Day: March 22, 2020

HOW TO REINVENT THE EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK

Every business needs an employee handbook, right? This contains all those fun legal things like the fact that you’re an at-will employee, that you need to comply with a code of conduct, and what the dress code is (among other things). So, it’s a really, really important document. Except that maybe that’s not true. Linda Itskovitz, VP of marketing for employee communications company GuideSpark, says the handbook is a very unimportant document.
Why? Because no one actually reads it. “The employee handbook, as a medium, is not important because the majority of employees never open their handbook in the first place, especially millennials,” Itskovitz says.
However, she clarifies, the information in the handbook is critical. “The information in the handbook, and the handbook as the traditional method, is one of the first things shared with new hires, and sets the first impression of a company to employees. It contains critical information — the expectations and code of conduct and culture for working within a specific company. Unfortunately, the current medium, the handbook, is not doing its job.”
I can personally verify what Itskovitz says: in all my years of work, I’ve never more than glanced at the handbook. I’ve signed receipts saying that I’ve received a copy, but received is about as far as it gets.
So, what can you do to make this critical information available and accessible to your employees?
Here are four ideas for making your handbook the best on the block.
1. Kill the paper. When was the last time you accessed information like this in hard-copy form? Do you telecommute? Are there changes that happen regularly? The answers to all these questions are: 2007, sometimes, and, of course there are. Handbooks have to be kept up to date and our state and federal governments spend half their time (this may be an exaggeration) changing employment laws. So, put everything on your intranet.
The advantage of this is that you can make the document easily searchable. Now Jane doesn’t have to go searching through stuff she got at new hire orientation to find out if she can wear sandals in the summer. She just logs on, clicks on search the handbook and looks for dress code. She’ll then find that she can wear sandals because only crazy companies forbid sandals (and companies with safety issues, like manufacturing, of course).
2. Make it interesting. Don’t use fancy-dancy legalese for your handbook. Sure, some of that is required by law, but make it interesting to read. Give examples of what it means to follow the code of conduct. For instance, give a couple scenarios when an employee should call the compliance hotline. It makes for better reading. And better reading means people might actually read it.
3. Add a video. GuideSpark specializes in videos that handle scenarios just like Jane’s sandal dilemma. You think your employees won’t want a video about dress codes? Well, it doesn’t sound thrilling, but Itskovitz points out that more than 6 billion (that’s with a B!) hours of video are watched each month. Your employees watch part of those videos, especially your millennial employees. They are used to gaining information via video.
4. Don’t overburden the employee. “Hi! Welcome to Acme Corp! Here’s your badge, your insurance forms, your handbook, your map of the campus, your job description, and a 6-month backlog of work because this position has been vacant a long time.” Right? That’s how the first day goes. It’s completely overwhelming and no wonder no one reads the employee handbook. Who on earth would do that when there are so many other things going on?
That other stuff is what GuideSpark refers to as “noise.” “When employees join a company, they are bombarded with information, and the information in the employee handbook, which is critical, gets lost in all the noise,” Itskovitz says. “They are also trying to learn about their jobs; and learning about the culture, the company, etc., is often lower in their priority list.”
Instead, make sure your new hires have access to the information — including the videos — before they show up at work.
What’s the benefit? Certainly, it’s easier to write a handbook that no one ever reads than it is to make engaging material your employees either want to read or videos that your employees want to watch. You’d be missing out on the benefits to a good experience and understanding handbooks. What are they? Itskovitz says, “There are a countless benefits to employees both knowing and understanding the information that has traditionally been distributed through the handbook. An employee that has a positive onboarding experience is more likely to stay with the company longer, is more aligned to the company’s code of conduct and culture, and is a positive reinforcement of your behaviors and values.”
Employee handbooks are never going to be Steven Spielberg dramas, but you can make them better than the boring unread tomes of years past. It’s worth it to your business.

Q&A WITH SARAH BRENNAN: THE FUTURE OF TALENT ACQUISITION IS ABOUT FINDING THE RIGHT CANDIDATE

From single tweets to Big Data analytics, the latest technologies are changing the way we approach talent acquisition – and for the better. Tools and strategies like social media, mobile technology and people analytics are expanding the ways in which employers can both source and engage with candidates — but while it’s becoming easier and easier to find talent, it’s becoming harder and harder to actually secure talent.
Sarah Brennan - Cornerstone OnDemand
In many ways, this trend is a force for good. With dropping unemployment rates and more job opportunities, employers are compelled to truly differentiate not only their business strategies, but their people strategies, too. Today, the best talent is constantly on the look for new opportunities, and employers need to offer more than basic benefits and a good salary to compete. Things like company culture and professional development can no longer be afterthoughts — instead, these aspects of your company need to be as strategic and clear as pay and benefits in order to land top talent.
At Cornerstone, we’re dedicated to helping companies predict and work with the future of work — not against it. That’s just one reason we’re excited to announce that Sarah Brennan, a veteran recruiting and HR tech analyst, is joining the company as Principal Consultant, Talent Acquisition on our Global Thought Leadership and Advisory Services (TLAS) team. We sat down with her recently to talk through the impact of analytics on talent acquisition, and how companies can find (and keep) the right talent.

Why has HR has been slow to adopt Big Data analytics compared to other departments, such as sales or marketing?

We’ve really just seen a shift in talent analytics within the last couple of years on a widespread level. The analytics that were available 10 or even just five years ago didn’t truly provide direction for business decision-making, driving results or actually making any type of strategic change. Today, the technology has advanced to a point where we can start looking at the impact—not only of new hires, but on every movement a person makes throughout their career within an organization.

“As talent increasingly becomes a key part of business strategy, with survey after survey of C-suite executives talking about talent as one of their top challenges, it’s creating demand for HR analytics starting with recruiting.” 

Historically, leadership didn’t think about analytics and HR—the expectation just wasn’t there. But as talent increasingly becomes a key part of business strategy, with survey after survey of C-suite executives talking about talent as one of their top challenges, it’s creating demand for HR analytics, starting with recruiting. Now, people are saying, “Wait a minute, why isn’t HR doing this when we have to have numbers and metrics for everything else?”

How will people analytics impact talent acquisition specifically?

When looking at business ROI, the biggest reason to have analytics isn’t just finding candidates, but finding the right candidates. With analytics, you’re able to see where your top candidates are coming from, how much each of those candidates cost, how much training they need to get onboarded, how engaged they are and how much success they have in the organization long-term. You can link all of these insights together and have a direct line of sight on the bottom line.

