Halogen’s Customer Support and Technology Help Maximize Hospital’s Care
Fayette County Memorial Hospital optimized its employee performance and talent management process using an automated best-practices solution that has:
- Introduced appraisal consistency throughout the organization;
- Vastly improved on-time completion rates for employee evaluations;
- Established a culture of accountability within the organization;
- Increased the perceived value of the performance appraisal process in the eyes of all those involved; and
- Reduced the labor needed to complete the process and made it more convenient all around.
Company Profile
Located in Washington Court House, Ohio, Fayette County Memorial Hospital is a 25-bed medical surgical hospital focused on delivering general acute-care services to its community. To further develop its 330 employees and maximize the care it delivers, the Hospital sought an automated, web-based employee performance and talent management system tailored to the specific needs of the healthcare industry and backed with exceptional support.
Challenge
Fayette County Memorial Hospital’s past employee performance and talent management process was ineffective and time consuming. 11x17 paper jackets were the only constant in the process for every employee. The HR department secretary used to handwrite the employee’s name, position and other details on the jacket of each appraisal. This first step alone took several hours. The secretary would then send the jackets out to the managers 60 days in advance of the performance appraisal due date. The HR department had no way of easily or quickly tracking the appraisals; to determine the status of an appraisal, they had to check by hand. With no ready means of tracking the progress of appraisals, accountability was difficult to ensure.
In addition to being labor intensive, the process was inconsistent, with forms varying from department to department. The forms that were being used were typically out of date, as they had not, in many cases, been updated in nearly 20 years.
Tina Powers, Vice President of Human Resources at Fayette County Memorial Hospital was the driver behind the Hospital’s decision to move forward and adopt an enterprise-class solution that would meet its needs in the present and into the future.
“I wanted to get rid of the manual process. The manual forms were a half inch thick,” said Powers. “This made archiving them difficult as they took up a lot of file space. Also, while evaluations were intended to be tied to job descriptions they weren’t, due to their being so out of date. They were a mess.”
Appraisal completion rates were also a concern for the Hospital, as achieving specified completion rates is a JCAHO requirement. Some managers had never completed a single appraisal, and HR did not have the tools to hold managers accountable. Using the old manual system, the best completion rate the Hospital achieved was 80 percent.
Solution
One of the first criteria Fayette County Memorial Hospital needed their new solution to meet was the ability to build unique forms. The second was that the solution had to eliminate all the paper HR was struggling with. Finally, the Hospital wanted the solution to enable HR to quickly and easily track the progress of all employee performance appraisals to ensure completion rates and meet JCAHO requirements.
“When I came across Halogen, I immediately requested a demonstration of the solution,” said Powers. “From that point on we never really considered anything else. I loved the tool.”
Once Halogen eAppraisal Healthcare™ had been selected, a committee composed of six managers was assembled to facilitate the implementation. Even now that implementation is complete the committee still meets every month to discuss possibilities to further maximize the power of the solution. “The process is always evolving. Recently we decided to follow the lead of other hospitals and reduce the number of forms we are using down to two,” said Powers. “We expect that our meetings will continue over the next five years. Halogen has so many powerful features we want to make sure we are optimally using all the tools at our disposal.”
The Hospital took part in training in September and was fully implemented in November of 2005. Implementation was quick and easy. “Halogen has always responded to our concerns and made the process work the way we needed it to. This was the part of Halogen that sold me more than any other,” said Powers “I was a big fan of the sales team and I was a big fan of the tool, but it was this service that won me over.”
Within 24 hours of a rare issue arising, Halogen's Vice President of Healthcare Solutions called to ensure everything was resolved. In addition, the Halogen project advisor assigned to the hospital was on the phone with Powers for whatever time was required to alleviate any worries. “I cannot express how customer-service oriented Halogen is,” says Powers. “They have been timely and helpful from the start.”
Since implementing the process, the feedback from managers has been very positive. Feedback on the system is collected using an employee evaluation form that is sent out every year to managers. After the first year using Halogen eAppraisal Healthcare, Powers spent two weeks working closely with the Hospital’s managers to amend their forms. This same process is done every year to ensure that HR addresses the concerns of managers. “This year for example, we are looking to reduce the number of forms from over 100 to two,” said Powers.
Benefits
The Hospital is continuing to increase the timeliness of employee performance appraisals, and working to create a culture where managers are held accountable and the performance management process is valued by everyone involved. With the old manual system there was no mechanism to track completed appraisals, leaving no accountability for incomplete appraisals. Powers now has the tools to identify any issues with appraisals and take appropriate actions.
The new solution has made the completion of employee appraisals much easier for managers, as they can simply complete appraisals online when it is most convenient for them. This ease of use has contributed to higher completion rates. “Managers can even do appraisals at home if they want, which is a huge bonus for them,” says Powers.
“We would absolutely recommend Halogen to any other healthcare provider looking to improve their employee performance management system,” remarked Powers. “In fact , while at a seminar the other day with other HR and benefits specialists, I talked about Halogen and I must have given out my card to five different organizations. I truly do love the product, its ease of use, and the workflow flexibility. I have great regard for Halogen. As a company, they have the right things in mind and their staff is very impressive.”
Halogen’s Employee Performance and Talent Management solution has fulfilled the needs of Fayette County Memorial Hospital’s HR department. On time completion rates are quickly rising to unprecedented levels, and tracking the process is quick and easy, as is generating reports on aggregate information. The system is easy for all involved to use and has eliminated the paper burden while building accountability.
