Sentara Healthcare operates more than 100 care giving sites, including eight acute care hospitals with a total of 1,911 beds, nine outpatient care facilities, seven nursing centers, three assisted living centers, nine advanced imaging centers and about 380 primary care and multi-specialty physicians. Sentara also offers a full range of award-winning health coverage plans, home health and hospice services, physical therapy and rehabilitation services, including Nightingale – the region’s first air ambulance service.
Sentara is in a very competitive healthcare market with a large transient population based in Norfolk, Virginia. With the goal of enhancing the employees work environment at the local level and enhancing overall communications, a focused and concise Members of the Team survey was developed.
Sentara Healthcare first partnered with The Jackson Group to conduct a Members of the Team survey in the summer of 2004 to gauge the current work environment of the employee population. Sentara Healthcare had a history of surveying their employees. The Jackson Group was able to easily transition the survey process from one instrument and scoring scheme to another and meet the needs of Sentara Healthcare. A web survey was the main vehicle for employees to participate in the process across the system and touchpad computers were provided as a supplement if online access was an issue at a location. As with all of The Jackson Group’s products, the survey was customized using system and facility statements and the Work Environment Index to both meet the specific needs of the Sentara System and their individual entities while providing industry benchmarks. The majority of the inquiries focus on the immediate work environment.
Following the first work climate survey in 2004 the human resources operations team and leadership developed a plan of action for survey-follow through. It included the following steps:
2004 Action Steps
- Presentation of results to Executive Team at each entity and system level
- Presentation of results to Department Leaders
- Design of one page employee report of results with graph to all employees
- Conduct meetings with employees to share results in every department and facility
- Publish results via house-wide publications and use of a score card to highlight results of the survey
- Develop action plans
- Executive Team develops action plans, shares with Department
- Leaders/Employees and holds department leadership accountable for Action planning and set goals based on the WEI and participation for system, facility, and departments
- Implement action plans
- Monitor of implementation (VPs and Department Leaders)
- Continue with follow-up communications with employees by Department, Facility, and System wide including email, written publications, and intranet
Action Steps 2005 – 2009
- Repeat steps from 2004 each year and in 2007 conducted an educational summit on employee involvement to focus on best system practices and develop leadership.
- Implement WEI training session for lower scoring departments throughout system.
- Track other organizational metrics with WEI scores including one key metric – employee voluntary turnover
All the survey results indicate employees’ views of receiving communication, feedback, appreciation, caring sensitive leadership, and strongly positive views of their “department being a good place to work” are among the best within The Jackson Group database. The focus on communication and support for departmental leadership development along with other initiatives has resulted in positive survey outcomes that indicate a high level of engagement in Sentara employees. For example, almost 83% of survey respondents plan to be working at Sentara in twelve months, 89% indicate job satisfaction, and over 90% would recommend Sentara to friends and family. These survey outcomes along with others support the importance of the continuing strategy of annual assessment of the work environment, taking action on survey results, and holding leadership accountable for responding to survey data. This continued focus on investing in human capital is even more critical during the challenging times of the world economy and the changing health care system.
