Dive Brief:
- Jersey City (NJ) Medical Center has been running a program under which all nonunion employees (about half of its employee roster) were put on a pay-for-performance bonus program. The program has been in place since 2009.
- As of this year, seven of the hospital's eight bargaining units have ratified contracts with pay-for-performance bonuses.
- The hospital has created four cultural pillars—safety, quality, engagement and finance—and has built the pay-for-performance program around those four pillars. At the end of the fiscal year, the hospital analyzes how it performed on its goals and offers bonuses accordingly. For example, since it met 80% of its goals for 2012, employees received bonuses in 2013. Employees can earn up to a 5% bonus each year.
Dive Insight:
If you like the idea of instituting your own pay-for-performance bonus plan, be aware that it takes time, effort and planning. A few key places to start include collaboratively establishing values, focusing goals on government requirements and communicating with the workforce as to how their unit is advancing on their goals, said JCMC leaders. Such a program makes great sense if the hospital or other health care entity wants the staff to feel part of the organization's success on both a tangible and a cultural level.