Abstract
Kaiser Permanente launched its national workforce wellness program in 2010. The goal of the program is to create the healthiest workforce in the health-care industry by fostering a culture of safety, health, and well-being for the people of Kaiser Permanente. The programs and initiatives, developed by the National Healthy Workforce department and its many partners within the organization, serve an employee population of 217 000. These employees are spread across 8 states and the District of Columbia in settings as diverse as health-care delivery, administration, facilities services, IT, and call centers. The partnership between Kaiser Permanente management and the majority of its labor unions, called the Labor Management Partnership, directs the design and implementation of much of Kaiser Permanente’s well-being efforts, as 75% of Kaiser Permanente’s workforce is union represented.
Under the auspices of the Labor Management Partnership, a Unit-Based Teams Health and Safety Champion program launched at the end of 2015 as a primary initiative to address the organization’s employee well-being priorities. The program consists of a network of over 3300 champions who embed health and well-being (HWB) into the workplace and day-to-day work activities of our employee population and facilitate the initiation of employee-driven well-being projects across the organization.
The Unit-Based Teams are self-directed groups of frontline employees, managers, and physicians whose work brings them together naturally and who collaborate with one another to improve member and patient care. The teams, which are co-led by a manager and union-represented employee, are accountable for the performance of their unit and determine the methods and metrics of their performance improvement projects. There are 132 000 union-represented employees that are members of a Unit-Based Team, along with 20 000 managers and 22 000 physicians. Each Unit-Based Team has a Health and Safety Champion, who brings well-being messaging and education to their peers, initiates team health and safety projects, and acts as a role model for their colleagues and worksites.
Each month the champions focus on a different health or safety topic that is developed and communicated by a joint labor and management national team. The champions then bring the topic to their teams through regular meetings and interactions. A Unit-Based Team Health and Safety Champion training curriculum is active in most regions and training sessions are held throughout the year, and a monthly tele-town hall brings the champions together for education and an opportunity to ask questions. As of year-end 2018, Kaiser Permanente had 3650 active Unit-Based Teams, of which 91% (3321) had a Unit-Based Team Health and Safety Champion. Unit-Based Teams initiated 1824 workforce wellness projects in 2017, and another 1,985 in 2018. This breadth of participation by thousands of champions allows for well-being to be embedded into the everyday functioning of work units across the organization and is one of the primary drivers of the advancement of the culture of HWB within Kaiser Permanente.
A concurrent and complementary effort within the organization is underway to build and enhance the culture of HWB. Along with implementing a set of strategies to foster this culture at multiple levels, Kaiser Permanente has developed a Culture of Health (CoH) Index to systematically evaluate progress.
To bolster the development of a culture of HWB, Kaiser Permanente launched a National Well-Being Strategy Group in 2017. This group brings together leaders from across the organization to coordinate an enterprise-wide approach to achieve a thriving, resilient workforce. The group is responsible for establishing Kaiser Permanente’s overall strategy to advance well-being for the workforce and to help Kaiser Permanente be a role model for community and employer groups. One of the key elements of this strategy is the Unit-Based Team Health and Safety Champion program.
Key factors that have led to the success of the Unit-Based Team Health and Safety Champion program and the growth of a culture of HWB include organization-wide commitment; the unique design of the Unit-Based Team Health and Safety Champion program, which actively involves labor and touches a large percentage of employees through the existing and robust Labor Management Partnership infrastructure; and Kaiser Permanente’s multipronged approach to fostering a culture of HWB and tracking progress toward those ends.
Results featured in the 2019 C. Everett Koop award application demonstrate that employees in Unit-Based Teams who successfully complete well-being projects at Kaiser Permanente show consistently favorable health and key performance outcomes compared to employees who do not. The population of employees in Unit-Based Teams that are engaged with well-being exhibits lower average sick day rates, better blood glucose test results, and higher CoH index scores. The higher engagement with their HWB therefore translates to beneficial financial outcomes for Kaiser Permanente.
Aside from their level of engagement with well-being projects through Unit-Based Teams, the study and comparison populations examined were similar in terms of workforce and demographic characteristics. Therefore, there is evidence that the results could be attributable to participation in well-being efforts at Kaiser Permanente. These results suggest that the more that employees are engaged in well-being through Unit-Based Teams, the more those employees may be engaged in their well-being overall, leading to improved health and business outcomes. A strong case can therefore be made for continuing and possibly strengthening the Unit-Based Team employee well-being initiatives at Kaiser Permanente in years to come.