Spread the love

 

“Highly engaged employees make the customer experience. Disengaged employees break it.” ~ Timothy R. Clark

People impact people in the healthcare as well as other industries. With the 100’s of touch points HR has with employees, HR’s alignment with patient and customer experience strategies shouldn't be considered optional. Leveraging HR to impact this customer experience… is a no doubt about it; throw the gloves down…must do.

By hiring great fit, retaining top performers, and providing enabling infrastructure, HR can have a significant impact on patient satisfaction, measurable performance (i.e. Healthcare HCAHPS), and ultimately financial performance.  

Here are five levers HR can pull to influence patient and customer experience. 

Targeted Training and Mentorship

  • Consider going beyond new hire orientation and mass offerings. Diagnose areas that have low scores and determine if there are behavioral causes that can be corrected.
  • Leadership Strengthening. Providing targeted training for leaders to ensure they can and will recognize behaviors that prevent great customer experiences and have the ability to take steps to mitigate quickly.  
  • Peer mentoring. As a new employee it is easy to get lost in new ways of doing things. Having a mentor is a good way to ensure new employees receives just in time information, as they need it to take great care of customers. 

Hiring Great Fit Candidates (If its not in their heart, they won’t be a good fit)

  • Incorporate core values into pre-qualifying and interview questions
  • Leverage validated behavioral assessment tools
  • A good way to measure service hiring effectiveness is to take a look at terminations within first 12 months (for service based reasons)

Employee Satisfaction and Retention

  • Evaluate employee satisfaction and identify areas for improvement
  • Respond to findings of previous surveys and provide feedback to employees on status
  • Proactive special programs for at-risk employee populations that are apt to leave or be disengaged

Rewards and Recognition

  • Putting people structures in place that encourage and enable employees to want to impact patient satisfaction (i.e.: rewards and recognition)
  • Employee recognition aligned with values and customer service accomplishments

Performance Management 

  • Promote consistent performance management practices across all departments regardless of customer facing status
  • Calibrate leadership understanding of high performance across the organization
  • User-friendly performance management tools aligned with values

Rising to a new level of service and delivery requires all people to be rowing in the same direction.  This includes the people behind the people.   

The following two tabs change content below.
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy LinkedIn profile

Tresha Moreland

Tresha Moreland is a 30-year organizational effectiveness and strategic workforce planning expert. She partners with business leaders to develop workplace strategies that achieve best-in-class results. She has held key organizational leadership roles in multiple industries such as manufacturing, distribution, retail, hospitality, and healthcare. Tresha is the founder and principal consultant of HR C-Suite, LLC (www.hrcsuite.com). HR C-Suite is a results-based HR strategy resource dedicated to connecting HR with business results. She has received a master’s degree in human resource management (MS) and a master’s degree in business administration (MBA). She has also earned a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR), Six Sigma Black Belt Professional (SSBBP) Certification. She is also recognized as a Fellow with the American College Healthcare Executives with a FACHE designation.

Spread the love