Please note: This article is transcribed via AI from our Healthcare Facilities Network video titled “Behind the Curtain, view from a Hospital Chief Human Resources Officer.” Please excuse any misspellings. Watch the video of this transcription here.
Hello, and welcome to the healthcare facilities network. I’m your host, Peter Martin, president of Gosselin/ Martin Associates. As always, thank you so much for clicking on this video. And today, I am very excited and pleased to be joined by Joy Curtis. Joy is the Chief Human Resources Officer at Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Joy is our first HR specific guest to talk about human resources issues and just about the market today, we talk a lot on this network about healthcare facilities management, and rightly so, because that’s the focus. But I think an HR perspective and bringing in other perspectives is also helpful to kind of help us understand the market and maybe some of the challenges that we’re all dealing with, and some of the challenges that HR deals with as well. So Joy thank you for thank you for joining with me today. I’m excited to have you on.
Joy Curtis
You’re welcome and thank you for inviting me I love talking about HR.
Peter Martin
Well, I figured you know we’ve we’ve we’ve talked in the past we’ve worked together in the past and you’ve always been you’ve always been well articulated. So I thought let’s let’s ask Joe if she’d appear so joy. Tell us a bit just about Cambridge Health Alliance Cha what’s the what’s your system? Like? Who are you? What do you guys do? What cha Cambridge Health Alliance? Yes.
Joy Curtis
So Cambridge Health Alliance is a three hospital Safety Net Health Care System, also very much focused and anchored in primary care, and psychiatry. We’re Harvard teaching hospital, which means that we have residency programs in internal medicine. We also have a family medicine residency program affiliated with Tufts because Harvard does not have family medicine in podiatry and psychiatry, and we have about 5000 employees. We have 13 different unions. And we are a quasi public entity. Because we were put together by legislation. It began with the Cambridge City Hospital owned by the City of Cambridge. And at some point, the city was interested in maybe not running it and somehow having a bit of a firewall between them and this hospital. And in 1997, Somerville hospital, was struggling financially and served a very similar population and legislators said, Well, you know, we have some control over public entity, let’s combine Somerville and the old Cambridge City Hospital, and formed Cambridge Health Alliance. Five years later, in 2002, in Everett, Massachusetts, what was called Whitten Memorial Hospital was also on the brink of closing also served as safety net organization, population. And so once again, EU legislation, the the wooden hospital was added to Cambridge Health Alliance has since been renamed Everett hospital. So we have Cambridge hospital, surgical hospital and Everett hospital, along with now 12 primary care sites, clinics out in the organization, then we have other back office functions such so we have over 20 locations. So from a facilities perspective, it’s quite challenging because some of these locations are small. Most of them are, are leased properties. And they stretch from revere to North Cambridge. And for people who are in the Boston area, they will know that maybe as the crow flies, that doesn’t seem very far but if you ever have to drive from revere to North Cambridge, it can take you a very long time. Lots of challenges from a facility Have these perspective between the different unions and just a very disparate geography that people have to, to manage? They’re not without our challenges for sure.
Peter Martin
Right. And so as you alluded to distance as the crow, crow flies is not long driving it can be and I’m sure people don’t know, Cambridge is just north of the Charles River. So on the other side of the water from Boston and very concentrated area, what are some of the challenges just as an organization, not necessarily facilities dry, but you mentioned you have 13 different unions? You’re located in an urban environment, quasi public health care system? What are some of those unique challenges that you face that Cambridge Health Alliance?
