<em>Contributors to this article:<br />
Susan Johnston, Director Human Resources, East Alabama Medical Center<br />
Ken Lott, Vice President of Operations, East Alabama Medical Center<br />
</em><br />
From 2003 – 2007 East Alabama Medical Center’s (EAMC) annual Employee Opinion<br />
Survey participation rate increased by 30% over the course of four years. What factors<br />
drove this increase?<br />
<br />
A large amount of pre-survey planning and the hard work of our dedicated survey<br />
team brought about the change. Over the years, we went from administering the<br />
paper/pencil survey via mail to a classroom setting. We also branded the survey;<br />
our theme this year was “Be on the Winning Team at EAMC.”<br />
<br />
Posters were placed throughout the hospital and the survey teams spent a lot of<br />
time during the two weeks of the survey administration, providing their assigned<br />
departments with updates on their department goal. Participation rates were<br />
posted on the hospital intranet and the statistics were updated daily which boosted<br />
the competition. Additionally, we used incentives to motivate employees to<br />
complete the survey. When a department reached the goal of 90% participation,<br />
each employee from that department was given a stadium cushion. Each day we<br />
also drew the name of two employees who received small gift certificates to<br />
area restaurants or movie tickets. At the end of the survey administration, the<br />
names of all employees who participated were entered into a drawing for several<br />
sets of tickets to see the Atlanta Braves play baseball.<br />
<br />
Communication really paid off this year; we had the highest participation ever,<br />
91.5%. Employees were very excited about achieving this milestone. In fact, our<br />
CEO had his hair “buzzed cut” since we exceeded the 90% participation goal!<br />
<br />
HR Solutions is proud to count EAMC among its clients since 2005.<br />
<br />
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