Morrison – TouchPoint, a member of Compass Group, is a support services company exclusively dedicated to providing food, nutrition, environmental services, support services, and operations management to health-care and senior living communities through its three operating sectors: Morrison Healthcare Food Services, Morrison Senior Living, and TouchPoint Support Services.
Explosive business growth, which included adding a new division and more than 8,000 new employees to its payroll, presented the company with many challenges. In particular, struggles with communication and leadership among new and existing hourly supervisors were negatively affecting both service quality and associate engagement. Morrison – TouchPoint needed a way to grow new and more veteran leaders alike.
In response, the training team developed the Supervisor Training Series: Establishing Your Roots as a Manager. This new face-to-face program has three main goals:
- Reinforce company vision and culture
- Equip hourly supervisors with the tools they need to become better leaders in their current positions
- Help hourly supervisors grow into higher leadership positions in the organization
Program Details
The 10 training modules are facilitated by a certified trainer, an HR representative, and Morrison – TouchPoint’s CEO himself. The CEO committed to the development of a module that he would teach at each and every training. This would allow him to develop relationships deep within the organization while sharing his passion and teaching Morrison – TouchPoint’s culture by his own personal example. The CEO module was designed to be taught at any point in the agenda to provide him with some travel flexibility.
Sessions are conducted every two weeks over a two-month period. Each session is a two-hour class that combines lecture, small group discussion, blended learning, and class activities. Homework assignments compel learners to go back to their accounts and seek feedback from their account director and other associates. Some assignments require learners to seek certain data about their account, while other assignments help learners to reflect on their leadership abilities and how they can become more effective. These assignments are self-reflective and are reviewed in the next session with feedback from fellow learners.
Results
Morrison – TouchPoint began to roll out the Supervisor Training Series in April 2013, and had conducted nine complete series by August 2013. In those five months, more than 440 associates completed the training, and 16 attendees were promoted. What’s more, patient surveys at the facilities where attendees work showed a 62.5 percent increase in HCAHPS scores (The HCAHPS Survey—Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems—is the first national, standardized, publicly reported survey of patients’ perspectives of hospital care) for environmental services (a general facility score) and a 59.7 percent increase in food service scores (according to results from health-care marketing research leader PRC-Professional Research Consultants). Demonstrating the more effective leadership skills of program graduates, these same facilities have seen a 37.5 percent increase in associate engagement and 45.1 percent increase in satisfaction among people who dine in Morrison – TouchPoint cafeterias. The company anticipates that the series may become a model for additional learning initiatives.
