Need a poster, video or article to share with your team? Looking for a copy of your union’s contract? This training will show you how to easily find and share information on LMPartnership.org from your desktop and your smartphone.

Training description

LMPartnership.org contains many tools employees, managers and teams need at work. This interactive training will show you and your colleagues how to navigate the site. You'll learn how to quickly locate, save and share successful practices, Path to Performance tips, icebreakers for your UBT meeting, and more. 

Path to Performance

Levels 1—5

Duration

Usually 30 minutes to 60 minutes. Can be customized to suit your team’s needs.

Who should attend

This in-person training is for unit-based teams, LMP councils, unit/departments, and other groups.

Last year, the outpatient procedure unit-based team at Capitol Hill Medical Center rewrote the instructions it sends to patients scheduled
for a colonoscopy. A patient who found the earlier directions confusing played a leading role in the process.

The new instructions helped reduce by 20 percent the number of colonoscopies that needed to be repeated. Involving the patient was “a transformational experience
for the team,” says Jennifer Walker, RN, lead UBT consultant and improvement advisor in the Mid-Atlantic States region.

It also showed the power of a new provision of the 2015 National Agreement. 

Q: What’s new?

• Our new Team-Tested Practices toolkits bring together all the ingredients you need to help your team succeed. Find out what other teams have done to improve, click to get the tools like the ones they used—and download a few fun goodies.
• We’ve made finding exactly what you need as easy (and fun!) as shopping for shoes online. Use our new navigation to filter by region, topic, department, format and team level.
• Our search engine is better, faster and more streamlined. Find what you need—without having to wade through a bunch of stuff you don’t want.
• The new site is fully responsive—so you can access it from any smartphone or tablet, at work or on the road.

Q: Where did my region’s page go?

A: Click on the About LMP tab to see the Regions page.  

Q: Where can I find tools?

A: Under the new Library tab—at LMPartnership.org/tools, and from a prominent link on the home page. Take advantage of the improved navigation and filter by topic, team level, dimension, role, tool type and format.

Q: Where did the videos go?

A: Find videos under the new Library tab. Or go directly to LMPartnership.org/videos. Zero in on exactly what you need by filtering by topic, region, team level and dimension.

Q: Where are the stories?

A:  Find stories under the new Library tab. You’ll find some stories under the Team-Tested Practices tab. These toolkits pair stories of teams with the kinds of tools the teams used to improve performance and meet their goals. This will make it easier for your team to follow in their footsteps for success. Stories you’ve read in Hank are under the Library tab and at LMPartnership.org/hank.

Q: Where is the UBT section?

A: The new Path to Performance section has most of the material you used to find in the UBT section; click on the tab or go directly to LMPartnership.org/path-to-performance. Find a customized kit of tools and materials tailored to any team level and P2P dimension. Or explore everything available for any one of the seven dimensions of performance (sponsorship, leadership, training, team process, team member engagement, use of tools, and goals and performance).

Q: Where is the Path to Performance toolkit?

A:  To access most of the materials that used to be in the Path to Performance toolkit, visit the new Path to Performance tab or go directly to LMPartnership.org/path-to-performance. With just a few clicks, find a customized kit of tools and materials tailored to the team level and P2P dimension you want. Or explore everything available for any one of the seven dimensions of performance (sponsorship, leadership, training, team process, team member engagement, use of tools, and goals and performance).

Q: Where did the toolkits go?

A: These are now our new How-To Guides. They're linked to from our LMP Focus Area pages, in the Path to Performance section, and elsewhere. To get a list of them all, go to LMPartnership/tools and then under the "Tool Type" option, select "How To Guides." 

What if every organization and every union had a labor management partnership like ours?

It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. On Aug. 16, more than 250 union, business and government leaders from all over the United States gathered in Chicago for Partnership Day, a meeting hosted by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service at its biennial conference—and offered a realistic look at the ups and downs that occur in partnerships and what it takes to launch and sustain them.

“We know partnership can make a difference,” Allison Beck, FMCS director, told the gathering. “This is not some fantasy that happens in a make-believe world.” She should know. As leader of the FMCS, the federal agency that mediates labor disputes across the United States, she’s seen firsthand how acrimonious relationships can ruin companies and unions—and how more open and respectful ones can help them both succeed.

The partnership between Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions is the longest-lasting and strongest one in the nation, so conference participants asked many questions about how it operates.

A race to the top

Dennis Dabney, KP's senior vice president of National Labor Relations and Office of Labor Management Partnership, told the packed room he spends a lot of time on the phone with leaders from other companies interested in starting and strengthening partnerships.

“I've seen so many companies engaged in a race to the bottom,” Dabney said. “I'd like to see more engaged in a race to the top.” If he has any regrets about Kaiser Permanente’s partnership, he said, it's that we didn’t create unit-based teams sooner.

