Recognize good employees
Recognizing top performers in an organization is key to improvingcompany morale, which leads to improved treatment of customers.
“There is a different feel, there is a different behavior in an environment like that versus constantly hearing the bitching and moaning, if you will,” Thomas says.
Through documentation, the organization now has records of whois doing what, which helps distinguish between the high, middle andlow performers.
While lower-level employees have annual evaluations, managersmust show vice presidents how they as managers will fit into theorganization and how they will succeed.
“In many cases, what we have done is tried to align the wholeorganization, and we’ve done it under what we call pillars,” he says.“It’s service, quality, people, growth and finance. We develop it for theinstitution, then each one of our managers will present a plan on howthey fit into those particular goals and pillars and how they would
contribute to that. Then they are evaluatedbased upon the results of that.
“There is the expectation that each vicepresident approves those goals of the managers, and sits down every 90 days and evaluates, where are we with this plan? Are weaccomplishing what we had planned to do?Do we need to make adjustments or are wemeasuring the wrong thing?”
Thomas says leaders can sometimes spendtoo much time dealing with low performersand ignore top performers.
“You have to engage in the employee andrecognize when they do a great job,” hesays. “Because we know, unfortunately inmanagement, our low performers who arethe ones we spend a lot of our time withbecause they bring up the complaints, theissues, you name it.
“We don’t spend enough time recognizingthose who do a great job. So, it’s a move toswitch that time spent with your low performers to the high performers in encouraging them and recognizing the great jobthey do. So, that sets the example foreveryone else.”
Though the hospital does provide recognition through merit increases, it’s not alwaysabout money.
“It is recognition that ‘I am doing a goodjob’ because in many cases we didn’t evenrecognize them before,” he says. “Theyweren’t the squeaky wheel so we didn’t evenacknowledge them. So, a lot of it is acknowledgement. Thanking them verbally, in writing, encouraging them to continue andimprove because we all can do that — recognizing them in forums in front of their coworkers. When you can pat somebody onthe back, you do that public
ly
.”
While spending more time with top performers is important, you don’t want totake your eye off the low performersbecause they can have a negative effect ontop performers.
“Your good performers and midperformers, they know who the low performersare,” he says. “When you don’t deal withthem, it creates more work for them tocover that and they, again, saw that theyare the ones that got all the attention.”
In the past, Thomas says dealing with lowperformers was hard to do because thedocumentation was haphazard.
Now that there is documentation, it’s moreconsistent.
“We indicate where we feel they are notperforming up to par or what our expectations are and then outline for them the way to improve,” he says. “They are given anopportunity to improve, unless it’s severe. Ifthey don’t, we do counsel them out.”
Sometimes, low performers, as well assome high and middle performers, will alsobe slow to adapt to a change or may reject italtogether.
“How that was handled is, ‘We understandyour comments, we understand your questions, but this is where we are going, and wewant to have you on our journey. But, if youchoose not to, that is entirely up to you. Thisis the direction we’re going in,’” he says.
Thomas says there were some employeeswho wanted to do the best job but didn’tthink the change Thomas and his team wanted to make was the right way to go. Some ofthose employees are no longer with theorganization.
“We gave them an opportunity and, afterawhile and in many instances, our vice presidents, our managers knew there was a problem but didn’t know how to deal with it inthe past,” he says. “It’s not comfortable, andI don’t like people who find they enjoy firingpeople or disciplining people. It’s difficult todo, and they didn’t know how to do it.Therefore, people were sliding. But theyalready knew intuitively and by their measurements that certain employees were notas competent or were problem people.”
Results have so far been positive. Revenuein 2007 was up $18 million compared to2006. But Thomas knows that the work toimprove his organization will never be done.
“With any human organization … it is anongoing effort, and you will never end thatjourney,” he says. “It is constant remindingand monitoring and participation. It’s participation at all levels.”
HOW TO REACH: The Washington Hospital, (724) 225-7000 orwww.washingtonhospital.org
