Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to PG Pulse Press Gainey's podcast on all things healthcare, tech and human experience. In this podcast, we'll be joined by some of the best and brightest minds in the industry to discuss challenges, share insights and innovate the future of healthcare. Thanks for tuning in. We hope you enjoy the conversation.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Welcome to PG Pulse, a podcast for healthcare leaders to talk about the innovations in human experience in healthcare. I'm Brad Fedders, President of Press Ganey. I'm joined today by an exceptional leader, Leanne Anderson, MBA Emplifi Health.
Leanne has made extraordinary contributions to the development of an intentional culture at Emplifi Health through organizational transformation, impacting employees well being and ultimately patient experience.
I'd like to thank everyone on the podcast for joining us as we delve into the critical element of human capital in healthcare as well as the changing landscape of workforce management and development. With that welcome, Leanne and love for you to tell us a little bit about yourself before we get started.
[00:01:13] Speaker C: Thanks Brad. Thanks for inviting me to join you today. I'm Leanne Anderson. As you mentioned, I'm the Chief People Officer of Emplify Health. I joined the organization about two years ago and maybe first start out with what is Emplify Health. It is a newly named organization, but it has long histories and legacy inside the Midwest ballot. Healthcare is primarily based out of Green Bay and Gunderson Healthcare primarily based out of La Crosse. We actually do business in the four states, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and Iowa. We have about 11 different hospitals, a number of clinics, about 15,000 employees, 4,500 nurses. We're deeply entrenched in the communities that we serve both in those areas and throughout rural Wisconsin. So I joined about two years ago just as the organizations were coming together and have had the wonderful opportunity to pick up on the legacy of those two companies and continue to guide the culture of the organization, human resources and how we actually provide great care in the Midwest.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Well, that's wonderful Leigh Ann. You know, at Press Ganey, everything begins and ends with exceptional patient care. Ones that safe, high quality and people centric. Essential to achieving that goal is social capital, the value of teams working together in a trusting and collaborative environment in times of transformation. We found that that social capital is usually more important than the financial and human capital, the funds needed and the people needed by the organization to get things done. Matter of fact, we found that the most high performing social capital organizations, their quality, their outcome, their financial performance exceeds their peers. And this really goes along with the mission statement. Emplifi Health and I'M going to read it because I want to get it right. It's so powerful. Amplify Health is known for leading with love, putting empathy into action, relentless commitment to healthy people and thriving community. What a wonderful mission. Can you talk a little bit about these themes of teamwork, empathy, collaboration? But then how do you strategize and how do you operationalize themes like that?
[00:03:30] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, love the statement. We've come together, as I mentioned, two organizations. But one of the things anytime you're in a merger is looking at the heart of the organizations and know that they can actually mesh well. And this actually represents both of those organization and our real true north of where we want to go. It's interesting, you hear words in there like love, which is a little uncharacteristic when you're talking in the community and to candidates. You know, I lead recruiting and it's one of the things we hear often from our candidates coming in. You have the word love. What does that mean? And when you talk about the elements of different types of capital. We do do team based care. We do run agile teams. We're looking wherever possible that it's not a hierarchy. It's about working together and collaborating in the foundation of who we are and what that looks like. How do you bring that teamwork together? We try to do it by ensuring that everyone has a voice in continuous improvement. We use different tools and methodologies to do that. We are very transparent around the quality, the metrics, the conversation, the boards that we're actually working and what continuous improvement looks like? We actually are going quite a ways into working as agile teams as well. We fund agile teams. And it's interesting for me as a HR leader, how do we think about organizational structure in the future where some of the tried and true ways that organizations work are beginning to shift as individuals are moving from team to team with different roles and responsibility. And I think it's critically important, especially as you bring into the language that transformation, a lot of times transformation is moving from where you are today to somewhere in the future that you don't quite know.
And you've got to figure out that path, work together and bring the ideas. And I think it's so incredibly important in health care because it is being disruptive.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: You know, some of the things you've talked about around this topic of total rewards.
