Developing employees able to take the initiative to provide customers with great service is a tall order. You first need a workforce that is engaged enough to care about the company and those it serves, and then you need employees trained well enough to have the knowledge, on-the-job capability, and confidence to follow through. Bolstered by a new comprehensive Employee Empowerment Plan, Learning and Development at nonprofit mutual insurance company Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) achieved this ideal and other training milestones in 2014.
STIMULATING EMPLOYEE EXCELLENCE
In 2012, BCBSM’s leadership was developing a strategy on how to succeed in a fast-changing world. National health reform was on the horizon, and the company’s leaders believed failure to recognize and adapt to the changes could significantly affect their future. The company administered an all-employee survey that year, which shed light on two areas of need: empowerment and customer focus.
“While several initiatives already were under way to sharpen customer focus, we had done little to address the daunting and difficult nature of improving employee empowerment,” says Laura Byars, vice president of Human Performance. “With multiple health-care regulatory and compliance layers, employees were used to staying well within leadership guidance. Yet the need for corporate adaptability required having a nimble, adaptable workforce that could make more autonomous decisions.”
Byars says it became clear that employee empowerment was a component necessary to achieve the vision of BCBSM’s leadership. “Each of the organization’s strategic goals—financial performance, market strength, and customer experience—could be advanced through empowerment,” she says. “Creating a more empowered workforce became a key corporate initiative.”
To address this need, Byars credits her team for developing a three-pronged Empowerment Plan:
1. Build clarity (define what empowerment looks like at BCBSM)
2. Build skills (provide learning opportunities and resources)
3. Build relationships (create opportunities for improved cross-functional sharing)
To help guide the initiative, BCBSM formed an Empowerment Council comprising executives and several divisional workgroups. The Learning and Development team also created a measurement dashboard to track progress toward the tactical objectives.
Core to the strategy was a three-hour Empowerment Insights workshop—an interactive session featuring videos, role-play, and case studies. Byars says the goal of the workshop is to provide employees “awareness and clarity” on how to build an empowering environment for themselves and their teams. The session was required for the company’s leaders and highly encouraged for all employees.
Since the launch of Empowerment Insights in April 2013, more than 2,200 employees have attended. The popularity of Empowerment Insights spawned another training course—Empowerment Forum, a 90-minute session where former Empowerment Insights participants share their successes and challenges encountered around empowerment. The forums focus on overcoming obstacles, making decisions, and building a spirit of innovation and empowerment.
EMPOWERING TEAMS
Empowered individuals are only a benefit to an organization if those individuals can effectively work with others, so BCBSM also focused on increasing empowerment among workgroups. Workgroups and teams continue to build empowerment at the divisional level. Supplemental messaging helped to educate employees through a humorous campaign of what empowerment is and what it isn’t. A series of thought-provoking, fun images depicting employees either in engaging or disengaging situations was interspersed with other corporate messages via flat-screen, electronic message boards throughout company buildings.
In Operations, a new service training program equipped service representatives to respond with greater empathy and flexibility. This more empowered approach was well-received among employees, and resulted in improved customer metrics. “How did we know we were moving in the right direction? Slowly at first, teams and individuals began relaying stories of successes born out of the empowerment foundation,” says Byars. “Our team listened carefully at sessions for evidence of success, and then developed, documented, and communicated those stories to employees.”
These programs aimed at increasing individual and group empowerment paid off. In 2014, the organization once again surveyed employees. Scores increased an average of 14 percentile points in the five statements relative to empowerment over the 2012 baseline. Moreover, scores from employees who attended Empowerment Insights were 20 points higher than the scores of the employees who had yet to take the training. And for employees who participated in both Empowerment Insights and Empowerment Forum, scores were 33 points higher. “Focusing our efforts on a more empowered and energized workforce has contributed to strong corporate performance in the post-reform health-care marketplace,” Byars notes.
NEW, CREATIVE USES FOR LEARNING TECHNOLOGY
BCBSM believes that with knowledge comes a more empowered workforce. So the continued focus on honing training for its workforce was another key to BCBSM’s success in 2014. The company has continued to improve training by finding new and better ways to apply learning technology. For example, last year BCBSM used an online game to help employees better understand the company’s identity. More than 2,100 employees throughout the company competed for points and prizes in a “What’s Your Blue IQ?” online quiz as part of an initiative to build employee knowledge about the company’s new status as a mutual insurance company. “I find it easy to fit the game in during lunch and when I have a few extra minutes between meetings,” one participant in the program noted. “I learned more details about what it means to be a nonprofit mutual insurer, and how it puts us in a better position to move forward in the marketplace, while still focusing on our customers.”
Meanwhile, BCBSM enhanced the training programs it provides to independent sales agents by using the newest, most affordable tablets. “Providing agents from multiple companies and around the state with a common technology platform created a seamless, consistent experience and eliminated compatibility issues that otherwise could derail the training,” says Byars.
In the last year, the company also increased its use of video as a way to add elements of fun and humor to programs to create a more inviting, engaging, and impactful training experience. “Our quarterly Nuts & Bolts symposiums use games and simulations to build cross-functional relationships while also increasing business knowledge about core business functions,” Byars explains. “They also garner a greater understanding of the needs of internal customers.” For instance, the Contact Center sessions provide a simulation that captures the dynamics of a call center, including the delicate balance of providing ample time and full attention to the current caller while managing call handle time.
As part of the employee survey, Byars and her team learned that employees who have attended a Nuts & Bolts symposium are far more likely to say there is a continuous investment in the skills of employees. The company believes increasing understanding through the simulated call center learning activity supports the company goal of enhancing the customer experience.
PREPARING THE NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERS
BCBSM actively nurtures the next generation of the organization’s leaders. To support their development, the company creates targeted learning opportunities and succession plans. “We have a formal succession plan for the members of our executive team. The process includes preparing individual succession plans and using input from both the incumbent and the senior executive of each division,” says Cathy Goheen, vice president, Human Resources.
In addition to succession planning, BCBSM uses companywide talent reviews to gain a better appreciation of the current and future strengths of the organization. “These reviews are facilitated by HR business partners, using a standard nine-box matrix to assess performance and potential,” Goheen points out. “During these reviews, management teams come together to confirm a calibrated understanding of employee performance and likelihood of future advancement. After the completion of talent reviews, we hold talent summits to promote cross-divisional understanding and sharing of talent.”
To ensure the right people are in the right roles to meet market, financial, and customer experience goals, the company conducts a comprehensive talent inventory annually. Employees identify their career interests, education, experiences, and skills, and leaders review the inventory and provide input. “We use information gleaned from this process to augment all other talent management processes and provide a searchable database to make the most of the talent we have in-house,” says Byars.
CONTINUED IMPROVEMENT AND GROWTH
The Learning professionals at BCBSM are proud of their successes, but know there is always room to take their accomplishments to the next level. “While we take the time to celebrate our progress as measured by our increases in market performance and customer metrics, we know there is still a lot more progress we can make,” says Byars. “Our scores on employee surveys have improved dramatically, but we are not ready to rest on our past successes. To that end, we remain focused on empowerment and customer focus as key cultural priorities.”