Montefiore is committed to establishing a culture of excellence to build and sustain an engaged, motivated, and committed workforce. Engaged employees are committed to staying with the organization, willing to go above and beyond their duty, and are open to advocate for the company. A thorough understanding of what people want, and taking appropriate steps to address it, paves the way for an engaged workforce.

We offer the following engagement services for our clients:

• Employee engagement surveys: These surveys are intended to measure the key drivers of engagement and disengagement using reliable and valid survey instruments. They typically include a wide range of relevant topics that could further diagnose potential engagement problems in the team or organization. Initially, we assess the readiness of the audience, then communicate the reasons for doing the engagement survey, roll out the survey, communicate results, and then take meaningful action steps based on survey results.
• Engagement training programs: We offer training programs on employee engagement that cater to different levels in the organization. Using a cascading approach, we start with the ‘Inspirational Leadership Program’ for senior leaders, ‘Engagement Equation Program’ for the next levels of directors/managers, and ‘Taking Control of Your Engagement Program’ for associates to build a culture of engagement throughout Montefiore. This is done to pivot our engagement metrics into meaningful insights to drive positive change.

Change is key to innovation, particularly in the health care industry that impacts the operations and outcomes of care delivery. Therefore, healthcare professionals understand how to manage change for the benefit of the organization, the care team and most importantly, the patient.
We offer the following services for our clients:

• A Change Management Consulting: We offer our consulting expertise in change management using our change model and work collaboratively with our clients to design a change strategy by:
  • Conducting diagnoses to check if the project/initiative requires change management methodology
  • Using change management methodology to structure change efforts – what needs to be done by when
  • Working closely with sponsors/leaders to ensure their involvement and commitment throughout the change process
  • Conducting stakeholder analysis to understand the level of influence of stakeholders on the change initiative and the extent of impact on key stakeholders involved
  • Designing a communication strategy to inform and engage stakeholders
  • Assessing stakeholders’ extent of readiness for change
  • Assessing the impact of the scope and scale of change and its effects on people, processes, and technology
  • Providing training and coaching to help people develop new behaviors or practices in favor of the change initiative
  • Helping sustain the change through after after-action reviews, and suggest suitable corrective steps to reinforce the change initiative

Cultural competence is the ability of providers and organizations to effectively meet the social, cultural, and linguistic needs of patients and associates. Cultural competency in healthcare can overcome health disparities such as variations in care access and quality, language barriers, cultural beliefs and practices, unconscious and conscious medical bias, and low health literacy with patient care. As far as associates are concerned, cultural competency is key to managing and leveraging diversity, to create an inclusive and cross-culturally sensitive work environment.

At Montefiore, we hold cultural competency in high regard and strive to provide our associates with valuable learning opportunities that promote an inclusive environment. Our training provides participants with growth opportunities which in turn build bridges and remove barriers that may prevent Montefiore, its associates, and patients from feeling neglected due to avoidable, unfavorable everyday events and activities.

We offer training programs such as Cultural Competency, Unconscious Bias, Making Visible Influencers Visible, Introduction to LGBTQ, LGBTQ Clinicians and Working with Trans Youth.

Healthcare inevitably requires interdisciplinary teamwork in which doctors, nurses, and health professionals from various specialties must work together, communicate often and share resources. Teamwork and collaboration are critical for patient care in a decentralized health system with many levels of health workers.

Team and performance consulting are about applying a series of interventions that enable a team to develop and implement the collaborative behaviors to deliver the desired outcomes of the stakeholders and meet their performance standards. These interventions are designed to encourage an individual or a team to pause and reflect on their approach to a problem and evaluate the alternatives. Typically, they help clarify the primary purpose of the team, its Goals and objectives, and the Role of the people in the team, the Processes, and Interactions, using the GRPI model developed by Richard Beckhard.

