Please note: This article is transcribed via AI from our Healthcare Facilities Network video titled “Career ladders into healthcare facilities management, Ep 2.” We apologize in advance for any misspellings, they are AI generated and we have not spell-checked. Watch the video of this transcription here:
The following is a presentation of the Healthcare Facilities Network. Hello, and welcome to the Healthcare Facilities Network. I’m your host, Peter Martin, Gosselin/Martin Associates and the health care facilities network. As always, thank you for clicking on this video. Today’s or the presentation that I have for you
is career ladders episode to about two months ago now, maybe July prior to the Ashi annual conference,
I did a video and I’ll link to it at the end of this one that showed career ladders of people who are working in health care facilities management working or retired from health care facilities management. The reason I did that episode is just to show or to illustrate that there are various ways to get in to this profession. Again, the goal of health care facilities network and I know the goal of a lot of you who are working in the profession daily is to help refill the pipeline is to help attract new people into this profession, whether you attract them through from another industry or through succession planning and opportunity with your organization, there are a number of ways to do it.
So the career ladders presentation, I got some good feedback on it. When I went to the Ashi annual people said that they enjoyed it because they liked to see how people get into the field. Again, we’ve said it often. And you know this, there’s not just one way into this industry. And now more than ever, as we have people retire, we need to find people. And so I wanted to do you know, I got thinking about it, I thought well, let’s do career ladders, episode two. And so that’s what I have for you today. So I’m going to share my screen. Like for this particular
for this particular
grouping.
So here’s our first and it’s laid out very similarly to the last one we did facility size, when we look at facilities, you know, in the recruiting arm,
BioMed
or just based on, we usually look at them by square footage, and it’s not rocket science, but like zero to 250,000 square feet, 250,000 to 750,000 square feet, then 750k to 1.5 mil, and then 1.5 million and over. So for each of these, that’s how I’ve grouped them and you’ll see the facility size. So facility size obviously matters.
Up in the left corner, this person has a heavy biomed path. Think as we’ve said before,
biomedical people,
biomedical professionals, can make the transition into healthcare facilities management, and shouldn’t be prospective candidates. I mean, they might not have the facility experience and you can see how this person proceeded through the field, you know, electrical engineering biomedical engineering started up biomed. The advantage that biomedical folks have is number one, they know the hospital environment, they know the players they know, you know, talking to a gentleman yesterday, and we were talking about, you know, it takes a while to kind of learn just health care, I’m not talking about the actual
what you’re doing, but the environment, the political part of it and dealing with clinicians and doctors. So obviously biomedical people have that. So that learning curve is you know, is lessened, as you can see from this person, you know, straight biomed and then they went to director of engineering and biomedical engineering long stay in that particular role. They’ve since transitioned. But this is a heavy biomed path. And one of the you know, we see resumes from biomed people, you always want to consider them if they’ve got the education part of it, if they’ve got the technical part of it, then they can really, you know, that’s a transition they can make. And that’s why it’s important to to look at your facility size. You may not want to take somebody who’s been a director of biomed at a small community based hospital and put them into a 1.5 million plus academic medical center. So the facility size always matters. I mean, as we know, it’s very difficult to make jumps from, say a small community access hospital up to an academic medical center.
So that’s our heavy biomed path person. This is Peter Martin. If you or your organization is interested in advertising or partnering with the healthcare 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 to health care facilities network reaches FM people were FM people are second person here.
Maritime
is a maritime Captain path. And this is a great path,
you know, extensive experience out to sea chief engineer and maritime officer
had a career in there, and then transitioned into health care coming out. You know, we talk about students who come out of the maritime academies, we talk about people who are, you know, out to sea chief engineers on boats, you know, they have a mindset about them that their thinking is such that, you know, if they’re on an ocean, they have to be able to survive, if there’s nowhere else to go, because what they have on that boat, if they’re caught in a storm, that’s all they got. And so they need to be able to make do and so they have that skill set, that you also needed in health care facilities management, so long career in the maritime transition over to facilities, and you can see, this person
went up the ladder, you know, they went up the ladder from a director to a larger house, you know, rehab into a larger hospital meant to an EVP, and then to a VP, so a really traditional path here. But it was enabled through kind of that maritime experience. So maritime folks make great,
great health care engineers.
Let’s look at our third person here.
Trades path
This is a trades path. You know, this person, we’ve talked about this a lot. And other broadcasts we’ve done on the healthcare facilities network, we’ve talked about this, what’s this? Well, this is the degree right? I think, you know, my position, my stance on that.
