Company emails minus the blather
WHEN I see a company-wide email from the boss, I, like most employees, assume it's an announcement of a promotion — me to senior vice-president of awesomeness.
If not that, then perhaps a salacious news release detailing how a colleague I dislike has been let go over a sex scandal involving a prostitute and a company photocopier.
More often than not, however, it's just another digital blip in an otherwise routine day.
But what if the missive from the boss contained facts that served to unify and eschewed the trappings of corporate buzzwords, taking on a tone rarely found in the working world — sincerity.
In an audacious experiment, George Halvorson, chairman and CEO of healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente, has been sending such notes to his nearly 200,000 employees for more than five years. A collection of them has been published in a book titled, KP Inside: 101 Letters to the People of Kaiser Permanente. (All proceeds from it will go to two non-profit organisations, La Clinica de la Raza and Asian Health Services.) These communiques are not filled with grandiose prose. They are long, fact-based compositions that highlight things that people in the company have been doing right. Successes large and small are put into context so employees can see specific examples of how their work is helping people, in many cases saving lives.
For example, Halvorson sent several of these weekly letters on the not-particularly-glamorous subject of pressure ulcers and how the company has reduced them on its premises. He provides data. And charts.
And then he writes: "Consistency is golden. Being consistent with best practices saves lives. Look at the chart. Lives are being saved. Ulcers are being avoided. So my letter this week celebrates the really smart and practical caregivers who figured out what we needed to do to prevent those ulcers and — even more importantly — my letter celebrates all of the caregivers . . . who care so much about the wellbeing and safety of our patients that the things we need to do for our patients' safety are being consistently done".
This isn't a management-babble attempt to create some phony esprit de corps. It's a boss giving his employees examples of what they're doing well and making them feel good about the results.
Employees have a natural suspicion of corporate peppiness. I asked Halvorson what was the key to notes that resonates with even baloney-detecting employees.
"Absolute honesty," he said. "Don't go into this and spin it . . . People are very smart. Make sure when you're writing it that it's about something that's very true, and don't let somebody put some political jargon or fuzzy language in. If you're going to do something like this, people need to be able to trust what they read."
When Halvorson began writing his "celebrations," the plan was to do it for a year. But when the year was up, he had received a strong response and saw that the letters helped him. So he kept going.
"One of the things that's nice about these letters is that I'm now constantly looking for new things to celebrate," he said. "So I'm looking at the company a little differently than I was before."
And since he started communicating regularly with employees, they have been communicating back. (It's amazing what happens when people act like human beings at work!) Recently he heard from some doctors who had used Kaiser Permanente's patient database to cross-check whether certain patients had their spleens removed, a situation that might alter their treatment.
Calling it "this lovely, esoteric search to find these patients", he can highlight their work, hoping it inspires others to explore new ways to use the database.
"They would not have written me that note five years ago," he said. "They would've done the work, but they wouldn't have written me the note. And I'm now going to figure out a way to explain that to everybody else so other people can think, 'Gee, we can do something like that, too'."
The beauty of what Halvorson has done is its simplicity. Why shouldn't attempts to improve morale be based on honest assessments of work done and not on vague Management 101 blather?
If we focused a bit more on the fact that human interaction is the same at work or wherever, we might find ourselves happier.
And one step closer to being named senior vice-president of awesomeness.
Frequently Asked Questions about this Article…
George Halvorson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente, sent weekly, long, fact-based letters to nearly 200,000 employees that highlighted specific examples of good work, used data and charts, and celebrated successes large and small. A collection of the notes was published as KP Inside: 101 Letters to the People of Kaiser Permanente, with proceeds donated to two nonprofits.
The letters avoided management buzzwords and corporate peppiness, focusing instead on absolute honesty, concrete facts, charts and specific examples of employee achievements. That straightforward, sincere tone helped build trust with staff who might otherwise be skeptical of corporate communications.
The letters covered practical topics that affect patient care, such as how Kaiser Permanente reduced pressure ulcers, supported by data and charts. Halvorson also highlighted innovative uses of the patient database — for example, doctors cross-checking whether certain patients had their spleens removed to inform treatment decisions.
Yes. According to the article, employees began communicating back to Halvorson (notes that wouldn’t have been written five years earlier), and the letters encouraged staff to share ideas and replicate useful practices, increasing internal collaboration and morale.
Halvorson advised leaders to be absolutely honest, avoid spinning or inserting political jargon, and make sure messages are grounded in truth so employees can trust what they read. The goal is to highlight real work being done well rather than using fuzzy language.
The collection titled KP Inside: 101 Letters to the People of Kaiser Permanente shares the approach and examples more widely, and all proceeds from the book go to two nonprofit organisations — La Clinica de la Raza and Asian Health Services — according to the article.
The article suggests that transparent, fact-based CEO communication that celebrates real employee achievements can strengthen morale, encourage useful internal practices and improve trust in management. For investors, such practices are a qualitative signal of leadership emphasizing operational integrity and employee engagement, which can be relevant when assessing a company’s long-term culture.
Halvorson said the exercise made him constantly look for new things to celebrate and see the company differently. The process not only recognized employees’ work but also prompted him to pay closer attention to practical successes across the organisation.
Call 1300 880 160
Start a chat
Schedule a call