But Amplify Health has really kind of taken it to the next step of really trying to understand your colleagues. What are the true values they have around intrinsic and extrinsic Concepts how you put that into practice to help you recruit and retain and build this amazing workforce you have. Maybe talk a little bit about those themes and how you operationalize it.
[00:06:03] Speaker C: You know, it's interesting. I run and lead Total Rewards and how do you evolve it and where is it going in the future? My hunches will probably talk about the generations in the workforce, but we have five generations in the workforce and even within those generations, everyone has unique needs and what's important to them. So it may have two individuals, same age, same family situation. But if I ask, do you need more time, do you need more compensation, do you need better health care? Their answers may actually be different to that based on their own individual needs, family needs, and what's important to them. So when I think about Total Rewards, it is a comprehensive portfolio that we need to offer choice in.
I can share a little bit of how, where would even love to go with that. We are not there yet and we have a ways to go. But what that could look like is I know how much we actually spend on an annual basis in Total Rewards, how much that portfolio costs. Imagine a world where you receive a certain dollar amount for the organization that you can spend it on any aspect of the portfolio you may want to. If you're in a certain place in your life, retirement may be more important to you. If you're in a different place of your life, tuition reimbursement may be more advantageous and more of an interest to you or that loan forgiveness. So I'd love to get to a place where we actually offer the same investments that we've always made into individuals. It's not necessarily about reducing that. But the one thing I learned when I hear feedback from our staff, it's really about they want to perceive the values. And what's interesting is you almost need to customize that. And I think so often we shy away from allowing choice because we're worried about fairness and administration and simplicity that goes along with it in telling the story. And I think the world's beginning to change as some of the different technologies, AI et cetera, begins to step into that. But a little thing I'd also tell you that's different a little bit about us as an organization is so many people will tie their total rewards towards motivation. If I don't compensate you all, you won't perform. And what we tend to see is compensation is important. We will talk about compensation. We will be market competitive. But we learn within our staff it is not the only thing. And we definitely don't want it to be the headline in our culture. Most of those individuals that join Emplify and we could talk about how it ties to retention actually join because they're living and fulfilling their own personal purpose. Most want to give back to their communities, they want to provide care. And so we see intrinsic motivation as a cornerstone to who we are. And that actually then feeds our teams and some of that transformation that we were talking about earlier as well.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: That's wonderful. And you can see that maybe to the topic, as you said, recruitment and retention, the national trends around struggling with recruitment and retention, especially nursing, especially in those early years of their career. But Emplify Health has somehow been able to buck that trend. So maybe talk a little bit about how you've been successful with that and maybe some of our listeners what they can pick up from.
[00:09:35] Speaker C: So I have humbly, I admit I'm the beneficiary of years of infrastructure that's been put in place regarding leadership conversations and discussion with our staff. Let's use nurse retention as maybe a place to start. When I look at the industry averages around nurse retention, we can see that they're actually getting a little bit better. So coming out of COVID they're beginning to rebound, but they're still in pretty rough shape, averaging probably about a 20% turnover rate inside organizations in Emplify in both of our regions, our nursing staff is less than half of that number. So we are definitely leading. When I look at retention and it's not because of stagnantation. They are highly engaged, they're motivated, they're delivering great quality care. And it comes from the leadership. But more than that, I would tell you it also comes from letting them have a voice in defining their job, their work, their role and being a critical player on any team based care.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: I assume that's kind of going to the culture aspect of Amplify Health. We hear that more and more to achieve the highest performance in safety, patient experience, employee engagement, it's not about any one tactic, it's about the culture of your organization.
[00:10:59] Speaker C: Yeah, we are constantly gauging how do you feel about your leaders, how do you feel about the strategy and the direction of the organization? Do you feel safe at work? And that includes everything from are you comfortable walking in the parking garage? Anything is fair game when it comes to supporting our staff. So they're comfortable, they're engaged and they're able to deliver. Earlier mentioned, you've got the social capital, the financial capital, the team capital. All of those come together. When we think about engagement, which all spins right off of the culture.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Is there anything you could share around specifically that year one through three nursing? Maybe one or two specific things that have jumped out at you, like, boy, this is why we're successful compared to maybe some of our peers around the country.
