With hospitals in an intense penny-pinching mode, the climate couldn't be better for demonstrating how your communication programs contribute to the bottom line.
Increasingly hospitals are rewarding this accountability with attractive incentives and -more importantly - the opportunity to contribute to strategic organization-wide decisions up front.
PR and marketing departments are no longer considered afterthoughts, but key players in shaping the organization's strategic direction. To this end, PR and marketing executives must show how they make the cash registers ring. The days of warm-and-fuzzy community relations campaigns that don't deliver quantitative branding results are over.
To arrive at a definitive explanation of what the performance expectations are for healthcare PR and marketing executives, HPRMN spoke with several senior-level communicators from a wide range of healthcare organizations who provided candid insight on what it takes to prove your worth to upper management and get the professional compensation that goes along with it.
Achieving Quality
Kaiser Permanente stakes much of its employee performance expectations on achieving quality-focused goals that shape the healthcare system's mission. PR professionals who work in the Oakland office and handle national PR programs are expected to demonstrate how they've contributed to at least three annual organization-wide goals that deal with either quality improvement initiatives or new quality planning efforts, says Alan Mann, Kaiser's VP of public affairs. Senior executives who achieve these goals are offered varying levels of incentives that range from 10% to 25%. Kaiser is also considering making similar incentives available to mid-management.
These incentives, however, are not in addition to base salaries; they are a part of the overall salary structure, which means a portion of executive salaries are at risk, says Mann. Compensation is based on achieving a performance mix that is based on two-thirds organization-wide goals and one-third individual goals. With such an emphasis on performance, Kaiser holds workshops on writing effective employee evaluations. Mann works with his department on developing communication plans that include actionable and measurable goals. "It's vitally important to state goals precisely by choosing verbs that describe exactly what's going to be accomplished in the coming year," says Mann. Key examples include using verbs like "develop" and "execute" to describe a strategy instead of plans that "improve" or "continue to achieve" progress in key areas.
Early/Consistent Evaluation
When the Detroit Medical Center adopted a decentralized branding approach for its nine facilities earlier this year, it overhauled the marketing department to become an integrated delivery network for communications that relies on shared resources. To make this marketing transition, DMC consulted with Jenny Seyfreth of Seyfreth & Associates who is the system's interim VP of marketing.
The marketing realignment has resulted in a leaner staff that has borrowed a Procter & Gamble branding philosophy to create nine individual profit centers that DMC manages, says Seyfreth. The department has been cut to 19 staffers from 30, with half of them deployed to DMC's nine facilities. Early and consistent marketing evaluation has been a key component in making the transition smooth and justifying the department's new direction. For instance, a recent nurse recruitment campaign was evaluated on whether it made the phones ring and the quality of nurse candidates.
The internal communication process for reaching DMC's 15,000 employees and 3,000 physicians needed to become much more efficient. After evaluating what communication channels were most effective, DMC can now reach its internal audience in less than a third of the time it once took -from two days to eight hours. On average, marketing programs are evaluated on a monthly basis.
Although the marketing department has survived significant cuts, marketers aren't expected to be incredible at everything. "It's important to identify one or two excellent skill sets and share those talents across the organization," says Seyfreth. It's also important to regularly demonstrate how departmental achievements are contributing to organization-wide business goals like physician referrals and staff recruitment - an area where PR professionals often drop the ball.
Presentation is Everything
Ultimately the way you are judged professionally is based on how you present your achievements. For Melissa McMahon, associate director of PR for America's Blood Centers (ABC), selecting major projects that demonstrate national PR results is key. McMahon's position was newly created when she joined ABC three years ago. She is annually evaluated on achieving national awareness for ABC and developing stronger PR relationships with ABC's 90 member organizations.
Unlike the agency background McMahon comes from where the evaluation process was driven by a leadership/management rating system, ABC's professional assessments are more informal. It's up to McMahon to develop communication goals and demonstrate key achievements.
As a rule of thumb, she highlights three or four projects that convey national media results and demonstrate her ability to work with local PR counterparts. In addition to her base salary and 7% raises, McMahon receives sporadic bonuses for work well done. A recent example of work that earned her a bonus involved a crisis management project. One of ABC's local blood centers received bad press when a paper inaccurately reported that it had not adequately tested its blood supply, which resulted in a man contracting HIV from a tainted blood transfusion.
McMahon worked with the local center on developing accurate talking points to set the record straight, tracked down appropriate FDA experts who confirmed the center was using appropriate blood tests and identified expert spokespeople. These efforts helped to contain the negative press and prevent it from spreading on a national level, says McMahon. The strategies also showed upper management that a solid communications infrastructure is in place for proactive media relations.
(Kaiser Permanente, Alan Mann, 510/802-8103; Seyfreth & Associates, Jenny Seyfreth, 800/435-9539; America's Blood Centers, Melissa McMahon, 202/393-5725, ext. 21)
Proving Performance
To get the maximum credit for work you've done throughout the year, highlight accomplishments that demonstrate value to the organization's bottom line and departmental goals. Choose projects that show you understand all aspects of your organization's business goals.
Key examples include:
- programs that deliver results for physician and nurse recruitment;
- quality-improvement initiatives and patient satisfaction projects; and
- successful interdepartmental collaborations.