Medical Center leadership answers the tough questions about what the elevate program is and what it means for the people who work at VUMC.
Question: When Vanderbilt is successful and rewards staff with bonuses, why do the low performers receive the same amount as the high performers?
Answer: In order to receive the staff bonus, you must have received a 3 or above on your most recent annual employee evaluation.
Low performers should not be rated at 3 or above and should not receive bonuses.
Beyond this basic criterion, our success-sharing program for staff is not intended to be merit-based.
If some low performers are receiving inflated performance scores of 3 or above, their supervisors are at fault.
We need to be diligent about accurately scoring employee performance on annual evaluations.
No one looks forward to giving anyone a poor performance appraisal, but if we are to improve the Medical Center, we have to be honest with our reviews.
People who work diligently and well should be rewarded.
Those whose performance is below expectation need to know their work is not up to standard and they need to improve.
Managers owe it to their underperforming staff members and, just as importantly, to the rest of their team.
— Harry Jacobson, M.D., vice-chancellor for Health Affairs