New Hanover Regional Medical Center’s success hinges, in part, on having engaged employees. Our engagement team is dedicated to ensuring that NHRMC employees are fully absorbed and enthusiastic about their work. Furthermore, we want our employees to recognize that the interests of the NHRMC system benefit the community. We want our employees to be advocates in Leading Our Community to Outstanding Health, starting with themselves and their families.
In an ideal state, all staff would align with NHRMC’s values and goals and would be engaged in organizational and community initiatives. To achieve this, NHRMC must foster open, honest, and transparent communications and ensure that staff recognizes that they are valued, ultimately creating a culture of engagement.
Communications Action Plan
One of our initiatives is to improve communications, so that all employees are aware of the benefits and opportunities that are available to them.
We are working to:
- Determine what messages should be distributed to all employees via email
- Determine what messages should be displayed on video screens, currently located in parking deck and Medical Staff Office lounge
- Research communication opportunities via Voalte phones
- Enhance the CapsLive calendar to include more events
For research, we completed a communications survey in June. From 2,402 survey responses, we learned that staff prefer Email and CapsLive for important information and nice to know messages. For urgent messages, desktop users prefer Email and CapsLive; other users prefer to receive text messages.
Even though emails are generally preferred, too many emails can be burdensome. Employees and providers expressed concern about the volume and inefficiency of our current system.
Our next step is to work with Marketing and other key departments to implement a communications plan based on the results of the communications survey.
Social/Recreational Engagement
Our team is studying information about social/recreational engagement, based on local leading companies and our current state (do we need more activities or do we need to ensure communication regarding the activities we currently have?)
Our plan includes:
- Visits with Live Oak Bank and TekMountain for information gathering regarding employee engagement activities offered
- Future visit with nCino to discuss employee engagement
- Seek opportunities for better engagement from the Employee Engagement Survey
Recognition Program for Volunteerism
Inclusions Team
This team was developed as a result of initial A3 findings that identified a lack of cohesion by member entities within our system. Member entities identified the following: branding/marketing opportunities, communication gaps among staff regarding who we are and who to include in work and projects, some services are an afterthought, and a lack of awareness that others exist and can contribute. While we realize it will take time to change our current culture, our initial steps include the following:
- Sharing recommendations for a system approach to branding
- Reviewing the New Employee Orientation program
- Identifying opportunities in the Employee Engagement Survey to strengthen inclusion
- Implementing other countermeasures identified to strengthen inclusion
Overall Reflection
While we have great momentum, and have observed some systemwide engagement throughout this initiative, our efforts to ensure we have a culture of engagement have just begun. During the next few months, we will reorganize teams and collaborate with other initiative owners for even greater momentum, creativity, and depth in order to address the next phase of employee engagement. Please feel free to let us know if you have other suggestions.