Norton Healthcare: Rebuilding Community and Wellbeing with Recognition

Norton Healthcare’s 24,000 employees care for patients in more than 480 locations and 6 hospitals across Southern Indiana and Kentucky.

Situation

Norton Healthcare wanted to update and refresh their recognition solution. “Our recognition brand has been a part of the organisation for 20 years, so it was time to bring a new vibrance to the workforce to reflect our brand,” explains Andrea Perdue, Employee Experience Culture Strategist.

“Recognition is the world’s greatest retention tool.”
—Russell Cox, President and CEO

Solution

Norton Healthcare launched a rebranded solution on the Culture Cloud® platform and expanded their recognition offerings to create a more cohesive and intentional recognition experience.

A refreshed look and feel

Integrating recognition in the flow of work

• New mobile app
• Physical reward codes
• Leader rounding integration—custom integration between O.C. Tanner and Cipher Health’s rounding platform resulted in more than 1,000 recognition moments without leaders leaving their rounding tools.

Along with recognition, Norton Healthcare regularly listens to their employees. During and after the pandemic, they heard employees were feeling additional stress and burnout and needed more resources to support and strengthen their well-being. Because Norton Healthcare knows burnout leads to decreased productivity, increased turnover, increased workload, and adverse patient outcomes, they wanted to find immediate solutions to support their employees, specifically their front-line workers and leaders.

Meaningful milestone moments

• Updated service awards with wearable custom awards

• New leader onboarding pins

Leader training

• AI Recognition Coach helps craft intentional, meaningful recognition messages
• New monthly webinar series for leaders on employee experience and culture best practices
• Ongoing recognition roadshows inform leaders on why and how to recognise
• An Employee Experience and Safety Champions Award Group. Select leaders who do recognition receive a custom acrylic award and a celebratory luncheon. Norton Healthcare engages with the group quarterly to discuss new ideas, pilot new initiatives, learn insights and best practices, and help shape future initiatives.

“Thoughtfully-crafted recognition has lasting impact.”
—Andrea Perdue, Employee Experience Culture Strategist

Watch: Andrea describes how Norton Healthcare engages their champion group:

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Emily Abner, Employee Experience Culture Strategist, explains it this way: “It brought a whole new energy to how we recognise and celebrate our employees. The programme feels more connected and intentional. There’s a consistent look and feel that brings everything together at Norton Healthcare, and now employees can see recognition is happening every day, all around them, which has had a huge impact.”

Watch: Emily explains how Norton Healthcare worked with O.C. Tanner to develop their new wearable service awards:

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Results

Employees love the new branding and recognition offerings.

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Watch: See how Norton Healthcare celebrated their 2 millionth recognition moment:

Analysis shows recognition is more effective than regular check-ins alone in helping employees feel valued and believe leaders do the right thing for them.

Explains Kresge, “Recognition really makes a difference for our employees. You see it in our employee experience survey results – significant gains in engagement, leader relationship scores, leader competency rankings, and a decrease in burnout when you do it well. It also improves our patient safety scores, and when we see the impact on patient safety, we know we are doing the right thing.”

Watch: Conrad discusses recognition’s impact on burnout at Norton Healthcare:

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Norton Healthcare's executive team breaks down barriers and empowers Norton Healthcare's Employee Experience team to respond to employee voices. John Hammond, CHRO, says “Recognition makes people feel like they belong, and people who feel like they belong want to stay and want to do their best job for you. Our people feel like this is home, and there’s a culture here of doing the right thing. You have to be very intentional about creating that feeling.”

Watch: Norton Healthcare's CHRO describe the impact of recognition:

Norton Healthcare's efforts to build intentional recognition across the employee experience has had sustained impact on employees and patients. By integrating recognition so employees feel valued every day, the organisation has strengthened community, retention, and purpose.

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Outcomes are everything
We’d love to share what we’ve helped Norton Healthcare and thousands of other clients achieve. Reach out to us to start your employee recognition journey.