Advocate Health Drives Trust Through Leader-Led Listening Innovation

For Advocate Health, spanning six states and nearly 70 hospitals, the challenge was clear: how do you hear and act on feedback from 160,000 teammates while navigating multiple mergers and system integrations? The answer required rethinking traditional HR approaches and putting operational leaders at the center of their engagement strategy.

According to Ashley Morphew, Director of Culture and Engagement Innovation at Advocate Health, the organization's success came from moving beyond data reporting to storytelling that resonates with leaders. "We're trying to tell stories and tell them in a meaningful way, so that they resonate with our leaders as they take action on the data-driven insights," Morphew said during the partnership showcase with Perceptyx.

How Does Advocate Health Listen Across 160,000 Teammates?

Advocate Health employs three distinct Perceptyx surveys to capture the full teammate journey. The anniversary survey, deployed on each teammate's work anniversary, combines Likert scale questions with open comments to gather targeted feedback. "Despite its pretty short length, there's a ton that you can get just from those targeted questions," Morphew said.

The organization's annual Culture of Safety and Work Environment survey consolidates three previously separate assessments: Leapfrog Patient Safety requirements, nursing excellence metrics, and overall experience indicators. This comprehensive approach allows strategic decision-making at the enterprise level while reducing survey burden.

Most recently, Advocate Health launched an onboarding survey series with three touchpoints during new teammates' first months. This targeted approach helps identify opportunities during critical early days, particularly important as the organization works to boost retention during this period.

Beyond formal surveys, Advocate Health deploys targeted focus groups and listening sessions for specific workforce segments. "We have set the expectation that we will never stop listening," Morphew emphasized. "We say it's not survey fatigue. It's action fatigue."

What Made Psychological Safety the Key to Building Trust?

Cross-data analysis revealed a powerful correlation between psychological safety and trust scores. Advocate Health responded by making psychological safety a non-negotiable metric, including it in every survey touchpoint across the organization.

"The correlation between psychological safety and trust just in data alone was very strong," Morphew said. To translate this academic concept into practical application, the culture and learning teams developed a simple formula breaking down psychological safety into actionable pillars.

The organization created differentiated resources for senior leaders and frontline managers, delivered directly in their existing meetings. Self-guided online modules taking 30 minutes or less provide flexible learning options. Leader-led tools included detailed instructions, template slides, and communication guides.

"We had huge success with these resources. They have thousands of hits on our SharePoint site, where we host them. And they're still being used today in leadership meetings," Morphew said.

How Did Leader-Led Tools Transform Engagement at Scale?

Advocate Health operates on the principle, "Leader-led, HR supported." Recognizing that frontline leaders, not HR, ultimately drive engagement, the organization invested heavily in enabling tools that make behavior change seamless.

"We make a lot of templates and tools that do that behavior change for them," Morphew explained. "Leaders constantly use those templates. I mean, thousands of hits. We have 8,000 leaders and have had at least 4,000 hits on those email templates."

These tools went beyond simple templates. Each included wraparound support: preparation emails for teams, detailed facilitation instructions, conversation starters, and follow-up guidance. By reducing administrative burden and providing ready-to-use resources, leaders could focus on meaningful interactions rather than content creation.

Senior leader ownership proved essential. The organization worked with communications teams to help executives embed psychological safety concepts in their messaging. Roundtable discussions between senior leaders created transparency about their own challenges and solutions.

What Role Does Enterprise Accountability Play in Local Action?

Advocate Health elevated teammate experience to their enterprise scorecard alongside financial, quality, and operational metrics. This placement signals equal importance with patient experience (PX) scores and directly impacts annual incentive plans.

"Your experience here matters that much," Morphew stated, describing how this visibility drives leader engagement. The organization creates downloadable slides showing enterprise actions taken based on survey feedback, with condensed versions for time-restricted meetings.

Leaders at all levels maintain action plans. Templates help them document changes made since previous surveys, creating visible accountability: "As an enterprise, we have an enterprise-wide action plan, which means that, as an organization, we're saying, ‘this is our commitment.’"

How Is AI Shaping the Future of Listening at Advocate Health?

Looking forward, Advocate Health sees AI as a tool to remove barriers preventing teammates from working at their full potential. AI-powered dictation has already reduced physician documentation time by 30 minutes, directly addressing an administrative burden that contributes to burnout.

"We're researching the effect of AI on engagement and vice versa. How can AI support engagement? How can AI enhance the experience while removing barriers?" Morphew said.

The organization plans to implement AI-generated recognition prompts and communication tools to help leaders craft meaningful messages. Future initiatives include experience mapping across all data points (teammates, patients, and customers) to ensure that Advocate captures the complete human experience story: "We're curious about how we can experience map across every data point that we're listening to — not just to our teammates, but to our patients and customers — so the whole story is really told."

What Can Other Organizations Learn from Advocate Health's Experience?

Organizations facing similar challenges — whether in healthcare, retail, manufacturing, or other industries with large, distributed workforces — can apply Advocate Health's proven strategies. The combination of continuous listening with leader enablement resources creates sustainable culture change without adding administrative burden.

Perceptyx can help you achieve similar results through strategic employee listening and action. Schedule a demo with our team to discover how anniversary surveys, AI-powered analytics, and leader-focused action planning tools can transform your employee experience strategy.