1. Culture Matters:
How Engagement Boosts Attendance
February 2012

2. Culture impacts performance
12 People Pulse items support higher performance
Ranked in order of impact:
Efficient work procedures in department
Know about department goals
Understand how my job contributes to our goals
Confident management would respond to unethical behavior
Comfortable raising ethical concerns to sup/ mgmt
Department operates effectively as a team
Department is doing things to improve patient safety
Usually enough people in department to do job right
KP provides resources necessary to work effectively
Steps taken in department to ensure employee/physician safety
Encouraged to suggest better ways to do work in dept
Supervisor recognizes me when I do a good job
Kaiser Permanente Organizational Research and the Southern California Office of Labor Management Partnership studied the impact of employee attitudes and perceptions on several performance outcomes, including service, attendance and workplace safety.
Responses to these 12 measures in KP’s annual People Pulse survey were significantly correlated with half or more of the outcome measures assessed, including patient satisfaction workplace safety and attendance.

3. Engagement improves attendance
Departments with high Work Unit Index results have less lost time
Lost work days, programwide average
Researchers created a Work Unit Index, incorporating several of the People Pulse items on page 1, to measure the level of engagement and effectiveness at the departmental level.
Their analysis showed that work departments that scored in the top 20 percent the Work Unit Index reported far fewer missed days of work than did teams in the bottom 20 percent: an average savings of 2.3 days per employee per year.
This represents a huge gain in improved service and quality, and decreased costs, for the high-performing departments and the members and patients they serve.
Bottom 20%
Work Unit Index
Top 20%
Work Unit Index
Source: National Common Lost Time Metric, People Pulse