LSC staff committed to mission and values
The old Chinese curse has never been more true: “May you live in interesting times.” We certainly do live in interesting times from society, to politics, to business!
We at Lutheran Services Carolinas have always beat the drum that we need to stay focused on our core: mission, vision, and values. These interesting times have made that focus even more important.
LSC has over $150 million in buildings, property, etc. But the most important asset remains our 2,100-plus teammates. Only people can take care of people! That's why I talked about our team and our annual Tour de LSC in the last issue of Voices.
We just recently received the results of our annual employee engagement survey. For years we've used a national survey provided through the University of Texas that focuses on engagement, which is a step beyond job satisfaction. We encourage every teammate to participate. This year we had 89.3 percent participation, up even from last year, and far beyond the 50 percent considered acceptable! That alone is an important example of LSC team engagement. Also, the aggregate engagement score of 389 is exceptional, anything over 350 being acceptable.
In spite of how hard we have tried to communicate, team build, and improve wages and benefits, I truly expected our scores to drop off some. Our nation is in the grips of one of the most severe labor shortages in modern times. Recently, for the first time, I wrote every teammate, resident, and family, as well as supporters, to explain the labor crisis and share what LSC is doing to combat it. We are suffering too, but not as badly, mostly thanks to the engagement level of our team.
LSC teammates are committed to our mission, vision, and values. A recently hired nurse told me that she loved that she could pray with her residents. She couldn't do that in her old job! Three child and family staff members were at a training session and the instructor said all the participants should go home and develop a mission, vision, and values statement. Our teammates whipped out their cards that share our LSC mission as well as our vision and values. This impressed the fire out of their instructor that they not only knew the LSC mission but could speak on it with passion! That's the LSC difference, the LSC Way!
We await the results of our engagement survey each year like it's Christmas! We parse, study, and act on the results until the next survey is done. In our health and human services ministry we may not be able to pay the best, provide stock options or the best benefits, but we can all work together as one team to walk with all the people we serve.
LSC turns the curse of interesting times into the team's journey through interesting times. Thank you for walking the journey with us!
– Ted Goins, LSC President