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Standing-ovation Professional Paradise Presentations. Vicki’s presentations are tailored for every audience and customized to your organization’s specific needs and objectives. Formats range from a 45-minute interactive keynote to a full-day workshop. All formats include time for participants to develop a simple yet specific action plan for implementing positive change back on the job. For a complete list of Vicki’s presentations, visit www.VickiHess.com. Her most popular topics include:

• Lead Your Organization to Professional Paradise: No Matter What’s Happening Around You
  
  Would employees say they work in Professional Prison or Professional Paradise? Evidence indicates that far too many people feel stuck in their jobs. Perhaps that’s why disengagement is still consistently cited as a top concern within organizations. And while engagement is without question a personal matter, healthcare professionals play a crucial role in supporting employees and leaders to create their own Professional Paradise.
  
  This presentation provides healthcare audiences with a proven methodology for creating an organization-wide culture of Professional Paradise by teaching them how to:
  
  • Develop their own personal accountability for engagement and job satisfaction.
  • Identify key work beliefs and how these impact staff behavior and, ultimately, results.
  • Lead their organization in learning how to escape from stressed to satisfied, pooped to productive and stuck to soaring.
  
  
• Get off the Employee Engagement Roller Coaster: 5 Management Strategies to Transform Your Healthcare Workforce
  
  Talk to healthcare managers today and they’ll tell you that trying to keep employees engaged is like a roller coaster ride with too many ups and downs or that they feel like they’re on a merry go round, repeating the same things over and over and getting nowhere. When did work start to feel like a not so amusing amusement park and what can a manager do to get out of the “House of Horrors”?
  
  In her interactive, real world presentation, Vicki Hess reveals the “ups and downs” of healthcare management that add to or detract from employee engagement. Engaged employees have a sense of ownership and personal connection to work, so of course they improve results in areas such as patient and physician satisfaction, safety, retention and bottom line results. On the other hand, disengaged employees contribute to increases in staffing concerns, length of stay and the occurrence of never events. Clearly, everyone benefits when employees are engaged.
  
  You’ve seen the current research but may not know what to do with all that data. Vicki shares strategies that busy managers can implement to create an environment which promotes a sense of employee ownership using her proprietary Partnership Protocol™ which she describes in her newest book, The Nurse Manager’s Guide to Hiring, Firing & Inspiring (Sigma Theta Tau Nursing Honorary, April 2010).
  
  Leave the bumper cars, Ferris wheel and swinging pirate ships behind and enjoy your ticket to the “Tunnel of Love” – where everybody is engaged.
  
  After this program, leaders will be able to:
  
  • Define the employee’s role and the manager’s role in engagement and describe common obstacles to engagement.
  • List actions that managers should do more of and less of to overcome these obstacles and create enhanced employee engagement.
  • Using the Partnership Protocol, create a five step Engagement Execution Plan for working with staff.
  
  
• SHIFT to Professional Paradise: Navigating the Twists and Turns of Healthcare Today
  
  Doctors, nurses and other healthcare employees can’t necessarily change the state of healthcare today, but they can change their state of mind about working in healthcare. Many healthcare employees are waiting for their boss, organization, coworkers or patients to change, because they think that when other folks get it right, then they will be happy at work. The fact of the matter is that each of us is the CPO – Chief Paradise Officer – of our job. Accepting responsibility for creating our own Professional Paradise creates long-term behavior changes and develops an emotional commitment that leads to remarkable results and job satisfaction.
  
  After this memorable, uplifting program, participants will be able to:
  
  • Define what Professional Prison and Professional Paradise mean to them
  • Create and maintain positive connections with coworkers, patients and family members
  • Apply the proprietary SHIFT™ technique to turn workplace POWs into WOWs, transforming stumbling blocks into stepping stones
  
  
• Navigating the White Waters of Change: Will You Sink or SHIFT?
  
  Keeping up with the pace of organizational change can seem like an adventure on Class V rapids. What will happen the next time change impacts the workplace? Will people be able to enjoy the ride? Learn how to implement the proprietary SHIFT™ technique to maintain control, create energizing solutions and integrate change.
  
  Participants will jump aboard the raft and:
  
  • Discover where they fall on the Change Tolerance Index
  • Identify work beliefs and mindsets that affect their perception of change.
  • Competently use SolutionSHIFT™ to master the art of change management
  
  
• Hiring SMARTT™: 6 Strategies for Hiring the Right Person for the Right Job
  
  Hiring SMARTT shows nursing managers the six steps to get (and keep) the right person for the right job. Vicki shares key deliverables from her newest book, The Nurse Manager’s Guide to Hiring, Firing & Inspiring (Sigma Theta Tau Nursing Honorary, 2010), This time-tested process provides managers with tangible tools to create a good fit for the candidate and the organization’s culture, team, and the job itself. With a tactical focus on the hiring process from the job description to behavior based questioning to effective on-boarding the Hiring SMARTT method gets candidates closer than ever to the perfect match.
  
  At the conclusion of this presentation hiring managers will be able to:
  
  • Outline the six steps for hiring for fit including describing the system for identifying key job and performance skills for the ideal candidate.
  • Create behavior based interviewing questions for performance and skill areas as well as organizational and departmental values and culture.
  • State the ideal timing and format for a job interview to maintain control and gather pertinent information.
  
  
• Diving into Accountability: Will You Sink or SHIFT?
  
  At its roots, accountability is as simple as checking in with someone who is doing a great job and as difficult as having to give uncomfortable feedback to someone who is a low performer. Either way leaders who are expected to dive into accountability need the tools and techniques to reverse, twist or tuck when it comes to employee performance. Whether it’s for clinical, service or safety reasons, giving and receiving effective feedback is the springboard for achieving organizational results.
  
  Vicki Hess, RN, MS, Certified Speaking Professional, helps healthcare leaders determine what accountability really is and how to make the illusion a reality. She will coach leaders off the "high dive" of fear into the calm waters of effective accountability for themselves and others.
  
  After this workshop, leaders will be able to:
  
  • Determine personal and organizational work beliefs around accountability and shift to achieve desired results.
  • Identify obstacles to accountability for individuals and leaders and outline necessary actions for maintaining a high degree of accountability despite these obstacles.
  • Demonstrate how to provide useful feedback to employees regarding individual performance using an easy to remember system.