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3 Ways to Make Your Hospital a Great Place to Work

 |  By Cora Nucci  
   January 20, 2014

Has your organization resolved to be a better place to work in 2014? Good for you. Now what's your strategy?

Do you know the secret to making healthcare organizations a great place to work?



Chris Van Gorder, President and CEO of Scripps Health

That's a trick question. Since no two health systems are exactly alike, there are multiple ways to answer the question. Just look at the diversity of top-ranked systems on the latest list of "Fortune's 100 Places to Work" based on data compiled by Great Place to Work. Twelve hospitals or health systems are on Fortune list published this month. And four are in the top 25. Given that roughly one in five jobs in the U.S. is a healthcare job, that's not bad.

But running Southern Ohio Medical Center, the top-ranking healthcare organization this year and #18 overall, is not the same as running the Mayo Clinic, which came in as the tenth-highest-ranked healthcare organization and #53 overall. SOMC has 2,401 employees and Mayo has 44,297.

But there are some strategies that exceptional workplaces share. Good leaders tailor them to fit.

1. Make Workplace Excellence a Core Metric in Performance Evaluations

Scripps Health has earned a place on Fortune's list for the seventh consecutive year. Chris Van Gorder, president and CEO, says Scripps' effort to be acknowledged as a great place to work goes back many years.

After a couple of early attempts failed to land Scripps a coveted spot on Fortune's list, Van Gorder made workplace quality one of management's four core metrics in performance evaluations, along with patient satisfaction, quality, and financial measures.

The successful effort is driven by Van Gorder's philosophy that healthcare is delivered by people, not technology, which he has been working to instill in the organization’s operations. “My job is to take care of people so they can take care of patients.”

In the early years, Scripps treated the Great Places to Work survey feedback as an independent employee survey. Incorporating the results into the overall planning process was "hit or miss," he says.

Now the takeaways are built into Scripps' organizational planning process. The responses "are about more than money," says Van Gorder, who says he reads every comment. The outcomes from employee comments include:

  • Lifecycle benefits for employees
  • Retrofits of aging facilities
  • Keeping staff informed of changes in healthcare
  • A fair process for promotions
  • Career advancement opportunities

"We'll never get everything everybody wants," Van Gorder notes. "You get an extreme response of asking for something ridiculous, and then at the other extreme of someone just being thankful for a job, and everything in between. You take it all in context."

Van Gorder made waves when he announced that Scripps would cut spending by $300 million by 2016—without laying off any of the 12,800 employees. The no-layoff policy "is pretty profound in healthcare or any industry." But he's even more proud of Scripps' seven-year tenure on the list. "The hard job these days is sustaining performance," he says.

2. Make Employee Health and Wellness a Priority
You've probably seen the reports about the failure of corporate wellness programs, but the jury seems to still be out. The Great Places to Work survey found that:

  • Ninety-seven companies on this year's list pick up at least 60% of the cost of employees' annual health care premiums, and 68 pay for 80% or more of those costs.
  • 95% offer flu shots
  • A majority offer high blood pressure (86%) and cholesterol (84%) health screenings

>>>Employee Training - Source: Great Places to Work

The tide of favorability on corporate wellness programs may be turning as employees' out-of-pocket healthcare costs continue to ratchet up.

3.Grow Your Own Leaders
If you're offering tuition reimbursement as an employee benefit, good for you and for them. But there's something even better that you could be doing to prepare he next generation of leaders: offer on-the-job training.

While companies on and off the Best Companies list tend to offer the same amount of tuition reimbursement, the top-rated organizations offer nearly double the hours of on-the-job training. Usage of tuition reimbursement programs is shown to be marginally higher at companies not appearing on the list.

Greatness doesn't it come easily. It needs to be backed by a philosophy and a strategy.

--with Ed Prewitt

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