OBJECTIVE:

Improve Team Behaviors,
Communication and Work Flow

Situation
Our client was a large division of major healthcare insurer; responsible for all activities associated with the insurer’s quality standards, grievance and appeal practices, consumer-oriented wellness and preventative health programs, and provider networks. The division was experiencing significant “change management” challenges due to new product introductions, membership growth, pricing and quality tensions, and regulatory changes. Among the challenges were communication gaps, a rise in voluntary turnover among staff, shifting business strategies and a lack of alignment between this group and other functional divisions. The leadership team was largely comprised of physicians and/or nursing professionals – highly technical, well-steeped in the industry, but lacking experience in dealing with change and associated leadership challenges.

Strategy
HResults was engaged to complete an organizational “health” and employee engagement assessment. We conducted a series of employee focus groups – structured yet informal sessions designed to probe a variety of topics including business and performance goal alignment, communication practices, quality of interactions with direct managers, employee learning and development opportunities, reward practices, etc. Results of the assessment were presented to the division’s senior leadership team, together with a set of targeted recommendations to address issues and improve employee engagement levels. Similar feedback was provided to employees within the division, along with coaching and action plans to enable employees to share “ownership” of the engagement process.

Outcome
In addition to a number of changes to the departmental structure and reporting relationships, many of the operational practices were modified to improve effectiveness. These include:

• New communications practices, within management, and between management/employees
• The performance management process was revised to incorporate a more formal goal-setting process between employees and direct managers
• New cross-divisional communication practices were implemented, resulting in improved collaboration between Health Services and other functional divisions
• A decline in voluntary employee turnover was achieved on a year-over-year basis.