What other strategies can employers use to attract the right candidates?

Companies looking to make a real impact on hiring and retention should start with Employment Brand.  While the focus on employment branding started in the mid-2000s as websites and online applications became more popular, it has really evolved. For a long time, companies were creating employer brands that had nothing to do with their actual culture. They wanted to make their company look like it was the best place to work, but everything was generic and in the end the business ROI was poor. In the last few years, we’ve seen candidates pushing back a bit and wanting a little more honesty from companies so we have watched a shift towards employer brands being more authentic and truly representative of the culture of the organization.   There seems to be a broader understanding by companies of all sizes that it’s better to get the right people through the door from the start than be a company where everybody wants to work, but have really high turnover.

“It’s better to get the right people through the door than be a company where everybody wants to work, but have really high turnover.”

Your recruiting technology needs to reflect this, too. From the wording on your job postings to your social media to the applicant tracking systems and recruiting software you use, any investment you make needs to be supportive of your employment brand. For example, if a candidate follows a link on a mobile device to apply for a job and where they end up is not mobile friendly or auto-connected to social channels like LinkedIn to apply, you not only may lose that candidate, but it also gives the impression that your company is out of date with technology—and will likely be behind when it comes to the rest of your business strategy, too.

What can companies do to communicate their employer brand more effectively?

Be authentic and honest.  Not everyone wants to work for the same type of company culture so represent your company as is.  First, make sure your website tells a great story. Having a listing of benefits isn’t enough in today’s market.  Interviews and pictures of people that actually work there—not stock photos—are a great place to start, because it gives people a feel for the organization. Next, make sure that the application process is simple. Don’t ask for information that isn’t necessary at the early stages and support multiple devices for apply – like mobile.

“Make sure your website tells a great story.”

Then, think about your follow-up and make sure everything from auto-confirmations to personal emails are on message with your brand.  A “no” response is better than no response.  Last but not least, be found on social media. You don’t have to spend a ton of money or time focusing on social media for recruiting or hiring. Just make sure all you are doing isn’t just pushing your jobs out—share information to help people looking for jobs learn more.

What attracted you to Cornerstone when it comes to building the future of talent acquisition?

There are several product tenets that caught my eye, such as the new recruiting roadmap and how that was fitting in with the unified suite of products to provide real business value; but the real turning point was my conversation with Adam Miller, the CEO.  As an analyst, I looked at products and talked with the leadership often – I was fully convinced that the recruiting product wasn’t just about checking the box – it was about building a best in class solution to compete with the standalone products. It’s really a key initiative being driven from the top-down, and to be able to come in and contribute to a team that is striving to deliver a best-in-class ATS is amazing.

THE ART, SCIENCE AND IMPACT OF IMPLEMENTING DATA-DRIVEN HR IN 2017

Data has been the driving force behind innovation in finance, sales and marketing for years, while human resources has struggled to keep up. According to Deloitte’s 2016 Global Human Capital Trends report, 77 percent of companies believe that using “people analytics” is important, but the capabilities are lacking. In fact, just 8 percent believe their organization is “excellent” in this area. Figuring out how to successfully implement data-driven HR is a business challenge every company wanting to maintain or gain a competitive advantage will face in 2017.
For organizations that take the time to invest in data-driven HR, there is a huge opportunity to leverage employee and external data to improve shareholder value. A Bersin by Deloitte study found that companies using sophisticated people analytics see 30 percent higher stock market returns than the S&P 500, and HR teams are four times more likely to be respected by their counterparts for data-driven decision-making.
But for all the good that data-driven HR can do for business, there are still a lot of questions about what businesses need to do to successfully implement a data-driven HR program in the first place.
The reality is that implementing data-driven HR requires a new set of skills and tools not found in HR departments today. A Mercer survey found that 69 percent of business executives do not believe HR professionals possess an adequate skill level to perform more sophisticated analysis. HR professionals are generally very good at reporting and benchmarking, but not as good at more sophisticated analytics.

Source: US and EMEA 2012 Metrics and Analytics: Patterns of Use and Value Survey
These skills are necessary to understand crucial drivers of employee retention, employee productivity and overall return on human investment. So, how can HR work to fill the skills gap?
Becoming data-driven requires both art and science, but it doesn’t mean HR needs to know how to do pivot tables and chi-squares.
HR professionals need to be aware of how people analytics can impact the broader business.In order to have a data perspective, HR professionals first need to have the business acumen to ask the right questions. This means understanding the key drivers of their company’s performance and having the financial knowledge, marketing orientation and strategic perspective to know how they can match business priorities with talent priorities.
HR professionals need be able to communicate effectively through data. Once HR professionals are asking questions that align with their company’s priorities, they need the ability to hone in on what matters in a data stream and use that to prove their hypotheses. This data becomes a communication mechanism for HR to communicate their talent strategies in a way that executives understand and respect.
HR professionals need access to a multidisciplinary team. HR professionals need to have access and support from people who understand statistical analysis to help inform their hypothesis. For example, HR organizations have long screened out candidates who are frequent job hoppers, but through statistical analysis it was discovered that “frequency of job hopping” had no statistical bearing on longevity in a candidate’s next role. This means the development of the right structure and talent within an organization is crucial for data-driven HR to be successful. I often use the following graphic in my conversations with HR leaders to outline both the people you will need (on the left) and the broad and varied team skills required (on the right).  This is useful in describing how you build a team of people who think, develop and communicate in a data-driven way.
The good news is this doesn’t mean you necessarily need to restructure an entire team. Today’s gig economy means HR departments can “borrow” or buy the technology and/or people they need to get the job done.
Data-driven HR is the only way for HR pros to truly understand the connection between the work they are doing and the impact it is having on their company. Other business units have had this capability for years and their importance to the company has skyrocketed. The rise of the CMO is a great example. It’s HR’s turn, and the talent and tools are here today.

DO WE STILL NEED A BUSINESS CASE FOR A TALENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM?

