customer story

Mary Lanning Healthcare_688x376

How Mary Lanning Healthcare Boosted their Staff Recognition

May 28th, 2021
May 28th, 2021

Impact:

Mary Lanning Healthcare believes that effective employee recognition is a key component in creating an engaged workforce. After implementing AMPT to boost their staff recognition program:

  • Employees shared more than 5,000 moments of recognition on the AMPT platform within the first year from implementation.
  • Recognition scores on the organization’s Gallup Q12 assessment (after one year of AMPT) increased 11.6%.
  • Their overall engagement scores increased 6.24% after one year.
  • After three years using AMPT, employees have made it an integral part of their culture, having used the tool to share more than 10,000 moments of recognition.
  • The organization averages a moment of recognition every 68 minutes after three years of use.
  • 87% of employees now log in to AMPT at least once every three months to recognize a colleague for performance.

The Challenge:

Serving patients throughout central Nebraska, Mary Lanning Healthcare is licensed for 183 beds and employs a staff of nearly 1,000. As the largest employer in Adams County, with an annual payroll of more than $35 million, the organization is a fixture in its community and is relentlessly devoted to improving the health and well-being of the community it serves. However, Mary Lanning’s reputation doesn’t mean it is immune to the impact of stringent healthcare regulations and the human capital management challenges that plague the healthcare industry, such as burnout, staff shortages, and excessive turnover, to name a few.

Mary Lanning’s commitment to the community, which includes its employees, allows the organization to combat these challenges in a positive way. For Eric Barber, CEO of Mary Lanning Healthcare, and the leadership team, it all comes down to culture. They have focused on creating an environment where staff members feel connected to the vision of the organization, are provided the tools to succeed, and feel appreciated for their contributions. While there are many initiatives and programs that support Barber’s cultural vision, expressing gratitude to employees is very high on the list. Awards and recognition ceremonies, length of service acknowledgements, Thank You cards, and the use of recognition boards were already a common practice when the decision was made that they needed to do even more to foster employee engagement.

Solution:

Barber and his team made the decision to partner with AMPT to roll out a social recognition platform across the Mary Lanning workforce. They wanted to re-energize the workforce in a way that would resonate more strongly with younger employees already habitually using a wide range of social media for personal sharing and regular interaction. Leadership at the organization also sought to provide leaders and managers with a newer, more frequently updated source of employee data. They believed this type of employee data would be useful for guiding continuous performance improvement.

AMPT is a social recognition platform that allows organizations to easily and effectively recognize employees in their moments of greatness. AMPT provides an all-access platform where employees can praise each other, share appreciation, and be part of a community that values positive behaviors in the workplace.

Results:

Importantly, the adoption of AMPT was not intended to replace Mary Lanning’s other recognition activities. Rather, as an addition to existing programs, AMPT encourages in-the-moment and meaningful peer-to-peer recognition via social networking to immediately praise individuals and then share the information across the organization. By design, these moments of recognition are all tied to Mary Lanning’s core values, so ultimately AMPT emphasizes the primary role of employees in success at Mary Lanning Healthcare.

Within the first year of implementing AMPT, Mary Lanning employees shared more than 5,000 moments of recognition on the AMPT platform. During the same timeframe, recognition scores on Mary Lanning’s Gallup Q12 assessment increased 11.6%, and overall engagement scores increased 6.24%, proving AMPT to be a highly effective complement to Mary Lanning’s efforts. Nearly three years later, AMPT continues to be an integral part of Mary Lanning’s culture with moments of recognition exceeding 10,000.

While CEO Barber sees AMPT as a key ingredient of Mary Lanning’s culture, he is by no means the super-user in charge of the system, by design. For Mary Lanning, AMPT is a place where employees and managers go to share wins and connect with each other. While Barber and his senior leadership team are active on the platform, reading the moments of recognition, reviewing employee recognition profiles, and monitoring reports, it is really a broad cohort of employees who drive the usage.


Recognition is absolutely tied back to employee engagement. A highly engaged workforce is a highly productive workforce that provides a safer environment. For me, I think recognition on AMPT is vital to our success.

— Eric Barber, CEO, Mary Lanning Healthcare

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