Healthcare Organizations Overwhelmingly Prioritize Employee Feedback as Central to their Workforce Engagement Strategies

Brought to you by WBR Insights

Quality patient experiences come from highly engaged employees—so, what parts of the employee experience can add or take away from patient care?

In 2019, HR healthcare teams are building more sustainable and compelling employee engagement strategies. But they are doing more than rethinking top-down engagement initiatives; they are adopting more receptive approaches to improving engagement with their care providers.

In our upcoming report, Making Employees Feel Cared for and Heard through Comprehensive Engagement Strategies, we benchmark the latest trends in HR healthcare employee engagement and uncover how healthcare organizations are transforming how they motivate employees to deliver superior care solutions. Employee focus areas will also include:

            §  Listening to employees to drive changes for a more progressive business.

            §  Rethinking rewards for different talent pools.

            §  Prioritizing employees’ both physical and mental well-being.

Download the FULL REPORT to learn more.

The Direct Relationship between Employee and Patient Care

This brief provides an analysis of the initial research for the report. Our survey respondents ranged from healthcare practitioners to executive leaders, most of which work in the HR field in healthcare services and facilities organizations.

Industry trends suggest that healthcare professionals see a direct correlation between the quality of company leadership’s employee engagement strategies and the quality of patient care. Nearly all survey respondents (89%) agree with this sentiment. 

In their open responses, respondents agree: if you ‘treat your employees right they treat their patients right,’ as one respondent puts it. ‘Engagement programs lead to better patient care,’ according to one director of HR recruitment. “Communication and transparency within the organization improves employee engagement which, in turn, improves the quality of care our employees provide to their patients.”

Employee Feedback Critical to Improving Patient-Employee Environments

Healthcare professionals are formally acting upon their feelings that employee engagement influences patient care, as the vast majority prioritizes improving employee experiences as part of their organization-wide HR strategies. 

Most organizations (53%) consider the way they engage, inspire, and improve experiences for employees to be important, meaning it is among many of their strategic priorities. Meanwhile, over one third consider this strategy critical—it is at the forefront of their HR strategy.

Respondents were vocal about these strategic priorities. In specific fields, like private duty homecare, organizations prioritize employee well-being—and listening to employee feedback—due to the limited visibility they have in those home practicing environments. Generally, respondents highlight ‘blind spots’ to their visibility into employee life as target areas for which employee feedback is critical.

In fact, when asked to select one method that best aligns with organizations’ recent approach to employee engagement, respondents overwhelmingly chose listening to employees to drive changes for a more progressive business.

This stands in stark contrast to the less popular choices. In other words, organizations are prioritizing a receptive approach versus top-down strategies such as developing new value propositions, developing new reward systems, or implementing new guidelines to improve physical and mental well-being.

Summary

What conclusions can we draw about how healthcare leaders are prioritizing employee engagement? Mot notably, they perceive employee engagement as an outcome-related effort in which patients themselves are directly affected by its success. But rather than imposing even rewards-based strategies to improve employee relations, organizations are increasing their receptiveness to employee input as a direct contributor to future business development.

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