Please note: This article is transcribed via AI from our Healthcare Facilities Network video titled “Generations in Healthcare Facilities.” Please excuse any misspellings. Watch the video of this transcription here.
Hello, and welcome to the Healthcare Facilities Network. I am your host, Peter Martin, president of Gosselin/Martin Associates, as always, thank you for clicking on to this channel. So I am joined by a wide array of impressive guests this morning. And I thank each of them for joining me. And we will do some introductions in a moment. So you know who I’m joined by.
But one of the things that I love about the health care Facilities Network, and as we continue to develop it, I always think of it’s kind of like a start up. And I appreciate everybody who watches and I appreciate everybody who joins me, because we’re rolling this thing together with the goal to fill the pipeline to get people into this industry. And over the past week, I what I like about this is I’ve talked to an intern out in California, he’s a sophomore in college, he’s a rising junior, I talked to two retirees at Brown, my business partner, Jack Gosselin, they haven’t really retired, they’re captains they’re Sailing on the Ocean, they still dabble in health care Facilities management. So we talk about two ends of the spectrum, right? A kid who’s 1819 years old, and I won’t tell you how old Jackie Madoff. And then in the middle, we have the filling the pipeline group. And that’s the group of folks from academia and human resources and Healthcare Facilities, directors. Brittany, one of your mentors, is on that group, Lamar Davis for mountain Chicago. So we have the filling the pipeline. And we have this group, which I’ve just turned into generations, and I like it because these folks all have a little bit of a similar yet different background. And so that is what we’re going to talk about today with this group of folks. But before we do so, I would like them to introduce themselves because as I always say, they can do a better job introducing themselves than I can. So why don’t we start with Logan, please to my left on the screen?
Logan Landis
Yes, thank you Peter. My name is Logan Landis. I am the current associate safety manager of hospital University of Pennsylvania up for short for Penn Medicine health system. I’ve been in my current role roughly nine months since October 22. Although short and this role Healthcare would say nine months and any other industry is an extended period of time. On those on the call will probably be aware. I had been in health care as a safety professional for a little over three years. Prior to becoming the associate safety manager I was an environmental health and safety specialist for Penn Medicine, corporate safety emergency department with an emphasis to fire and life safety. I was recruited to my environmental health safety specialist role by Penn out of my master’s program and college at West Virginia University, where I received a master’s in safety management and a Bachelors of accent exercise physiology and emphasis in aquatic therapy. So what attracted me to my role? I just love being in involved in Healthcare, I’ve had Healthcare are involved around me all throughout my life. So I I’ve always known I wanted to have some capacity there and I’m very happy where I am now.
Peter Martin
Awesome. Are you you talked about? You’ve been there nine months. And that’s a long period of time. have you thrown your hat into the ring for the head coach of West Virginia men’s basketball.
Logan Landis
I know. That’s a touchy subject. I’m sorry. It’s uncalled for.
Peter Martin
We’re gonna have to digress for a little bit. Sorry about that. Well, we’ll go to the Ohio State Buckeye over to the other side of the screen.
Claire Salinas
Yeah. Hi, Peter. Thanks for having me. My name is Claire Salinas. I work for FSI as our director of customer success. So FSI is a CMMS provider that specializes in the Healthcare space. So we’ve been doing business with Healthcare organizations for over 20 years, the company celebrated 20 years recently. I joined this team back late of last year. So like Logan said, I’ve only been here a short time, which feels like a long time but realistically pretty short. So customer, the customer success program at FSI. Ultimately, we are charged with ensuring all of our customers are getting the most out of their CMMS system. We partner for a lot of organizational change, ensuring you know the CMMS program reflects that organizational change tackling themes like workforce turnover. Changes in regulatory documentation requirements. We do a lot of best practice sharing across our customer base. So that’s probably my favorite part about my role is sharing with folks across the country lessons learned best practices successes with one another. Prior to joining FSI, I worked in HFM at several different health care systems. So I started way back when actually as a maintenance mechanic, so So my career started as maintenance mechanic. I took a couple of different roles CMMS administrator, although I took facility director before I came here to FSI last year.
