Aiming for a Phenomenal Employee Experience at Premise Health

Morning Reda - Dir, Learning & Dvlpmnt, Premise Health

March 26, 2019

Premise Health is a leading healthcare access provider. For the past 50 years, forward-thinking organizations around the globe have relied on Premise Health to deliver the industry’s widest range of customizable services, and the highest quality of care available through a direct healthcare access provider. Delivering phenomenal access with onsite, near-site, and 24/7 virtual care, Premise Health has pioneered the most effortless healthcare experience to date. The company works hard to build a culture that enables employees to deliver on its mission to help people get, stay and be well.

The organization believes that patient experience starts with team members, so it is critical that their experience working at Premise Health is phenomenal.

This case study represents one of Premise Health's submissions to the i4cp Next Practice Awards. The awards were presented at the i4cp 2019 Next Practices Now Conference.

Business Challenge

The workforce and their needs are evolving faster than ever. Premise Health believes that our product is our people, and that only the best team in the industry can best meet the needs of the company’s clients and members. Research indicates that an employee’s experience at work is no longer measured simply by considering previous workplace experiences; it must also compare to life experience. Team members want to find meaning in the work they do—they want to be heard, valued and connected.

Understanding what enhances and detracts from team members’ work experiences and then celebrating strengths and solving for opportunities is of the utmost importance to Premise Health’s success. The traditional once-a-year survey process was producing limited information since the scope was confined to a single snapshot in time. Team members would complete the survey annually, and the results were returned to the organization months later. Leaders would then spend hours/days creating action plans based on this single data point that was likely no longer relevant or important to team members. In addition, most surveys focused on the employee’s feelings about the organization, not the individual team member experience.

Solution

In 2018, Premise Health made a significant move away from the traditional annual survey to gathering insight from multiple data points on an ongoing basis throughout the year. This shifted the focus from the way team members feel about the organization to the individual work experience.

The experience was defined by adjusting the “Irresistible Organization” framework by Deloitte to reflect the experience Premise Health aspires to create for team members (Figure 1 below). Once Team Member Experience Pillars were in place, the strategy for gathering insights into the pillars was aligned. These data points (Figure 5) were gathered:

Quarterly surveys: In the surveys, questions were intentionally differentiated and rotated so that insights are gathered twice yearly on each question. Q1 and Q3 have the same 12 questions, and Q2 and Q4 have the same 13 questions (Figure 2). Over time, this approach yields deeper insight and, eventually, reveals trends (Figure 3).
Monthly pulse surveys: In some months, the pulse survey is intended to drill deeper into areas of interest. In others, it features a light question, such as, “How are you feeling today?” with emoji responses. The pulse survey insights are sorted and themes identified to add to quarterly scorecards.
New team member surveys: Surveys are sent to new team members at the 30-day and 90-day marks. From this data, strength and opportunity themes are added to the quarterly scorecards (Figure 4).
Executive listening tours: Premise Health senior executives meet with various groups across the organization to learn what is important to employees and listen to their concerns. Comments are sorted, and identified themes are added to the scorecard. These themes often support the bigger strengths and opportunities identified in the quarterly surveys.
Utilization: Measurement includes utilization of the survey participation, performance management, monthly check-in conversations, feedback and recognition platform. This is seen as an indicator of the experiences of leaders and team members and involves tracking the amount of recognition given and received, number of check-ins between leader and team members, and amount of feedback given and received.
eNPS: Net provider score is assessed by including the statement, “I would recommend Premise Health as a place to work” as one of two questions consistently asked each quarter.
Glassdoor: Glassdoor provides internal and external insight into the employee experience Premise Health creates.

Analysis of those seven data points provides a deep and holistic view of the team member experience. Visualizations are shared to communicate organization-wide and region-specific insights each quarter. Twice yearly, insights are provided at the leader level.

Results

The data gathered in 2018 allowed Premise Health to identify an internal baseline for key metrics of the team member experience. This can be used as a barometer for the health of the organization. Premise Health rates consistently strong in Meaningful Work and has room to improve in Growth Opportunity. The project team created a “We Heard You” campaign to announce several organizational initiatives that will address topics immediately identified through insights gained to date.

Use of the rotating questions has afforded insight into what resonates better with team members, enabling identification of the specific question that most strongly impacts the Growth Opportunity score. This has empowered the team to use listening tours and pulse surveys to gain deeper detail. In turn, that targeted detail will lead to development of additional organization-wide initiatives. The project team is working with Premise Health leaders to keep the work experience top of mind. Initially, this has included encouragement for leaders to have open dialogue with their teams about the survey scores, celebrating strengths and talking candidly about areas of opportunity.

Conclusion

Premise Health recognizes that the team member experience project is a marathon, not a sprint. But the company is paving a new path to measure and improve the experience, and there is excitement to see where the journey leads as the project continues to evolve.

In 2018, enough information was gathered to create a baseline, but the full extent of benefits from this work have not yet been realized. Eventually, it is anticipated that the team member experience at Premise Health will improve because of the actions taken based on project insights. As the project continues to mature, a next-addition to the data will likely include analysis of correlations between patient experience and team member experience.

Exhibits

Figure 1