Engagement survey results rolling out across YNHHS

In the coming weeks, employees at Yale New Haven Hospital and across Yale New Haven Health System will hear from their leaders about 2015 employee engagement survey results for their organization and departments, items contributing to strong employee engagement and employees' important role in the action planning process to address opportunities.

"We appreciate the valuable feedback from 16,719 of our YNHHS colleagues," said Kevin Myatt, senior vice president and chief human resources officer.

"Over the last few weeks, leadership teams at each YNHHS organization have been reviewing the aggregated survey response data to assess trends and items impacting overall employee engagement."

Results vary by YNHHS organization, as would be expected. However, general themes that emerged when looking at our collective results across the system indicate:

• "Best in class" participation, with 85.5 percent of employees from all YNHHS organizations completing the survey. YNHH led all entities with 95.7 percent participation.
• Strong employee engagement that surpasses the national benchmark. System-wide, 82.1 percent of employees are "content" or "engaged." More than half of that group — 43 percent — are most strongly engaged. YNHH's results are very similar, with 79.3 percent of employees "content" or "engaged," and 40 percent most strongly engaged.
• Strengths (items driving employee engagement): Recognition for excellent work, fair compensation, job security, helpful performance reviews, and selection/implementation of new technologies to support employee work trended as strengths across YNHHS. Similarly, YNHH employees highly rated recognition, fair pay, job security, and helpful performance reviews.
• Affirmation by employees that we are embracing our YNHHS values, and demonstrating a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion initiative.

While employee engagement across YNHHS remains very high, there has been a slight decline.

"Given the unrelenting pressure of the healthcare environment and changes occurring within YNHHS and our individual organizations to position us for the future, a modest decline may be understandable," Myatt said. "However, consistent with our commitment to be the employer of choice, we are looking at our results very closely and will address opportunities to improve employee engagement."

Improvement opportunities tend to be department and organization-specific, although staffing and a continued commitment to employee safety are areas for closer review both across YNHHS and at YNHH.

"Overall, we received valuable feedback from our staff," Myatt said. "Survey responses help confirm what is important to staff and what we do well, and will help us make YNHHS an even better place to care for patients and for each of us to work."