HR Pulse - Winter 2008 - (Page 46)

Hardwiring Accountability Sustaining Results through an Objective Leader Evaluation System By Dan Collard Why do so many initiatives fail in organizations? There is an absence of an objective accountability system. 46 HR Pulse Winter 2008 W People Reduced turnover Reduced vacancies Reduced agency costs Reduced overtime Reduced physicals & cost to orient ith 80,000 employees and 12,000 physicians at 116 hospitals in 28 states, Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems (CHS) is the nation’s largest for-profit health care delivery system. In fact, CHSaffiliated hospitals served more than 850,000 patients in 2007. When CHS acquired 56 Triad hospitals in the summer of 2007, it was eager to quickly align both organizations culturally and operationally, a process that typically takes organizations many years to achieve. “We credit our operational excellence today to the development of a standardized and centralized business model,” explains Wayne T. Smith, chairman, president, and CEO of CHS. “Standardizing all leaders’ goals and evaluations was a big part of our success because it established the same priorities organization wide.” By aligning organizational systems and performance management under ﬁve Pillars—People, Service, Quality, Finance, and Growth—CHS was able to develop 15 leader evaluation goals that cascaded to 4,000 leaders—anyone with supervisory responsibility—at all 116 facilities. The CHS Web-based Leader Evaluation ManagerTM (LEM) holds all leaders accountable for meeting these goals through the use of objective and weighted leader evaluations. This then forms the foundation for its organization-wide practice of evidence-based leadership, using objective evidence to ensure excellence as measured by goal metrics under each pillar. The Foundation for Results Why do so many initiatives fail in organizations? There is an absence of an objective accountability system. As a result, organizational priorities are not met even though the majority of leaders receive strong performance reviews. And yet, the stakes for organizational performance have never been higher. High employee turnover is costly. Most sources estimate that the individual turnover cost is equal to one to three times a person’s annual compensation (salary plus beneﬁts). While CHS is just a year and a half into the rollout and tracking of its standardized goals, results are already trending well. For example, the CHS corporate goal is to reduce employee turnover at all facilities below 15 percent. The organization-wide focus on reducing turnover also has boosted employee satisfaction. CHS now publicly reports clinical quality data to consumers who can compare and choose hospitals by logging on to hospitalcompare.hhs.gov. Reimbursement is at stake too, as CHS plans to award greater increases to hospitals that demonstrate higher clinical quality. As a result, there is a real opportunity for human resources executives to impact positive organizational outcomes in a dramatic way, by leading the implementation of an objective evaluation system that achieves these results. What a Good Evaluation Looks Like To learn if your organization has an effective leadership evaluation system in place, pull the most recent performance evaluations of high-performing leaders in your organization. Do they match the overall results your organization achieved last year? Is it possible for a leader to Bottom-line Results Service Reduced claims Reduced legal expenses Reduced malpractice expense Physician Satisfaction Patient Satisfaction Quality Improved clinical outcomes – decreased nosocomial infections Reduced medically unnecessary days and delays Reduced readmits Reduced medication errors Finance Improved operating income Decreased cost per adjusted discharge Improved collections Reduced accounts receivable days Reduced advertising costs Growth Higher volume Increased revenue Decreased left without treatment in the ED Reduced outpatient no-shows Increased physician activity Community Increased Philanthropy Organizations that use an objective, weighted and measurable leader evaluation tool to track and manage priorities typically achieve these results in People, Service, Quality, Finance, and Growth. >> http://hospitalcompare.hhs.gov

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of HR Pulse - Winter 2008

HR Pulse - Winter 2008 Contents Pulse Points Executive Director’s Letter President’s Message HR Leader Profile: Karmen Reid Advocacy is for Everyone A Case Study in Raising Voices Diversity Management Measuring What Matters Bullying as Gender Harassment Combat Workforce Changes Hardwiring Accountability Immigration Frustration HR and Education Making Exit Interviews Count Management Styles that Enhance Intrinsic Motivation Backup Care Fact or Fiction 10 Ways to Lose Your Best People Advertisers’ Index

HR Pulse - Winter 2008

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