LMP Processes

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.

Course description

The curriculum is planned around bringing a new manager up to speed on the working environment as it relates to partnership and unit-based teams, and how to take their traditional role and seamlessly integrate it in this new environment. The materials in the class are intended to be a takeaway the participants can use later as a valuable reference tool.

Path to Performance

Level 1

Duration

• 4 modules (classroom)
• 60 minutes, approximately (online)

Who should attend

This course is intended for new managers to a partnership environment.

Course requirements

• Labor Management Partnership Orientation (LMPO)
• Completion of course pre-work prior to class

Course description

The training provides an overview of why the Labor Management Partnership is important to Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions and how unit-based teams are transforming Kaiser Permanente. Topics covered are types of unit-based teams, roles and responsibilities of employees on unit-based teams and consensus decision making basics.

Path to Performance

Level 1

Duration

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

Who should attend

Employees within their first 120 days of employment at Kaiser Permanente should attend this course. Job categories who can take this class are labor, management and physician members of unit-based teams.

Course requirements

This is an introductory course. There are no prerequisites.

Su-Xian Hu and Runeet Bhasin make partnership look easy. The telemetry team co-leads at Downey Medical Center in Southern California share a relaxed rapport that belies the time, planning and occasional friction that are part of running a busy inpatient unit. 

Together for more than a year, the pair attribute the success of their budding relationship to communication and a commitment to partnership principles—especially consensus decision making. Those core values came in handy recently when a disagreement arose about the best way to educate patients about medications. 

Nurses preferred a less overwhelming one-page sheet, but managers wanted to switch to a detailed three-page form that had been adopted by other units in the hospital. 

“It was a major issue,” says Bhasin, RN, a staff nurse and member of UNAC/UHCP who is the team’s labor co-lead. “We had to come up with a solution to fulfill management’s needs and labor’s needs.”

At the time of the disagreement, UBT members turned to consensus decision making to determine next steps they all could support. A subsequent test of change resulted in a short-term fix: Nurses used the short form with patients, while the longer handout was provided as a resource guide in patient rooms.

New to partnership

Managing in partnership was a new experience for Hu when she joined the team in April 2016 as assistant clinical director and became a co-lead. She previously had overseen a Kaiser Permanente inpatient nursing unit that was not part of the Labor Management Partnership. Bhasin, a co-lead with two years of experience, served as mentor and coach.

“Runeet was wonderful with helping to bring me onboard,” says Hu, who is also an RN. 

Both say LMP training has given them a shared understanding of their roles as co-leads, the purpose of UBTs and how to use consensus decision making. A business literacy class both took proved especially fruitful: With the information they brought back, the team tackled an affordability project that reduced overtime costs by more than $95,000 last year. 

“The UBT classes,” says Bhasin, “made me realize the real meaning of partnership, the collaboration of labor and management to work toward the same goal to provide high-quality care and to have a great work environment.”

The pair’s approach seems to be working. Their 75-member UBT is at Level 4 on the five-part Path to Performance, and it has earned accolades for outstanding patient care and gains in workplace safety and affordability. 

“We want what is best for patients and for staff,” says Hu. “We might have differences, but we always come together with open and professional communication, sitting down together to solve those issues.”

Our 2012 National Agreement established the conditions for creating the healthiest workforce in the industry.

One of the key innovations in the 2012 National Agreement is the Total Health Incentive Plan, a voluntary program that rewards employees for collective participation in confidential health screenings and improvements. 

The 2010 agreement includes uniform performance goals and metrics for unit-based teams, an enhanced sick leave cash-out option and stable funding for workforce development trust funds.

If you print the PDF out on 8.5" x 11" paper, each sheet will have one two-page spread of the bound contract. 

“The No. 1 reason for the success of our teams has been personal engagement,” says Alan Kroll, a primary care area administrator in Colorado who co-sponsors nine unit-based teams with his labor and physician partners. “Everyone needs to buy into the process to make partnership work.”

Building engagement and ensuring a consistent work experience have been goals of the Labor Management Partnership since the beginning. But, at the same time, there’s been a good deal of variation around these efforts from location to location across Kaiser Permanente, to the frustration of many managers, workers, and KP members and patients.

That’s why the 2015 National Agreement mandates partnership training for everyone, including the mid-level managers and union leaders who guide others. Early versions of the partnership training for mid-level leaders, which will be available this year, have gotten high marks from UBT sponsors and other leaders who have taken it. 

Consistency counts

The agreement calls for “a learning system that supports sustained behavior change, partnership and performance.” This includes joint training and refresher courses—delivered in-person
and/or online—to “achieve the same partnership and employment experience wherever one works in KP.” 

The new training for mid-level leaders will include segments on: interest-based problem solving examining the forces that support or undermine partnership core partnership behaviors and principles the strategic importance of the LMP 

Joint training is key 

The programs are designed to develop successful leaders who can model partnership and spread successful practices—and to ensure that the managers or union representatives helping teams have what they need to support those teams.

“It is very powerful for managers and union leaders to be in training together,” Kroll says. “It sends the message that everyone is important, and sets a foundation to work from when an issue gets stuck.”

The training served as a reminder that good partnership practices also are good leadership practices. 

“People want to hear from their leaders,” he says, and to “know what issues we are dealing with and that we can help remove obstacles.”

See the 2015 National Agreement, section 1.E, Education and Training (pages 31–33) for additional information.

Our 2000 National Agreement created the joint LMP Trust Fund. It also created the Performance Sharing Program. It began with these prophetic words:

"This National Agreement was created through an extraordinary collaboration with the input of hundreds of Kaiser Permanente employees at every level. We created this document the way we will work in the future—jointly. The Agreement embodies our collective vision for Kaiser Permanente. The language of this National Agreement cannot begin to fully capture the energy and collective insights of the hundreds of people working long hours to establish this framework. But as work units apply these principles, we trust that their commitment and expertise will make our vision a reality."

Beyond excellent wages and benefits, the 2015 Coalition National Agreement sets industry-leading standards for quality, service, affordability, workplace health and safety, and professional development. Coalition union members, their managers, and the physicians who work with them should read the agreement and be familiar with its intentions and the path it lays out for achieving high-quality, affordable heatlh care while creating a great place to work.