A Division of the American Hospital Association that evaluates, endorses and markets insurance products.

Internal Communications Counsel and Change Management

Insurance Resources Incorporated is the Division of the American Hospital Association that evaluates, endorses and markets insurance products. Their staff interacts with the employees of the American Hospital Association, association members, and providers and vendors within the insurance industry.

A change in leadership led to informal communications and second-hand information serving as primary sources. Employees focused more on change and organizational stability than the organization's mission. In addition, past initiatives involving staff performance improvement and communications had been stopped before being fully implemented, making the IRI staff less than enthusiastic about promised improvements in these areas.

The organization's leadership wanted to re-establish the value of formal communications and credible information, and focus staff energy on a new approach to market.

CSA partnered with IRI to re-establish management as the organizational information source and migrate employee focus to new standards of quality job performance. Specific projects included:

• Design and analysis of field staff survey on information sources, communications methods and job performance. Survey uncovered unknown performance barriers that were easily solved by management, creating an immediate "win-win."
  
• Leading a day-long field employee training session on new approaches and techniques for job success. Intelligence gathered helped management better understand employees' capacity and energized staff to embrace change and future challenges. Staff exhibited some immediate positive behavior modifications.
  
• Developed an internal communications framework that facilitates the sharing of information to improve job performance. Resulted in a more formal schedule of meetings and a computerized system to share industry knowledge and intelligence - something both staff and management had on their "wish lists."