I don’t believe that a degree is a necessity, I think we are,
we are
we are removing people who could potentially do this job, this person, to me is a great example of that.
The great, I would put this person’s soft skills, I would put this person’s ability to connect with and manage staff and manage the political environment up with anybody. And there’s no degree here. This person, though, you know, the type of person who would take the broom, even though he’s director at a pretty big hospital, you know, his guys are out there with a broom, he would join them with the broom. And so it was I think of when I when I again, when I deal with hospitals, or I hear people who say, you need the degree or not considering you, this is one of the people.
And what always comes to my mind, because I would put this person up against any degrees individual. And so
you know, I know that
he waited, it was very patient, waited, waited, waited and really get to a big hospital, you know, he was he was a smaller hospital for a while was really looking for that big hospital opportunity.
And he got it. But again, without the degree, but he’s got the technical background. So yeah, when we talk about the necessity for a degree, well, if they don’t have a degree, and they’ve got no hospital and health care, well, of course, you can’t hire them. If they don’t have the degree, and maybe they’ve got the trades experience, you’re going to look at them. So
not to belabor the degree portion of it. But I think it’s always situational. There, I don’t think there should be, you know,
sweeping edX, that if you don’t have a degree where we can hire you look at the person, especially these days, I’ve said it a million times. I mean, the market is such that you kind of need to be you need to look at people for who they are and what they are and what they have. And this person is a perfect example of finally got the opportunity to move in and a larger hospital, you know, the degree part was held against them.
But it was overlooked, and he’s doing a wonderful job. And again, as I said, I put them up against anybody.
Moving on.
Police Officer
This one I just put in there because this person was a police officer, police officer, a detective. Prior to going into health care facilities. He had never envisioned a career in healthcare facilities management, I think, much like the maritime person. We saw two slides back 25 year career as a captain, then he goes into healthcare facilities management. This person was a police officer retired with a police officer pension and then found himself in healthcare facilities management, which is pretty interesting. And he’s been there a while. So no degree, got the associates, but a lot of experience a lot of real world exam experience. And he came in as an assistant and he enjoyed it. And he was mentored and was mentored well, and took to it. And so we even have police officers who do well in health care facilities management careers.
There’s another no degree person rehab path.
So he
had certifications started out
in the rehab world and transitioned into you can see kind of a, Mo B environment. So it was a very gradual move into healthcare facilities management,
Unknown Speaker 10:22
following much of that, you know, traditional path from an EBS rehab. And now, he’s got oversight for,
Unknown Speaker 10:31
you know, multiple hospitals in the system. And he’s, you know, he’s another person who’s got a strong,
Unknown Speaker 10:37
strong, soft skill base,
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you know, the type of unflappable person that you want in these positions, but again, he’s risen in a very traditional path, very traditional path into healthcare facilities, management, rehab hospitals, you know, behavioral behavioral health hospitals
Unknown Speaker 10:58
biomed route. So, you know, some of the some of the areas where we can get people into healthcare facilities management, they’ve got that they’ve got the background, and then you just need to teach them the, the health care part. That’s not a small part, it’s actually a large part. But you if they’ve got the foundation, and you have this support, then they’re certainly a viable candidate for you.
Unknown Speaker 11:27
Let’s see this per, you know, Bs and anthropology
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didn’t really consider health care facilities management found themselves being a maintenance worker to academic, in an academic environment, very
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nice person, very,
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very amiable, a sponge, loves to learn,
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loves people, and just talk to healthcare facilities management. And it’s interesting, we do a lot of stories on the healthcare facilities network.
Unknown Speaker 12:01
asking people how they found their way into healthcare facilities management, you know, I think of video we did with the folks down at Children’s Dallas, and Taylor Vaughan and Clayton Smith. And, you know, Taylor, Vaughn was working, and she wanted to go to law school after college, and she was working in a
Unknown Speaker 12:21
in a Office Max, I think it was, you know, making copies working behind the desk, folks were, you know, I use them a lot when I have to get something, something to look good, the people who do the books, etc, etc. And, you know, struck up a relationship with a director at Children’s Dallas
ended up bringing her in, kind of in the admin level, and she’s risen through, you know, into compliance and is now a manager. And so these are kind of those this person is similar in that, you know, never expected healthcare facilities manager, but I think that the moral of some of the stories is, when people are exposed to it, they like it.
