Sharp HealthCare Improves Retention to 91.6% While Reducing Workplace Violence Claims 12% and Trip-and-Fall Incidents 17%
- Employee retention improved from 89.8% (FY24) to 91.6% (FY25)
- Workers' compensation TCIR of 6.1 maintained well below federal healthcare benchmark of 7.6
- Recordable employee assault claims reduced 12%; trip-and-fall claims reduced 17%
When CEOs talk about cultural compatibility during mergers, it can often be overstated. There are invariably going to be differences in cultures, regardless of similarity.
What Was the Opportunity?
Over the past several years, Sharp HealthCare has committed to strengthening employee safety and well-being while navigating sustained operational pressures and evolving workforce risks. The organization recognized that "safety" needed to be addressed in a broader Total Worker Health sense: physical safety (injury prevention and exposure reduction), psychological safety (speak-up culture), and sustained well-being support.
Listening data reinforced why this mattered — and where the gaps were. In the 2025 Fall Pulse, core engagement indicators remained strong: pride (87.2%), intent to stay (86.3%), and willingness to recommend Sharp as a great place to work (83.6%). But the same pulse also revealed clear opportunities for improvement.
Perceptions of leader follow-through and speak-up culture had declined:
- "My direct leader has taken action based on the results of our last survey" dropped to 62.7%, a significant -6.9 point decline from Winter Pulse
- "I feel free to speak up when something does not seem right" fell to 77.8%, a significant -3.1 point decline
- "I feel supported by my manager in making decisions about my health and well-being" declined -1.7 points to 80.5%
This combination — stable engagement with declining perceptions of follow-through and speak-up confidence — made it urgent to bolster the systems that protect caregivers and to ensure actions are visible and experienced locally, not just designed centrally. The signal was amplified by strong pulse participation: 10,214 respondents at a 52.6% response rate provided robust data on what employees were experiencing.
What Was the Solution?
Sharp HealthCare took a systemwide, integrated approach that ties employee listening insights to safety and well-being actions through enterprise strategy, governance, and dedicated well-being programming.
Embedded workforce safety into enterprise strategy and operational prevention. Sharp incorporated safety goals into its multi-year strategy. They prioritized an injury prevention program, manager training and education on injury reporting and prevention, and laid out explicit focus areas such as slips/trips/falls and blood/body fluid reduction strategies. The plan benchmarks Total Case Incident Rates (TCIR) against federal healthcare medians, reinforcing a measurement mindset.
A comprehensive nationally recognized program designed to educate, prevent and mitigate risks of violence, aggression and bullying was provided to all employees. Specific topics included both online and in person de-escalation and active shooter training. Manager training was strengthened to include not only injury reporting, investigation and prevention but also the analysis of injury data within their departments and manager use of Lean Six Sigma tools (including the 5Whys technique) to conduct effective, root cause driven injury investigations. These efforts complement exposure reduction in focus areas such as workplace violence, slips/trips/falls and blood and body fluid exposures. The plan benchmarks Total Case Incident Rates (TCIR) against federal healthcare medians, reinforcing a data driven measurement mindset.
Established integrated governance for Total Worker Health. Sharp formalized cross-functional oversight through the S.H.A.R.P. Wellness Council and Workforce Wellness Council, aligning employee resilience, wellness, mental health and safety under a unified council structure. The purpose of the council is to enhance employee well-being, happiness, and safety through a data driven, integrated Total Worker Health (TWH) program that promotes safety, health, retention, recruitment, productivity, satisfaction as well as a supportive and inclusive workplace environment. This chartered governance model includes the deliberate development of measurement infrastructure (including employee safety dashboards, wellness dashboards, Employee Engagement Survey results, Sharp Health Plan claims, turnover data, EAP reporting, and absenteeism/LOA data) to ensure that decisions about programs and initiatives are data-driven and that outcomes can be monitored and evaluated over time.
Expanded and operationalized enterprise well-being resources through Sharp Best Health. Sharp strengthened systemwide access to well-being programs, including an approach grounded in a behavior change model and a broad set of employee-accessible workshops, challenges, and ongoing resources.
Used Perceptyx listening and action planning to convert feedback into action, then communicated progress. Sharp used Perceptyx as the listening mechanism and emphasized follow-through through formal communications and leader enablement. The Fall Pulse was positioned explicitly as providing "a clear view of what's working and where we can improve," and leadership messaging highlighted strengths while naming focus areas such as the desire for "greater visibility and stronger follow-through during change."
What Was the Impact?
FY25 results demonstrate a reinforcing cycle: consistent safety performance reduced avoidable harm, wellness infrastructure supported employees' ability to recover and sustain themselves at work, and employees responded with greater workforce stability.
Employee retention improved significantly. Retention increased from 89.8% in FY24 to 91.6% in FY25, earning a top rating of 4 on the FY25 System Report Card under the People Pillar. This improvement occurred during a period of sustained operational and workforce pressure, reinforcing the importance of foundational employee safety and well-being as retention stabilizers.
Safety performance remained consistently strong. Under the Safety Pillar, Sharp maintained a TCIR of 6.1 in FY25 — well below the federal healthcare benchmark of 7.6 — strong enough to earn a rating of 4 in every quarter of the year. This consistency signals to employees that safety is embedded in daily operations and leadership accountability, not episodic initiatives.
