When employees speak up, teams score high on patient safety, quality, service and workplace safety. But it can be hard to speak up when you don’t feel safe or comfortable. Gain the confidence to use your voice with these tips from two frontline workers with the Ambulatory Care Pharmacy team in West Los Angeles. 

Chakana Mayo, pharmacy technician, UFCW Local 770, Workplace safety champion

Practicing speaking up when you feel safe. “When we first began peer rounding, people were comfortable speaking to one another versus speaking with management. Once people were comfortable speaking with one another, then they felt like they could be comfortable speaking with management.”

Your voice can make a difference. “It’s important to speak up early because you can prevent long-term injuries from occurring. If you’re confident enough to speak up to your manager and just let them know what’s going on, they’ll appreciate it more.”

I’m in a UBT, you’re in a UBT, we’re all in a UBT! Hooray! Let’s start our performance improvement project, collect our data and make a PowerPoint presentation to explain our results.

…Whoa. Not so fast. Unit-based teams were launched as part of the 2005 National Agreement, but we all still hear stories about frontline union members, managers and physicians who don’t realize they’re on a UBT. This is a big deal. When people don’t know they’re on a UBT, they’re missing out on an opportunity to take part in improving service and quality for our members and patients.

That’s why negotiators hammering out the 2015 National Agreement added a requirement: In order for a UBT to move up to Level 3, it has to have “a communications structure to reach all members of the department” in place.

Over time, this will help everyone in the department realize they’re part of the UBT—and will lay to rest the myth that “the UBT” is a small group of people who lock themselves in a meeting room, drink coffee and eat doughnuts and solve problems for everyone else. Your team needs you contributing ideas; our members and patients need you.

Angela Chandler and Nee Tang, Pharm.D., didn’t like what they were seeing.

The team co-leads for the West Los Angeles Ambulatory Care Pharmacy crouched beside Camille Wong, scrutinizing her posture as the pharmacist and UNAC/UHCP member sat typing at her computer.

After a quick huddle, the pair worked together to adjust Wong’s chair until she was sitting in the ideal position to protect her from pain—and a potential injury.

“I didn’t know I could adjust my chair this way. It feels good,” Wong said appreciatively, her feet resting flat on the floor and her legs bent at the appropriate 90-degree angle.

Shift in culture

Such peer safety rounds are one of the hallmarks of a dramatic shift in culture for the team, a shift that has built engagement and created a workplace where frontline workers feel confident speaking up. The department went 3½ years without injuries and earned a national workplace safety award earlier this year.

“We’re all in it together, and we’re all here for each other,” says Chakana Mayo, a pharmacy technician and UFCW Local 770 member who is the team’s workplace safety champion.  

But the situation was not always so bright.

In 2011 and 2012, the department experienced a spate of workplace injuries. Employees, who spend most of their time on phones and computers, were sometimes reluctant to report pain—including one who suffered a repetitive motion injury so severe that it required two surgeries and time off from work.

“It was really a wake-up call,” says Tang, a pharmacy supervisor and the team’s management co-lead. “We needed to make sure that everyone feels comfortable enough to speak up when they have a problem.”

Rotonya Parker decided her journey to a healthier lifestyle could use some traveling companions.

She was already eating better and being more active when she learned that her unit-based team needed a Health and Safety Champion.

“I thought I should volunteer because doing it as a team would be an extra incentive,” says Parker, an external referral coordinator in Atlanta and a member of UFCW Local 1996. Since stepping up, she’s shared healthy recipes with her team and is planning a contest to see who walks the most.

Her activities help her UBT fulfill part of the 2015 National Agreement: The latest Path to Performance requires that Level 1 UBTs identify a Health and Safety Champion, who will help build the “culture of health and safety” required of Level 5 teams.

UBTs began identifying champions last fall. In January, they all received “Walk & Roll” buttons to help encourage their colleagues. They got going with an emphasis on walking and moving. In February, the theme was speaking up at work about safety concerns. Each month has a new focus.

With 32 years at Kaiser Permanente in Los Angeles under his belt, Darren “Tree” Wallace, a lead attendant in environmental services (EVS), offered to be his UBT’s champion. EVS departments frequently have a higher rate of workplace injuries, Wallace notes, so safety is key. Members of his UBT share daily tips about everything from how to avoid needle sticks to the proper way to push and pull.

“You don’t want to be old, retired and injured,” says Wallace, a member of SEIU-UHW. “You have to make sure your body is safe at work and at home.”

Take a break to thrive

For Johnyia King Turner, RN, a UFCW Local 400 member in the Mid-Atlantic States, volunteering to help her UBT as a champion was an obvious choice. Turner, who recently began working in Gastroenterology at Largo Medical Center in Maryland, frequently held two-minute thrive breaks when she worked at Capitol Hill Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

“We did squats, wall push-ups or ran in place,” Turner says. As lead nurse, she also presented safety messages in UBT meetings and paused during the workday to have quick safety conversations.

She says the messages were well received: “If you are not healthy and you are not safe, it decreases productivity and we can’t assist the members.” 

She’s excited to have a formal title to go with her passion. “I have my Walk & Roll button, and I encourage everyone to walk the stairs,” she says—and adds, laughing, “Now that I’m official, I can really go run my mouth and tell people what they need.”