Adapted from the book Finding Keepers: The Monster Guide to Hiring and Holding the World’s Best Employees by Steve Pogorzelski, Jesse Harriott, Ph.D., and Doug Hardy. Published January 2008 by McGraw-Hill.
The Hospital
If you want to know what kind of difference good hiring makes, invite a group of strangers to break your bones, dismantle your leg, and then reassemble the pieces while you sleep.
As we were writing this book, Steve Pogorzelski got a firsthand look what it means to have an exceptional group of talented people working together. It was December 2006, and he was scheduled to undergo hip surgery at New England Baptist Hospital (NEBH) in Boston.
The hospital is renowned for orthopedic surgery; its doctors perform 5,000 operations a year. It employs a lot of nurses, physical therapists, and administrators. People with those skills have their pick of workplaces in Boston, where you can’t drive five blocks without seeing another renowned hospital. It’s very hard to find and keep the best employees in a job market like that, but NEBH manages to do so by creating a unique workplace, not just for patients, but also for employees.
Steve recalls his experience at NEBH: “Before you do anything, you and your caregiver attend a two-hour informational class which includes physical therapy. Two weeks before surgery, you go to a preparation session. They tell you it’s going to take an hour and a half. Everyone from the receptionist to the registrar dresses in a professional suit, as if they were working in a fine hotel. After quick paperwork, you walk to a room where a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, an anesthesiologist, and medical technicians are ready to see you. Except for the lab coats, you could still be in that fine hotel -- professional demeanors, no delays. Everyone smiles and says, ‘This way, Mr. Pogorzelski . . .’
“They check your blood pressure, draw blood, and perform the usual prep work. One perfectly executed procedure seamlessly follows another, and you actually get out in an hour and a half. Later, you attend an advanced therapy class, it starts and ends on time, and you walk out thinking, that’s the best two hours I could have spent before surgery.
“When was the last time you had a medical experience like that?”
On its recruiting Web site, NEBH invites candidates to “look into the hospital everyone looks up to.” Patients and visitors are referred to as customers. There’s a formal “Dress to Impress” policy: “When you project a professional image, you have the power to make New England Baptist Hospital successful or not.”
New England Baptist Hospital studied its practices and came up with a rare (for a hospital) understanding: by projecting a distinct attitude of customer service, they get better outcomes. Nurses, therapists, and surgeons work better when the patient is relaxed and confident. New England Baptist Hospital has a system that results in less stressed patients, which in turn causes less stress in staff, which causes less stress in patients, and so on.
What about holding on to those employees? Steve remembers: “The nurse, the physical therapist and the occupational therapist were all longtime employees. The nurse had been at New England Baptist there since she graduated. I asked her, ‘Have you ever thought about leaving?’
She said, “I would never want to leave here. I’m treated as a professional here. I’m not treated as a bedpan scrubber. The doctors respect us, the machines are where they should be, and when they break, they get fixed. We follow good protocols here, and there are never any surprises... except the medical ones, and that’s what we’re here for.”
New England Baptist Hospital built a practice of finding and retaining the best employees -- the keepers -- by creating a virtuous cycle: build a great workplace with a unique culture, then use that workplace to attract the right people, then use those people to strengthen the culture, and use the culture to hold on to the people. Each part of this practice, from finding the best employees to treating them right to helping them create a culture that attracts more great employees, is deeply connected in a practice we call the Engagement Cycle.
The Diner
You don’t have to have a master’s degree in marketing to see the interplay between your employment brand and your management style. You don’t even have to be a big business. Consider the following true story.
We know two diners in towns nearby. The menus are the same, the prices are the same, and they even look alike.
The owner of the diner in another town turns over his staff every six weeks. You walk in, and nobody knows you. Everyone’s learning, so the service is 10 times slower. Everyone knows they probably won’t be there next season. When the owner needs a new employee, he puts a Help Wanted sign in the window.
Now, where do you want to eat? No doubt you answered the first town’s diner. The diner there presents a better experience for the customers because it’s a better experience for the employees. Customers enjoy themselves, and then they return.
The waitresses at this first diner tell us the owner treats the employees (and their families) like gold, like his children. He doesn’t lay them off in the winter, even though it’s a tourist town and he makes less money between October and May. He throws little recognition dinners for them. He goes out of his way to make them feel a little bit special. He walks around the diner and asks customers, “Is Karen treating you well? Yeah, she’s the best.”
This small business owner has become a great employer by design. He set out to be a great employer from the beginning, maybe just as a matter of his character. The brand, in its local, intimate way, just expresses this.
Meanwhile, the owner of the diner in the second town knows he can always get someone to wait tables in his diner. He doesn’t care whom, and it shows in his customers’ experience. Maybe he doesn’t have time to throw parties for his waitresses or learn their kids’ names. Instead, he spends his time hiring or training new staff -- over and over again. That Help Wanted sign never seems to leave his window.