The 2018 KP-Alliance National Agreement renews and strengthens the Labor Management Partnership to better serve the needs of our members and patients, the organization and the 49,000 workers represented by the Alliance of Health Care Unions. Alliance union members, their managers, and physicians who work with them should know key provisions of the agreement and what it does to help achieve high-quality, affordable health care while creating a great place to work. 

Do you or your teammates want to shrink wait times? Save money on supplies? Reduce time wasters or roadblocks? Once you’ve identified a problem to solve, you may wonder where to start. No need to invent an improvement project from scratch. Visit the Team-Tested Practices section and see what’s worked for others. We’ve got short summaries of successes from every region and every type of work environment to give your team a kickstart.

1. What’s here? 

When you visit LMPartnership.org/team-tested-practices, you’ll find the first several “tiles” of the dozens you can choose from as you scroll through this section. Each tile will have a photo and short preview about a specific, measurable improvement a team has made.

2. Sharpen your search 

Want to narrow down what you see? Use the filters on the left side of the page. There are several to try, including:

• Topic. Choices include affordability, patient safety, service and more.
• Department. See what departments like yours have done.
• Region. Check out the projects done in your region.

Selecting more than one filter at a time works, too. And remember that you can get great ideas from departments very different from yours and regions other than your own. You’ll notice these filters throughout the website to help you focus your searches. 

3. Intrigued? 

See something your team might want to try? Click on the tile to get a more complete description of the challenge the team was facing — and the main tests of change that helped the team achieve its goal. And the measurable result: “Saved $40,000,” “decreased wait times by 11 minutes,” “69 percent drop in costs.”

4. No dead ends! 

So, maybe the practice you clicked on isn’t right for your team. Before you move on, check out the related tools and stories in the colorful columns farther down this page. Throughout the site, the color orange means, “Here are tools to get your team started on work like this.” Blue is, “Get inspired by stories and videos about teams working on similar efforts!” And, “Just for fun” — green will take you to puzzles, games and other light-hearted resources to kick off your improvement campaign on an upbeat note.

Sponsors are the go-to people for UBT co-leads, providing resources, guidance and oversight for teams — and effective sponsorship is one of the most important ingredients for a high-performing unit-based team. If you’re a sponsor, provide your teams with the support they need to create an environment where UBT members are always learning, always improving, always innovating.

1. Make it a priority to be involved. Provide feedback and hold teams accountable for action plans.
2. Coach and mentor co-leads; connect them with opportunities to develop needed skills or knowledge. Developing strong team members will ease your work in the long run.
3. Take time for face time. Walk the floor with team members and occasionally attend UBT meetings.
4. Share expectations up front with your co-sponsor and team co-leads. Define how you’ll make decisions and how you’ll communicate and how often.
5. Help team members build their problem-solving skills by having them develop solutions, but if there are barriers outside the co-leads’ or team’s scope, get busy breaking them down.
6. Educate your teams about local work plans and regional performance priorities so they can work on the right projects. Be sure, too, that things team members care most about get addressed.
7. Celebrate and highlight successes, both large and small, by rewarding individuals and teams in a way that is meaningful to them — whether it’s an email, party, lunch or a parking spot for a month.
8. Secure the resources your teams need to get work done, such as time for regular trainings or meetings and access to data that will help benchmark their performance.
9. Establish a baseline Path to Performance rating. Assist teams in understanding the rating and connect them with resources or successful practices that will help them become high performing.
10. Ensure teams are documenting their work regularly, accurately and concisely in UBT Tracker.

Course description

This training prepares new partnering union-represented members to be successful as they work in partnership to provide the best care and service and create KP as the best place to work. It also helps union members understand how the partnership is a union strategy.

Path to Performance

Level 1

Duration

4 hours

Who should attend

Target attendees are all new partnering union members of Kaiser Permanente.

Course requirements

Labor Management Partnership Orientation (LMPO)

Check out these helpful resources to boost your partnership skills:

LMP Roadmap

LMP Learning Boosters

Course description

Team Leadership for Co-leads is designed to bring labor, management and physician co-leads together to facilitate conversations about the performance of their unit-based teams. The co-leads receive information about high-performing unit-based teams at Kaiser Permanente and then review a 360 feedback tool to use with their teams after the course. Participants will learn a basic coaching model and practice role playing UBT coaching scenarios. Participants also will learn the fundamentals of how people adapt to change, review a change management model for leaders, and make agreements on how to manage change in their role with their unit-based teams. In addition, participants will learn the fundamentals of Emotional Intelligence and how to use “EQ” when leading change.

Path to Performance

Level 3, 4, 5

Duration

8 hours

Who should attend

This course is intended for participants who are experienced co-leads of unit-based teams. Job categories who should attend union, management and physician co-leads.

Course requirements

• Labor Management Partnership Orientation (LMPO)
• Co-Lead Workshop
• Labor and management co-leads attend the training together