Do you remember the last time you wrote a business case for office supplies? Things such as pencils paper and envelopes? Neither do I, even though it’s apparent that we need these things to get work done. It’s been decades since we have needed a funding justification for simple office supplies. I would also suggest that other items in the more recent history of business technology fit in the same category.  For example, I don’t remember having to create a business case to provide a laptop to a new hire, depending on the industry of course. These are all just tools of the trade in our knowledge-based economy. I may find multiple providers that will deliver me an item at a more attractive cost than their competitors, however, that’s not the same as creating a business case.
A business case is exactly what the term describes. It records the justification for starting a project. It describes the benefits, costs and impact, plus a calculation of the financial case (which is often referred to as return on investment or ROI). So by extension, let me ask, do we still need a business case for a talent management system? Is there any scenario in the current state of our market that a talent management system is not required? Can we agree that a talent management system not only is beneficial but a critical imperative in conducting business?
Most likely if you’re reading this post, you have some opinion on whether or not a talent management system is a mission-critical application to any organization looking to be successful in the modern marketplace (I assume you agree). Yet, somehow, we find ourselves still engaging in business case creation, analysis and presentation to obtain funding. This is true for either new functionality acquisitions or for the more classic “system refresh” analysis, which occurs from time to time as we contemplate replacements of what we already have.
We want to ensure we are not placing an undue emphasis on whether a talent management system is required. I believe a talent management system needs to be categorized in the same way as papers, pencils and computers. Talent is mission-critical to conducting business.  Most recent research shows that two thirds of the average company’s market capitalization is “intangible assets”—in other words, intellectual property and people.

So Why Do We Do Still Do It?

Probably the best answer to this question would be the same answer that was present when we were looking to purchase computers for businesses in the early stages of their adoption: apprehension.  
People had anxiety about not realizing the potential or appreciating the impact that “it” all could have on our core business. .

Do We Really Need Computers for the Computer Department?

It was early in my career, the mid 80s, when I was given my first managerial job. I oversaw a multi-location roll-out of early Local Area Networking technology. I was still in my 20s and had little to no management, let alone leadership, skills or training to take on the project—however, the reason I was given this job was because I was the savviest when it came to utilizing computers in a connected capacity. I had a staff of 2, all of them with considerably more experience in the workplace than me. Yet, my depth and understanding of networking technology in this environment continued to give me the edge I needed to lead this small group.
As I built this department, the first thing I thought we needed, well, were computers and wires to connect them. First I explained the need for computers and their connectivity, but that appeared not to be sufficient. Next, I had to justify the expenses for the hardware. Still, little support. I was baffled by the situation. After all, I was hired specifically to do this job. How was I going to run a computer department with no computers?
One day, I decided to take a walk around the local building to see what other people and other departments did in this distribution company. As I walked the halls, I saw that most of the work being done by the call center operators and the warehouse fulfillment teams could be done faster, better and cheaper utilizing computers for communications. It was then that it dawned on me that it wasn’t about a business justification, but it was the fear that all these employees had. They used their own systems of telephones, pick sheets and paper logs—and they were afraid they were all going to be obsolete if we utilized computers.
From that day, my tack changed. I begin training the various teams on how to use the networks. I gave them tours of the operation center and allowed them all to familiarize themselves with this new way of communication, production and servicing their customers. I allowed them to ask questions. One warehouse manager trusted me enough to ask me how he could move his computer at home from one room to the other because he was fearful that the data would slip off the disc. It might be comical to read this, however, the reality is that fear can be a very powerful and immobilizing force. It was about a month later that all my budget requests for new computers and their connectivity were approved.

Moral of the Story

So, the next time you find yourself having to justify something as ubiquitous as a talent management system to senior management, remember it’s not about the cost, or its usefulness or whether it will have impact. It is most likely because of the lack of understanding of what a talent management system is and what it can do to improve an organization’s performance. Take the time to teach and familiarize others what this powerful and impactful technology can do for them.
DISCLAIMER:  This does not mean that you won’t be required to write a business case analysis when you find yourself in front of a budget committee or other decision making authority.  Often you will find yourself doing this as a competition for funding.  In this case, we have moved beyond “need” to “project prioritization”. 
Are you on the hook for a Talent Management business case?  Need to create a series of business impact statements or a compelling story?   Let me know via Twitter @bollinger — #businessimpact

HR, IT’S TIME TO IMPROVE YOUR EMPLOYEE RETENTION STRATEGY

Always top of mind these days,  employee turnover is a critical and costly issue for companies across the U.S.   The demographic pressures and the tsunami of retirements are high level barometers of more to come.  The number of people changing jobs has increased dramatically over the last few years, sneaking past pre-recession levels of more than 3 million “quits” as of December 2016.
Although constantly recruiting and training new employees is expensive, it is the ancillary effects on productivity, customer satisfaction, manager effectiveness and engagement metrics that truly impact the overall business operations.  It is simply in everyone’s best interest to make employee retention a top priority in our new found “sellers market”. Here are five ways HR can start improving employee retention today.

1) Make Visibility a Priority

For employees to stay with a company, they need to feel like they have room to grow. “The best incentive to retain top talent is to give them challenging work (not more work), ongoing personal and professional development such as training or coaching, or a new role,” says Josh Kuehler, an employee analytics specialist for business advisory firm FMG Leading.
According to Cornerstone’s Career Trends Report, 75 percent of high performing organizations identify high potential talent, yet only 29 percent clearly communicate this fact to their target audience.
Your organization may have internal growth opportunities, but if employees can’t see them, they won’t know those opportunities are available. Be transparent and open with employees about current and future needs, and make sure you have systems in place to actively guide employees to those new opportunities.  Personal growth in role is at top of mind for your employees.

2) Establish Formal Career Pathing

Encourage and help employees create formal career paths for themselves so both employees and their managers have a concrete understanding of each other’s goals and expectations.
“When employees feel stranded, they leave. When employees have expectations that aren’t being met, they leave,” says James Pollard, a specialist in financial advisor retention at TheAdvisorCoach.com. “One of the best incentives for retaining top talent is a strong support system.”
Among employees surveyed in Cornerstone’s Career Trends Report, 74 percent actively monitor the trajectory of their career by setting goals. If managers encourage and participate in this process, they’ll be well equipped to help employees achieve those goals by staying with the company.

3) Reward Managers for Developing Employees

All employees are motivated by personal incentives, including managers. If managers have more incentive to keep top performers on their own teams rather than moving them up through the company, then employee retention can suffer.
Cornerstone’s Career Trends Report found that nearly two-thirds of high-performing organizations invest in coaching to accelerate employee growth. Actively train and support managers in developing coaching and mentoring skills, and offer them rewards for building and sharing talent pools.