We use the below consulting approach, and tailor it according to the team’s needs:

• Set the foundation: We discuss and gain alignment from the leader/ team regarding the purpose of the initiative: strategic objectives, nature of team dynamics, and timeline
• Gain stakeholder inputs: We conduct 1-1 interviews/focus groups with team members to understand what works (does not) well with the team, assess their desired future state, and gather performance standards/metrics
• Develop a team contract: We work closely with our clients to:
  • Understand and gain alignment on the team’s goals
  • Present team’s current and the desired future state and propose recommendations to move towards desired future state
  • Decide and align on the next steps. Develop a team contract, including working relationships, roles and responsibilities, performance standards and metrics
  • Determine key focus areas, and seek commitment to work together
• Ongoing consulting sessions: We partner with our clients to
  • Design group size, frequency, and duration of sessions based on the team’s need
  • Provide one on one coaching services for individuals, as needed
• Track progress: We assess progress at an individual and team level after 3-6 months as needed, using the same baseline assessment that was used initially
• Ensure sustainability: To avoid relapse and encourage desired behavioral practices, we conduct regular reviews to ensure sustainability

• Behavioral assessments: A few behavioral assessments that we use at Montefiore include: DiSC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness (DiSC), EQ-I 2.0 (Emotional Intelligence), MBTI (Myers–Briggs Type Indicator), etc. These behavioral assessments are used for individual/ team development and help analyze one’s preferred behavioral style and those of their team members. By understanding your own profile, you can manage your work so it suits your preferences and you can help people understand their differences so they can work more effectively together.
• Focus groups: Focus group is a data-gathering technique where a small group of people is brought together to discuss a predetermined topic. A few instances where we use this technique at Montefiore is to gain in-depth knowledge on survey results, understand the challenges with a department/team, etc.
• Surveys: Surveys are data collection tools used to collect data about the characteristics, actions, or opinions of a large group of people. They are advantageous because they can be used to quantitatively measure the topic of interest. Some of the surveys we use at Montefiore include engagement survey, diversity and inclusion survey, resilience survey, etc.

A retreat is an opportunity to engender creativity, where participants stay away from daily activities/tactical aspects, and consciously focus on the desired future state from a strategic standpoint and devise steps to get there. Retreats provide communal experience, that helps with bonding, thereby making it a far more immersive experience.

We follow the below process with our clients when we recognize the need for a retreat:

• Identify the purpose of the retreat: Since this becomes the foundation for the retreat design, we consult the leadership team to clarify the purpose of the retreat. We then help the leader communicate the retreat goals to manage expectations.
• Design and develop the program: Based on the information gathered, we help them draft the agenda and objectives of the retreat. We develop and facilitate the retreat if it pertains to our area of expertise.
• Planning and implementation: Once the program has been developed, we meet with our key stakeholders to discuss the implementation of programs that help meet the intended objectives of the retreat. Once we are aligned on our way forward, we focus our efforts on the implementation/facilitation of the retreat.
• Follow up: Lastly, we follow-up with the participants on high priority action items, acknowledge accomplishments and follow up diligently when action is not forthcoming.

In today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, the healthcare industry has undergone a lot of changes drastically, thereby giving a compelling reason to engage in strategic planning. Although we may not be able to control the future, it is critical to have a strategic plan that provides structure to make day to day decisions that follow a larger vision, create a direction and maximize options to influence the environment.

We work together with our clients in the following way:

• Clarify vision: First, we help them identify and define their vision statement. Vision is to help understand where you want to go, i.e. a desired future state.
• Gather and analyze information: We then help gather information from key stakeholders that are relevant to accomplishing their vision. The primary objective to is understand business needs using SWOT analysis, by examining the internal issues, i.e. Strengths and Weaknesses, and external issues, i.e. Threats and Opportunities than can affect goals.
• Develop a strategy: We review the SWOT analysis and then identify resources that they have currently than can help them achieve their goals, and those where they need external help. Then, we prioritize issues, identify pitfalls and come up with tactics to address them.
• Implement strategy: We help create an action plan to address each strategic priority, break it down to steps that need to be taken, divvy up roles and responsibilities, set milestones to demonstrate progress. We help leaders communicate strategic goals and action plans.
• Measurement and sustainability: We work with the leader to track progress and make appropriate course corrections to reach the end goal, and help sustain efforts by developing and adopting suitable reinforcement and sustainment strategies.