Peter Martin
Thank you, Claire. Brittany.
Brittany Remec
I’m Brittany Remec. I am currently construction project lead with advocate Healthcare, advocate health in Illinois, Wisconsin and recent merger with atrium so we have some locations in the south now as well. I’m based out of Illinois, and I work with the non acute team. So I work in all the clinics. I don’t do any acute construction at this point. Previous to this position, I worked for Lamar at Shirley Ryan ability lab, where I was the Facilities manager. So previous to this position, I was in HFM. My entire career, I did go to Purdue as I am very proudly promoting for building construction management specialized in Healthcare construction, kind of fell into Healthcare Facilities management, by requirement of internship hours, and there was I believe Purdue was the first ASHE chapter and I’m not exactly sure how the internship process started when I had my internship but they said hey, does anybody want an internship in Healthcare and I just had signed me up, I don’t care where I gotta go. Not realizing that it was Healthcare Facilities management, not construction related, and it I’ve been hooked ever since.
Peter Martin
Thank you, Brittany. Last, but not least,
Jim Grana
I are on. My name is Jim Grana. I’m a physical environment specialist with the Joint Commission and work on at the standards interpretation group, formerly known as the engineering department, we just changed our name last year, try and make it a little bit more straightforward. And in terms of what we handle so as most people know, the Joint Commission is an accreditation organization. And we’re pretty much infamous for being surveyors. But I work on the back end side, I’m actually kind of a liaison between the customers as well as the surveyors. So I, my job is reviewing surveys making sure that they’re accurately represent what our standards should be reflecting and that they’re focused on the code. I also work with customers if they’ve got questions or concerns regarding standards and how they’re being interpreted, or if they want just some follow up something that might be during a mid survey cycle. That’s kind of what I do. We also do a lot of education, I helped put together education programs, I do a lot of speaking. So it’s, it’s been a very interesting role. And I’ve really enjoyed it transitioning over from my previous role, which was a Facilities manager and I worked at advocate or Healthcare. So and I see Britney’s there now. So she joined a little bit after I left. So I was a Facilities manager at Sherman hospital for two years out in Elgin, I’ve been based out in the Illinois area most of my life. Before that I was a safety manager or a safety specialist, where I was dealing with compliance managing the environment of care committee. I also worked a lot of construction projects, I had the distinct honor of going through a state validation survey while I was I was in safety, which was a an incredible experience and a lot of ways all of them you can imagine. And before that, I was a Facilities mechanic. So I did that for about five years, I worked a night shift. So just keeping the hospital running. I dealt a lot with life safety inspections. And then just working with patients and working with clinical staff. So it was kind of a start to finish sort of role. And I got into health care, because a lot of my family worked in health care. So we just kind of a natural thing where I had a lot of experience with, you know, my a couple of my answering nurses. My father was actually a Facilities manager for a really long time and one of the Facilities. So it was just kind of something that called to me and I went to school originally to be a doctor. So I went to Carthage College to get a bachelor’s in biochemistry. And that just didn’t kind of pan out for me I was a little bit just kind of wanting to get into the field do something. And so I took a role as a mechanic and just kind of built from there. And I also got my master’s in business administration from Benedictine about three years ago. So that’s a little bit on my education background.
How does healthcare facilities management capture millenials?
