An engaged workforce is central to any organization’s success. We know productivity and innovation soar in a healthy work environment. People remain committed to their jobs. And in our world of health care, engaged employees translate to satisfied patients and families — which leads to better patient experiences and even outcomes.
This is why over the last decade or so we’ve worked to strengthen and fine-tune our approach to engagement, with evolving surveys that empower staff to share their ideas, with follow-up action plans to help move ideas forward, and with new online resources for both managers and their teams to tap into.
Being engaged at work means more than job satisfaction, for example, or happiness. It’s about loyalty, commitment, and coming to work with your head and heart, ready to put forth your best. It goes both ways, too: more engaged people are known to maintain a better work-life balance, feel safer at their jobs, and be healthier, studies show.
At Penn Medicine, I’m proud to say our employee engagement continues to stand out — and steadily rise. The results of the latest employee survey last year show that among our peers in the nation, the percentage of “engaged employees,” one of the categories used in the survey, at Penn Medicine is well above the average. At the individual hospital level, the trend is even more impressive. The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) showed a 14 percent increase in engagement compared to the previous survey in 2014, while both Pennsylvania Hospital and Penn Presbyterian saw a 10 percent increase. In fact, all of our hospitals and clinical affiliates experienced an uptick, and most saw a decrease in disengagement. Our response rate remains high as well, with over 77 percent of employees taking the survey.
But there’s always room for growth. So we’ve made key improvements to the way we measure engagement, and initiated tactics for people to be and feel more engaged.
For one, our survey technology now helps produce more meaningful data and there’s also a more robust, streamlined action planning strategy in place for employees and managers to set and achieve goals. Online tools and resources from the Advisory Board, a health care best practices firm that helps facilitate the survey, as well as the Penn Medicine Academy, are also better geared towards improving career development, conflict resolution, and teaching and learning, through real-world, proven strategies.
To drill down further, HUP for the first time held 25 brainstorming sessions last year that gave employees the opportunity to provide direct feedback with hospital leadership. The exercise proved invaluable. As a result, for example, a new committee was formed to address safety concerns in the hospital to help better protect patients and employees. New standards of behavior and workshops to train people to diffuse difficult situations are now being shaped to help create a safer environment in our hospitals.
The passion from our employees about the work they do here and the strength of our mission providing great patient care is a theme that continues to surface from our surveys — including our culture of safety and nurse Magnet surveys, which also touch on work environments and engagement in some fashion and help us take the temperature on a variety of important issues.
That assertion is backed up by the recognitions we’ve received over the past few years, including accolades among “America’s Best Employers” in Forbes magazine. HUP’s results also helped Penn Medicine receive the 2018 Workplace of the Year Award from the Advisory Board, which recognizes hospitals and health systems nationwide that have outstanding levels of employee engagement.
As we look to the future, I’m confident the next survey results will reflect improvements in the areas that presented themselves in the previous round, while at the same time pointing us to new and more effective ways to engage our workforce and advance Penn Medicine as an exceptional health care system for our patients.