4) Create Opportunities for Career Mobility

Managers know that hiring internally generally costs less and results in better performance that recruiting externally, yet our report showed only 37 percent of positions were filled with internal candidates in the last 24 months.
The commitment to providing employees with career mobility needs to come from the top as a clearly communicated policy. Create a culture where hiring managers think about career mobility in talent review and succession meetings, and look first at your employee pool rather that simply defaulting to external recruiting.

5) Invest in Learning and Development

In order to create a culture where employees can grow, thrive and rise within a company, there should be clear understanding among leadership that learning and development are priority investments.
In Cornerstone’s Career Trends Report, only 38 percent of respondents said their employer provides training and career development. Yet companies whose leaders made talent a focus of their culture saw 2.7x higher revenue growth. Start by quantifying the benefits of learning and development to your business strategy to earn the commitment of senior leadership, then create clear and actionable development plans.
“Many companies think this internal promotion is enough, but it’s important to take it one step further by giving employees the tools they need to get there,” says Evan Harris, Co-Founder & CEO of SD Equity Partners. “By offering your employees resources to increase their knowledge and develop their skills, they’ll be more likely to stay.”
Research shows us two things, 1) Managers can spend up to 50% of their time working with new hires and, 2) the at-risk period for employees is the first year of their employment.  Putting these simple techniques into place will have true impact in a targeted fashion.

IN HEALTHCARE, A HAPPY STAFF MAKES FOR HEALTHY PATIENTS

Healthcare professionals know a slew of factors go into keeping patients healthy, safe and satisfied with the care they’re receiving. But while adopting state-of-the-art technology, recruiting top specialists and creating preventative health programs tend to get the spotlight, there’s an often-overlooked variable with wide-reaching consequences: employee engagement.

Employee Happiness Matters

Strong employee engagement has been linked with significant improvements in patient care and satisfaction. For instance, higher nurse engagement scores lead to lower patient mortality and complications, according to a recent Gallup study. Higher nurse satisfaction resulted in an 87 percent decrease in infection rate over two years, according to data from the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI).
What’s more, Gallup also found that hospitals employing the least engaged nurses spend $1.1 million more per year in malpractice claims than those with the most engaged nurses. Just like employees at any company, healthcare providers will do better work — and provide better care — if they are happier and invested in their jobs. 

The State of Engagement Today

If employee engagement is so crucial to providing high-quality patient care, what are healthcare providers actually doing about it?
According to a 2014 Cornerstone OnDemand study that surveyed HR professionals at healthcare organizations, nearly half of respondents said their organizations do measure whether or not employees are engaged — and to what extent. But nearly half of respondents also indicated that their employees were not fully engaged, and a quarter of respondents said they don’t measure engagement at all.  
The low engagement levels, survey respondents said, were primarily due to industry changes (such as the burden of transitioning from paper to electronic medical records), high rates of employee turnover and mandates to manage hospital surveys and adopt ICD-10, a new coding system for diagnosing various diseases. 
While healthcare organizations are aware of the problem and (some) even believe they’re prepared to address the downsides of low engagement, there is still a long way to go to achieve higher engagement rates that translate into better patient care. Only a third of organizations surveyed had an HR plan in place to drive engagement, but these initiatives become sidetracked by everyday concerns like patient emergencies and transitioning to new systems and software. 

6 Ways to Boost Employee Engagement

It’s clear that healthcare organizations need to address employee satisfaction and its consequences. But where to start? These six strategies can help:
1. Use succession planning to create career paths.
Succession planning is not only important for the long-term success of an organization, but it also improves overall job satisfaction. This is especially true in healthcare, where the exodus of Baby Boomers and an acute nursing shortage has underscored the need for strong employee retention.
Having a comprehensive strategy for building a strong leadership pipeline is directly tied to improved employee satisfaction, engagement and commitment, according to a 2012 study from Walden University. For example, a New Jersey healthcare system that implemented a succession plan for employees boosted engagement and retention, and eventually earned HR Solutions International’s top rank for engagement, patient care and overall job satisfaction. 
2. Recognize your strongest players. 
In healthcare, it’s crucial for nurses and other on-the-floor care providers to feel acknowledged and appreciated. So be sure to recognize nurses and other staff for good work. One caveat: a culture of recognition does require better performance management processes, so make sure feedback sessions and reviews happen more than once a year.
3. Prioritize learning and development.
Employees who have access to “meaningful learning and development opportunities” are typically very engaged, according to the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration. Additionally, research has found that solid development opportunities can lower employee turnover and bring in up to twice the revenue per worker. 
4. Deliver feedback that integrates learning opportunities early and often. 
Building a highly engaged workforce means delivering more frequent, actionable feedback that’s tied to actionable learning opportunities. It’s also important to deliver feedback early in an employee’s tenure. Connecting performance management and learning opportunities keeps employees prepared with the latest skills needed to provide the best care to patients.
5. Start engagement activities early.
An employee’s first day is likely to be his or her most engaged day on the job, according to Katherine Jones, vice president of HCM Technology Research at Bersin by Deloitte. Have your new hires hit the ground running by networking early with coworkers to drive home your organization’s high expectations for ongoing engagement. It’s also important to make new hires feel welcome in their new community. A Washington, D.C. hospital saw a significant drop in attrition when it sent new nurses a welcome card introducing them to the team before their first day. 
6. Align employee goals with organizational goals.
Healthcare workers generally enter the field because they have a strong passion for helping others. Communicate your organization’s mission clearly and consistently so employees have a strong reference from which to set personal goals. Set your employees up for achieving these goals by providing the necessary resources, whether it’s a mentorship program or training sessions for specific skills. Connecting employees’ personal passion for their work with the organization’s goals leads to stronger employee loyalty and better performance. 

3 WAYS TO ENGAGE THE NEXT GENERATION OF RNS

Katrina Greer applied to college planning to become an orthodontist. But after her father was diagnosed with leukemia during her senior year of high school, her aspirations of working in healthcare shifted. 
“I remember the nurses coming in and taking care of him, while he would shake and wasn’t able to do things himself,” says Katrina, “Nurses saved my dad.”
Katrina is now a Registered Nurse at Penn State Hershey Medical Center, where her father was treated. But while she entered the job with a keen, personal understanding of quality patient care from watching her fathers’ nurses, and with technical skills from years of school, her education is far from over.
“There’s new things that come out every single day that you have to adjust to,” says Katrina. The technical and medical knowledge required of nurses today far exceeds the expectations of previous decades, and in addition to more complex job requirements, the talent pipeline for nursing is thin.

