Hard Line on Staff Rules Increases Retention Rate

IHC in Utah has found that sometimes when you expect more from your employees and their managers, they deliver more.

Intermountain Health Care System foodservice

Applicants who make it through the system's human resource department screening are invited to interview en masse, and are asked a set of questions that are meant to encourage potential hires to reveal more about themselves than simply where they last worked. "We'll ask questions like 'What did you learn from your last work experience?' They have to expound and not give just a simple 'yes' or 'no'‚" says Kenney.

Once the department decides to hire an applicant, he or she must still pass all pre-employment background checks and drug screening before attending the system's mandatory orientation process. The department now avoids having to fire just-hired people who fail the screening after having been entered on the payroll or beginning orientation.

Internal opportunities: It also tweaked its own interdepartmental orientation process. Under the new system, existing employees may apply to be a trainer for new staff, and if accepted, they receive a 5% deferential for the shifts during which they train someone. "Not everybody can do this, only a few," says Kenney. "They were honored to be given the responsibility and took it seriously."

In the area of scheduling, much of the department's focus was on standardizing divergent practices in the region's facilities. This included setting unwavering policies that managers can follow, making clear the rules and consequences for not following them. How and to what degree an employee is held accountable for his or her actions no longer rides on the temperament or management style of individual supervisors.

"We have a definite policy for both attendance and arriving to work in a timely manner, and those policies are specific and measurable in numbers," Kenney asserts. "I can tell you, we have terminated people for attendance and punctuality issues, and they have been good employees, but we just had to be strong about it. We had to say, 'How can you be a good employee, if you can't get here on time?'."

Holding employees accountable to hard and fast rules such as strict limits on sick days and absenteeism, perhaps counter-intuitively, is a morale booster for many employees, particularly long-term employees. "They are so happy that we are holding people accountable for attendance and punctuality," says Kenney.

Recognizing the talent: IHC's Urban Central Region continues to hone the professional development arm of the SOAP program. Kenney says showing appreciation for employees is key. The spotlight board, for example, recognizes new hires and introduces them to the department. Similar boards honoring long-term employees are posted in the retail areas of the hospitals, allowing customers and other staff members to get to know them.

Other initiatives in this arena include an informal mentoring program in which experienced employees help newer ones through adjustment periods and a certified dietary manager course beginning next year for supervisors who don't have formal training.

The result of all these initiatives and others within the SOAP program is measurable in more than just in the lower turnover rate itself, but in the dollar savings realized by having to hire fewer people each year. IHC estimates a savings of $137,000 for 2004. The natural correlation between low turnover and increased employee satisfaction is also evident, employee satisfaction is up 12.5%.

For these efforts, IHC won a Spotlight on Innovation Award from the National Society for Healthcare Foodservice Management this year.