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As O’Toole began to circulate the tool kit to his managers for them to use, he took stock of the environment into which it was being introduced.
“When there is no crisis occurring and you’re just trying to improve, there’s no urgency necessarily,” O’Toole says. “When you’re looking at a situation where there is more of a problem or a crisis developing, then you’re going to want to accelerate the program to implement change or improvement. We’re reinforcing what we’re already doing, so that’s not scary to people.”
While the urgency was not high, O’Toole wanted the tool kit to be used and wanted to know how effectively it was fulfilling its goal. Doing so often comes down to simple common sense.
“What are the data points it affects?” O’Toole says. “If you’re working on employee satisfaction, you would look at turnover. If you’re looking at your training programs, you might look at whether the training programs you’ve accelerated have improved the area of productivity that maybe you were training about. Just a lot of common sense and connect-the-dots logical analysis of what the business metrics are that should be impacted by the area you’re focused on.
“You know when the business has been performing well over the years and you know what those data points are. If those data points move in a different direction, you need to understand why. Analyze the way the business is running through the information you can glean when it’s doing well. You use those to benchmark against. When there are variations against the benchmarking, you can get into it.
“Look at areas of your company where your gut tells you you can have improvement and then look for processes or systems to put in over top of them that will train individuals to avoid mistakes whenever possible.”
The tool kit has led to a reduction in employee turnover, dropping from 28 percent when the project was introduced in 2007 to 20 percent currently, its lowest level in six years.
O’Toole says the key is to keep these types of initiatives fresh in the minds of your people and regularly remind them of why they are important to the company’s success.
“If you don’t train people as to what the expectation is for the tools that we want them to use, you shouldn’t be surprised when they don’t use them,” O’Toole says.
How to reach: VITAS Innovative Hospice Care, (866) 418-4827 or www.vitas.com
