Title: How to Get and Keep Productive People: A Prestera Center Improvement Case StudyImplemented based on best practices learned from attending a session at the 2008 SAAS National Conference and NIATx Summit
Summary: The Prestera Center management attended the “How to Get and Keep Productive People” plenary session presented by Pal’s Business Excellence Institute at June 23-25, 2008 SAAS National Conference and NIATx Summit. Presented during the session were simple and world-class, highly effective processes for employee hiring, training, positive reinforcement, peer reviews, and upper management’s role in creating a culture of excellence related to HR practices. The Prestera Center management recognized that a lot of the principles noted by Pal’s BEI could be applied at Prestera to improve employee turnover, training, employee engagement, and productivity. On Oct. 1-2, 2008, seven top executives from Prestera attended a specially designed Pal’s BEI two-day HR workshop. From that workshop, 5 HR improvement projects were planned and implemented. These projects have had profound effect at changing the Prestera Center HR practices and culture resulting in improved results. This session will review both how this was done, share practices and implementation lessons that might be applicable to other organizations. Today there are over 50 Prestera Center locations scattered throughout the eight county region, making it the largest mental health and addictions services provider in the State of West Virginia. With nearly 700 employees, Prestera Center has ranked annually since 2003 in the top 100 employers in the State of West Virginia.
Speaker(s):Bob Hansen
Executive Director
Prestera Center for Mental Health Services, Inc
Dr. Deborah Harley
Assistant Professor
East Tennessee State University and Pal’s Business Excellence Institute