Awesome. Well, I thank you all for joining me in those intros and it’s interesting I don’t know if you guys kind of caught it. It’s why I asked you guys to appear on it because you you have interesting backgrounds you have tied backgrounds in in you know as I looked at it, you’re obviously that demographic that people are searching for. Right you are that next generation of leaders and and Claire and Jim you’ve kind of you know you were on you started a Technic in the tray in the trades and the technician level. You grew Jim we met you well Was it seven, eight years ago at one point, the training and you kind of grew and then you went off path a little bit, you know, you’re still in health care Facilities management, but you left the hospital area. And so that was very interesting to me. Because you’ve done, you’ve done your career, you’re on a nice career path and you’re making changes. And you know, Brittany, you came in speaking with Lamar from that intern, you know, that classic intern that we’re trying to reach to those college kids, who they start in college, but then they grow and they’re like, Oh, I really like it. So you have that background. And Logan, you introduce yourself to me. So it’s your fault that you’re here, down at the Delaware County engineer society, but you guys have that background that we’re looking for in Healthcare Facilities management, you’re intelligent, you got a long runway to go. And I’m just gonna go to really a question. How does this end from your perspectives? How does this industry, health care Facilities management, attract people like you into it? How do we capture folks like you into health care Facilities management? And that’s the broad not necessarily you’re not in a hospital anymore? Where and Jim, you’re obviously with the Joint Commission. So you’re in LA, but you’re involved in the industry? How do we capture? What do we what is this industry have to do to capture people like you? So I’m going to add to that that’s the second question. The first question, do you feel that the industry has set itself up to capture people like you? So is the industry set up to capture folks like you? And then how does it capture folks like you? I’m sorry, if that’s not a fair question, I just kind of thought of it as you guys were all we’re all talking we, we didn’t necessarily discuss it, does anybody want to take a crack at that?
Logan Landis
I can, I can try to take a stab of it maybe related to how I really came into Healthcare, and maybe everyone in the group can relate. And, Jim, I think you and I relate very similarly, not only do we have some of the same beginning backgrounds into health care, but I originally wanted to be a physical therapist, and my undergrad studies, that’s why I was an exercise physiologist. And at some point, and and this happens with all safety professionals, there’s a point where you start to care about safety and a different regard. I had a couple of people in my life almost die for various safety attributes, whether that be a ladder not being secured, or locked, which allowed access, and then also, and a health care environment. I won’t name the hospital, but the nurses dropped the patient and family member of mine, passed away due to injuries experienced during that. So at some point, I shifted from wanting to become a physical therapist, and being all reactive, to wanting to be proactive, and the safety environment. And like you said, Jim, I have family that worked in Healthcare. So I knew Healthcare was where I wanted to be, I just needed to really understand how I wanted to redefine myself. And it just so happens that some alumni of West Virginia, were Healthcare facility managers and safety managers, and now directors at certain health systems, and they really got it my way into coming into Healthcare. So to answer your question, Peter, I think, where Healthcare needs to take a step, and they may be there in some certain universities and trades and organizations, it’s having that mentorship having those individuals that can pick out someone with the right attributes, wanting to always be moving, able to multitask, able to want to not be busy all that or want to be busy all the time. And once you get those types of individuals that like to think through, I think, guiding them and mentoring them and teaching them what they need to know is the best it’s finding the personality and then in putting them in the system. Because as you are all well aware, you can know everything. But if you’re not able to translate that and create positive influence with other individuals and people, you’ll never get anything accomplished in life. So that I guess that would be my stab at why Healthcare where Healthcare needs to move to if they’re not already currently there. Thank you.
Claire Salinas
I would echo what Logan said about mentorship and just the impact of individual conversations with folks within your sphere and your Network. I mean, I personally, I can I know exactly where I was every time you know a mentor in my life has said like, Hey, you should look at this job or have you considered this are, you know, your skills here, we’d love to have you. You know, and sometimes with jobs like I didn’t, I would have never even thought, oh, I mean, the role I’m in now I work for a software tech company. And I do not identify as a, as a tech person. But but just the impact of individual specific conversations with folks around us. And even just, you know, if it’s within your current work environment, encouraging people in some of our ancillary teams, Hey, have you ever considered, you know, the Facilities team? Have you ever considered the clinical engineering team? You know, you could do that. And I, it’s hard, how do you, you know, scale that to increase, you know, the pipeline within the industry, when it’s just the impact of individual conversations. But for me, I think that’s, especially for us like as, as individuals, just having conversations encouraging other folks to consider the industry has a lot of impact.
