Formalized processes ensure legal/regulatory compliance, prevent costly errors, and cultivate an engaged, stable workforce.
Innovation, creative problem-solving, and out-of-the-box thinking play an important role in your organization. However, don’t forget the value of formalized workplace processes, which are necessary to ensure legal/regulatory compliance and prevent costly errors and omissions. Employ these three best practices for establishing and maintaining workplace processes for success in 2020.
- Refresh and renew. Don’t let “We’ve always done it that way” become your mantra. Regs and guidelines change, and so should your processes to keep up with them. When revised regulations (such as Requirements of Participation) and/or new clinical practice guidelines are published, update your processes as necessary. At the same time, review your processes generally once or twice a year; and look for ways to improve them. Ask, “How can we do this better?”
- Incorporate metrics. Include qualitative metrics, such as resident and staff satisfaction, as well as quantitative measures, such as falls, readmission, staff absenteeism, and turnover rates.
- Get 360 feedback. This means getting input from everyone who touches a process in any way. You may get very different or even contradictory thoughts and opinions that you will have to weigh and sort out; but all of this feedback is valuable, gives everyone ownership of the processes, and makes employees at all levels feel valued. It also ensures that your processes are grounded in consensus and practicality.
Be sure that you don’t just follow these steps, then put your processes back on the shelf to collect dust. Share new and revised processes with all staff. Consider some role-playing and other interactive training exercises. Communicate why the changes/revisions are necessary and how they impact each person’s role.
The benefits of fresh, cutting-edge formalized processes are many. They help keep workers from skipping steps, making mistakes, or forgetting the proper way to handle certain activities. They also help companies prepare for audits or compliance check-ups, ensure consistency in quality, and prevent conflicts or disagreements.