Joy Curtis
Yeah, I think the geography is one of those because people don’t like to travel and I don’t know if it’s a New England thing. But people really don’t like to, to cross rivers. We have a, we have a river, right through the Mystic River right through our catchment area. Also, our markets are becoming increasingly different. We have our Cambridge Somerville market, which is much more gentrified now, and young. And then we have what we call m crew, now kind of improve, which is Medford, Malden, Chelsea, Everett, Revere, Winthrop, and those areas are large immigrant populations. They’re growing, they’re aging. And so there’s they’re very, they’re two very different markets. And certainly our challenge also is that we because we serve the underserved 50% of our patients do not speak English, and they speak a Myraid of different languages. And we have one of the largest interpreter services group in the country where I think we’re the second or third largest in the United States, because of the language and cultural competency needs of our patients. Now, we also pull our employees from a similar geography. And there are, of course, language needs, and you know, lots of diverse cultures. And certainly from a human resource standpoint, you want ideally, you want to grow your own. Yeah, facilities can be an entry into the healthcare system. But in order for those folks to grow, they need more language skills, they need more like computer literacy, you may want to support them in some sort of college prep. Because I’ve been told by, you know, like people in dietary to say, we have this wonderful person, they’ve been here 10 years, and there’s nowhere to go, because they don’t have those skills. Yeah, well, at the same time, you know, they probably like, but they’re such a good worker, I don’t want to lose them. But good employers want to see promotional opportunities. And we’re challenged because we don’t have deep pockets. And right now actually, we’re looking for grants and outside support for for the growth and workforce develoPeter Martinent piece. But entering you know, I know your facilities, the entry level is top skills, trade is very tough. We don’t see people going into skills trade. However, here, Massachusetts, was just passed a lot of support for community colleges. And we’re, if you qualify for free tuition, and I think that’s going to be a game changer. Because we really do have to get out there and encourage people to go into the, into the into the trades. Yeah.
Recruiting for Healthcare Facilities Management Roles
Peter Martin
And you’re, I mean, you’re, you’re in a very competitive market. I mean, just in Everett, we’re used to different hospitals. You have a new casino that opened up and so you’re fighting them for employees and then across the river in Boston, you have the big academic medical centers and despite the economy, there’s still a lot of tower cranes in Boston with there’s a lot of building going on. So your competitors are multiple. wherever you turn, how difficult is that to How do you say when asked how do you differentiate? Because you probably can’t I mean, no hospital can fight the man on a wage. I mean, a union is going to pay more than a hospital. But so how do you differentiate? Or how do you try to compete against those multiple? I’ll use the term kind of enemy.
Joy Curtis
Please. Right? Well, one of the things we looked at was exactly that question. We called the employee value proposition, you know, kind of the answer to why Cha, you know, NYC hmm, and not MassGeneral. And, you know, I think it’s Cha, if you walk through the halls, and you ask an environmental service worker, why do you work here, there’s a very high probability that they’re going to say, because of the mission, or because of the patience. Because, you know, of course, every healthcare organization has mission, but we feel like we have a mission on steroids. And it’s been really interesting, because we, we’ve had a couple of interim leaders come to the organization, you know, that they kind of go from, you know, place to place. And they actually say, I’ve never seen a place where people always talk about the mission. And it’s, like, so ingrained into your culture. And so, you know, really, it’s a way of summarizing that story. And I should probably have had the background up, our head sort of recruiting tagline out there is believe in where you work. And we find people say there’s something about this place that just captures our heart, and we really feel like we’re making a difference for a population that wouldn’t get their word needed care, and culturally and linguistically appropriate care, like they can at cha. And so we’re really trying to appeal that you’re making a difference, and trying to help our our managers talk about that. So that a plumber understands that the difference they make, although I think they really do because they go on these units. And they, they, they see they see the work. Certainly, you know, I think the key to this, our leaders and our supervisors, they need to keep reinforcing why it’s important that people do the work that they do. You know, once in a while other health care organizations and Boston Medical Center kinda has the same belief in where you were mission. All although, you know, they are an academic medical center. So there’s competition with research. They were also put together with the merger a long time ago, the University Hospital in Boston City Hospital, well, University Hospital, you know, saw a much more educated, wealthier population is so that base still exists for them. Their payer mix, while probably not that enviable to other healthcare organizations, is still we still have cha cha, a much larger percentage of governmental payers. And so people I’m particularly obviously on Medicaid. And so we really feel like we can speak to that, you know, if I were Mass General, or Brigham and Women’s or the whole I’m GB group, you know, they are about cutting edge, you know, finding a cure for cancer type of, of mission. And that certainly resonates with people too, but it’s different. Yeah. And this is, you know, we’re a good size of 5000 employees, where you feel close to what goes on, you know, it’s not like we have 25,000 employees. Right, right. And so, we really looked at this, how do we differentiate ourselves and think about what keeps people here and what attracts people? That’s not to say recruitment isn’t difficult, and, and obviously, people who are working to job to Money, Money Talks, yeah, we’re, you know, we we work on having competitive wages, particularly in our entry level areas, you know, good solid benefits, trying to make sure those are free Word of ball. Unless so, you know, I think we, we try to compete on that. But it’s still, it’s still not easy to say the least. But we, we try to be visible out in the communities. One of the things that we did that is kind of unique, we actually have people that go out into community health workers that go out into our communities, to reach out to our populations. And we have now armed them with recruitment information about Cha because one of the things that they may look at as a social determinant of, of health, which could be unemployment, and be able to talk to you know, they’re like little cards that they can give out. That’s, I believe in where you were in different languages, and to be able to, to get the word out into the communities because if people are getting their health care here, presumably they think, reasonably well of us, and might really want to join organization.