Colorado

The Regional Imaging teams in Colorado are lucky to have two effective sponsors: Joseph Gonzales, clinical operations for Regional Imaging, and Rebecca “Becky” Torres, a pharmacy technician and SEIU Local 105 member. Part of their success, the pair says, is the emphasis they have placed on sharing information—with each other and with their teams. The pair also figured out a way to spread effective practices. Using a PowerPoint template, the sponsors asked co-leads to explain what they’re working on, how it supports regional goals, whether it worked and the outcome. Then, the teams came together for a UBT Fair and shared their PowerPoints.

Georgia 

David Jones, MD, has a title unique at Kaiser Permanente: assistant to the medical director for unit-based teams. He mobilizes his fellow physicians in the Georgia region to get involved with UBTs and unleash the power of partnership to improve performance and grow membership. “The first thing I tell physicians about the UBTs is that it is about improving the work that we’re already doing,” he says. “It’s not about adding more work, it’s about looking at the work you're doing and figuring out how to do it better.” Read more from Jones—including how his experience with UBTs has transformed the way he delivers care to his patients.

Hawaii

A small region, Hawaii needed a novel approach to sponsorship: Branch out rather than always branch up. Initially, a five-member unit-based team committee tried to troubleshoot issues for the region’s fledgling teams. Often, those committee members, who also had roles as team co-leads or contract specialists, were trying to wear too many hats and got jammed. So the region, which now has more than 40 teams, has tapped 19 people to receive sponsorship training. The group includes middle managers, directors and other executives, frontline nurses who serve on the Kaiser Permanente board of the Hawaii Nurses Association, OPEIU Local 50, and former labor team members and co-leads.

Mid-Atlantic States

While the Mid-Atlantic States region’s clinical unit-based teams have management and labor co-sponsors, large teams such as lab and radiology are sponsored in a different way: A UBT leadership group made up of labor and management from these area performs sponsorship functions as a united body. “We generated a vision of our UBT sponsorship. We got very specific on how we would work together,” says Jane Lewis, executive director of health plan regional services and a member of the group that sponsors eight pharmacy UBTs. The UBTs report their projects and team dynamics at monthly meetings. The leadership group reviews People Pulse, service scores, quality results and other metrics, identifies struggling teams, and recognizes teams that excel.

Northern California

The region has been on a roll with its “A Leader’s Role as UBT Sponsor” training. Launched in the spring, the tutorial gives management and labor leaders an easy-to-understand yet in-depth look at providing effective support to unit-based teams and their performance improvement work. The short, online training covers everything from outlining a sponsor’s role and how a sponsor can model partnership to tips on developing strong UBT co-leads and high-performing teams. Several facilities have combined the training with in-person, interactive exercises, and early feedback suggests the blended approach is striking a chord with sponsors. The online training can be found at KP Learn.

Northwest

“My role as a senior sponsor is to bring the message of UBTs to physician leadership,” says Rasjad Lints, MD, the region’s executive sponsor of UBTs. Lints is especially interested in helping teams focus on outcome metrics—a measure of the final result of something, such as how many patients with hypertension have their blood pressure under control—and to help everyone on the team understand that improving on process metrics often drives improvement on outcomes. It can be difficult to see the value in participating in process metrics if team members don’t see how it relates to the outcome measures. “At the end of the day, physicians have to drive the care,” Lints says. While working in UBTs presents physicians with some unique challenges, he believes that “if the physicians aren’t engaged, it’s a lost opportunity.”

Ohio

In an effort to improve the quality of team project information in UBT Tracker, the regional LMP support team solicited the help of the people who support the work of teams—sponsors. In June, an improvement adviser met with Ohio’s 20-plus sponsors and asked them to work with their teams to boost the input of that data. To illustrate the value and role of quality data in UBT Tracker, they used the data in Tracker to brief the sponsors on their UBTs’ projects and status. Their approach made an impact: The region has reported an increase in sponsor engagement, and several teams have reported performance and relationship improvements. 

Southern California

The regional Labor Management Partnership department is launching a new sponsor training curriculum that covers the nuts and bolts of what sponsors do and how they do it. Topics include: the responsibilities of sponsoring bodies (such as helping define how the teams should be structured and guiding selection of co-leads); coaching skills to help develop UBT leaders; the similarities and differences between labor and management sponsorship; how managing in partnership differs from traditional management; and how the sponsor role differs from that of facilitators, project managers, trainers and consultants. Also included in the course are basics of the Labor Management Partnership and unit-based teams, such as the key elements for UBT success, the roles and responsibilities of UBT co-leads and members, and consensus decision making.

Each day, every day, Kaiser Permanente’s 3,500 unit-based teams are providing ever-better patient care and advancing our mission. Now, under the 2015 National Agreement, UBTs will have an even greater role to play—and higher expectations to meet.