Preparing RNs for a Future of Quality Care

As experienced nurses retire and healthcare reform expands coverage, the need for nurses is exceeding the supply. A recent study from Georgetown University predicts the economy will create 1.6 million job openings for nurses by 2020—but schools are struggling to meet growing demand, leading to an estimated shortfall of nearly 200,000 nursing professionals.
With a talent shortage and an increasingly young workforce, it’s critical for hospitals to provide access to education and training for nurses. Continued education not only helps nurses make more informed decisions, it also increases employee engagement—leading to better patient care overall. According to a recent Gallup report, higher nurse engagement scores lead to lower patient mortality and complications.
Below are three learning strategies to engage the next generation of nurses and ensure a future of quality care:

1. Provide 24/7 Access to Training

As Katrina shared, RNs must constantly adapt to new patient situations, treatment options and industry regulations. Access to reference materials and live sessions provides nurses with the knowledge they need to provide the best care for their patients.
In addition, the American Society for Healthcare and Human Resources Administration found that employees who have access to “meaningful learning and development opportunities” are typically highly engaged.

2. Offer Real-Time Evaluation

Annual reviews and one-off feedback sessions often fail to make a substantial difference in employee performance. Instead, offer proactive feedback to help nurses improve on the floor. Cornerstone’s Observation Checklist software is one way to evaluate performance in real-time—with customizable rating methods based on your organization’s goals and online access to reporting features.
Not only does real-time feedback help nurses consistently improve, but studies show that strong development programs also lead to a 27 percent lower employee turnover.

3. Align Individual Goals with Organization’s Mission

Nursing is far more than giving shots and assessing patients. As Angela Perlakowski, an RN at Penn Hershey, shares, “The best nurses are ones who can balance compassion and critical thinking.”
People typically pursue a career in healthcare because they want to help people—but the multitude of small tasks and important details can be distracting from this larger goal. By aligning each nurse’s goals with the mission of the hospital, you can help employees learn to complete tasks while truly caring for the patient. In the end, this will lead to stronger employee loyalty, better performance and higher patient satisfaction.

THIS ISN’T WHY I WENT TO SCHOOL! CHANGE MANAGEMENT AND HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ON YOUR CLINICAL TEAM

Change is scary. And no one knows this better than a hospital’s clinical staff. Physicians have been practicing medicine the same way for years. And nurses are constantly learning new procedures, sometimes just about as fast as they mastered the last one. None of your staff went to school to be an IT professional, so on top of any changes, they are also being required to learn how to manage electronic medical records. And all of this can leave many of them saying “I didn’t go to school for this!” So how do you get your practitioners back to the basics of practicing medicine while still smoothly implementing some necessary changes?
Instead of simply working on managing the change from your perspective, try seeing all of this through the eyes of your staff. There are three key questions they might ask themselves during any change. If you shape your response around their questions and concerns, while you still might have some late adopters, you might find yourself spending more time working with nurses and physicians, and less time at odds with them.

Question : Do I want to stay here?

This is typically your team’s first question. If your staff harbor negative feelings toward your care center, it might be easy for them to feel like they don’t want to stay. We spend more hours at work than any other activity during our waking hours, so we should definitely want to be happy about where we will spend the majority of our time; especially given the number of hours hospital staff are with each other during their shift. You want your staff to have a positive connection to your care center. “Lack of advancement opportunities” is the top fear of healthcare professionals,[1] so by making their growth a priority, you make it less likely that they will leave. Integrate any change or new training initiatives with areas they’re excited about. By offering staff the chance to choose to grow in areas they are passionate about, it can be much easier to introduce other training that may be more difficult, which should keep the happy feelings much higher.

Question : Do I need to stay here?

So after we address the positive and negative feelings that come with change, we must also look at the fundamental question they must ask, even if they want to stay: do I need to stay here? Before leaving a hospital, staff members will weigh the career and financial costs, among other factors. These costs will become tougher to bear the more they’re emotionally invested in their work. One way to address this is to do some internal marketing and create an offering to the staff that shows you are really invested in their welfare. You can also address this by giving staff projects they are going to feel give them purpose and help keep them connected to their jobs. The burden of switching jobs may seem worth it if they don’t feel they hold much value in their current position. However, being invested in their job and your organization help outweigh the burden of having to manage and deal with change.

Question : Should I stay here?

So once your staff ask themselves if they want to stay and if they need to stay, they can answer the question if they should stay. And all of this comes down to weighing the negatives and the positives. If the negatives outweigh the positives, it will be much easier for a staff member to leave. High retention rates are the goal, but they don’t tell you if team members are staying out of obligation. Start by getting your employees communicating with each other, especially about non-work topics. This also sends the message that your organization cares about their happiness outside of the office, as well. You can do this by rounding with your team and stopping by to check on them and see how they are doing outside of the day-to-day clinical operations. You can even start this as early as the onboarding phase by scheduling social events that reflect the team culture. By helping them establish their personal network, they’ll feel a stronger emotional connection to their work and their colleagues, which drives engagement, retention, and performance.
[1] No author. “TurnoveRx: How to Cure the Retention Problems Ailing Your Health Care Organization.” CareerBuilder.com. Date published: N/A. Date accessed: Oct. 6, 2015. http://www.careerbuildercommunications.com/pdf/turnoverrx-whitepaper.pdf

IS COACHING RIGHT FOR MY HEALTHCARE TEAM?

Hospitals and care centers are always looking for well-qualified, highly-skilled practitioners. And as an RN, I was always being asked to learn something new. Typically, one of my more senior peers would orient me on the new task.  And I can easily say that the times I experienced the most growth in my career was when I received some kind of coaching. Over 70% of coaching recipients saw an increase in work performance, relationships, and communication skills, and 80% reported having more self-confidence.1  So it’s no wonder that coaching in healthcare is so important. So why don’t more hospitals do it?
Quality patient care depends on a well-trained, passionate, committed staff, which in turn is fostered by supportive, skilled leadership. Yet healthcare organizations are facing radical changes in everything from policy to technology, a loss of key leaders and clinicians due to the Baby Boomer exodus, and an increasingly dissatisfied—and overworked—labor force. Not to mention increased competition and the need to run ever-leaner while still providing the same level of care, despite an increased patient load. Nurturing engaged, curious employees and creating skilled, committed leaders are key to surviving and thriving amid all these challenges.

