<p>hello everyone this is Cole from the American Journal of healthcare strategy and I joined by a colleague and friend of mine Stephanie Stephanie please introduce yourself Cole thank you so much for having me this afternoon it's great to be able to get to spend the time with you good afternoon everyone my name is Stephanie Hilburn I am a newly Dynamic HR professional and I'm happy to spend the time here with Cole I'm with all of you today [Music] Stephanie and I met at Jefferson Health Plans she was one of the first people to that I had met when I had started at the we have these kind of lunchtime meetings called the water cooler at Jefferson health plans and we had met each other and then now she's looking for some new roles in the HR space I wanted to bring her on showcase some of her expertise and gain some of these insights from her especially in the health care industry where we are struggling with that kind of retention in recruitment which is what you are looking to or you already are but you're looking to specialize in even more right yes definitely yeah I'm happy to share my thoughts in that kind of space right and we're all in this together and if any of my insights are helpful and beneficial to anyone I that's let's keep paying it forward of course and that's what we need right now because it's our health even ourselves that are affected in the long run when we can't get a doctor nobody's immune to these issues and so back in 2005 you got your ba in political science and government from lale I'm a big fan of that University I've been there a couple times during their career events and then you went on to criminal justice and corrections but then you did this shift to the Masters in human resources and management what was that shift why did you change directions so in 201 19 I was the manager of community engagement within Jefferson health plans known as Health Partners plans at the time and working through a different employee relations challenges being a leader within the organization and with the team and at the time I just realized that we were going to be changing as an organization and I wanted to be a better leader not just for my team and and for my myself but for the organization and I realized that in order to do that I needed to enhance my skill set learn different tactics for leadership learn different tactics for adult Learners really just increase my skill set to be better not only for myself and my team but for the organization as a whole we were on the precipice of some really big changes that ended up coming down the line and this was even before the pandemic took place so so really just trying to to re recognizing that that I was not equipped to be who I needed to become and decided to to go back and get those educational skills to to marry nicely with the Practical experiences that I was fortunate enough to have while at Jefferson so it wasn't necessarily you weren't sitting saying wow I want to increase my salary I want a different career Etc you were saying we're facing these problems and we don't exactly know how to handle it from a knowledge standpoint so then you decided to go and get that knowledge that you would have the backing to handle the issues yes and that was as you begin any kind of new path in life that is absolutely what I went into it with and then as I continued on with my studies and then was able to receive some really practical opportunities to to get the Hands-On component at Jefferson health really realizing that component of people and investing in your people and taking care of the the greatest resource within any organization and in any industry your people that really it it was kind of an aha moment for me in realizing that is a passion of mine and that is really where I want to dedicate a great deal of my time and really put my heart and soul in so it was it really was a journey J over the past couple of years and I'm so grateful for Jefferson kind of bringing that opportunity to me and allowing me to see that is what I wanted to do and you over the time it seems like you became a pretty well-known kind of people leader in the organization even though you weren't a VP or uh a SVP you still a very well-known people leader and that's one of the important skills I think is that leading without having having a VP or SE Suite title making an impact on people like me we we were in a very different team our teams never really interacted in that close way but I still was aware of you and everyone on my team was as well and so I think that's really a very important skill I want to ask what were some of the challenges that you faced that sparked you to try to gain these skills what you were talking about some difficulties with employees some changes that were coming along what were some of these things so so I think one of the big things for anybody to remember and this was part of a a conversation I had a few weeks ago when I was exploring a new role the individual that I was talking with said well this is not a leadership role are you okay with that and I said yes because you don't have to have leader in your title to be a leader within any organization right you can it's those relationships that you build and the time and the intention that you put in behind that I think you referenced me starting my degree in 2019 at the end of that year I had gone out on a maternity leave and I came back at the end of February 2020 and it I will never forget this I was back in the mix of the operation for about two weeks um before we pivoted from a hybrid Workforce to a fully remote Workforce at the time and just really trying to figure out all right how do I do this I had three three young children at home with me I had my workload we weren't kind of just how do I wear all these hat different hats at one time and I very early on it became apparent to me that I had to be intentional I had to be intentional with my time at work I had to be intentional with the connections that I was going to make I had to be intentional when I would disconnect right because I think one of the great advantages of a hybrid or remote Workforce is you have that ability to to kind of always dial in but yeah you almost do yourself a a disservice and I learned that pretty quick in the beginning it's it's 8 o'clock at night is what I'm doing I'm I'm doing a disservice to the multiple hats that I wear so one of the big challenges in the beginning was becoming intentional and understanding ing that everyone was going through a lot myself my team the entire sorry about that the entire world was going through a lot at that time so just understanding that when I was going to reach out to somebody or ask for time or schedule a meeting or whatever the case may be that we're kind of really clear about okay this is what we're going to be talking about this is what we need to get accomplished this is what we're going to do moving forward and once that became kind of integrated in my workflow that really allowed me to to kind of get the courage to to reach out to people within the organization that I didn't know to begin to interact with teams that I didn't know before and just kind of fostering that intentionality with transparency and trying to create a space for myself and for my team where I could say I don't know what's coming down the line I don't know what's going to happen and I understand that I can't give you all the answers you may be looking for and but I'm here and I'm here to listen and I I can't control a lot of what's coming but I can control the person I'm going to bring to work and how I'm going to to treat my team and myself and my colleagues and I think when you remember that that really can help you overcome a lot of the a lot of the people challenges you've overcome these challenges you have now been familiar with working from