Unknown Speaker 13:01
They that is why through the facilities network, we’re trying to expose people to this opportunity. If you don’t know it exists, you’ll never go to it, if you know it exists, we find that a lot of people get bit by the bug, and they enjoy it, and they want to be part of it. And I think this is yet another example of a person, you know, kind of a non traditional career path. But they found their way into health care. And they’re doing well in health care.
Unknown Speaker 13:27
This is the intern path. I really, you know, I liked this one. We’ve done a number of shows about interns and talked to a number of people and one of the things that comes out and this person’s path illustrates it. If you are able to connect with
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college students when they’re younger, and you know, in some cases, as I was talking to,
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to joy Curtis from Cambridge Health Alliance with the HR episode we recently did, you know, they’re going into high schools to try to get people interested in these careers. But we’ve heard continuously if you’re able to get the college students, Ryan gagnant, is another example. If you’re able to get a college student into an internship, their first or second year,
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then the odds are that they may stay with you. Now we know that college students coming out, they can be enticed by more money into other industries. You know, Steven called Dr. Steven Cole has done a lot of research out at Washington State University
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that talks about the discrepancy in pay. So we know that college students coming out can make more money elsewhere. That is a fact. That’s not my opinion.
Unknown Speaker 14:37
But if you can get them young, and this person was brought into a hospital system, on the young side, interned with the hospital while he was in college, stayed with the hospital and is now a manager with the hospital. And so
Unknown Speaker 14:50
this really and he’s very passionate about it. And you know, I think this illustrates getting young people into the system when
Unknown Speaker 15:00
AR young betters your chances. We did a couple episodes recently with Aiden Cornell. He’s an intern. He was an intern at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura, California.
Unknown Speaker 15:10
And in talking to him, you know, he stressed and if you watch that, you know, maybe know what I’m about to say, you know, in college, they don’t talk about healthcare facilities management. So if and with the debt that they’re racking up in college healthcare facilities management may not be for them right off the bat. But I wanted to put this up there, because this path really does show the intern route, and how it worked out in this particular situation.
Unknown Speaker 15:42
While the different colors on this one, I
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did a little, I’m not a format, or I’m not a very good artist effects. I’m not an artist. So I did a little reformatting. On these though, I kind of color coded them so that colors are played, you were in industries on the colors that just say, but I always kind of give myself a pat on the back, because I’m not a very good, not very good visually. But this gentleman as you can see, number of different colors, which represent a number of different industries that this person worked in coming out of the military. And we talked about the maritime, we talked about police officers. Here’s another example. You know, military folks typically have great leadership skills, they’ve got the soft skill component of it down, they’ve got the process component of it down.
Unknown Speaker 16:27
They make a really good transition into healthcare facilities management, this particular person, you know, military and to construction management, then into military hospitals. I know that sometimes, you know, on the military hospital side,
Unknown Speaker 16:45
sometimes folks are a little reticent, because they think that you so much of so much of kind of the military stuff is but it’s processed, and it’s a little bit different military hospitals, you see it a lot with the VA folks coming out of the VA, can they make that
Unknown Speaker 17:01
transition
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into a little bit more of the zaniness of the acute care world.
Unknown Speaker 17:08
But the skills from for this particular gentleman
Unknown Speaker 17:13
are top notch from a leadership level. And, you know,
Unknown Speaker 17:18
he tells it like it is and I know that sometimes, you know, in today’s world that isn’t always valued, it sounds like it is but he also does have the filter to you. I mean, you need both right, you need to be able to tell it like it isn’t do so diplomatically.
Unknown Speaker 17:32
And I think that’s also the what you get from folks who are coming out of the military to they’re gonna give you the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I think at the end of the day, that’s what we all should want. So she can see military to construction management, consulting. But you know, all of these experiences really roll into a great healthcare facilities management role, because it’s got all the components that we see.
Unknown Speaker 17:57
So this was a military path into the world of FM.
Unknown Speaker 18:04
A little bit earlier, we showed you a police officer path, well, here’s a firefighter path firefighter for 16 years, became a fire chief retired out of, you know, retired as a fireman, and then found their way into healthcare facilities management at the manager level.
Unknown Speaker 18:23
With the
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prior career path I showed you with the military, you know, this.
Unknown Speaker 18:32
We know that, you know, technical competencies are very strong.
Unknown Speaker 18:38
You need the technical competencies, but you also need the soft skill competencies, right. And this person was very strong technically.