So what is coaching?

Coaching is an umbrella term for the process of developing people’s skills and abilities, boosting their performance, and dealing with issues and challenges before they become major problems.2 But coaching can be broken out into three different categories:
  • Executive coaching: Designed for top tier team members to improve their performance and leadership capabilities.
  • Leadership and capacity building coaching: Aimed at helping managers—from those involved in patient care to administration to operations—become better leaders to prepare them for more high-level responsibilities.
  • Performance coaching: Implemented to help recipients improve performance in their current roles, build strengths, or correct weaknesses.

Must-Have Coaching Skill Sets

In addition to the above, coaches should be able to offer intangible skills that enable staff to achieve a higher level of success. Whether a coach is “coaching your coaches,” or if a manager is coaching a more junior colleague, they should be able to: 3
Listen actively: Employees need to know that when discussing career aspirations and challenges, their coach is as invested in their success as they are. By being an active listener, the coach will be able to fully internalize and understand team members’ goals and offer meaningful solutions for impactful growth. Part of listening actively is not checking e-mails, not looking at a cell phone, or doing anything else that distracts from the one-on-one element.
Reinforce positive behaviors: A quality coach should reward their clients when they’ve made the right move or decision, rather than punish them for the wrong one. By rewarding correct choices, the staff member will display better performance-related behaviors as an instinct, rather than as something they have to think about doing before acting.
Ask open-ended questions:  Asking “yes/no” questions, or ones that similarly offer a limited number of responses, are risky because respondents have to choose best-fit answers that may not paint the whole picture. Instead, a good coach will use open-ended question, such as “How do you feel when…” or “What do you think is…” This enables the staff member to provide detailed, candid answers, rather than be pigeon-holed into responses that may not present the most accurate information.

More on Coaching

There are many different types of coaches, strategies for teaching and best practices on timing. For a more in-depth look on coaching, you can download our Coaching Playbook for free, here.
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1 No author. “The Benefits of Coaching.” Outstand.org. Date published: March 28, 2013. Date accessed: March 30, 2015. http://www.outstand.org/index.php/2013/03/the-benefits-of-coaching/
2 No author. “What is Coaching?” MindTools. No date published. Date accessed: March 27, 2015. http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_15.htm
3 No author. “Business Results Through Coaching.”Bersin by Deloitte. No date published. Date accessed: March 26, 2015. http://www.bersin.com/News/Details.aspx?id=15040.

TOXIC EMPLOYEES IN HEALTHCARE: WHO THEY ARE AND HOW TO DELIVER THE CURE

Toxic employees. We’ve all worked with them – but can one bad apple really spoil the whole bunch? Having toxic behavior at any company yields bad results. But having it on the hospital floor can have serious consequences. According to a study by Mitchell Kusy, forty-nine percent of nurses that reported toxic behavior by team members said that it has resulted in them wrongly administering medication.  And 25% of practitioners in the healthcare industry believe disruptive behavior is directly tied to patient mortality. 
So what does this look like for an RN that’s worked on the floor? A former colleague of mine was sharing about a nurse that was difficult to get along with. She constantly picked up extra shifts, worked long hours and never quite seemed happy about her job. Her peers would help her out where they could, but she never wanted to pitch in when the rest of the team needed help with a patient. Her patients seemed relieved when her shift was over and they got a new nurse. When a team that is there to care for people is divided because they are avoiding someone on staff, mistakes are made, patient satisfaction goes down and the care we promise as nurses inadvertently suffers.

1. What is a toxic staff member?

A toxic worker is one who engages in bad behavior while on the job, often to the detriment of the team. And in healthcare specifically, one result is usually poor patient care. Examples of toxic behavior include having a bad attitude, whining, sabotaging others’ work, yelling, and more.  Their conduct isn’t done maliciously, but it can still be harmful to their colleagues’ reputations.

2. Can anyone be toxic?

Yes. Everyone from the janitor to the CEO has the potential to be toxic. Whether they feel unappreciated – “I’ll show them for not giving me that promotion!” – or don’t work well with others, no one is immune. In fact, according to that same Kusy study, 80% of doctors have displayed toxic behavior towards staff, and 33% say disruptive physician behaviors occur weekly. No growth opportunities and being overworked are the two biggest ways to create toxics.

3. How do toxics affect my hospital?

So what else does the Kusy study tell us about having toxic staff members in your hospital? Well, for starters, toxic staff wreak havoc on retention, performance, and clinical care outcomes. Among the victims of toxics, 12% end up quitting, (and replacing them can cost over $57k per role!), 38% felt their work quality decreased, and 78% said their organizational commitment declined. For every 10% of unsatisfied nurses, patient recommendations drop 2%.
So what can you do about this in your care center? Cornerstone recently came out with a brief on toxic employees in healthcare that offers some suggestions on how to address this on your team. If you would like to dive further into what you can do to address this in your care center, you can download the rest of the brief here

HEALTHCARE: YOUR RX FOR STAFF BURNOUT AND RETENTION ISSUES

As an HR professional, it’s never fun to deal with the aftermath of a burned out employee who has decided to leave. You’re stuck with the unenviable task of dividing their workload among the existing staff, to say nothing of having to start the recruiting process all over again to replace them.
Burnout, and the high attrition it causes, hits care centers hard. NSI found that the nursing turnover epidemic is as high as 16% per year. This reaches all the way to the executive level, where Monster.com reports turnover costs can drain up to 5% of total operating budgets.

So what are some strategies healthcare organizations can employ to ensure their workers don’t get burned out?