Peter Martin
And that’s one of the that’s what I kind of want to do with some of these videos is because you guys are closer to it than I am. You know, I talked to some college students in Britain, you are lucky, you’re a producer, you go on the internship track, and you guys had connections to Healthcare. But you talked to some students, they don’t even know the field exists. And how do you get their professors to talk about the field? Because that you don’t have? They’re not they don’t have mentors? How do you get the professors to talk? So my hope, you know, through some of these videos, is they go down to that college level. And, you know, the college students hear from people like you that this is available to them, because that’s a major issue. But Brittany, I’m sorry, you please go ahead.
The importance of mentorship
Brittany Remec
Yeah, I was gonna echo what Claire says. I think it’s one of the one of the things I say that it takes a special kind of crazy to work in HFM. And if you work in HFM, you understand what I mean by that? is there’s a certain level of what’s the best way to say it, of organized chaos that you enjoy. You’re all laughing because you understand exactly what I’m talking about. But that’s where I know there’s a there’s a young woman that I met while shortly early into my career, and she was at Purdue, and she somehow heard about Healthcare Facilities management. And I don’t know if it was through the advisors or through an internship or through this Purdue Ashley chapter. But she now sits on our local HESNI board. So with our local chapter of ASHE, I was able to get her involved. Not only get her involved in the field, but also get her involved in our local chapter. But to echo what Claire was saying, and those individual conversations during my very first internship, as she sponsored us to go to the annual conference, I went to the annual conference, I met a handful of people that when I got to the airport, as she’s based in Chicago, and I was flying back to Chicago, so I recognized quite a few people at my gate. And one of the people I recognized was an Guillermo. And at that time, she was with the Joint Commission. And I recognized her and I knew the Joint Commission was a big deal. So I said, Hey, and I was like, I don’t really know anybody. We were on a Southwest flights. We didn’t have assigned seats. And I said, Do you mind if I sit with you? And she’s like, Yeah, that’s fine. But you guys sit between me and the big guy. And she looked at Lamar. So I said on a flight between Lamar and and when I was 20 years old, so 13 years ago, to age myself a little bit. And to this day, there are still two people that I can call for anything and everything. Even in my time of working with Lamar and leaving working for him. Even when I was leaving working for him. He knew I was searching for a job, he supported me and whatever I felt was best for me and my career development. And just finding those people mentorship is a key thing. I think when trying to navigate yourself early in this industry. Not only with the mentorship, they also help you with them Networking. And as we all know by via this call, Networking is very important.
Peter Martin
Absolutely. Nobody likes the middle. Do you? You know, Jim and Claire? To you. And Claire, it’s more so you because now you’re on the you know, the customer service side of it. But was it a difficult decision? Jim, I’ll start with you. Was it a difficult decision for you to leave the facility track that you were on to go to the Joint Commission? What was it that perhaps attracted you? Because again, you and I were talking very early on and you were making you you know, you were maintenance tech and you’re working through shift and you’re making your way up and you get to that management level. I remember when I heard that you had left, I was like, Oh, wow, that’s kind of I didn’t expect that. But was that a difficult decision for you? Or what? What were your thoughts? What was your thought process? If you don’t mind?
Jim Grana
Yeah, that’s complicated question. Yeah. There was a lot a lot of variables at play. And so I guess the simple answer is yes, it was a very difficult decision. You know, between personal life decisions, there was a lot of things going on, we were in the middle of a pandemic at the time. And, you know, I was probably experiencing just a little bit of burnout between everything that was going on at the time. And, you know, I’m not exactly proud to say that, but I think it’s something that we’re all kind of grappling with in our professional environment right now.
