These 5 Factors Are Key to Methodist’s Thriving Corporate Culture

Corporate Compliance and Ethics Week is Nov. 6-12, and we’re excited to bring awareness to the ongoing work of Methodist’s Compliance Department.

Here in the Compliance Department, we do things a little bit differently because we're the department of culture.

Not the kind of culture that sticks out a pinky finger while sipping tea or wears a tuxedo and monocle, but one of corporate culture. Our corporate culture. A culture that embodies The Meaning of Care. We protect and nurture that culture by encouraging and assisting everyone as they strive to behave compliantly and ethically. 

The effectiveness of a compliance program is based on how well we create an environment that encourages good, ethical behavior (compliance) and discourages unlawful and harmful behaviors. That’s good corporate culture.

There are many factors that we look at to know our program is effective and the corporate culture is healthy. They include:

Respect
Respect is first on the list because it is often the most important; all of the other factors can be tied back to respect in some way. Respect is a two-way street we walk with everyone around us, but its importance to corporate culture is most pronounced in our relationships with each other. That's not to understate the importance of respect for and from patients and their families. We have full control of how we treat patients, but we can't control how patients treat us in return. Thankfully, people generally want to be good, and patients will return respect when it's sincerely offered to them.

Engagement
More engaged employees are generally happier employees, and patients can sense that. Engagement is the mental and emotional connection you have to your job, your peers, your manager and Methodist Health System. We recently completed our Employee Engagement survey, and you’ve probably reviewed the results and started to develop action plans to remove barriers to engagement. We encourage you to speak up with any ideas you have; the Compliance team would love to help. 

Reporting
Because reporting is also key to strong culture, you can report to the Compliance team any issues you find or suspect. We need you to tell us about all compliance and ethics issues so we can investigate and resolve them. It doesn’t matter if the issue arose from an employee, a doctor or a vendor. You can speak to us in person, on the phone, by email or anonymously through our reporting hotline – (877) 640-0005 for English and (800) 216-1288 for Spanish. Regardless of how you report an issue, Methodist has a strict policy against retaliation, so you can be confident in reporting any issues. If you think you or someone else has been retaliated against, that also needs to be reported.

Security
Security includes your physical security as well as your mental security relating to your job. Our security and safety teams work hard to make sure you and our patients are protected from all kinds of threats. For your mental security, you can speak to your manager about issues, you can speak with Compliance, and you can contact Best Care EAP for assistance. If you are a manager, you can also reach out to Best Care EAP to be provided with tools and resources to better enable you to help your staff.

Diversity
Last but not least, we need to focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) to keep our corporate culture strong and healthy. Human Resources recently released changes to the Organizational Development team structure that made "Culture and Inclusion" one of the three main pillars of its new talent development model. We also need to be mindful of the great diversity of our patient population. For example, the Compliance Department is leading the charge to expand interpretation and translation resource availability for limited English proficient (LEP) and deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) individuals. Diversity is about respecting and embracing the many ways we can be different and understanding that these differences are a source of strength and hope.

Coming Up

It may be Corporate Compliance and Ethics Week, but compliance and culture are year-round efforts. Our article series titled “What is Compliance?” is ongoing, and you can expect another article soon. The next article will begin to dive into the seven elements of an effective compliance program.

Reach Out to Us

During Corporate Compliance and Ethics Week, try to take some time to think about our corporate culture and where you fit into it. Every employee is an important member of the culture, and your voice deserves to be heard. If you have questions or concerns, please contact compliance specialist Joe Tweedt. Contact information for the entire Compliance team can be found on the Compliance Resource page on the intranet. Please don't hesitate to reach out.