COVID Scripting

engagement

Everyone wants to be recognized for their actions; however, we sometimes forget to tell our employees that their hard work is appreciated.

With little effort on our part, saying thank you will definitely go a long way. Outside of doing what they know is best for their patients, establishing long-term goals and employee reward and recognition programs will give the associates incentive to go above and beyond each and every day.

staff engagement

Your first step will be to establish the method of measurement for determining patient satisfaction. This may be based on the third-party vendor that your facility uses or an internal hospital survey that you may be expected to use. Secondly, Food and Nutrition leadership must ensure that the frontline associates understand the metrics you have decided to use. We recommend using your third-party survey score(s) either displayed by mean score or top box score. It is important not to overload your employees with numbers. When this happens, their willingness to understand and decipher what is really important takes a nose dive. Without staff participation and understanding, the data is irrelevant. The installation of pride and knowledge in their work’s impact is the ultimate goal. Although they are reviewing and driving patient satisfaction scores, they must understand that there are the parents and guardians behind those scores, and that every survey represents the experience that a child had while in the hospital.

Talk to your associates about our children’s hospital approach to patient satisfaction. Empower the associates to use materials as needed to best connect with patients and their guests. Provide team members with cues such as: program lanyards, buttons, ID holders, masks, bibs and encourage the use of these items to engage patients.

Employee satisfaction and engagement is the foundation of our department’s performance. Without employee satisfaction, there is no foundation for other programs. Be sure that you understand employee needs and as managers, react quickly to the employees’ requests so that a positive working environment is maintained.

employee teams/councils

When you begin to implement your patient experience strategies, you can ensure buy-in with staff by inviting a number of your hourly associates to participate in employee teams or councils with the sole purpose of defining, honing, and implementing patient experience strategies. Their feedback and insight is invaluable as you develop your programs. Furthermore, the support that they will provide due to their new found ownership of the patient experience program will be helpful in validating your workforce’s active participation in making experiences better for your patients.

We want our staff to show up each day and feel worth in themselves and what they do. We want them to come to work not just for a paycheck but because they are part of a team working for a greater cause. We want our employees to feel that they are part of the decision-making process and that we solicit their opinions before changes are made. Food and Nutrition employees gain satisfaction (and ownership) from the improvements that they help to develop. This will show in their engagement during Gr8 start meetings, ownership of service opportunities and resolution, and in their consistent approach to how they personalize care for their patients.

A good way to ensure an actively engaged staff is with an Employee Action Council. Through this employee-led committee, the employees have a platform to express improvement ideas. Ideas are brought to the management, which determines their feasibility. This practice allows the staff to believe and know that their voices are valued, increases self-esteem, and promotes staff ownership of the department through implemented ideas. Management should close the loop with the committee by explaining why ideas have or have not been implemented. Example: C.A.R.E. Committee One of the most effective tools available to create a culture around a customercentered department is the reward and recognition of our own department employees. Although employee satisfaction is the sum of many factors, time after time, a driving indicator is an employer’s full appreciation for work done. Employee involvement, feeling part of the team, and getting acknowledgment of their work rank high on the employee list of satisfaction factors, often outweighing what would be considered an obvious choice: compensation. Furthermore, we’ve found that this increased employee engagement has a large impact on how our staff treat our customers and is, therefore, important to patient satisfaction.

Making your entire department aware of each other’s’ successes will encourage everyone to strive for excellence. Many leaders recognize their staff at department meetings and invite management or other dignitaries to attend. Still others use newsletters and bulletin boards to display those employees who meet or exceed their goal. Recognition may be provided monthly and quarterly, allowing them time to take ownership of their achievements.

Managers, as well as staff, should be eligible for reward and recognition in their responsible shifts/areas. Carrying this effort through the entire department will further hardwire the existence of the program.

We recommend the establishment of monthly reward and recognition incentives as well as quarterly reward and recognition incentives. For instance, provide employees with a gift card on a monthly basis for achieving their published monthly goal. If the employee is successful for each month in the quarter, place their name in a drawing for a more substantial prize. This is an inexpensive, yet tangible way of rewarding your staff. Make it fun!

employee recognition

nursing engagement

Stating that nursing is one of our most important customers just doesn’t seem to cut it. The nursing staff at your facility can make or break our program. That’s why it is essential that you have a positive and effective working relationship with nursing. Many leaders believe that their relationship with the nurse manager is the indicator on how well the overall department relationship is with nursing. Unfortunately, that is a short-sighted mindset. A true gauge of your department’s relationship with nursing lies in the interaction by your staff with line nurses and nursing assistants. It’s imperative that we create a constructive, friendly relationship with these individuals.

Talk with nursing staff to ensure they get as excited about the program as we are. Do your best to incorporate our program in communications with nursing, as appropriate, and share all of the great things we are doing to engage our patients.

Here are some proven best practices to help ensure your relationship with nursing is strong and productive:

Power Plate Reviews

The opportunity for nursing to taste the patient food, measure it’s presentation, temperature, and quality, and provide honest feedback on where we can improve our meals can never be taken for granted. Conducting Power Plates, every week, allows us to create an environment in which nursing can love the Morrison provides and manage it up to the patients that they care for. Who wouldn’t want to try X-Ray Vision Bites or Mini PB&J Sandwiches? The key to Power Plate reviews is ensuring nursing buy-in by taking their feedback and applying it to action. This will result in nursing speaking to children and family members about a favorite item they tried and suggesting that the child order that item. Consistency with this approach will change the perception of “hospital food” as nursing gets to believe in the Power of Food through tasting and continuous education.

Shared Celebrations

Those who criticize nurses when we don’t reach our goals are being shortsighted. It’s critical that we celebrate with them when we achieve our goals. They are, in fact, crucial to our success. This might include a cake, cookies, balloons, or fruit. It really doesn’t matter. Tell the nursing staff “thank you” in a big way. This will help build better relationships between nursing and Food and Nutrition Services.

Nursing Thank You Cards

When a nurse tells the parent/guardian of a child how amazing our Dining Associate is, or when a Nurse’s aide clears the over bed table because he/she knows that the Dining Associate will be arriving on the unit soon, working together to care for the patient must never be questioned and should never be taken for granted. These caregivers need to be recognized for their dedication to including our associates as part of their unit team. Whether it’s an aide, Nurse Manager, or frontline nurse, we need to be consistent in having our managers and associates share their gratitude, through thank you cards and congratulatory emails, for a partnership that will allow us to best serve the patients.

Joint Rounding

If you’ve not done so already, establish joint rounds with your nursing management team. This is an effective way of ensuring that both Food and Nutrition Services and nursing have an appreciation for what is happening on a unit-by-unit basis. Joint rounds also give the FANS director an opportunity to reset expectations or provide for quick and efficient service recovery. Like each facility we serve, each and every nursing unit is different, and each may employ staff and house patients with different perceptions of temperature, timeliness, courtesy and the overall meal experience. Simply stated, joint rounding ensures that everyone is on the same page.