Set a vision and goals
When Hoeflinger first came to Cincinnati, she took some time to
meet with her employees and some of Anthem’s 3.3 million members to learn more about what was important to them. This
allowed her to establish a vision for the company to “make health
care more accessible and understandable” and also to set goals
that are aligned with that vision.
“That’s the opportunity the leader gets when they first come into
a position, is to take stock of what’s been going on, where we’re
headed and where we need to head,” she says.
Hoeflinger traveled around the state and met with different
groups, from brokers to employer groups, to understand the needs
of customers in the different parts of Ohio.
You can make time for these types of meetings by putting external meetings on the same agenda as an internal trip.
For example, a business trip to Cleveland might include meeting
with her leadership team there, and then getting out and spending
time with brokers, groups and members.
“We do make sure we balance the internal and external,” she
says. “Certainly, there are weeks when I feel like I’m more external than internal, and then you just have that internal time clock
where you can feel you’re not hitting on all cylinders, you haven’t
been where you need to be, and you just roll back around again.”
Once Hoeflinger learned what customers were looking for, she
met with her leadership team to discuss the priorities and what the
company would be able to accomplish. You then have to set internal goals that can help you reach the vision. They also have to be
specific to each employee.
“The key is linking everyone’s job to the broader goals of the
company,” she says. “Associates want to know how their work
impacts our results. Everyone has an important role. My job is to
help them understand how broad their impact is on our success.”
The goals also need to be something that you can come back to
and measure employee productivity against.
“The goals have to be smart — they have to be specific and measurable,” she says. “… And then you have to come back at the end
of the year and say, ‘Did we hit them, and how did we do on each
one of these?’”
Every employee at Anthem has a performance plan set for them
each year. The plan has five specific goals for their area of work,
and then actions to take to meet those goals that are aligned with
the company vision.
“You have to be able to check back — is there information I can
gather to find out whether or not this was accomplished?”
Hoeflinger says. “You never want to set a goal that you are going
to have to argue about later. You need to have the information and
technology to be able to verify what happened.”
Hoeflinger has formal meetings with associates each quarter to
check how they are doing on reaching goals and to address any
problems sooner than later.
“Your management team should always know where they stand
in your mind according to their plan,” she says. “You don’t want to
wait and check in at the end of the year, because then they haven’t
hit for a full year. You do need to do check-ins — I certainly would-n’t wait for a formal check-in if I thought something wasn’t working, that would be more of a pick up the telephone and let’s get an
opportunity to meet and talk that through.”
Employee bonuses are also tied to the goals. Employees receive
a score at the end of the year on a scale of 1 to 5; that then goes
into a system that will determine the bonus for the year.
For example, if you score a 3, that score goes into the system and
says where you are on the pay range and what is recommended for
an increase.
“Their increase is specific to how they scored on the performance
plan,” Hoeflinger says. “Key to being successful is lining incentives up with what you want, so the goals and the incentives
have to be lined up together.”
Having a vision and goals in place allows employees to understand what they need to do to move the company forward.
“People want to understand how they fit, people want to understand how the work they do improves and moves us forward, and people
want to understand whether or not they’ve done a good job,”
Hoeflinger says.
While it may take time to set up those performance plans and
meet with employees about goals, there is a better return on
investment.
“You can be more effective in delivering a strategy and what you
deliver is going to be more relevant to the customer,” she says.
