Norton Healthcare Culture Champions Drive 22% Lower Intent to Leave Through Exemplary Leadership

The Opportunity

As Norton Healthcare expanded through acquisitions and new facility openings between 2023 and 2024, the organization realized that it needed to devise a strategy for maintaining and scaling leadership excellence across the growing healthcare system. While pockets of exceptional leadership existed throughout the organization, they needed a systematic way to identify, celebrate, and replicate these success stories.

The Solution

Norton Healthcare developed an innovative "Culture Champions" program that used data to identify and learn from their most effective leaders. Working with Perceptyx and other partners, they established clear metrics for leadership excellence, including platform usage data, rounding effectiveness, and employee survey results.

The program took a two-pronged approach to improving leadership effectiveness. First, they identified 22 Employee Experience Culture Champions and nine Safety Culture Champions based on concrete performance metrics. Second, they made these leaders active participants in shaping future initiatives, engaging them as advisors on experience tools and platforms.

Understanding that meaningful culture change requires systematic support, they elevated key performance indicators to organizational goals. For 2025, they made leadership rounding a system-wide requirement, backed by data showing that 10 or more rounds per employee significantly increased feelings of value and engagement.

The Impact

Leaders identified through the program achieved an average engagement score of 90.5% favorable among their teams. These Champions demonstrated exceptional commitment to employee connection, performing 1,180 unique employee rounds and generating 2,591 recognition moments through their own recognition platform.

The impact on team sentiment was equally impressive. Teams led by Culture Champions reported leader trust ratings 13.2% higher than the rest of the organization. Intent to leave scores among these teams were 22% lower than their peers, demonstrating the program's direct impact on retention. Safety Culture Champions drove equally impressive results, achieving an average patient safety score of 81.8% favorable.

The program's success has led to concrete organizational changes. Best practices identified through Culture Champions have been integrated into system-wide initiatives, including enhanced recognition tools, improved well-being support, and a revised attendance policy.