Our journey in the Labor Management Partnership is really quite amazing!

We are attempting to do something that has rarely been attempted and even more rarely achieved: whole-systems improvement of quality, service, affordability and working environment in one of the largest health systems anywhere. It is a journey of responsibility and a real attempt to unite diverse interests in a common cause: to show the nation that there is a model for how health care should be delivered, and that it should be delivered by the best compensated unionized workforce in the industry.

How are we doing on this journey?

A recent report produced by our colleague Peter Nixon in the Office of Labor Management Partnership, in collaboration with the Southern California LMP office and KP Organizational Research, tells a detailed story of our very significant progress. Peter is our director of Analytics and Metrics, and this study, one of many that he and others have produced, demonstrates that we are succeeding at our most important work. The report is called Culture Matters.

Our theory is that as we develop high performing unit-based teams, we will create the conditions for better performance in higher patient satisfaction, improved quality, fewer workplace injuries and better attendance, as important examples of team success. These improvements will lead to lower costs and improved affordability to the public and to our members.

This study validates our theory. There are direct correlations between the development of high-performing teams and measures of higher employee engagement. Indeed, higher employee engagement means we are creating a culture of collaboration in the workplace, perhaps the single most important attribute of high performance.

We should take stock of this culture change. Indeed, there are doubters all around us who cannot see the possibility of unionized employees and management figuring out how to really deliver improvement on a whole-systems scale. Our LMP, our Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions and Kaiser Permanente are achieving something great: unity of purpose. That is what our Partnership Agreement challenged us to do when it was signed in 1997: to find common ground so that the external environment does not destroy the conditions for our mission to be realized.

The most complex element of our LMP is to find the means to this unity of purpose. We are succeeding. Development of high-performing teams – as measured by the Path to Performance negotiated in the 2010 National Agreement – has a positive impact on culture that improves organizational performance.

A few examples from the report include:

• Unit-based teams with higher scores on the Path to Performance also have higher People Pulse employee survey scores on important elements related to performance.
• Unit-based teams with higher Path to Performance scores produce higher HCAHPS scores at both the medical center and department levels.
• Where units show high scores on the People Pulse Workforce Effectiveness Index, there is significantly better attendance.

This study does more than underscore what we intuitively know can happen; it provides hard data to show the relationships of team development and the culture of collaboration necessary for high performance.

In summary, we recognize that collaboration in its most genuine form can only come when interests and purposes are aligned. This is the cultural transformation we seek as envisioned by the National Agreement.