As these short stories make clear, your voice makes a difference. It's not always easy, but for union members, managers and care providers, speaking up is a right and a responsibility.
For everyone at Kaiser Permanente—union members, managers, care providers—speaking up is a right and a responsibility. Being #FreeToSpeak is part of working in partnership. It keeps our patients safe and makes KP a better place to work. It’s not always easy, but your voice makes a difference. The short stories above make that clear.
The photos and quotes above launched a new LMPartnership.org feature, Humans of Partnership. Visit the entire collection.
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PDF
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8.5" x 11"
Intended audience:
Frontline employees, managers and physicians
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Use this meeting icebreaker as a fun way to get people talking about things they love. From the Summer 2016 Hank.
Use this meeting icebreaker as a fun way to get people talking about things they love.
Format:
PDF
Size:
8.5" x 11"
Intended audience:
Unit-based team consultants and team co-leads
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Create an effective visual board for your unit-based team. UBTs that regularly huddle in front of their visual board find the practice helps to surface issues.
You may also be interested in:
How to Create a Visual Board
Visual boards are a powerful way to improve communication and get team members more involved.
Format:
PDF (color or black and white)
Size:
8.5" x 11"
Intended audience:
Anyone with a sense of humor
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In this full-page comic, our superheroes share how speaking up can keep your work environment—and our patients—safe.
In this full-page comic, our superhero shares tools for having a free to speak culture and working in a safe environment.
Format:
PDF
Size:
8.5" x 11"
Intended audience:
Frontline employees, managers and physicians
Best used:
How we come across is as important as what we have to say. This poster shows the difference between those who complain and accomplish little—and those who are heard and create real change.
This poster shares the slogan "Free to Speak" and has a checklist for comparison of a whiner vs. problem solver. Share it during your team meetings and help build a culture of speaking up.
How do you speak up when you're not the boss? Get advice from two union members who've done it.
When employees speak up, teams score high on patient safety, quality, service and workplace safety. But it can be hard to speak up when you don’t feel safe or comfortable. Gain the confidence to use your voice with these tips from two frontline workers with the Ambulatory Care Pharmacy team in West Los Angeles.
Chakana Mayo, pharmacy technician, UFCW Local 770, Workplace safety champion
Practicing speaking up when you feel safe. “When we first began peer rounding, people were comfortable speaking to one another versus speaking with management. Once people were comfortable speaking with one another, then they felt like they could be comfortable speaking with management.”
Your voice can make a difference. “It’s important to speak up early because you can prevent long-term injuries from occurring. If you’re confident enough to speak up to your manager and just let them know what’s going on, they’ll appreciate it more.”
Simple (but not easy!) ways managers can encourage their employees to feel safe about speaking up.
Employees who feel free to share their ideas and concerns help keep our patients safe and make Kaiser Permanente a better place to work. Managers can help team members feel comfortable speaking up by creating a “psychologically safe” work environment—one where no one is afraid they will be embarrassed, rejected or punished for speaking up. Here are four tips from supervisor Nee Tang, Pharm.D., Ambulatory Care Pharmacy, West Los Angeles, on how to help workers make their voices heard.
Follow up and take action. “When an employee brings up something, look for the solution and be accountable. Make sure things are done. Having that accountability is really crucial to employees.”
Be authentic. “Having a manager who is open-minded and who truly, genuinely wants to create a safe environment for everybody, that’s the key.”
Be patient and persistent. “In the beginning, people may not be as comfortable speaking out. But once they see we’re coming every month no matter what [to do peer safety rounding], they’re speaking out. We’re really getting the equipment that is needed and reminding everyone about the proper ergonomic positions. People know we’re serious about making an environment that is safe for everyone.”
Find people who want to share their passion with others. “Another key is to have people who are passionate. Angie Chandler, our labor co-lead, is really passionate about ergonomics. I’m passionate about eating healthy. We have another employee who is passionate about exercise. Everybody wants everyone to be safe and healthy and to work well together. We’re passionate about what we do and want to spread that to everybody.”
The 2015 National Agreement includes a requirement that teams have a communications plan. From the Summer 2015 Hank.
I’m in a UBT, you’re in a UBT, we’re all in a UBT! Hooray! Let’s start our performance improvement project, collect our data and make a PowerPoint presentation to explain our results.
…Whoa. Not so fast. Unit-based teams were launched as part of the 2005 National Agreement, but we all still hear stories about frontline union members, managers and physicians who don’t realize they’re on a UBT. This is a big deal. When people don’t know they’re on a UBT, they’re missing out on an opportunity to take part in improving service and quality for our members and patients.
That’s why negotiators hammering out the 2015 National Agreement added a requirement: In order for a UBT to move up to Level 3, it has to have “a communications structure to reach all members of the department” in place.
Over time, this will help everyone in the department realize they’re part of the UBT—and will lay to rest the myth that “the UBT” is a small group of people who lock themselves in a meeting room, drink coffee and eat doughnuts and solve problems for everyone else. Your team needs you contributing ideas; our members and patients need you.
It’s a common problem: In large departments, a lot of people think the “unit-based team” only includes the employees who go to UBT meetings. Truth is, everyone working in the unit is a UBT member, and the ones going to meetings are their representatives.
Better communication in a department helps everyone get involved in the team’s work and take pride in what’s being accomplished. That leads to better outcomes for our patients.
Here are some tools with tips for getting everyone on your team involved:
Why having a speak-up culture matters—and tips on creating one. From the Summer 2016 Hank.
It took a whack on the head—literally—for Tedros Tecle to learn the importance of speaking up.
Tecle is a rad tech at our Santa Rosa Medical Center. Because of a less-than-ideal setup, he banged his head on a mobile X-ray machine. He wasn’t hurt, just really embarrassed. Enough so that he didn’t say anything.
You can guess what happened next: Another tech did the same thing and was injured. The experience motivated Tecle to become a facility workplace safety tri-chair and a champion for speaking up.
Keeping employees, managers, physicians and patients free from injury requires a #FreeToSpeak culture, one where halting work to address a safety concern is a cause for gratitude, not—as in some workplaces—scorn.
In fact, a #FreeToSpeak culture is the foundation for being able to do what we value most at Kaiser Permanente and in the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions: providing high-quality care and service at an affordable price and the best place to work for our employees.
To do that, everyone on our unit-based teams—no matter their role or job title—must feel free to chime in with suggestions about how to make things better, no matter how wacky or inconvenient their ideas might seem. That’s not yet the case; responses to KP’s annual People Pulse survey show the need for improvement.
Creating a speaking-up culture takes time. In this issue of Hank, you’ll find tips and tools to get started and keep going, whether you’re a frontline manager or a union-represented employee. And you’ll hear from the Humans of Partnership who are, more and more, #FreeToSpeak.