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Baptist Health South Florida CEO Brian Keeley on the company’s decision to give its employees a bonus.
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Similar -- that expected Valentine's Day gift from their -- -- -- betting it years offered every bar and a thousand dollars you would all take it.
Baptist health South Florida is giving almost all of its 151000 employees a one time employee appreciation bonus of up to a grant and why.
To help make up for they hit they -- feeling in their paychecks as a result of the tax increase that kicked in last month.
This gesture is crossing the hospital millions of dollars but Baptist -- -- President ranks.
-- -- it is worth it in the long run he joins me now.
And if Fox Business exclusive.
Coming on the show what -- you decide to do this how did this happen.
Thank you Melissa well when the employees open up their first paycheck in January and they found -- they had a 2% reduction.
They're rather shell shocked by that and we also realize a lot of employees are still struggling with let's -- The daily finances of life and we had something else occurred we have some good news we are named as one of the hundred best companies to work for by.
Fortune magazine and we had a good quarter.
Before that to financially for two reasons.
Our employees are great employees -- treat the doctors and our patients very very well also we had a good.
Financial -- performance for that quarter and we also had a major.
Cost reduction program under way.
And because there we said when we come all this stuff together and that give our employees and an appreciation bonus we decided this year thousand dollars each for them.
You what was -- reaction like what do people -- video.
There was overwhelming I -- -- got 200 emails in the matter of a couple of hours Russo and paper argues in the hallways and just they were just a static they're just sows so surprise no one expected this.
How did you decide we're looking and the side of the screen right now who got what how did you decide.
You know who who got how much money wasn't was there anybody who wasn't part of the program.
Well we decided that there will -- the average person making the average shift person making 50000 dollars took.
-- thousand dollar reduction that was that reduction after the the after the tax increase so that's how it came up with thousand dollars and all the full time people have a thousand dollars.
The half time people got 500500.
Dollars.
And though the executives we decided we aren't gonna participate and the physicians who work for decided not to participate so wounded this year that with the -- the -- our employees.
Even used here -- I was gonna ask you where the money came from and you said that it came from a great quarter and some cost savings and there are so many hospitals around the country right now better talking about how hard they're being hit especially in the face of the Affordable Care Act.
How how have how have your fortunes been so positive what are you doing differently.
Well we have a surprising quarter we did not expect us to perform that well -- -- running above budget and again it's not just a matter more volume but.
We have some significant cost reductions that our employees participated and so we decided this is a good motivation level -- well.
What kind -- loosened what kinds of things did you do to save money because you don't now everybody's on the edge of their seat they wanna do the same -- Well the first thing we -- we -- executive salaries.
And then we're gonna build a corporate headquarters that we're gonna be multi millions of dollars who ended up canceling that.
And we want to everything from the food so the over time and what have you so we've looked at everything and no stone left unturned.
-- thank you so much for coming on -- show we appreciate your time when we really applaud what you did.
I'm sure your employees are our -- -- rating give you big hug thanks for coming on we appreciate it.
My pleasure.
