyone’s point of view:  Ask, "What’s being done now and what will be done differently?"
• Engage everyone affected, including physicians, members of other departments and your team sponsor.
• Identify specific enablers and barriers to implementation — areas that will require greater attention.
• Allow team members to identify solutions and make decisions that affect them most.

Celebrate short-term successes — and acknowledge failures

• After each test of change, recognize and reward contributing team members at huddles and meetings. Use these small wins to increase credibility and keep the momentum going.
• Accept failures — and talk about what can be learned from them.

Carol Fiskio takes pride in helping good employees move on.

As revenue cycle director for Kaiser Permanente’s Woodland Hills Medical Center, Fiskio has seen 3 of her department’s admitting clerks earn college degrees and advance to new positions.

Their formula: a desire to learn, flexible scheduling and a valuable employee benefit. Hers: supporting employees’ lifelong learning to make them, Kaiser Permanente and her department stronger players.

Kaiser Permanente encourages such learning, providing employees up to $3,000 each year for completing courses to continue their education, get a certificate or earn a degree. Tuition reimbursement course applications reached a record 73,224 in 2018, nearly doubling since 2015, when benefits increased for many employees after that year's Labor Management Partnership National Bargaining. 

Click image to enlarge
 

Psyched for psychology

When Olayinka Rahman started as an admitting clerk at Woodland Hills Medical Center in 2007, she had a vision: to become a psychologist. She balanced working and going to school, using tuition reimbursement to earn bachelor’s (California State University, Northridge), master’s (Pepperdine University) and doctoral (Azusa Pacific University) degrees in psychology.

“I don’t think there would be a better place (than Kaiser Permanente) for me to get my degree and continue to work,” Rahman says. “They’re so supportive. I hear about other organizations that aren’t as flexible and don’t have tuition reimbursement.”

After a yearlong internship in Michigan, Rahman returned to Kaiser Permanente. She completed a postdoctoral psychology residency in San Francisco and now works as a psychological assistant in Antioch. She’s preparing for the licensing exams to become a staff psychologist.

Rahman encourages others to continue their education.

“It was definitely challenging but well worth it,” Rahman says. “Talk with your manager, and say, ‘How can we make this work?’ Open communication with management is key.”

Strength in education

Fiskio, who used tuition reimbursement herself to earn an MBA, praised Rahman and her other former direct reports for advancing their careers through education.

“It’s not easy to go to work and to school,” Fiskio says. “That takes real dedication. It’s a benefit to the organization.” 

Managing in partnership is different from traditional management. You still have responsibility for managing employees’ performance, but when it comes to your department’s performance, the whole team plays a role in making the department a great place to work and to receive care. Frontline employees know where the problems are and have great ideas for solutions. Research shows that managers who engage their teams get better results, and team members are more enthusiastic about implementing the solution because they helped come up with it.

1. Be knowledgeable about the National Agreement. Download the National Agreement or get from your local human resources representative.
2. Get trained on the Labor Management Partnership. See your local learning and development website or our list of regional training contacts.
3. Proactively develop relationships with your union partners. Get to know your shop steward, union representative and other local labor leaders. Check in with them on a regular basis to share information and get their ideas.
4. Model partnership with your union partner. Treat each other with mutual respect. Attend LMP trainings together. Jointly develop meeting agendas and share meeting facilitation responsibilities. Share information, identify problems and develop possible solutions in collaboration.
5. Be accessible to staff. Spend time visiting with people on the front lines. Roam the department on a regular basis. Eat in the lunch room. Implement an “open door” policy for staff members who come by and want to talk.
6. Be open to the ideas of all employees. Encourage people to share ideas and have input on procedures or work flow. Create an environment in which people feel comfortable speaking up. And be open to trying new ways of doing things.
7. Create a structure for dialogue and engagement. Make sure time is set aside for partnership meetings, huddles and training.
8. Tell it like it is. Be open and honest in your communication and transparent with information. Share your department’s budget with team members to get their ideas on reducing costs.
9. Recognize and value employees’ contributions. Go out of your way to acknowledge someone who comes up with or implements an idea that has made the department a better place to work and provide care.
10. Develop employees to become department leaders. If union partners or other team members want to help the department succeed by polishing their problem-solving, meeting management or other skills, encourage and support them in their efforts.

Want to take your team to the next level? Make good things happen for yourself, your co-workers and your members and patients? Collaboration is one of the four critical skills needed to meet future challenges with ease. Use these 12 team-building tips to make every month count in 2018.

1. Par-tay

Celebrate your team’s successes and acknowledge — even celebrate — failures. Failures are great opportunities for learning if you focus on where the process (not the person) needs improvement. After each test of change, recognize and reward contributing team members at huddles and meetings. Use small wins to keep the momentum going.

2. In and out

Help employees track their sick days and time off by printing out and distributing our colorful, always popular attendance calendar.

3. Follow the money

Learn your department’s budget as a team and get everyone’s ideas on how to reduce costs. Sign up for a business literacy training. 

4. Track it in tracker

Document your team’s work regularly, accurately and concisely in UBT Tracker. It will let others see and learn from your team’s accomplishments.

5. Stop the line

Ask for help or call a stop to the work when you see an imminent danger or need help to safely complete a task. Then look for system improvements and root causes of problems — ask not just what happened, but why.

6. Grow leaders

Rotate responsibilities for leading meetings and managing improvement projects among all team members. This will build your team’s skills and strengths.

7. Two words

Huddle daily. It works. Watch the video “Huddle Power” and use the tools there to get you started huddling with your team.

8. Clean up your act

Become supply savvy. Make a full assessment of supplies — track inventory, tidy up storage areas and streamline ordering. Simple changes can save thousands of dollars. Download our 6S tool to make this work a snap. 

9. Take a (waste) walk on the wild side

Perform a waste walk. Impartially observe a work area or work process to identify waste or inefficiency. Get walking with our online Waste Walk toolkit. 

10. Save a tree

Go paperless. Don’t print out agendas and documents. Send them out via email or use a projector instead.

11. Get online

Help patients sign up on kp.org. Remind them they can securely view their medical records and most lab results, email their doctors, schedule appointments and refill prescriptions online. Bonus tip: Encourage tech-savvy members to download the kp.org app so they can access these features on their phones. Check out how one team got 90 percent of its patients signed up.

12. Spread and borrow

Did something work for your team? Spread the word to others. Need inspiration for your next improvement project? Look for other teams that have succeeded. Work with your UBT consultant or union partnership representative to spread your successes. Visit our Team-Tested Practices section to get ideas you can try with your team!

Everyone has a voice at Kaiser Permanente — and KP needs to hear yours. This empowering training helps teams understand why every voice matters and how to be sure all are heard. 

Training description

Creating a space where workers feel safe speaking up leads to better patient care and a better workplace. This fast-paced, interactive workshop helps frontline workers and managers learn what a speaking-up culture looks like, why it matters and how to manage difficult conversations through role play and group exercises.  

Path to Performance

Levels 1—5

Duration

Usually 90 minutes, but this training can be customized to suit your team's needs.

Who should attend

This in-person training is for unit-based teams, LMP councils, units/departments and other groups.