Unknown Speaker 18:46
Kind of, though, like a bull on the soft skill part. You would, you could call this person with an issue and it was two in the morning or two in the afternoon. You’d get on it, he would solve it, there was no doubt you could trust it. But the soft skill part of it, you know, the part where you’re, you’re dealing with your clinical partners and such that probably needed a little more refinement. And I think part of that was because you’re coming out of, you know, the the fire chief or the firefighter world and that is a transition that needs to be made.
Unknown Speaker 19:24
So, you know, this person I often think of, I’ve I’ve, I’ve shared an article
Unknown Speaker 19:32
that
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President Roosevelt President Roosevelt pros, President Eisenhower wrote in 1965. So military General Eisenhower becomes President Eisenhower 1950 to 1960. So in 1965, he wrote an article for Reader’s Digest.
Unknown Speaker 19:51
I don’t know if everybody knows that Reader’s Digest isn’t even sure if it’s still around. But
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he talked about what makes good
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Eight qualities of leaders. And, you know, one of his stories and I use it often he talks about being number two, he had a person who worked for him.
Unknown Speaker 20:10
And he wanted to promote him. And this gentleman didn’t want to be promoted. And Eisenhower, you know, at first kind of questioned it, but then as he thought about it, he said, you know, the world needs good number twos, too, good number twos, the number two, you know, somebody does support that. Director. And I think this person, definitely a strong number two,
Unknown Speaker 20:31
with mentoring maybe becomes a strong number one, but it’s, it was that soft skill part of it. So, you know, as we consider career paths, and as we consider who the candidates are, especially in healthcare facilities management, you know, we know, as I said, the technical portion is really strong, but So isn’t that soft skill portion. So you need to work on folks with the soft skill to develop the soft skills to develop the tack the acumen, and when you’re sitting around a table with nurses and doctors, it’s very different than sitting around a table with firemen or, you know, my world coming out of construction management, you know, when you have those
Unknown Speaker 21:06
those owner architect contractor meetings, you know, depending upon the owner, or once the owner is gone, the tenor can really change. And so
Unknown Speaker 21:16
then it can change for into an area where
Unknown Speaker 21:20
it doesn’t always translate into, you know, a discussion with doctors and nurses. So just something to be considerate of this person was very strong, very strong. But I think it was on that soft skill component that maybe needed a little bit more refinement, because again, they were coming out of a world that was not healthcare.
Unknown Speaker 21:43
Here is our final, this is another biomed path.
Unknown Speaker 21:48
But unlike our first biomed, and this is a big 1.5 million square foot organization, unlike our first biomed, this person
Unknown Speaker 22:01
got into biomed? Well, you look, it’s very interesting degree right? Agriculture game wasn’t really considering the health care path, but found their way into healthcare from biomed. And then, you know, it was a straight,
Unknown Speaker 22:16
straight path into healthcare, and then that little curveball there into higher education.
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We find, and I’ve said this a lot, and I know it’s not rocket science, it’s nothing, you probably don’t know
Unknown Speaker 22:27
that, you know, academia.
Unknown Speaker 22:32
And I think more so these days can be attractive to healthcare facilities, management personnel, because the pace is a little bit different. I saw that firsthand. Prior to our consulting, you know, prior to getting into the consulting stuff, we did work for
Unknown Speaker 22:49
academic institutions and healthcare organizations, and there was definitely a difference, there’s definitely a difference. But this person, again, Rose, up to the highest levels to the VP level, in healthcare facilities management, but again, starting out of that biomed. So I think, you know, as you’re looking at folks, excuse me, as you’re looking at folks, you want to consider their full path.
Unknown Speaker 23:16
I’m gonna
Unknown Speaker 23:17
stop the share. Those are the 10 resumes that I had for folks, you have questions you want to reach out, please do. Listen, I think you see in here, I hope I illustrated that there’s more than one way in and that you look at each person for what their experiences are, what do they have? What don’t they have? What can we solve for what can’t we solve for
Unknown Speaker 23:40
but I think these days with
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smaller candidate pools,
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it’s probably more
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more important than ever to look at each individual person for what they have and what they don’t have and then assess from there. So that was career ladders episode two, you get a lot of resume so I’ll go through some more. I’ll try to pull out some some different themes for an episode three, but that’s going to do it for episode two of career ladders. As I said, if you have questions, please feel free to reach out. Peter Martin from the health care facilities network and gossip Martin associates. Have a great day and thank you, as always for clicking on this video.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai