Home Health & Hospice Week

To improve worker commitment and cut turnover costs, your company should have more ambassadors than a German Embassy party. So suggests a recent study by Taylor Nel-son Sofres Intersearch, a Philadelphia-based market research firm. Workplace commitment is a pressing issue for the health care industry. Fifty-two percent of U.S. health care workers admit to being less than fully committed to the job they perform and the institutions they work for, the TNS study found. The health care study was part of a larger global workplace study that surveyed 20,000 workers across 33 countries. The TNS study focused on commitment, which is a proven link between turnover, productivity and time missed from work - all big problems facing home care companies. The TNS study classified health care workers into four groups: Ambassadors: Those who are fully committed to the company and to their work (43 percent of survey respondents). Company-oriented: Those who are fully committed to their company, more so than their work and career (5 percent). Career-oriented: Those who are more interested in furthering their career and their needs over the needs of the company (26 percent). Disengaged: They are committed neither to their company nor to their career (26 percent). In contrast to employees in 12 other industries examined, the health care industry has the highest percentage of career-oriented employees (26 vs. 20 percent) and the lowest percentage of company-oriented employees (5 vs. 8 percent), TNS found. But don't despair. There are two relatively simple things you can do to strengthen your employees' level of commitment to you and their work, says Jason Palmer, vice president of TNS' hospital and health insurance practice. 1. Improve Communication  Your employees want to have a sense of where the company's going and what's happening in their field. "They want to know that they 're remembered, that they 're being communicated with, that they're just not coming in punching a clock and being a nobody," Palmer says. Care about your employees enough to tell them what 's going on, he suggests. Keep them in the loop so they feel important.  2. Launch a recognition initiative To work effectively, a recognition program can't be some sort of canned, one-size-fits-all package. "Go to the employees and find out what's important to them and build rewards and recognition from that," Palmer advises. Showing you appreciate your employees is critical, and the best way to do this will vary considerably from organization to organization. It might be a formal incentive program, or it might be the administrator regularly talking with employees and praising good work. "It's not necessarily about winning a trip to the Bahamas for a week but about somebody coming around and saying hello," Palmer [...]