Targeted interventions reduced harm to frontline caregivers:
- Recordable employee assault claims reduced 12% through the Workplace Violence Program
- Trip-and-fall claims reduced 17% following deployment of focused prevention toolkits
These improvements matter because they address the types of incidents most likely to drive fear, fatigue, and disengagement — factors closely linked to turnover risk in healthcare environments.
Engagement and culture metrics showed meaningful gains:
- "Sharp HealthCare provides a safe work environment" held strong at 87.9% (+0.4 vs Annual Census)
- Recognition improved: "When I do an excellent job, my accomplishments are recognized" rose to 74.0% (+1.5, significant positive)
- Belonging increased: "I feel like I belong at Sharp HealthCare" reached 82.2% (+1.7)
- Core engagement remained stable: pride (87.2%), intent to stay (86.3%), recommending Sharp as a great place to work (83.6%), optimism about Sharp's future (70.5%)
Sharp embraced transparency about what's next. Fall Pulse results also made the "next frontier" clear: employees want to experience more consistent, visible follow-through and a stronger speak-up culture. Leadership communications explicitly reflected this, noting that the Fall Pulse highlights both what Sharp should be proud of and where it must focus, including a call for "greater visibility and stronger follow-through during change."
While retention is influenced by many factors, Sharp's FY25 experience demonstrates that investing in safety and well-being is both the right thing do as well as a measurable contributor to keeping people.
By employing a listening strategy and leveraging a platform that gives you objective data, it’s invaluable to informing your people strategy,” says Miller.
The Impact
Improvements in employee engagement, retention, and leadership support
The employee listening strategy delivered significant benefits:
Discovery of Engagement Hotspots: The data revealed previously unanticipated issues across different business units that leadership had assumed would be more insulated from M&A activity. “We thought our people challenges, such as retention, were only in our wholesale banks, but the reality is they were in our frontline and branches as well,” notes Miller. This insight allowed for more targeted action planning and interventions.
Identification of Cultural Misalignments: The surveys exposed important differences in how each organization interpreted the bank’s core values. While both banks considered themselves people-centric, their practical approaches differed significantly. “[Some of the people from American National Bank] perceived us to be more process-oriented... they really didn’t understand why we had all these ‘hoops’ to jump through,” explains Miller. “They saw that as an example of, ‘Hey, we can be flexible and nimble when we need to service a customer.’ But for us, it was like, ‘Wow, that’s a really risky proposition.’ We leveraged the data and insights to then go and have conversations with those leaders and action plan around it.” Subsequent surveying showed that this “values gap” had indeed narrowed.
Acceleration of Technology Investments: Insights from the survey revealed significant technology gaps that negatively impacted productivity and employee experience. For example, American National Bank, the acquired institution, had implemented innovative tools like DocuSign to streamline loan administration. However, these capabilities were lost during the transition to Atlantic Union Bank, creating frustration among employees. “For your job to be easy, and then to come to Atlantic Union Bank and have the thing that makes it easy go away... that degrades the experience all the more,” explains Miller. This degradation in the employee experience also risked reduced productivity and retention.
Recognizing this as an acute pain point, Atlantic Union Bank acted swiftly. They worked cross-functionally with their technology and operations teams to reprioritize the DocuSign project within their existing roadmap. This decision was driven by the understanding that reinstating such tools was essential for retaining talent and improving engagement. The initiative had a meaningful impact on teammate work experience, engagement, and retention. “The most powerful thing we heard is, ‘You listened. You leveraged this information and did something with it. That reaffirmed the commitment to the combined organization and retention in the long term,’” says Miller.
Expansion of Leadership Visibility: Listening data showed that new markets without an existing Atlantic Union leadership presence struggled more during the transition. “It felt like the blind were leading the blind,” says Miller. This led to a strategic change in their integration approach, ensuring the physical presence and accessibility of legacy leadership in new markets.
Lessons for the Future
Improvements in employee engagement, retention, and leadership support
The insights gained have now become part of Atlantic Union Bank’s M&A playbook, directly informing their approach to future growth. “The lessons learned from our listening strategy have literally been written into our playbook for future state M&A,” Miller explains.
The impact extends beyond immediate integration concerns. The data now informs executive goal-setting and accountability measures as well, with leaders being evaluated on their contribution to successful integration outcomes. “Senior and executive leadership has a responsibility to support the success of the integration,” says Miller. “Thanks to Perceptyx’s platform, we can measure engagement, where we see hotspots, where we’re seeing risk to retention, and where we’re seeing far-reaching positive impacts.”
Senior and executive leadership has a responsibility to support the success of the integration,” says Miller. “Thanks to Perceptyx’s platform, we can measure engagement, where we see hotspots, where we’re seeing risk to retention, and where we’re seeing far-reaching positive impacts.
Looking ahead, Atlantic Union Bank continues to refine its employee listening strategy, particularly as it manages the challenges of back-to-back acquisitions. “Merger fatigue is real,” acknowledges Miller. “We have to prioritize our investment in time to ensure that we are not losing momentum around teammate engagement and actioning on the insights we had, amid a lot of different distractions. In the instance of back-to-back mergers, we have to be mindful of the future integration but also continue attending to the teammates who have joined in the not-so-distant past.”
Objective data has been instrumental in helping the company interpret feedback and insights, explains Miller: “It is imperative to run pulse surveys during a merger and respond to that data before going into the next merger.” This approach provides valuable lessons learned as they prepare for their next acquisition. Another focus area for Atlantic Union Bank moving forward is leveraging features that support action planning: “[Perceptyx has] made [action planning] so easy, it’s so seamless.”