After seeing significant program success at their St. Michael health ministry, CHRISTUS evolved their partnership with Achievers to offer all of their Associates a more modernized and impactful employee engagement program.
With more than 600 centers, CHRISTUS Health is a health organization comprised of over 45,000 Associates who provide individualized and compassionate care across the United States. Before implementing their holistic engagement strategy with Achievers, each hospital used their own homegrown initiatives to acknowledge the good work of their Associates. CHRISTUS realized that these moments of celebration weren’t having the reach and notoriety they hoped for. What they needed was a solution that would standardize the experience, engage Associates across the organization, and celebrate the moments that matter.
Where it all began
CHRISTUS began their modern-day employee engagement journey at their St. Michael ministry where CHRISTUS saw Associate engagement as a result of leadership recognition jump from 66 percent to 77 percent after launching their Achievers program. This outstanding impact on Associate engagement spurred the next phase of their engagement strategy — the roll-out of Achievers across all ministries.
CHRISTUS understood that employees who receive an average of one non-monetary recognition per month are 43 percent more engaged than those who do not. Excited for their engagement potential, they introduced Associates across all ministries to their recognition program powered by Achievers’ employee engagement platform.
Training for success
Setting their recognition program up for success meant empowering Associates and leaders. An introduction to the program was added to CHRISTUS’ new hire orientation to instill the organization’s recognition values and practices from day one.
Few organizations take the lead on educating employees on the important aspects of recognition, such as the quality of its content or the frequency — CHRISTUS wasn’t one of them. Their leaders participated in in-depth training through CHRISTUS Health’s Leader Foundations, a six-month leadership onboarding program intended to fully train managers across their organization to lead by example. CHRISTUS understood that to ensure their program’s continue success, this type of leadership training was required to communicate the importance of recognition that is timely, specific, and values-based.
Today, CHRISTUS’ program has become a part of everyday conversations, with senior leaders and managers working in tandem to drive frequent recognition across their teams.
High adoption drives impactful results
With an adoption rate of nearly 100 percent, CHRISTUS was able to facilitate participation in initiatives that drove incremental recognition and had measurable impacts on both patient and business outcomes.
Through their Associate Resiliency Program, CHRISTUS equips Associates with techniques to encourage mental well-being and mitigate burnout. Through their recognition program, Associates were awarded program points when they completed an e-learning course and worksheet that provided a framework for building resilience. Associates who participated had a 2.9% lower turnover rate three months after the campaign compared to those who did not participate and CHRISTUS experienced an investment gain of nearly $150,000 and an ROI of 250% for every dollar spent.
Similarly, CHRISTUS initiated a Near Miss/Zero Harm Program to encourage Associates to speak up and report on-the-job near misses — instances that could have resulted in patient harm had they not been identified. To support its success, CHRISTUS again leveraged their recognition program to award points to Associates who came forward to report near misses. This resulted in 6x increase in the number of near-miss reporting -- an outstanding result for a critical initiative.
As an organization that’s highly invested in their people, CHRISTUS was also eager to utilize recognition to reduce attrition. During an attrition analysis, CHRISTUS found that Associates who responded unfavorably to an engagement survey question related to recognition were about 3x more likely to leave the organization within three months, versus those who responded favorably. Upon further investigation, they also discovered that Associates who received recognition more frequently were more likely to respond favorably to a survey question about engagement — meaning that they were more engaged and less likely to leave. CHRISTUS understood that one way to impact recognition scores among their Associates and reduce their turn-over was to encourage leaders (particularly among teams with low recognition scores) to be more intentional about delivering frequent and meaningful recognition.
The future of recognition and employee engagement is bright at CHRISTUS. Their investment in improving the Associate experience has earned them The Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces® Award and an Elite 8 win for Accountability and Performance. With their momentum and innovative use of their Achievers employee engagement platform, that’s likely to be just the beginning.
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