Reaching out to the community and workforce development
Peter Martin
You know, it’s funny, you say that, I’ve always thought that. Well, two things. Number one, you talked about the mission and having worked with Cha a couple of times, most recently, last year, you had me speak to, I think I spoke to about 28 to 30 of your employees as we are working on Allison’s VP recruitment. And I am not saying this just because you are here. I remember. And I probably told you this after at the time, that the people I spoke to were so committed from a passion perspective, and you don’t I mean, listen, a lot of people who work in healthcare, they are connected by passion, but your organization, I think, for everything you’ve talked about, kind of has that chip, and that passion, because you’re the engine that can situated where you are, and you talked about geography, it’s very unique. And I found that as I was talking to so many of your, your different employees, that would be the first thing and then I guess the second one. You do you do you know? And maybe it’s not a fair question. Like I talk, we talk a lot about where have all these employees gone? Because everybody’s looking for employees, it’s almost seemingly as though they’ve disappeared. Is that a sense that you get? And do you have any feel for? We’re have Well, where’s that group of employees? That was horrible? Where have they disappeared? Where have they gone?
Joy Curtis
Yeah, well, I mean, you know, certainly service industries are growing, so they need more sheer numbers of people. So, so it’s they may not have gone anywhere, there’s just more demand. They they also may have been in eastern Massachusetts, it’s our biggest thing is affordable housing. Yeah. If you’re a particularly entry level, people, they can’t afford to live here. Yeah. And so they’ve gone to places where the cost of living isn’t nearly as high. And that’s, that’s really concerning. And it’s not just in the trades and facilities, you know, we look at projections for the need for nurses or medical technologists, for medical assistants. And that’s, that’s an area where there’s definitely a shortage and Massachusetts in the northeast, always come up short. And so that, to me, that that, that housing, affordable housing is a critical need. We’re not big enough to even put a dent, you know, like, like, invest in housing, but it’s, it’s, it’s a huge, it’s a huge issue, and not with a lot of good solutions. You know, it’s just, it is hard, and it is where we look to, obviously people have to be legally bound to be able to work legally in the United States to work here. But we have to, you know, look to our immigrant populations, which is, throughout the years been the place where people get their start in the ladder. And, and that’s why our diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are going to be an are really important for both recruitment and retention because you want to bring people to a place where they feel like they’re going to be accepted that you get them that you care about them. And, you know, the workforce is getting more and more diverse, and that there’s opportunity for growth. The Massachusetts Hospital Association is about to roll out a campaign on working in health care and the why it’s great. And they did a lot of focus groups, and they really pinpointed that. Its purpose and growth, and maybe inclusion are the things that as an industry, we can utilize to differentiate ourselves. And obviously, internally, organizations have to try to figure out growth. How can we how can we grow people? And, and then from an HR perspective, we have to look at how can we support that workforce develoPeter Martinent, and that’s why we’re really seriously looking for grants, because we don’t have the funds to do that. But if we could get grants to do that, because if we could take our environmental service workers, and then they become Qi certified nursing assistants, or medical assistants, and then maybe from there, they might like to become an a nurse, or a medical technologist, you know, we can build that pipeline of growth. And if it was something that we could really demonstrate could happen, it might have someone go, Okay, well, you know, I haven’t been to college, I have limited skills, but if I could get in, and work in environmental services, or food service, that’s the first step and, and maybe I could move up from there with support. As I said, the community college thing is huge, huge, I was
Peter Martin
gonna say that must be a little bit frustrating. As a human resources leader. You have all of these different departments. So you know, we always are facility centric, right? We focus on facilities, but you’ve got your EDS departments, and probably your biomed. And all these people across the organization. They know employee growth is critical. So they’re coming to you, what can we do to grow? And so you have everybody and you know, it’s important, yet, you’re also constrained with what you can and can’t do? Is that a frustration for a human resources leader, who, whose job is to facilitate, but you can, as much as you would want due to all of these other pressures?
