The project I’m most proud of is really several large projects with one end goal: clearly defining, educating, integrating, and implementing a set of company values into all aspects of the organization. The reason I’m most proud of this project is that even 8 years later it was still firmly integrated into all of those areas at a totally separate company after a sale and where it continued to be highlighted in external reviews as a source of inspiration and organizational pride.
The initial company was small (50 employees) but growing and expanding rapidly to 100 employees and eventually containing 3 separate companies and incubating several more. There was a crisis of hiring qualified people, training under-qualified people, and retaining both groups to continue to deliver the high quality services consistent with the values instilled at the company’s founding.
At the highest level this project resulted in the following, each with specific, meaningful, and central integration the company values:
- A completely new and fast-tracked training program reaching all 100 existing employees in-person at 4 locations in 2 states within 30 days.
- The development and delivery of a new, multi-day leadership training program for all existing and future managers.
- The creation of Quality Assurance committees and an entire process to continually review for better outcomes and an integrate processes for decision-making.
- A complete rewrite of all existing Policies & Procedures for the entire organization over a 6-month period (ensuring that they would also double as functional training documents due to clear writing).
- The creation of a new, integrated curriculum for our clients focused specifically on the company values that generated two separate books published for exclusive use in the company’s proprietary program.
- An internal marketing, communications, and training push that resulted in posters, daily reviews, and a complete language shift within the organization around the company values.
- New orientation training on the company mission and values for all new staff.
- Development and delivery of an intensive six-week clinical training program for all new clinical hires post-onboard.
- Creation of completely new fundraising and marketing toward specific markets resulting in increased reach and sales.
We knew the project was successful in different ways as the effort continued, but one of the surest signs was when the people we served organically spoke about the values in their written evaluations of the program and in their testimonials.
This project started in late 2012 at a for-profit healthcare startup and transitioned to the non-profit organization I currently work for. Even 8 years later their CARF review, which is an international, external licensing body for healthcare organizations, was know successful when we were awarded us a 3-year accreditation (the longest awarded) due to the organization earning a perfect CARF licensure inspection (a <1% occurrence) they stated:
[The company] lives its mission and vision. Remarkably, it has adopted the values from the evidence-based curriculum that all staff and guests learn: love, hope, faith, temperance, fortitude, justice, and prudence. This is evident in the environments and behaviors of the staff and guests and strongly supported by the leadership team.
CARF reviewer (external licensing body)
Little did they know that this was a design decision made from the start at a previous company that has survived for 8+ years and had still remained a feature to remark on due to how instilled it has become in company culture and throughout the product we delivered to our guests.