Introduction

When employee audiences are far-flung, many organizations face difficulty communicating with their staff on strategic and operational matters. Wisconsin-based ProHealth Care (PHC) encountered the same challenge.

As part of a plan to build and elevate their internal communications function, they needed to improve the way they connect regional employees with to-the-minute operations information. They also needed a vehicle to help drive home organizational messages on a day-to-day basis.

PHC leadership asked CRA to help develop a strategy, including a vehicle and delivery plan, to address these problems. To do this, we considered four key pieces of information—from both our familiarity with ProHealth Care and organizational experience:

1. When an organization’s staff’s roles are extremely diverse—from care providers to administrators to ancillary staff—what comprises a “daily routine” varies widely. In healthcare organizations like PHC, the challenge of reaching all employees is multiplied.
2. Most PHC staffers infrequently use a computer in their daily tasks, and electronic communications (emails or company intranets) aren’t effective in reaching everyone.
3. Scheduling face-to-face communication is difficult—for PHC or any organization.
4. As with many companies, employees find their direct leaders to be the most credible voice in the organization.

The CRA solution

With these challenges in mind, CRA adapted a tool that some best-practice organizations use to provide valuable information to employees each day: the stand-up meeting. This type of meeting, which some clients call a Huddle, requires departments to meet at a designated time each day for five to ten minutes. A leader or designee from each department leads the Huddle, and provides updates on a variety of topics. Generally speaking, the internal communications function and regional leaders provide strategic messaging for daily updates, so that this information stays consistent across the organization. To ensure that staff receive role-specific information, department Huddle leaders also contribute information each day. On the whole, Huddles cover strategic, hospital, department, and system information.

What’s more, the value of Huddle content is two-fold: employees learn what they need to know to do their jobs, and decision-makers have a way to reach most employees with credible, consistent messages, organization-wide. As a result, Huddle content—and those leaders that deliver the content—connect daily activities with the system’s larger goals. When done well, the Huddle helps staff members see how they fit into the big picture.

In early 2005, CRA partnered with PHC to implement their Huddles, and since then, we have worked with PHC leadership to measure employee alignment and communication effectiveness in an annual survey. Since the system-wide Huddle rollout, PHC has measured Huddle effectiveness in a number of ways, and consistently finds positive results.

In recent surveys, PHC’s highlights include:

• Approximately 70 percent of employee respondents Huddle, and agree or strongly agree that Huddle themes help them understand PHC’s strategy.
• Per-diem, full-time, and part-time staff believe Huddles are an effective means of communication.
• Employees who Huddle understand and align their work with organizational strategy more than those who don’t.
• Other PHC communication vehicles are also considered more useful for those who Huddle (including their newsletter, quarterly leadership meetings, the employee intranet, and email).
• Employees who Huddle rate leadership communication 25 percent higher than those who don’t.

Based on these findings, PHC leadership continues to leverage the Huddle across the organization.

So when staff roles vary widely, a daily stand-up meeting’s utility is larger than the delivery of news. It helps employees to connect with each other, learn information in a timely manner, and engages them with organizational strategy—three challenges any best-in-class organization should tackle.

If you would like more information on CRA’s approach to Huddle design, please contact Carolynne Bernard or Megan Kurek at 610-644-5597.