Health Dept. Employee Satisfaction Survey Committee addresses employee concerns to improve morale
By Ken Luchterhand
The Ho-Chunk Department of Health is taking steps to improving its efficiency and ability to work in unison.
“Employee satisfaction is an important initiative. If our staff members are happy in their workplace they are able to deliver high-quality patient care and customer service,” said Quality Improvement Director Daniel Libke.
A group of representatives from each division within the Health Department have been meeting to devise a plan to make working with the health field a more productive and pleasant experience.
QI Compliance Officer Ritchie Brown placed a questionnaire for employees on Survey Monkey to start the employee recognition initiative. He said that initially people had more questions than answers and some people didn’t understand the intentions of the survey. He thought the intent needed more explanation and that with time employees would get more comfortable with the plan.
Of the 230 employees in the Health Department, only 10 had responded with concerns.
Pharmacist Melanie Hanson reported that she is leading a group in developing a newsletter for the Health Department. Each division will get a certain amount of space to showcase their article in each issue, which will be printed and available twice a year – in Fall and Spring. Besides articles, it will contain information such as employee anniversaries, cultural events and information, and Community Health blurbs.
Hanson said she plans to narrow it down to 12 pages per issue and may contain fun activities such as crossword puzzles. They would be available locally in breakrooms and patient waiting areas and not mailed, she said.
Billing Clerk/ Medical Coder Penny Salzman-Zoephel reported that she is working with the employee directory group on an expanded employee guide, which will list all the employees and their job functions. She hopes to arrange to have headshots taken so their pictures will accompany the information given.
The purpose of the employee guide is to enable employees to use it as a tool to refer clients to certain people or programs. So often employees in the Health Department don’t know who other employees are and what they do; so, when looking to solve a certain problem, employees can use the booklet as a reference to services and the experts for those services, Salzman-Zoephel said.
The committee discussed a Quality Improvement Plan, which includes an employee satisfaction survey. The Quality Improvement Plan was devised to determine where lies a lack of communication, a lack of training, or other problems that might exist on the job. The group is hoping to address any concerns so that an improvement can be established and improve morale among employees.
Even though overall morale is good within the Department of Health, there is always room for improvement, Libke said.
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