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Hanford Community Medical Center Addresses
Joint Commission Requirements With Software-Assisted Performance Management
System
| Founded: |
February 1996 |
| Company Size: |
725 Employees 40 Supervisors |
| Product: |
59-bed facility with outpatient care |
Located just south of Fresno in the central part of California, Hanford Community
Medical Center is part of the Adventist Health System. With over
700 employees, this 59-bed facility handles a volume of outpatient
care equal to a facility almost three times that size.
When people's lives and health depend on the competency of the
workforce, as here at Hanford Community Medical Center, effective
performance management is one of the most critical tasks being
addressed by Karen Sell, the facility's Director of Human Resources.
Joint Commissions Commendation Validates Process
| "Our
paper process accomplished what we needed to do, but it was intensely
time consuming. |
In 1995, Hanford
Community Medical Center's performance evaluation process won
a commendation from the Joint Commissions. Their competency-based
system linked job descriptions to performance standards and included
intricate weighting calculations. All job descriptions were stored
in Word Perfect templates with hard copies in binders for each
supervisor. When writing their evaluations, supervisors would
copy the job description from the binder, write their comments
and observations in longhand, and then manually calculate the
overall rating based on the weightings. "Although it accomplished
everything we needed to do," says Sell, "was intensely time
consuming. Manually doing the math was especially tedious." And
with the ratio of supervisors to employees being almost 20 to
1 (some supervisors have as many as 150 reviews to complete annually),
Sell wasdetermined to find a way to make the process easier without
compromising thestandards and effectiveness their present process
afforded.
| "Neither
of the other two products we looked at could do what Performance
Now could do." |
Taking a Good process and Making it Better
Sell's objective was at once simple and complex: take Hanford's existing
process and automate it. With a strict set of parameters already established,
she looked at solutions offered by PeopleSoft and Lawson hoping to integrate
the process right into their HRIS system. She also looked at Administaff's
Performance Now Enterprise Edition. In the end, she decided Performance
Now offered a lot more. "Neither of the other two could do what
Performance Now could." A team was formed to create the core standards
for the job descriptions that would be the basis for evaluating performance.
They trained their supervisors to redevelop their employee'sjob descriptions
using the core standards criteria the team had put together. In the
end, there were over 200 job descriptions submitted. Hanford hired a
typist to enter all the data into Performance Now. Another KnowledgePoint
product, Descriptions Now, was used to identify the qualifications necessary
for each job description.
Software's Flexibility A Key Issue
With this foundation, they began to undertake extensive customization
of Performance Now. Creating their own competencies, factors and review
language, they challenged the software's flexibility at times. By working
closely with Administaff's staff, they were able to successfully
duplicate their award-winning process and achieve their goal of automating
performance evaluations. "At times, I didn't think we were going
to be able to do it," commented Sell. "But when it seemed
we were at a stalemate, Al Wales (Administaff's VP of Sales) worked
through a weekend and on Monday presented us with a solution that worked."
The final step of implementation was training all the supervisors to
use the new automated system.
Successful Accreditation Validates New System
| "Our
supervisors love having the software compute weights and calculate
ratings. There's no way they will go back to the old way."
|
Having completed a review cycle and passed all Joint Commissions' requirements,
Sell is pleased with Hanford's new automated system. Her feedback
from supervisors has been equally positive. "They love having
the software compute the weights and calculate the ratings," she
states. Another area of marked improvement is timeliness. Sell
points to one particular supervisor responsible for 150 evaluations
each year. "She's never late," Sell says and notes the value afforded
by Performance Now's briefcase feature that allows supervisors
to "check out" reviews and do them at home or when traveling.
Looking to the Future
As she moves forward in improving Hanford's performance management,
Sell actually feels Performance Now has improved the process. The software
offers other components to address performance year round. Her current
focus is working with supervisors to stress the use of well constructed,
measurable goals and using the employee log to make regular entries
and document performance. And, as her organization moves to central
regionalization, Sell is adamant that Hanford's new automated process
remain in place. "There's no way my managers will go back!"
she says. In addition, as she transfers to a sister site, the Tennessee
Christian Medical Center, Sell is working with the management staff
there and making plans to automate their office. "I'm hoping to
takewhat we've done here at Hanford and use it to set up a new system
for both the campuses in Tennessee," she says.
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