[00:11:50] Speaker C: So one of the things that we look at when we think about culture and as you asked about nurses, kind of one to three years, they're new at the bedside, and in many cases, they're seeing and experiencing things that they may not have learned of or definitely hadn't experienced prior to that role. Workplace violence is one of the areas where we're actually having a lot of conversations right now. It's not a new topic Inside Healthcare, but a nurse can be placed in vulnerable situations with patients that may have mental health needs, with individuals that may be confused, scared, there may be fear in those situations. And we are seeing in moments where nurses. I'll give you an example and a little story. Recently we had a nurse that actually was in a situation where a patient acted out. And when we approached her after we had heard this situation had happened, she thought. I just thought that's what it takes to be a nurse. And so we need to, in those moments, reinforce, in this situation, Amplify and love. We care about that patient. We know what they're going through, but we also care about that nurse. And certain things are okay, and certain things are not okay. So how do you create policies and practices that demonstrate empathy, love, and compassion, but also set the right boundaries that we need to and demonstrate it? The reason I mention that is culture is the stories you tell, and it's often driven by the policies and the actions that you take. So we know everything that we put into the culture actually will reinforce, one way or another, the conversations our staff are having about what it's like to work at Amplify Health.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Wonderful. You know, switching over to nurses to physician. We read a lot about physician burnout, being overwhelmed with their IT obligations, increased production. How is that being addressed at Amplify Health and showing that loving culture, as you call it?
[00:14:01] Speaker C: You know, we're trying to do a few different things within it.
The burnout's real. We definitely see it in the feedback that we received from our staff. I'll tell you a brief story that was kind of interesting that I ran into recently.
I was rounding in one of our locations and ran into a physician that had been a physician for years and now floats. And so what I mean by that, he actually visits different location, he fills in for holidays or vacations. Et cetera. And he has a different type of workload that goes along with it. And what was interesting and how we learned from it is we do see physicians go through a career journey and at a certain point in time they're looking for something different. So in some cases we do have roles where they're not using and they have the same technology demands as other types of roles. But the other thing is, how is the advent of AI, how are we using it to actually ease the burden that physicians are going? And we also do in many cases offer admin time for our staff. We're thoughtful about it. We're not always trying to just push more patients through. We need to allow them balance as well.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Wonderful.
As you at Amplify Health Leverage Data research, I know that you use a good fact based decision making as you build strategy and operations.
Kind of the how do you use thought leadership and research and data and how does Presgane help in supporting those efforts?
[00:15:40] Speaker C: Yeah, it's not Press Ganey absolutely is one of the partners, but we actually have several partners and I'll speak to how Press Ganey is one of those.
Earlier today I was actually meeting with our Total Rewards governance committee and we were using, we have about 15,000 employees. I think we had about 8 or 9,000 qualitative comments that came back. We actually with that group were using it to say what are people liking about us? What are they concerned about? And we actually had that dynamics actually in an analysis to speak to individual departments as well as both regions and at the total level. And what we're seeing is we're seeing themes that are coming through. Back to your question about Total Rewards. Here's where we'd like you to make investments. Here's where we'd like to see you improve. And that data and that analysis helps us pinpoint where we're making our investment and our spends and what we're talking about.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: Wonderful. You know, going back to you were talking about the Amplify Health is the coming together of Bellin Health and Gunderson Health and there's a lot of mergers going on and integration going on around the country.
As you look at different cultures that come together sometimes that's a real challenge for these organizations. And years later, they're still acting as two independent organizations with the best of intentions to come together. How is that going at Amplify Health and some of the things that others could learn, how you guys are trying to integrate those cultures.