Joy Curtis
And frustration? I think, if a good human resource leader can’t say focused on frustration, they, they have to say, well, I can’t solve that unsolvable problem. We’re world peace. Yeah, what? How can I break it down? How can I make it a little bit better? Because don’t forget, you know, human resource people are in demand. Yeah. So we have our own internal constraints. And, you know, we can’t solve every problem.
Peter Martin
Yeah, forgot about your group, I was talking about all these groups who are asking, I forgot about the people who are
Jump on a good candidate
Joy Curtis
with you. All right. That’s it. But I that’s where in HR, at least, I believe, we have to make HR a really great place to work. So that we can try out and role model, what we think other areas can can do to create that own environment, and then provide coaching on how to do it. Because, you know, you’d hate to be that human resource department where somebody goes, Why am I asking them for advice? They’re like a mess. How are they could they possibly know anything about this? And so we work really, really hard on that, because I do believe. And I think anybody who’s listening to this knows in their own organization, that it’s very weird, you know, maybe similar types of employees. And this area has like, Nope, no turnover. And this place is just churning through people. So how do you become more like the place that keeps its people and performs? Yeah, and because I think that’s going to be the difference. You know, you want to have limited, regretted turnover. Only the only type of regretted turnover that you can feel good about is where you’ve prepared somebody for the next step and the next step doesn’t exist in Your organization that they’re able to take it someplace else, not for somebody who just makes a lateral move. You really want them to think twice about that. Like as like, Gee, do I really want to give this up where I feel appreciated and comfortable? And where I feel it’s fair, right? Because sometimes people think, Well, that just like, lets everybody do what they want to do whenever they want to do it. Or where people who aren’t that performing are, are not dealt with, right. And it’s really hard to do that, as a manager. That’s most people’s least favorite thing. But it’s so damaging to the environment. Because if people were really working hard or looking over and going, Why am I why am I working this hard, and that person gets to coast by So creating that high standards is, is not easy, but it actually comes back with a great return on investment. And so we really are very invested in supporting our leaders to create these environments to deal with issues. In the meantime, our talent acquisition folks are trying to learn about the new new thing, or come up with that out of the box idea of using our people out in the community to recruit. Now, there’s so much now I feel so fortunate to have really well versed talent acquisition leaders who keep themselves up to date, because it’s moving. So fast AI, social media. It’s, it’s really amazing. And, and HR is not usually good about touting its own horn. And we found out that people thought that all we were doing is what we call the post and pray method, you know, out there, hope people buy. And obviously, it’s got to be much more aggressive. But when we were doing all sorts of actually kind of interesting things. And we, we realized nobody knew. And so, you know, we wanted to get out there, you know, and that we keep an eye on data. Because, yeah, HR people are generally nice people, but that’s not enough. And so why are we keeping eyes on what is happening? As far as turnover churn in the first year, you know, a time time to fill doing that analysis. So we can go to the one as the one that’s bleeding first. That’s an apt reference, a colleague of mine, she’s one of eight, eight children and somebody wants asked her mother of eight children, how do you know which one to go to first, and she, you know, very straight face that I always go to the one that’s bleeding first. And sometimes that’s what you have to do to pry prioritize, but it allows us to figure out who’s bleeding? And and if they’re, you know, what are the barriers, we just can’t find candidates that just don’t seem to exist? Are there other young, one of the things that I always say in recruitment, and there are three rules, fast, fast, fast. And that’s more true today than ever. And so, when a good candidate comes across your desk, you have to jump on it, and get that person in and make a decision. And sometimes, you know, we were used to the days when we had the luxury like, oh, no, I can see a few minutes or okay. You know, we don’t want people just, you know, we’re someone barely shows up to the area. There’s just red flags everywhere. going ahead with it. Like, okay, yeah, that’s what you have your probationary period or introductory period for is to assess that, and they’re going to be gone. Somebody else is going to jump on. Absolutely.
Peter Martin
Yeah, that’s, you know, that’s, you know, that fast, fast, fast. Some organizations, it just goes against how they’ve developed and rightly so, but everything is everything is flipped over. Yeah.
Joy Curtis
Exactly. And you can be forgiven
for being slow back then. But now, like you said, you got a scoop because they’re just not sticking around.
