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Stay In VA

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Stay in VA is a practice focused on employee retention through employee engagement. It is about promoting a trusting environment for employees to express their ideas and experiences to supervisors, managers, and leadership. Likewise, supervisors and managers are afforded the opportunity to learn more about employees and how best to capitalize on the employee’s skill sets.

Stay in VA is modeled after an industry best practice referred to as “Stay Interviews”, which involves questions designed to encourage dialogue between a supervisor and employee. A touchpoint is a time when an employee and supervisor get to select a place of their choosing to sit down, relax, and simply have a conversation about goals, pain points, and expression of ideas; it is far different than a performance appraisal discussion. Stay Touchpoints are conducted at 30 days and 90 days for new employees and then annually thereafter.

This innovation is scaling widely with the support of national stakeholders. See more scaling innovations.

Origin:

February 2017, Tomah VA Medical Center

Adoptions:

1 successful, 4 in-progress

Awards and Recognition:

VHA Shark Tank Winner

Partners:

Diffusion of Excellence, Office of Nursing Services, Veterans Experience Office, Workforce Management and Consulting

Tags:

Employee Experience High Reliability
Contact Team

Overview

Problem

High turnover rate among employees.

Solution

Show employees they are the number one customer by dedicating time for supervisors and employees to meet and discuss challenges, issues, goals, new ideas.

Links

Results

Nursing turnover rate dropped from 14.5% to 5.2% in first year and a half at Tomah.

Diffusion tracker

Does not include Clinical Resource Hubs (CRH)

Statuses

AZ: Tucson VA Medical Center (Tucson)

CA: West Los Angeles VA Medical Center (West Los Angeles) CO: Denver VA Medical Center (Denver) OR: Roseburg VA Medical Center (Roseburg) TX: Dallas VA Medical Center (Dallas)

There are no unsuccessful adoptions for this innovation.

Implementation

Timeline

  • Month 1
    Assemble local stakeholder team
  • Months 2-3
    Define project scope (e.g., through a Project Charter)
  • Months 2-3
    Draft and finalize touchpoint questions for introductory, 30-day, 90-day, and annual touchpoints
  • Month 3
    Set touchpoint schedule with new and existing staff
  • Months 4-5
    Conduct initial round of touchpoints with identified staff
  • Months 5-6
    Aggregate and analyze stay touchpoint data from first round of touchpoints.

Core Resources

Links

Risks and mitigations

Risk Mitigation
If Managers are not allocated adequate time to conduct the Stay Touchpoints, they may become overburdened. Collaborate with leadership to define designated time for Managers to conduct Stay Touchpoints with staff.
If feedback from the Stay Touchpoints is not responded to in a transparent manner, participating staff may not feel more satisfied with their position Define and communicate local processes for aggregating and responding to feedback presented in the Stay Touchpoints; address aggregate feedback to staff at regular intervals

Contact

Comment

Comments and replies are disabled for retired innovations and non-VA users.

VA User (Deputy Associate Director for Patient Care Services) Innovation owner posted

Thanks, Shannon!

1
VA User (Nurse Practitioner, SAMVAMC) posted

Terrific practice- nice work!

1
VA User (Executive Director, Human Capital Management) Innovation adopter posted

The management team in the Human Capital Management office within VHACO WMC is implementing Stay in VA Touchpoints. We think it is a great practice! One thing we learned is that it helps to have someone keep track of when 30-day, 90-day, and annual touchpoints are due for an employee and to provide supervisors a reminder email.

2

Email

Email with questions about this innovation.

About

Origin story

Stay In VA evolved from the Gold Status Practice, RN Stay Interviews. Natalie Hackbarth instituted stay interviews for RNs at Tomah In 2016 to combat the high RN turnover rate that was occurring at her facility. In just a little over a year, Natalie saw the RN turnover rate decrease from 16.3% to 5.7% after implementing stay interviews. Since that time, stay ... Stay In VA evolved from the Gold Status Practice, RN Stay Interviews. Natalie Hackbarth instituted stay interviews for RNs at Tomah In 2016 to combat the high RN turnover rate that was occurring at her facility. In just a little over a year, Natalie saw the RN turnover rate decrease from 16.3% to 5.7% after implementing stay interviews. Since that time, stay interviews have been implemented for RNs at 12 facilities and for Mental Health professionals at 13 facilities. Jessica Pierce, a program manager with Workforce Management and Consulting, partnered with Natalie to complete a mental hiring initiative in 2019 and is now in the process of making stay interviews for all mental health supervisors and leadership across the country. Since then, interest has poured in from other service lines and facilities and we realize that the practice is applicable for all employees, hence the name, "Stay In VA". Rather than refer to the dialogue sessions between a supervisor and employee as "interview" we have elected to refer to them as “Stay Touchpoints” because the word ‘interview’ implies a formal question and answer discussion that is primarily dominated by the interviewer instead of an evenly balanced conversation between two people. A touchpoint is a time when an employee and supervisor get to select a place of their choosing to sit down, relax, and simply have a conversation about goals, pain points, and expression of ideas; it is far different than a performance appraisal discussion.

Original team

Natalie Hackbarth

Diffusion Fellow

Carl McCoy

Diffusion Specialist

Jessica Pierce

Portfolio Manager, Workforce Recruitment & Retention Service

Russ Peal

Director, Workforce Recruitment & Retention Services

Search tags

Employee Experience High Reliability