Management through inclusion

At an organization with nearly 11,000 employees, it would be easy to imagine getting lost in the shuffle within South Florida-based Memorial Healthcare System. But it's been the way Memorial has placed high value in retaining staff that has helped it stand out as a favored employer within the industry

“I started when I was a new grad as a physical therapist, and I worked my way up through the ranks,” says Dawn Broksch, director of rehabilitation services at two of Memorial's seven facilities who has worked at the system for 22 years. “What I found is that at every level, Memorial provides so much guidance, mentorship and opportunity that they allow you to grow.”

In an industry where the average employee turnover rate was 17% last year, Memorial's rate was only 8%, with 45% of its open positions filled internally.

The healthcare system ranks No. 37 on this year's ranking of the 100 Best Places to Work in Healthcare and No. 3 in the large employer category.“

Memorial's mission has always been community-based healthcare, and in that it looks for opportunities to maintain a healthy community,” says Kerting Baldwin, director of corporate communications. “It does the same thing for (the) employee base by trying to find ways for employees to be a healthy workforce.”

Part of that effort, Baldwin says, has been a focus on communicating with staff so that they not only clearly understand the organization's mission, but that they also know their voices have been heard as part of the process.

Through the health system's mentorship program, employees can shadow executives with the idea that the experience can allow participants to see how the system's long-term strategy is formed. In day-to-day operations, Broksch says department heads are allowed to manage without much intrusion from higher up the corporate chain, a style she believes has given leaders a sense of ownership and responsibility for how the company performs as a whole.

“Even though we work for a system, they allow that ability to really manage our departments just like it was our own business,” Broksch says.

It was that hands-off approach that led cardiac surgeon Dr. Richard Perryman to come to work for Memorial 15 years ago after years in private practice.

“We practice medicine in the highest-quality way that we can without any other influences,” says Perryman, who serves as medical director of Memorial Cardiac and Vascular Institute. “There are no influences from the administration on how we practice medicine. We're free to practice medicine without any of the financial constraints that one gets in private practice.”

Perryman describes Memorial as being “far-sighted” in the way it has allowed physicians to play an active role in decisionmaking throughout the organization with the formation of an employee advisory board. These “physician leaders” represent the voice of doctors when it comes to the managerial aspects of the hospital. All members of the panel—formed three years ago—are staff physicians who meet with Memorial senior executives every two weeks.

Perryman says employee-physicians at Memorial are involved in developing the process of delivering healthcare far beyond their clinical roles. “Not just in the delivery of the medical care per se, but in the management of delivering that healthcare —trying to work together to create really high value, high patient satisfaction,” he says.

Follow Steven Ross Johnson on Twitter: @MHSjohnson