Joy Curtis
Yeah. And you know, certainly with your leadership positions, you have a little you know, you have a little more process because that person’s trying to figure out whether they want whether they want to Come to, but the importance of keeping them warm and you know, in that’s obviously when people hire you, that’s your job so that they don’t feel that you’ve gone radio silent, because they’ll be like, well, I guess they’re not interested. And, and we forget what it’s like, particularly if we haven’t been a candidate in a long time to be waiting. So they’re like, Oh, my God, I haven’t heard back. It’s been five, five days. Right? And the other people like him, we get back to them right away, it was only five days and depends on what side of this you’re on. And so being able to make sure because people are assessing, how will I be treated once I’m in the organization? And they feel like they’re going to be ignored? Yeah, it’s not. That’s not something that’s attractive.
Peter Martin
Absolutely. And I think that, you know, that’s why we’re always trying to communicate with the folks we’re working with just to keep them, keep engaged with them. But you’re right. I mean, and I think today, the sense of immediacy, like everybody, it doesn’t matter if it’s your fast food order, or your employment application or something from Amazon. Everybody’s just conditioned, it’s got to be fast. And I wouldn’t, you know, five days to me, not a long time, but you know, what, in today’s market, it could be because people are like, instant gratification. So
31:21
right, that’s very difficult. Yeah.
This is Peter Martin. If you or your organization is interested in advertising, or partnering with the health care facilities network, including sponsoring content, then please email me using the bar code in the lower right of your screen, from the trades level to the vice president level from planning, design, construction, project management, compliance, safety and security. The healthcare facilities network reaches FM people where FM people are, and
Joy Curtis
yeah, we’ve incorporated AI, there’s a recruiting assistant that you can interact with, to answer questions. And, and, you know, given the type of organization that we are our, our A AI assistant is his named Chase is non non binary. That uses they them pronouns. Yep. And, and then chase is great. They, they answer, you know, we’ve tested, you know, more difficult questions, you know, and, and they can Hance the answer, like, you know, I hate you chase you care? And what’s the answer? They say, I’m very sorry, that I suddenly want to be able to help you.
Yeah. But but you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a way 24/7 If they have, you know, questions, yeah, benefits or whatever. They can, they can ask, ask Chase. We also found that recruiting from our patient. And so, once we put some recruitment information in the patient, patient newsletter, we got a real increase on clicks in our career site.
Peter Martin
You bring that up, you know, you brought up when your folks go out to the field to bring the care that they have the employment and you talked about this, we weren’t we had Christine carry on and she was a VP of HR at Bassett healthcare and she’s since transitioned to an innovation role within Bassett, but she was mentioning what you’re doing. Like she said, she didn’t feel that career. Career fairs were as productive as they once were. And they were looking to she termed it going out going to where people are to recruit them. And she mentioned the Starbucks and just different locations. So it certainly sounds like you’re going to where your people are, to get them
Joy Curtis
out in the community. We certainly you know, are starting going to schools going into high schools, you know, middle schools to middle schools, huh? Yeah. Well, yeah, that’s, that’s when they start thinking about what do they want to be when they grow up? And yeah, they know, you don’t have to tell them about being a nurse or a doctor. That’s all people think of when they you know, other types of careers are are really important. Yeah, I mean, we we do do some very targeted virtual career fairs and, and we’ve done A couple of live ones, probably for also the the more entry level, sometimes they like to be in person. And that’s where we gear up to have hiring managers, they’re doing interviews. So while you’ve got, it’s not just about exploring them and trying to get back to people really quickly about a decision. You have to throw everything at Yes. You know, because you’re, you’re appealing to different levels of sophistication around technology. It’s, you sort of have to throw everything you’ve got to add in there, there’s
Peter Martin
Absolutely. Okay. Thank you for that. So, Joy Curtis, thank you for your time this morning. I really appreciate that great perspective. And I hope people enjoyed that because it’s a it’s a different look into HR.
Joy Curtis
Great. Well, thank you, Peter. You’re you allowed me to talk about some of my favorite topics. This has been wonderful.
Peter Martin
That’s what I love about doing it because people are you know what, everybody, most people are passionate about what they do, and you never always get the chance to kind of tell people because you’re always doing that’s exactly yeah, no, I enjoyed it. And so, I guess Dr. Curtis, this is Peter Martin from the healthcare facilities network. As always, thank you for tuning in. Have a great day. Bye.