Employee Engagement Survey update: Feedback will lead to improvements

A message from Albert L. Wright, Jr., president and CEO, WVU Medicine:

"Listening to employees is an essential part of a strong organization, and I feel we do a good job of it at WVU Medicine. I enjoy hearing your opinions, whether they’re formally or informally expressed. Your input drives change within the organization that makes us better and stronger, and helps us continue to build an engaged, patient-centered culture.

"Our Employee Engagement Survey is an important tool to gather your feedback. The individual hospital results of the 2020 survey were presented to leaders in October. This month’s focus is on leaders sharing these results with their respective teams, departments, and work units. This is a great occasion to discuss findings and trends, celebrate positive outcomes, and brainstorm improvement opportunities. If you have not seen your departmental results, please ask you leader to share them with you.

"Based on the survey results, some departments/work units will be required to develop action plans. Local HR leaders and members of the Learning & Development team will conduct action-planning workshops to share strategies.

"In addition to these local efforts, our Executive Engagement Committee – consisting of several senior leaders from across the organization -- is now in place to address the 2020 results from a system perspective. The committee identified two key engagement drivers that WVU Medicine will focus on in 2021:

• Ensuring that employees are appropriately recognized in meaningful and timely ways for work contributions
• Promoting the well-being of employees by continuing to uphold our high standards for a safe, healthy workplace environment

"We will conduct confidential focus groups – system-wide -- to take a deeper dive into these areas. If you are asked to participate, we hope you’ll openly share your honest thoughts and suggestions. Using the focus group feedback and survey results, the committee will create an action plan. Next summer, we will conduct a brief pulse survey to assess our continuous improvement efforts and ensure our changes are resonating across the organization.

"Recognizing our employees and providing a safe, healthy environment are important issues – and we’re committed to making improvements in these areas. We encourage individual employees and departments to address these two areas through local action planning and other initiatives.

"Let’s continue to work together to make WVU Medicine a great place to work and practice medicine. Thank you for all you do!"