1. What’s the Problem?  The first thing is determine if you have a problem! Look at recent data related to turnover to assess whether the high rate of employees leaving has become an epidemic. If you think it’s related to burnout, then you’re probably right. But before you make any determinations, or take any actions, you’ll need to look at the facts and figures behind your departing employees to figure out the solution. Currently, NSI says just 36% of care centers have a strategy in place to prevent attrition. Establishing one will help your organization gain a talent advantage over other hospitals in the area, and the lower attrition rates will make cost-conscious executives happy.
2. Why Do People Leave?  When one employee leaves, their work must be farmed out to the remaining staff until a replacement is found. But qualified replacements don’t grow on trees, so the longer that position is vacant, the more your shrinking headcount will struggle to care for increasing numbers of patients. This forces caregivers to work longer hours, and maybe even perform duties they’re not fully trained on. These dovetail into them being unhappy, burned out, and looking for better working conditions at other care centers. A HealthWyse report discovered that trying to replace even one nurse can cost upwards of $88,000, so pinpointing the reasons people leave does more than just prevent burnout – it ensures hospital resources are used efficiently.
3. What’s Next?  So now that your attrition problem has been confirmed, what’s next? Administer a treatment plan based on what’s wrong. If you’ve determined that workers are leaving due to unfairly high patient loads, then consider allocating resources towards recruiting new staff in order to reduce the burden. Or did your exit interviews uncover that hours are too long? Perhaps rearranging schedules to improve caregivers’ work/life balance might alleviate some burnout issues. No matter what avenue you take, your solution should address the issues presented by the data.
Does this sound daunting? It’s not. Dealing with problems like attrition is never a walk in the park, but it doesn’t have to be a Herculean task either. Look at your recent attrition data; it will not only tell you if you have a problem, but also why it’s a problem. From there, the steps should be easy to determine. Just remember that before you start offering solutions, you must first understand the issue.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY COMPLIANCE MANAGER

Karen Shell watched intently when the Senate Judiciary Committee held confirmation hearings in January for the next U.S. attorney general, a decision that could dramatically impact her day-to-day work. As the director of compliance for National Seating and Mobility (NSM), her interest in these hearings might not be clear at first, but Shell says a shakeup in the Department of Justice’s philosophy and focus could seriously affect business.
Monitoring changes in legislation and regulation is just one aspect of her complex role at NSM, a Tennessee-based company that designs one-of-a-kind mobility solutions like manual and power wheelchairs for disabled individuals and their families.“It’s impossible to follow the rules if you don’t know what they are and how they change,” says Shell. “Plus, being unaware of a requirement isn’t an acceptable defense.”
With plenty of important eyes watching, including the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS-OIG), Shell sees herself and her counterparts in compliance as revenue protectors. At NSM, the compliance team has its own space on the company’ organizational chart, a wholly separate department from legal and human resources with direct, unfiltered access to the board of directors. According to Shell, it’s important that the compliance officer maintain independence, so decisions can be made without competing agendas and influences.
A typical workday for Shell involves creating policies, procedures and compliance training, identifying risks and auditing performance as well as serving as a confidential contact for all employees and leadership. We caught up with Shell to take a closer look at her unique experience as a compliance officer.

Health care is a particularly difficult industry from a compliance perspective. What challenges have you experienced while building your career in this field over the past two decades?

The major challenge has been keeping up with a constantly changing legislative and regulatory environment, along with changing technology and patient expectations. An additional challenge is presenting compliance as something more than just a necessary cost or a check box. My goal is to ensure that senior leadership knows we’re here to support our greater corporate mission, not to hinder it.

You mentioned changing technology. How does tech contribute to your daily efforts in compliance?

Technology is an increasingly important part of our compliance program because we maintain client records and file claims electronically and we communicate with our clients and their medical professionals electronically as well. We have to be careful to keep that information secure, while meeting HIPAA and HITECH regulations.
The benefit of electronic records is that we can use technology to put checks in place to help prevent false claims or more easily audit claims to identify non-compliance and improvement opportunities. We also use technology to train and inform employees. We can keep our compliance messaging fresh and make sure that compliance resources, like the compliance manual, are always current and easily available online. There’s not an area of our business that isn’t affected by technology, so we have to be sure we maintain compliance on that front, too.

Why should business executives focus on cultivating a strong compliance program that doesn’t feel like an afterthought for legal or HR teams?

All companies, and definitely those in health care, operate in a complicated regulatory environment. A strong, proactive compliance program is needed to mitigate risks and to make certain the company stays within the guardrails while innovating and moving the mission forward. While a compliance department doesn’t generate revenue, it’s important that management understands that we’re here to protect the business.
The cost of operating a compliance program is far less than the extensive fines and penalties that companies might incur for violating laws and regulations. It’s also important to recognize the value in having a certified professional lead the program. For example, I maintain my Health Care Compliance certification through the Health Care Compliance Association, which was established in 1996 to help navigate and translate the complex regulatory requirements.

Can you share some examples of particular compliance challenges that you frequently face? How do you overcome those hurdles?

Our Assistive Technology Professionals (ATPs) work directly with clients with disabilities. They provide mobility with very restricted reimbursement processes from insurance companies, Medicare and other payers. Because not every item we provide is a covered item, it’s sometimes difficult for ATPs to understand why we can’t just give our clients things for free when they’re clearly in need. As much as we’d love to help, the wheelchair industry has an unfortunate history of fraud and abuse, so we have to be especially careful about maintaining compliance with the False Claims Act, beneficiary inducement and anti-kickback statutes.
This can be frustrating, so it’s important that I communicate not just what we can and can’t do, but also why we have to do it a certain way. I explain that my job isn’t to help them get around something, but to do whatever I can to help them through it. The ability to communicate how and why regulations apply to how we do business is important at every level. Everyone from the field employees to the board of directors should understand it.

Is that why you created a training manual, a code of conduct and compliance manual for each layer of staff at NSM?

Yes. It’s important to provide employees at every level with an explanation of the laws and regulations that apply to what they do every day. Our training program helps them understand what they need to do to minimize the risk of non-compliance so that we can continue to provide great care for our clients for many years to come.
Our Compliance Manual is a detailed tool to use for guidance, while the Code of Conduct outlines the behaviors we expect and the consequences for not meeting those expectations. Establishing very clear guidelines with open lines of communication for employees at every level is crucial. It’s also the part of my job that I find especially rewarding. I enjoy being able to communicate with everyone, from the executives to part-time employees, and developing a level of trust so that anyone feels comfortable coming to me with questions or concerns.
For more on healthcare compliance management, visit https://hr.cornerstoneondemand.com/compliance-healthcare-li 

FORGET BEST PRACTICES. HOW TO GET EMPLOYEE TRAINING RIGHT

Teaching employees how to interact with customers is critical to any company’s success. But getting that training right can be challenging, especially as training staffs grow.
Why? The larger a training department is, the greater the disconnect between what trainers think are best practices and the customer scenarios employees are actually encountering day to day, writes Bill Cushard, a learning experience designer and frequent contributor to the Human Capitalist blog.
“Business goals and learning goals have become disjointed when the learning becomes overly centralized,” argues Cushard in a post about why best practices are overrated in customer-service training programs. “The execution of learning should occur as close to the customer interaction as possible. Centralized learning departments are too far away from the customers to understand that.”