[00:17:16] Speaker C: What's interesting is you still have a culture where people Are watching to say, am I getting the same fair and equal treatment regardless of which region I began in. But what we're using to actually approach a lot of the work is how do you not only harmonize? And I think a lot of times people assume that means you're going to choose A or, or are you gonna choose B? In a lot of cases we are collectively coming together and saying we need C. And that is looking to the future and bringing those ideas together. Sometimes it is an A or B. Cause we see one absolutely works better. But sometimes when you actually bring those aspects together, you come up with something completely new and reinforcing to our teams that that's okay. Cause we're building for the future together.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: Well, Leigh Ann, a big question is what do you see coming in your role as a chief people officer?
How are you going to deal with it? The issues that are arising. Love to hear about that.
[00:18:14] Speaker C: You know, it's interesting and you may get an answer that you didn't expect from me.
I think the traditional way that folks have approached HR actually may stifle organizations. So let me give you an example.
So often we think about hierarchy and every single day I'm encouraged find more full time employees. I actually don't know if that's the way the industries are going. If I look at gig employees. And what does that look like? If you saw that in the onset of COVID when you had contractors and there was a lot of locums, et cetera, and expense went up with that. But I actually think it disrupted the healthcare workforce as well. What we're seeing right now, or what I believe we're beginning to see, is an ask for more flexibility. As you ask the question about life, balance, burnout, what does that look like? People are wanting to define their own adventures. And what I think that looks like it may be somebody that lives in the Midwest part of the year, lives elsewhere part of the year, I want to honor that. I want to welcome them back. The time that they're actually in our environment and they're working, I think we see others. A working mom may say, you know what? I want a different type of shift and a different type of construct in my mind where in the past we've thought about full time employees and staff and stability, I think all of those things are important. But I think the way the workforce thinks about them is different. And we're going to have to change in order to do that. So in the future I might not be talking to you about having 15,000 employees inside emplify health. But every year we fill X number of hours that provide care into our communities and what it looks like 15,000 may become 40,000. But the reality is they may be working a smaller portion of their time or not a full year round job. I can see a little bit of the numbers already.
Our part time employees or I'm sorry our full time our FTE equation is beginning to dip down and I think as an HR leader one of the things you're always trying to figure out is wait a minute, I only give you benefits if you're this percent of an fte. I think we're going to have to become more flexible in order to have access to the shifts filled in the care that we want to provide. Especially with silver tsunami and the workforce beginning to shift.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: Absolutely. You know, with that there's in the press a lot of anxiety of workforces in all industries where technology is coming into play all the way from in healthcare, telehealth, health to AI.
[00:21:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: Are you sensing that anxiety from your workforce and how are you helping them embrace technology to go exactly what you're talking about a day different way in the future caring for patients?
[00:21:12] Speaker C: Yeah. I heard a fun story I'd love to attribute to where I heard it, but they were talking about how technology may change jobs or eliminate jobs. And the first time the example that was quoted was that people started to say that was when Microsoft introduced Excel. Excel's still here, the workforce is here, we're running a lot more spreadsheets. And so I think it's really looking at the tools to help work be done easier. And where can we do that? I'll share a little bit. Even as we use virtual nursing, a lot of organization looked at virtual nursing to find efficiency and maybe reduce their staffing. We didn't look at virtual nursing that way. We actually approached virtual nursing to say the bedside. A nurse working at the bedside actually is very taxing from a physical standpoint. And you start to feel that burnout those health consideration. How can you use virtual nursing to actually create longevity within the careers of nurses to give them a little bit of break at the bedside. And so we actually have nurses that sit both at the bedside and then still take care of those same patients virtually as well. Our patients love it because they see the continuity and it's teaching them a different way of how healthcare can be.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Delivered to you know, getting back Leanne to the those younger staff one to three years as they grow in your organization. Something that is a challenge in not for profit health Care is leadership training, really investing time and money to develop leaders that can run a large budget, deliver great care and services at Implify Health. How are you going to be dealing with that as you guys move forward to really build up the next level of leadership at Amplify Health?
