Reinforce the message
After the message was constructed, it was Roth and his team’s job to communicate it to the company’s employees, which they did in early 2005.
“We began speaking to our mission statement, and every communication that we have, we try to refer something to the communication,” he says. “If it’s a letter from myself to our team members, I try to end that letter with, ‘Lead our community to improved health’ or work that into the communication in some way.”
The company sent out a letter to employees discussing the new mission and value statement and noting that everyone would have an opportunity to receive more information from their managers or executives. But, you don’t always need to create new ways to communicate a new message. The team at Aultman used its current pyramid communication process, which includes a number of ways executives, managers and employees can meet with each other.
For example, the company has management brown-bag meetings where, once a month, the whole management team is brought together, and executives began communicating the mission an
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values to that group.
Managers were given framed posters with the mission statement and values on them so that they could display the posters in every department within the organization.
“Commit to the process,” he says. “Get the leadership team engaged in the communication, and don’t move away from the process once started.”
Aultman also used employee exchange meetings, where an executive will take eight to 10 people to a breakfast, lunch or dinner and spend an hour talking about the organization and what is new.
Roth took the opportunity at his employee exchange meetings to talk about the new statement and ask them what they thought about it. He would then ask them how their department supports the statement and how they can relate to it.
“Then it starts connecting to the job that I do at the bedside,” he says. “Or at a radiology exam room or in our college of nursing. All of a sudden, it starts picking up some steam because people start seeing the connection between the mission of the organization and the job that I do every day. These things are connected.”
Roth would also start meetings by seeing how many of the company’s values employees could remember as a fun way of reminding everyone of the importance of the company’s values. He also attends each new employee orientation to talk about the mission and value statement, and the company also tries to mention something about it in the company newsletter.
“It’s just constant reinforcement,” he says. “The one thing is it’s not the flavor of the day. Sometimes they’ll say, ‘That’s what they’re on today down there in the hallway, and we’ll wait them out and see if this one sticks.’
“That’s not what it was. It was, ‘We’re going to do this, and we’re going to stick with it.’”
Remember, people will not buy in right away, so try to communicate your new message at every opportunity.
“Understand that this process will take time, and the larger the organization, the longer the time,” he says. “Reinforce your new statements through frequent communication at every opportunity along the way.”
Aultman has seen positive results with the new mission and values, along with the way they communicated it. Roth estimates it took about three years from when the process started to when employees grasped the results.
“I believe our team liked the idea of the new mission statement and RESPECT values statements,” he says. “These are simple, easy-to-follow statements about our attitudes and behaviors in our organization. We can see the difference in the way our employees communicate and interact with each other, their patients and customers, and visitors to our facilities.”
The company also measures commitment to the values through the annual Gallup Q12 Employee Satisfaction Survey, which uses 12 questions to measure employee engagement within an organization.
“Engaged employees are on board with the mission and values of the organization,” he says. “Aultman has been participating in this survey since 2005, and we have improved our employee participation and our engagement score each year.”
How to reach: Aultman Health Foundation, (800) 686-9373 or www.aultman.org