West Hawaii Community Health Center (WHCHC) serves the western population on the Big Island of Hawaii with patient-centered healthcare. Their dental department sought to improve the work culture, identifying two main challenges in staff retention and engagement: mid-level management gaps and training & development of staff.

To combat these issues, they asked long-standing employees what kept them engaged, performing an internal needs assessment to find the following solutions.

• The creation of a supervisor role that serves as a liaison between upper leadership and dental staff. This role allowed for better communication between upper leadership and general staff.
• An emphasis was placed on training and development opportunities for staff to progress up the career ladder. As a large portion of staff received on-the-job-training, management looked to ensure that sufficient support was provided so employees could successfully complete their duties and tasks.
• The creation of a core mission and culture development centered on “One Team, One Vision, One Culture”. This helped to keep staff engaged around the center’s mission to serve the surrounding community within Hawaii.

WHCH Dental Department’s Leadership Team

West Hawaii Community Health Center’s Dental Department recognized that a strong leadership team was vital to supporting the staff, patients, and community. To best support their employees, the leadership focused on the following factors.

• Core values: Leadership and management were asked to create a shared set of core values and a value statement that can be referenced back to when strategizing future decisions for the center. These included teamwork, growth, respect, communication, and reliability.
  • Time management: Leadership worked to prioritize daily tasks based on urgency and importance to ensure efficiency.
  • Peer connection: Leadership focused on one-to-one connections between employees.
  • Stay interviews: Informal interviews were conducted periodically with an employee to understand any concerns they may have. These proactive interviews helped to prevent future turnover.
  • Communication workshops: Leadership teams focused on learning communication methods such as active listening, empathetic listening, non-violent communication, etc.

(Source: West Hawaii Community Health Center)