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Bonnie Conrad Workplace Health & Development Consultant Capital Health VG Site, 7B room 115 District Health Authority Halifax , Nova Scotia bonnie.conrad@cdha.nshealth.ca
When was your practice implemented? 2004 - customized in 2009
Describe the issue that prompted the implementation of your practice: Capital Health (CH) is Nova Scotia?s largest provider of health services -- operating hospitals, health centres, and community-based programs throughout Halifax Regional Municipality and the western part of Hants County. Capital Health has 11,000 employees; physicians; learners; and volunteers providing care to 400,000 district residents, as well as specialist services to the rest of Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada. Capital Health is one of a number of health service organizations across the country that has signed the Quality Worklife Quality Healthcare Collaborative QWQHC Healthy Healthcare Leadership Charter.Capital Health began a broad and deep strategic planning process in March 2007 resulting in a plan - a vision, strategic directions and intended outcomes. This strategy is building a solid foundation for quality of worklife (QWL) initiatives.
Describe your practice: "Our Promise" is the name of the strategic direction ongoing at CH, and it represents a shared commitment to cultural transformation within the entire CH community. This strategic direction incorporates a number of priorities for 2009-2010, one of which is the Transformational Leadership strategy. A desired key outcome of this strategy is to know optimal levels of joy, pride, trust and respect at CH in order to grow and transform, both individually and as an organization. Key indicators are employee engagement; staff retention; and joy, pride, trust, respect and leadership index measures. Capital Health tested (validated) ninety percent of all the survey questions in the North American workforce, including questions they created for joy and pride, as there are no existing validated measures for these constructs.
Describe how your practice was implemented and the resources required (e.g. people, time, money): Capital Health transformed our approach to the employee survey in 2009 to align with and support the organization?s evolution to a world leading haven for people-centred health, healing and learning. A team of applicant representatives, in collaboration with others, looked at our survey tool and process and redesigned both for maximum impact in 2009. In 2009, seventy-five percent of the questions relate to outcomes identified in Our Promise. The survey acts as a benchmark of our progress toward Our Promise, as well as tool to discover opportunities for improvement along our journey. Capital Health engaged Clear Picture, a local firm, to support the implementation of the electronic survey (paper optional).
Explain the impact of your practice: Three thousand, five hundred and thirty one people responded (a 33% response rate) and the vast majority responded electronically. Survey findings have resulted in three priority action areas: 1. Enhancing and creating more meaningful forms of staff recognition (e.g. recognition related to decision-making, respect for staff).2. Conducting an appreciate inquiry process to understand conditions that resulted in stronger survey results for certain departments/teams. These learnings will be communicated to the Leadershift Community (VPs, directors, managers) for future sharing and related follow-up activities.3. Explore and uncover the meaning of the results for questions related to 'Trust in Management' (i.e. what these particular survey results really signify).
How did it improve quality of worklife? Three major changes transformed the experience for management that is having impacts at the team level. First, the team changed the survey tool, 75% of the questions were new and directly related to outcomes in our strategic plan, or were enablers or barriers to achieving our outcomes. We asked questions regarding supervisor's leadership and questions about respect, trust, engagement, joy, pride, incivility and aggression. Second, survey results were reported at the level of the manager (team) so that managers would have local, more relevant information in order to build local QWL strategies. Lastly, we conducted the survey primarily electronically. The changes, particularly the reporting of results by team in tandem with the questions we asked, caught the attention of managers, an important outcome in order to have managers work with teams to improve QWL locally.
How do you know? (e.g. surveys to staff, a formal evaluation process, specific outcomes, feedback) The changes in the 2009 process facilitated engagement of management. Many managers engaged staff in looking at their team results and building strategies to make it better. Survey team members offered support to facilitate conversations about survey results with teams. We have supported over fifty team conversations about the results, and continue to be available to support management and teams. Another challenge we overcame was conducting the survey primarily electronically. Survey team members worked with managers to implement ways for staff that do not usually access computers at work, to complete the employee survey on-line. We also provided paper copies (14% of respondents used paper). A survey action team has developed three priority organizational level strategies that are now being implemented. The combination of local and organizational action, based on survey data, comments and conversations will bring about improvements our 2011 employee survey results.
What lessons learned and issues to consider are you able to share with colleagues? We learned a lot about the organization - the overall culture, sub-cultures, where change is embraced and where it is resisted through the survey process. Capital Health achieved a much higher level of engagement of management, an important development for local, team based actions. Support for managers and their teams to understand their employee survey results was an important resource for managers and one that will continue. There are other resources that support management and teams such as learning and organization development consultants, leadership coaches, a conflict transformations specialist, and a diversity and inclusion coordinator. Communication to all staff using a variety of communication vehicles was critical to the success of QWL performance measurement. Survey champions visited many units and sites, a video was developed and posted on the internal website, survey-related business cards were handed out to staff, and the leadership enabling team was very engaged.For supporting material, please visit: http://www.cdha.nshealth.caGo to Capital Health A-Z, go to "H", then go to "Healthy Workplace"