The 3 Es for Better Learning

Cushard suggests ways centralized learning departments can improve their customer-service training:
  1. Empower: “A sales or service department should not have to seek approval from the learning department to run a training program. The learning department should empower people close to the customer interaction to decide what learning needs to occur and how.” 
  2. Enable: Centralized learning functions needs also to provide sales managers with the tools they need to succeed, including templates, learning management systems and analysis questionnaires.
  3. Educate: “[T]he learning function should teach those who need [these tools], how to use them.” 

THE UNPAID INTERNSHIP IS DEAD. WHAT NOW?

The unpaid internship — once a right of passage for aspiring professionals — is doomed. Following some high-profile lawsuits and mounting student opposition to the practice, companies are axing unpaid internships. For example, Condé Nast, the media giant whose coveted internships have launched the careers of many top writers, is ending its program next year.
At issue is the question of compensation. Courts have ruled that unpaid interns are covered by minimum wage laws when their work benefits the employer — which, arguably, is almost always the case.
But the moves by Condé Nast and possibly other companies, raise an interesting point: If students need internships to graduate or to get their foot in the door in a highly competitive industry, then what are they going to do now? It’s a question a lot of experts are asking these days and they don’t yet have answers.
“From a student’s perspective, an internship for credit, even if unpaid, is a step toward both graduation and a job in her chosen field at the same time,” Malcolm Harris writes on Al Jazeera. “But as many commentators have pointed out, employers commonly use internships as a way to skirt minimum-wage laws. College administrators and employers have colluded to invent a loophole where none existed.”
The media business isn’t the only one facing this problem. Roughly half of all unpaid interns work in the public sector, including the Supreme Court and the United Nations, reports NBC.

The Fix: Create Meaningful Work 

One possible solution is for school credit to replace compensation. But even that practice doesn’t seem likely to hold up in court. In June, a New York federal judge ruled that Fox Searchlight Pictures’ unpaid internship program violated federal labor law. The fact that interns received college credit for their time didn’t matter. The students, the court held, were entitled to both minimum wage and overtime.
One the face of it, the obvious fix is for employers to start paying newbies — and to look at internships not as an opportunity for young workers to gain valuable experience but as an opportunity to cultivate them as future stars within the company. “Critics of the unpaid internship seem to assume that tighter regulation would simply mean today’s interns would magically become paid employees,” says Matthew Yglesias in Slate Magazine. “In some cases, that might happen. But many positions would simply be eliminated.”
David Carr of The New York Times doesn’t write off compensation as a solution so easily. He points out that unpaid internships have typically benefited those who can afford to work for no pay, which means employers have missed an opportunity to diversify. “Only a certain kind of young person can afford to spend a summer working for no pay,” Carr writes. “Unpaid internships typically provide people who already have a leg up a way to get the other leg up.”
Companies will have to come up with the money, concludes Carr, but that’s how they’ll attract meaningful contributors. “Paid internships, properly conceived and administered, could bring a diversity of region, class and race to an industry where the elevators are full of people who look alike, talk alike and think alike,” he says, referring to the media business. He cites Atlantic Media as an example. The company ended it’s unpaid internship program and now offers yearlong fellowships that, for some graduates, have morphed into permanent roles.
Slate’s Yglesias agrees that internships serve a valuable function in society. “If there’s a policy solution fix here, it’s not going to be about banning internships, but about building better bridges between education and the workplace.”

Unpaid Gigs May Be Overrated

For all the ongoing debate, here’s an interesting statistic: The National Association of Colleges and Employers reports that 63 percent of paid interns wind up working full time afterward (with median starting salary of about $52,000), while unpaid internships led to employment 37 percent of the time (with median starting salary of just under $36,000), according to The Journal Times.
Is it possible that unpaid internships aren’t, in the end, all that they’re cracked up to be?

TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE: 4 ALTERNATIVES TO FORCED RANKINGS

Marissa Mayer has caused another stir with her latest HR stunt. Last month the Yahoo! CEO implemented a forced rankings performance review process at the company, meaning managers rank their employees on a bell curve and fire those at the low end.
Forced—or “stacked”—rankings have fallen out of favor with some companies. Microsoft recently dumped its controversial forced ranking system in favor of more frequent and qualitative reviews, according to Business Week.
But performance review processes that work for one company won’t always fit another. “If this topic were simple there would not be over 25,000 books listed on Amazon’s U.S. book site for the query ‘performance review,’” Steven Stinofsky writes on Business Insider. 
Here are some alternatives—or additions—to forced rankings that companies are using to bolster their performance review schemes.

Calibration

Calibration is a face-to-face process, in which managers who oversee similar groups review one another’s employee-performance ratings. In these “rater reliability” sessions, supervisors discuss each of their employee’s performance rankings and their reasons behind the evaluation. “A calibration session catches the ‘easy graders’ and ‘tough graders’ and helps them rate their employees more realistically,” Joanne Lloyd writes on JobDig.com.

360-Degree Feedback

Instead of relying on one supervisor to evaluate an individual’s performance, some companies ask everyone with whom the employee interacts to weigh in. That’s the idea behind 360-degree feedback, a technique that collects performance data from a number of stakeholders like team members, customers and direct reports. “When it’s done well, 360 programs allow all your team members to improve in key areas that might be limiting their upward career path or actually causing major conflict within a team,” Eric Jackson writes on Forbes.

Management by Objective

First outlined by management whiz Peter Drucker, management by objective occurs when supervisors work with employees to outline goals and desired outcomes. Managers evaluate staff members based on their ability to achieve results. The advantage of the MBO process is that it allows employees to actively participate in goal setting, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.

Peer Review 

As the term implies, peer reviews require co-workers to comment about each others’ performance. “Coworkers often know more about their peers’ strengths and weaknesses than supervisors do, and letting employees review one another is a great way for management to share in that knowledge,” Stephanie Gruner writes on Inc.
Companies have used these evaluation methods for ages, but they’re continually experimenting with new feedback iterations that combine input from employees and their peers. 
There has been some heated discussion on LinkedIn recently around forced rankings. One contributor reminds us, “It really doesn’t matter what form is used; what matters is how it is used and what the results really mean.” It’s hard to judge one company’s forced rankings system without understanding other programs that might support or counter balance it.