The new contract, which took effect Oct. 1, 2015, calls for UBTs to bring the voice of KP members and patients into their work. Teams also will be making total health and safety a greater part of their activities. And they will undergo more rigorous, face-to-face performance assessments.

To help them meet the new expectations, there’s a cadre of expert peer advisors and coaches they can call on—unit-based team consultants and union partnership representatives (UPRs) trained in performance improvement methods. Both UBT consultants and UPRs support unit-based teams, but UPRs, who are coalition union-represented employees, also specifically mentor and support labor in UBT and performance improvement work. Both help teams sharpen their communication, data collection and analysis, and other skills needed to advance on the Path to Performance.

It’s a unique system to support workplace learning and innovation.

“I’ve learned a lot about how to build teams and how to use performance improvement tools,” says Gage Martin, an SEIU-UHW member and union partnership representative at the Santa Rosa Medical Center in Northern California. “I take that learning and help teams do projects in all areas of our Value Compass. It’s a great job.”

The UBT consultant and UPR roles were created, as a test of change, in 2008. Since then, they have helped KP set the standard for quality, service and the workplace experience, and delivered tens of millions of dollars in cost savings.

As we strive to deliver the promise of One KP—providing each member and patient with the best care experience, every time—we also need to have One LMP, with each person working in partnership, having the same resources available to them and the same accountability to upholding the National Agreement. UBT consultants and UPRs help make that happen.

Ten weeks of national bargaining between Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions concluded Saturday, June 6, when 150 union and management representatives approved a tentative 2015 National Agreement. The agreement now goes to the 28 union locals that compose the coalition for ratification and to Kaiser Permanente senior leaders for approval.

The three-year tentative agreement is designed to help unionized workers and managers achieve quality, affordability and safety of care; prepare for jobs of the future; and develop innovative solutions to health care challenges. The agreement also will enable our 3,500 unit-based teams to better deliver award-winning care and service to Kaiser Permanente’s more than 10 million members and patients.

“This is an outstanding agreement that deepens our ability to provide affordable, high-quality care to our members and patients,” says Dennis Dabney, the senior vice president of National Labor Relations and Office of the Labor Management Partnership. “Kaiser Permanente leads the industry because it is a great place to work and a great place to receive care—and the two are inseparable.”

“We’re on year 18 of a remarkably successful strategy,” says Hal Ruddick, executive director of union coalition. “Our contract is better than ever, Kaiser Permanente’s quality and service scores are higher than ever, and the organization and unions are both healthy and growing. Partnership pays off for workers, consumers and mission-driven organizations like Kaiser Permanente.”

Agreement highlights

The agreement includes wage increases in each year of the agreement (see specifics below), provides operational flexibility and bolsters joint problem-solving capabilities. It builds on the successful 2012 National Agreement, strengthening provisions for workplace health and safety, providing additional funds for workforce training and development and ensuring the consistent application of partnership principles.

The new three-year tentative agreement includes:

• Across-the-board wage increases in each year of the agreement: All employees in Northern and Southern California represented by a coalition union receive 3 percent increases in the first two years and 4 percent in the third year. Employees in the regions outside of California represented by a coalition union will receive a 2 percent increase each year of the three-year agreement. In addition, they will receive a 1 percent increase at the end of the third year.
• Enhancements to benefits such as dental coverage, life insurance and tuition reimbursement. The tuition reimbursement was increased to $3,000 per employee per year. For the first time, tuition, dental coverage and life insurance are standardized for coalition union members across all regions.
• A long-term solution that protects retiree medical benefits for current and future retirees, with no net increase to retirees’ out-of-pocket expenses, while reducing liabilities associated with those benefits.
• Increased funding to the Ben Hudnall Memorial Trust and the SEIU UHW-West and Joint Employer Education Fund to ensure career development for Kaiser Permanente’s diverse workforce.
• Improved methods for assessing unit-based team performance and for spreading and adopting successful practices.
• Updates to our groundbreaking Kaiser Permanente Total Health Incentive Plan,  which rewards employees for healthy behavior and provides incentives for collective improvement.
• Joint participation on community health projects by the coalition unions in KP’s local and regional Community Benefit programs.

Next steps

Our agreement is the largest private-sector contract in the United States this year. Once it is approved by Kaiser Permanente senior leaders and ratified by union members this summer, it will take effect Oct. 1, 2015, and be in effect through Sept. 30, 2018.

The impact of the agreement “goes beyond the words on paper,” says Jerry Vincent, the Northern California region’s director of Labor Relations. “It lays the foundation for us to continue to provide quality, affordable care for many years.”

“There were some tough moments,” Denise Duncan, RN, the executive vice president of UNAC/UHCP, says of the negotiations. “But people came back together. It was a reminder that our national agreement—and our partnership—is very strong, and we keep making it better. There’s nothing like it anywhere else.”

For more information, see www.bargaining2015.org.