home with that completely new environment as well as at the same time as other people having new children and new all kinds of new things going on do you and this is a kind of a curveball question for you what do you feel about work from home versus working in office there's a big push especially in Center City right now in Philadelphia to return to the office the mayor is meeting with officials what do you feel about that now that you've kind of seen the contrast and you overcome the challenges with working from home I think one of the amazing things that the senior leadership team at Jefferson did with Cad and with Denise really kind of being intentional about bringing people back into the office I understand the importance of that face Toof face and that impers and collaboration and I think that really does hold a lot of value and that is important right not everything not every role is suited for for fully remote all the time but by the same token a lot of that can be done in a hybrid space in my assessment and one of the one of the great things about what Denise Napier and keer did with with Jefferson was stressing really being intentional about when we're going to bring people into the office and while I was wasn't looking at it from as as Grand a scale as they were if I had to bring my team together okay we're going to do a couple things in that space that we have we're going to be together as a group on Tuesday so we're going to do a deeper dive into some regulatory components that impact the role we're going to do a a Refresh on the Medicaid line of business right then we're going to have lunch together as people not as a team right as people getting to know one another and fostering that relationship and being intentional in that space and that's it I think there is value in bringing people back into the office right it's not just for the organization it's for the sake of the city that Center City business district and understanding the economic component of it too I struggle with just personally the idea that you need to be fully back in I don't know if that necessarily is the answer and I would offer that creates more engagement problems and doesn't recognize that bring the entire person you're losing the intentionality exactly just taking the easy approach to things right yeah rigidity replacing common sense so I really thank again I can't thank Denise and Cat enough for just being stressing that intentionality if we're going to bring you in we're going to bring you in for a couple things we're going to make it a really valuable in-person experience and I think if we can kind of remember that and be intentional don't bring people in to sit in a cube on calls all day that's one of the issues that I've spoken a lot of with people is it's not just the we're talking about collaboration and if you're going to be collaborative then your office space needs to be collaborative your tasks need to be collaborative like one of the things that I've talked about is with that intentionality and I love that word and I'd like to dive into that more too but it's if I'm going to be on meetings at home five let's say four days of the week and then one day of the week I have to come to the office and then there's no meetings that day that's kind of silly I could have why not fit all those meetings all four days of the week into that one day that I'm in the office and that makes a lot more sense right and so I love that that's what we do I want to further that intentionality and talk about intentionality with hiring and with retainment of our staff so especially in the nursing field with doctors as well in the medical field of course and even lab technologists some of these fields we don't always think of there's a huge problem with the hiring process as well as retaining them after we hire them yes what from your perspective just at a zoomed out thing what is the issue what's going on how can we fix this it seems like a really big struggle right now it is it absolutely is talk to anybody in healthc care and they'll tell you the the Staffing is just an incredible it's just an incredible Challenge and I I would offer that this was an existing challenge that kind of was exacerbated by the pandemic very similar to to child care within the US right this was a problem before the pandemic finding affordable qualified places for your children to go if they're not of school age I think that finding qualified medical technicians nurses Physicians assistants Physicians finding that before the pandemic was a challenge and then we placed just looking at the US right we placed an incredible um Demand on these men and women and however you choose to identify we placed an incredible amount of Demand on them for an extend period of time I think that is absolutely a factor of it as well I would offer too that kind of the patchwork of Public Health policy that we had throughout the country that absolutely exacerbated the challenges as well and now you kind of had everything associated with covid and how politicized Public Health became in the country and now you have you still have that which has not been resolved you combine that with the challenges of there are so many call call and try and get in for a annual exam at your primary care doctor right now call because I guarantee it's probably going to be about three months before you yeah can get in I just know I personally my husband does not he's wonderful not great with the preventative care and I'm like you have to go you have to go you've got to get your blood work done you've got and he Hemm and hauled and yeah he's waiting six months because there are so many other emerging cases um ahead of people there's that component and then depending upon where you happen to be practicing there are so many societal factors that are in place Philly is going through a lot of my hometown we're going through a lot of challenges right now there's a lot of incidents across the city and being in in the ER space that's challenging and I don't it's really challenging yeah yeah I don't know if I think we raising salary right so why does Raising salaries not create retainment I mean it creates retainment at to a certain point that I think that's a multi-prong issue right I think part of that is going to be the leadership if the leadership is not empowered within the organization there's the cliche that people don't leave bad they don't leave companies they leave Bad Bosses so if you're not giving your leadership the tools and training that they need to support the Frontline Associates you're doing a disservice there too and I think kind of specifically utilizing the example that you had highlighted right you're doubling the physician's salary but if I'm an ER doctor and I don't have what I need to safely practice medicine in my workspace yeah it's great you doubled my salary but am I going to spend however long the shift is 10 hours or whatever the case may be if I'm going to be spend 10 hours worrying about whether I can safely treat my patients yes money compensation is great and I think you'd be very hardpressed to find someone who would say no don't pay me more but at a certain point what is that compensation going to do if you can't do your job safely you mentioned giving them the tools to do their jobs but how do you even improve the safety in these workplaces what are some ways that we can make Staff feel safer and that we can improve the quality of their lives without just giving them a bigger check I think if you're in an ER space and you're interacting with someone who maybe has a mental challenge or any manner of mental health issue right there needs to be there needs to be and it sounds so simple to say it more access to mental health professionals and accessibility in Crisis Support and access to medication therapies and...