This is a culture article!

In my work with Vigil Health Solutions, my goal is to be able to create a story I can tell as too why the Vigil emergency call systems are better than the competitors.  The goal of this article is not a sales pitch, but you will have to read through a paragraph on Vigil to set the stage.

This is a culture article!

In my work with Vigil Health Solutions, my goal is to be able to create a story I can tell as too why the Vigil emergency call systems are better than the competitors.  The goal of this article is not a sales pitch, but you will have to read through a paragraph on Vigil to set the stage.

Vigil’s target market is independent living, assisted living and skilled nursing communities.  The company provides both wired and wireless computer based emergency call systems.  In addition, the flagship product is a system specifically designed to meet the needs of dementia residents. In all of life there is are trade-offs.  Computer based call systems like Vigil’s are a bit more complex than traditional, old fashioned pull cords that light up a panel at the front desk and broadcast alarms throughout the building.  Our offerings are extremely user friendly but are somewhat more complex. Infrequently, but often enough that it startles me, I will chat with an operator who tells me that their employees are to stupid and too careless to use anything more than a board with a bell and lights.  

With great effort I nod my head, grit my teeth and keep my mouth shut because I know two things:  They will never be a Vigil customer and the problem is with the operator and not with the employees. This is strictly a culture problem and it is 100% the fault of the operator and not at all the fault of the employees. If this depicts your culture, or even worse you are one of the people I talked to, you have probably already quit reading this article to have wiped  my contact information from your address book.  If, instead, you know that creating an awesome culture in your community is better for your bottom line and better for your residents, some of these ideas may resonate with you:

1.  Create Self-esteem Incentives – We almost never accomplish this with monetary incentives.  Key to creating effective incentives is knowing your team well enough to know what turns them on.  

Here are a few ideas:

• Knowing each team member’s name and something about them. Knowing their passions and their family is huge.
• Knowing what kind of affirmation turns them off is critical.  Some do best with very public “Nice Jobs”, others do better with behind the scene affirmations.
• Have your employees teach your management something.
• Create committees that include line staff and take seriously their ideas and suggestions.
• Give employees responsibility for a project and then MAKE SURE they are successful!
• Give your line employees training responsibility.
• Give as much latitude as you can in how a job is done.  How it is done is less important than THAT it is done . . . . right?

2. Eliminate Stupid Stuff –  Come on, you know you have some stupid stuff in your organization. Every organization does.  Most of the time that stupid stuff had a good reason to exist at some point in time, but means nothing now. Clean it up. Often it is reports that no one reads or have no real value. The other source of stupid stuff is making a blanket rule because of the excess of a single person or instance. An example is denying all employees any incoming personal calls (we are, after all parents, children and spouses) just because a couple of employees abuse the privilege. Deal with the miscreants and move on. 3. Ask Your Team Members For One Simple Thing You Can Do to Make Their Job Easier –  No job is 100% efficient and, while I will acknowledge that sometimes those inefficiencies are necessary, not all of them are.  Ask those who do a job day to day what would make their job easier or better.  Then, if at all possible, do it!  You will be amazed at the results.  Your staff will get more done, they will be happier, they will feel empowered and your residents will notice the difference. 4. Help Out and Engage – “Management by walking around” is a solid,l proven concept, but why not take it another step.  Get out there and help a caregiver give a bath or clean a room.  Help a food server set the table or, better yet, bus tables.  Use that time to engage with those team members.  You will be amazed at the payback.  You will learn stuff you didn’t know about how your community is performing and how you can make your culture better. 5. Streamline Expectations – Don’t pile on junk! –  Most of the time when managers ask a team member to take on a big or little project they finish the assignment by saying “and while you are at it . . . . . . .”  This is setting up your team member for failure.  Figure out what is important and make those into a task that stands by itself.  If the “while you are at it” is important make it another task for another time or skip it altogether. I swiped the ideas for this article from www.inc.com  You can read the original article here Steve Moran