At Children's Hospital and Medical Center in Omaha, Neb., people are excited to come to work.
The hospital has an overall employee engagement rate of 89 percent — 16 percent higher than the national benchmark for children's hospitals and 20 percent higher than the healthcare average.
Janel Allen, the hospital's chief people officer, learns a lot about the organization's 4,000 team members through an annual employee engagement survey. She takes their feedback into account to cultivate an environment that reflects their needs — not only for the workers' sake, but for the patients', too.
"We are seeing trends: Where there are high patient experience scores, [those departments] have high engagement scores as well," Ms. Allen told Becker's. "We believe there is direct correlation. If you invest in your team, they're highly engaged, you're going to have strong quality and safety outcomes, strong patient experience."
The hospital's engagement scores have been trending upward for the past few years, which Ms. Allen attributes — at least in part — to new programs constructed around employee feedback. Overall retention has grown 5.5 percent since 2021, and first-year retention has risen 2.2 percent.
Here are three ways Children's Hospital and Medical Center responds to employee feedback to keep engagement high:
A paid volunteering program
After the pandemic, employees told the hospital they wanted to give back to their community and utilize their talents in a new way. Ms. Allen's team is supporting their efforts with BeInvolved, a paid volunteering program.
Full-time employees receive eight hours of paid volunteering time per year, while part-time employees get four. They coordinate with their supervisors to choose a service time and nonprofit partner organization, many of which are aligned with Children's own mission: providing housing, food, mental health services and transportation to improve community health.
"As we started to focus on building out our advocacy arm along with clinical education and research, this came alive," Ms. Allen said. "We knew that there's a lot that we can do for social determinants of health within our community, and our team members want to be part of that."
Since the program launched last fall, employees have logged 1,250 hours of volunteer time, according to Ms. Allen.
"Research indicates if people give their time and gifts, they have positive experiences themselves," Ms. Allen said, pointing to improved physician and mental health outcomes, a sense of purpose, and a chance to build and nurture relationships. "We wanted to make sure that people have the time to do this and that financially, we're able to help people as they're going out and doing good — for themselves, but also Children's and our organization."
Expanded tuition reimbursement
Children's is not immune to workforce challenges facing the healthcare industry, Ms. Allen said. To help build the workforce pipeline, they have expanded their tuition reimbursement program to employees' spouses and dependents who are pursuing degrees in the healthcare field.
"It's great because it's a retention for the employee to stay with our organization, but a great benefit if they're not using it themselves, for one of their dependents to be able to use," Ms. Allen said.
Twenty-five people are currently enrolled in the program, primarily children of current Children's employees. Their areas of study cover tough-to-fill healthcare roles: nurses, respiratory therapists, behavioral health techs, laboratory professionals.
The hospital is also setting up "stepping stone" opportunities that allow enrolled individuals to work over the summer or on breaks. This helps the organization remain connected with students, cultivating an internal pool for future applicants.
"But if they don't join Children's, that's still a betterment for the greater healthcare workforce," Ms. Allen said.
'Radical flexibility'
When it comes to flexible work, Children's has "figured it out really well" for corporate support areas, Ms. Allen said. The real challenge comes with implementing flex schedules for clinical teams — but the hospital is not shying away from change. Its COO and CNO are working to bring more work options to the front lines.
"I think radical flexibility is the future," Ms. Allen said. "That's a real advantage we believe we can have in the market as we think about attracting and retaining our talent."
Agility is especially important for Children's, whose average workforce age is 29. Younger workers make different demands regarding work-life balance, and hospitals must rise to meet them, according to Ms. Allen.
"Healthcare is a very traditional organization and it is on the cusp of high transformation," Ms. Allen said. "This generation that is coming in is here. They are challenging the status quo. And so as leaders we need to be curious, open, engaged and also willing to be agile and flexible."