[00:23:02] Speaker C: So I'll hit on a couple things as it relates to leadership development and part of it's even as we're coming together as an organization, we just introduced new leadership philosophies. And it is a balance of both behavioral aspects that really that heart, that empathy, that care, and how that shows up in every relationship. And what's interesting about that aspect of it, when we see it in action, we see some of the same behaviors of how they're interacting with patients as they're interacting with each other, as they're interacting with their direct reports. The other side of that equation is accountability, being there for and driving the outcomes. And sometimes you'll see leaders kind of lean towards one side of that. And we feel it's incredibly important that you're demonstrating both. But I'll share one thing that we are working on right now that I've seen and I think it's still a little bit of a hangover post Covid. During COVID the workforce was so disrupted in healthcare that a lot of individual contributors all of a sudden found themselves in management positions. And at that time and the demands that was being placed, we didn't have time to scale them up and teach them how to be a great people manager and what does that look like? And so we are trying to retro and continue to step into that. I don't want to say those leaders are capable or able, but I think we disrupted some of the foundation that happens as you step from one leadership step to the next leadership step of managing others. Likewise, when you start to manage other managers, your skill set needs change as well. And so I think we disrupted the pipeline a little bit from a skill stance. And like a lot of organizations, we're looking at how, how do we continue to bolster and step towards that skill based organization.
[00:24:52] Speaker B: On the topic of Total Rewards, we're seeing a lot of organizations as they look at what they're providing their employees. It used to be a set menu. It was almost like for years and years this is what we provided you around health benefits, retirement accounts, insurance. And you're seeing as you talked about people, people are wanting more individual choice. How does that impact how you look at Total Rewards and motivating and rewarding your employees?
[00:25:23] Speaker C: Yeah, it's A great question.
When you look at that full complement of activities, I'm gonna go back to again. And one thing I look at in our culture and driven by HR is choice. And so often I think we look at segmentation, and I love segmentation, the ability to build something that creates an experience. But I think segmentation may also make some broad generalization about what is Gen X, what is Gen Y, what do they want? And the reality is, while there's commonalities within each of those different components, there's still some strong uniqueness.
I'm a mom, and anytime you have kids, you're like, okay, they are uniquely different in some ways. They may be that same age, they may be in that same demographic, but they're unique as well. I'm not saying only moms know and understand that. Anyone that leads in the workforce is going to see you can't treat everyone the same way. And I think that's where total rewards is challenged, is we try to put everyone kind of into a cookie cutter. And my question is, how do you look at that broadly to actually create more choice that goes along with it? Because the reality is retirement planning may be equally important to somebody who is in their mid-50s and beginning to think about that, or somebody that's 20 and is looking to retire earlier at age 45. And when we try to make an assumption, we may actually miss an audience that has something important that they want to teach us.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: Absolutely.
So, Leanne, as you talked about using Agile to help in building culture and impacting the safety, the quality of care, can you give a few examples on Agile and where it's used?
[00:27:20] Speaker C: Yeah, we actually run several different agile teams across the organization. So when we look at our top strategic priorities, one of the questions we ask is, is this more of a traditional approach and project in a waterfall, or should we use Agile? And really the question sometimes comes down to do we know where we're going? And we're using it in pharmacy reimagination right now, but I'll speak to where we're using it inside human resources. When you think about merging two organizations together, we have so many different processes. And that's the part I love about hr, is the variety of things that we touch and that we work on. So we've actually been using an Agile team to say, where do we want to continue to improve, where do we want to change? And what that does is it actually lets the scrum master get into that and determine what is the next greatest value add. My HR team and what we've defined is we want to provide value to the organization. That means we need to be fluid enough to pick off the next big value item and so often what you work on needs to shift as the context and the world changes around you and what Agile allows you to do with that backlog is stay relevant in what your priorities are and how you're working in a team based structure.
[00:28:47] Speaker B: Leeann thank you for your valuable insights today. I think this has been really helpful for our partners that are watching. I think I take away from it active listening, involvement of all levels of staff and real innovation.
[00:29:03] Speaker C: Thanks Brad. We appreciate your partnership and helping us be the best that we can be as well.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: Wonderful.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: That's a wrap. Thank you for joining us today and speaking. Special thanks to our guests for sharing their time and insights. Stay tuned for our next episode which will be released soon. In the meantime, visit our website where you'll find more information on the human experience and a lot more.
