The Yale Entrepreneurial Institute

The Yale Entrepreneurial Institute (YEI) was formed to help undergraduate and graduate Yale students start scalable new ventures. While starting as a stand-alone 10-week summer program in 2007, YEI has since expanded into a year-round University department acting as a portal for entrepreneurship on campus and offering programs and events year round that serve the entrepreneurial interest of students and the New Haven community.

Touching the Customer by Understanding Employees: Preliminary Linkage Research Findings from Four Regions of Kaiser Permanente

by Sherilyn M. Kam, PhD; Scott M. Brooks, PhD

http://xnet.kp.org/permanentejournal/spring98pj/touching.html
 

Abstract
This study used data from four Kaiser Permanente Regions to examine the relations between employee opinions, customer opinions, and business performance. The preliminary questions we asked regarded whether facilities in which employees expressed more favorable work attitudes were also facilities which 1) had more satisfied members; 2) had better financial performance; 3) had more members; and 4) served more patients.

Generally speaking, employee opinions were strongly and positively related to customer (member) opinions. More specifically:

• Customer satisfaction is most related to employee opinions of doctors, organizational flexibility, and training for customer service.
• Employee perceptions of doctors are very strongly related to customer perceptions.
• Customer ability to see their provider is the customer's window into the operational effectiveness of that location.
• Service training is also strongly related to customer service perceptions in general, even the perceptions specifically about the physicians.

Unfortunately, clear links were not found between either employee or customer opinions and business performance (eg, financial measures). We continue to examine these relationships, and others, in an attempt to further our understanding of these complex issues. We hope to report these results in future issues of The Permanente Journal.

Note: These early findings represent a first step toward understanding the relationships between what employees think and how Kaiser Permanente performs. Future submissions to The Permanente Journal will report additional findings, including specific examination of the relation between employee opinions and the STAR Care Index as well as a companion article that provides the practical implications of this work, written by senior Human Resources executives within Kaiser Permanente.

Acknowledgments: We would like to acknowledge the following individuals for their hard work and diligence in obtaining the necessary data for the analyses, and for enduring our many questions with patience and grace: Jim Hart, Tim (T.J.) McGinley, Kate Shigetani, and Karen Stevens.

 Employee Orientation and Job Satisfaction among Professional Employees in Hospitals.

This study examines the relationship between job satisfaction and employee orientations of professionals in small rural hospitals. Organizational loyalty, peer loyalty and professional identification were used as predictors. Organizational loyalty was found to be the predominant orientation predicting job satisfaction. Replication in other settings is necessary for further understanding.