Watson Clinic Coaches and Retains Talent with emPerform

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Since 1941, Watson Clinic has worked to create a rich healthcare experience centered around patients. Based in Lakeland, Florida, Watson Clinic provides comprehensive medical services to all residents. With over 300 physicians and 40 medical and surgical specialties, regional patients benefit from the area’s largest team of experts, which serve all physical, emotional, and behavioral care needs. In 1969, Watson Clinic was the first medical clinic in the United States to achieve accreditation by the American Association of Medical Clinics and continues to prove its excellence in cost-effective and high-quality patient care.

Employee Performance Management In Healthcare

 

Effective performance management in healthcare is critical. Healthcare providers rely on dedicated staff to ensure organizational effectiveness and deliver the highest possible care across the healthcare continuum. The industry has been facing significant challenges with rising costs, a shortage of talent, and overall burnout. HR in healthcare must also ensure they meet accreditation standards by evaluating staff on position-specific competencies. Achieving the organization’s mission of patient-centric quality care means effectively assessing, developing & retaining staff.

The Challenge - Manual Performance Reviews At Watson Clinic

 

Before implementing emPerform, Watson Clinic used a manual review process that was administratively time-consuming, resulted in inconsistent performance data across the organization, and did not allow the organization to track performance results and progress throughout the year. Watson Clinic’s HR team managed almost 300 versions of job-specific competency-based reviews to meet accreditation standards. Review forms were individually routed to employees and managers based on hire date, were manually tracked and signed, and the final versions were collected by HR for scanning into the employee’s file.

 

Watson Clinic needed a more consistent and structured process that would allow them to eliminate paper and continually develop and engage talent. The organization’s HR team began looking for a standalone performance management platform.

Getting Started with emPerform

 

After evaluating several performance management vendors, Watson Clinic chose emPerform due to its flexibility, ease of use, and experience in the space.

"emPerform offered a level of usability, configurability, and experience that was not available with other solutions. We knew we would have the flexibility to customize everything to suit our needs and would be able to augment reviews with things like ongoing goal management and frequent check-ins.” 

- Julie Kovencz, HR Manager, Watson Clinic

emPerform began working with Watson Clinic’s HR Team to plan a smooth launch of their new performance management platform. “We had a dedicated resource to help us review changes to our process and offered guidance for optimizing our forms and communicating the changes to staff,” said Julie.

 

‘We felt like we got more than a new software tool – we had a team of performance management experts behind to help us succeed.”

 

“The emPerform implementation team was very patient and helpful during the process. The team was always willing to jump on a call and walk me through something or respond to my questions,” said Julie.

The Impact of emPerform at Watson Clinic

 

After launching emPerform, Watson Clinic is reporting better consistency and structure in reviews, improved visibility into goals and performance, and better employee feedback and accountability.

Elimination of Paper and Manual Tracking

emPerform allowed Watson Clinic to eliminate paper in the review process. As a result, the HR Team spends considerably less time managing, routing, collecting, and filing performance reviews.

“emPerform manages our entire performance management cycle and keeps everyone on track,” said Julie. ‘We no longer have to worry about managers saving and using different versions of reviews or missing a key due date.”

 

“With emPerform, managers can enter comments and document check-ins online year-round and easily route final reviews to employees for questions and sign-off,” said Julie.

 

“Employees feel it is easy to access and easy to follow. The process overall is quicker for them. This self-service wasn’t possible before with our manual process and has ensured reviews are completed on time.”

More Frequent Checkpoints & Feedback to Coach & Retain Talent

emPerform allowed Watson Clinic to extend its performance management program beyond a once-a-year event. Watson Clinic’s HR team added goals, a mid-year check-in, and stay interview questions into its review process in emPerform to help managers evaluate whether employees are meeting objectives and address any barriers to progress.

 

“We added stay interview questions during our mid-cycle process, which helps us keep a pulse on employee needs and feelings throughout the year,” said Julie.

 

“emPerform has allowed us to expand our review process with these key actions that help us engage & retain talent. These more frequent touch points also allow managers to be better performance coaches and to more easily check in with employees to ensure they are on track with goals and get the feedback they need to succeed.”

Better Consistency, Quality & Accountability in Performance Reviews

Using emPerform for centralized online performance management has resulted in a consistent review process that is fairer and more accurate than before.

 

“emPerform allowed us to reduce hundreds of versions of reviews into one dynamic online form that automatically populates goals and core competencies based on job title,” said Julie. “This automation has drastically simplified our processes and allows us to ensure proper accreditation reporting, a better understanding of job duties, and more accountability across the organization.” Watson Clinic’s employees are now more involved in the review process and can contribute their input and feedback year-round.

 

“emPerform has given our employees an active role in our performance management program. Employees feel more comfortable writing comments and giving feedback, and has led to great discussions that might not have happened,” continued Julie.

Easier Management of Employee Data

Watson Clinic uses Paylocity® for payroll and central HR records. By leveraging emPerform’s data integration from Paylocity, employee data and fields are automatically synchronized and kept up to date. Integrating data between systems reduces the time spent on data management and ensures the correct reviews are launched at the right times without manual tracking.

Watson Clinic will continue to refine its reviews and performance management processes with emPerform. They plan to build out additional review processes like 30-60-90-day new hire assessments and will continue to evolve their performance management program to develop and engage its valuable talent.

“emPerform has made performance reviews quick and easy and helped us make strides towards ensuring our valuable staff have the feedback and coaching needed to grow and thrive in their roles.”

Coach and retain your top talent with emPerform's intuitive, complete & flexible employee performance management software.

emPerform is a complete performance management platform designed to help organizations automate and streamline all aspects of performance management.

"emPerform has made performance reviews quick and easy and helped us make strides towards ensuring our valuable staff have the feedback and coaching needed to grow and thrive in their roles.”

Julie Kovencz, HR Manager, Watson Clinic 

Achieve Performance Management Success with emPerform!