Peter Martin
But can I interrupt you for one second? You say that, Jim, and go back to you. But as I said, I did a podcast that we’re releasing, we’re releasing by the time this is out, and it’s just about stress and health care Facilities management, because I’m hearing that from a lot of folks. And I was just doing a little bit of research because I’m writing a brief blurb on it, but like the figure was 93% of Healthcare Facilities, people, people in health care who work in health care, are feeling that so, you know, you’re not alone. You’re certainly not alone. An ongoing issue. Yeah,
Jim Grana
so but it was, it was definitely a factor. You know, it’s interesting, like being a Healthcare Facilities manager or being in Healthcare in general, you’re almost always in that sort of, I feel like the doctor mentality where as Brittany said, I think best organized chaos like it is your life, whether you choose it or not, it’s that is your life from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to sleep, and probably while you’re sleeping, because your phone is still there, and everyone can still get a hold of you. So I was always drawn to that kind of lifestyle, I still I can say I still have it now at the Joint Commission is still very much that kind of dynamic, just a little bit less of the on call potion, because you know, it’s it works a little bit more on the business hours. But it was a difficult decision because I and I can tell you right now, I do miss the role, I miss being in the hustle and bustle the daily operations because I love that that’s why I got into that role and to begin to start with. So for me, though, I was trying to think about what could I do to progress myself next, the quickest. And so I figured, you know, working for working as a subject matter expert, where I literally every day my head is in the book. So it’s almost like I’m, I have to memorize everything. And I see how it applies. And I will say the thing that as I’m still very glad to have is the interaction with everyone who’s working in the field, because I’m on the phone with people every day, that are still working in the field. So I still feel interconnected, which is nice, because I missed it. I could sense the first thing I missed. As soon as I was gone is I missed all the guys that I worked with every day, you know, all the all the clinicians I worked with. So it was definitely difficult from that regard. But still being interconnected, still feeling that sense of being able to fix things, that’s that’s like, why I got into what I do is I like to fix things, you know, whether it’s actually turning a wrench, or if it’s coming up with a project plan, or if it’s just helping someone with an individual problem they have, it’s, it’s something that gives me personal satisfaction. So doing that right now working with the customers trying to help them figure out their situations, if they’re, you know, in the middle of a, whether it’s just a question regarding a project that they’re working on, or if it’s a problem with the server they had. That’s what kind of drew me to this and still keeping myself tied to the safety aspect. And then just the nuts and bolts and everything is what I really love. But it was difficult, but I do think at the end, it was the right decision.
Peter Martin
When you so when you look, you know, in your role now. And this is sometimes how I feel like because I talked to a lot of people like you, you obviously talk to them in a different capacity. Sometimes when I get off the phone, actually, most times when I get off the phone, I’ll be like, Oh man, I’m glad I’m not doing that anymore. Do you ever? Do you ever feel that way? Or you or your what do you feel sometimes when you get off the phone with folks, and you’re helping them problem solve? I’m sure you get some satisfaction, but is there ever a thought? I’m glad I’m removed from that.
Jim Grana
Or I’ve absolutely had that thought it’s, but at the same time, I’m also like Penn and I kind of think in my head like, Well, how would I approach that exactly? You know, like, well, I’m, I’m, well I’m on a call I have to sort of temper my my responses because, you know, I’m not doing plan review. I can’t say here’s how you do X, Y and Z I can kind of give them options. So I have to kind of be careful with that. You know, but I do I do after the phone is the first thing I think about like you know, I kind of recap in my head what I said make sure I didn’t miss anything because you know then I want to make sure I call them back and give them the best answer but the second thought is how exactly what I saw that in my head and I try to capsule that away so in my head. It’s almost like I missed the job because I’m still kind of doing it.
Brittany Remec
I have a question for Jim. So in my current role, I formerly was a Facilities manager where I had direct reports. And in my current role, I no longer have direct reports. So that is one thing that attracted me to the role that I’m in right now. So I’m just curious in your transition and same thing to Claire as well. How do you feel about no longer having direct reports and the current role that you’re in, given how everything went through and with, as you said, burnout with COVID, and everything as well, having direct reports, and managing exposures and tracing and everything, I just, I know, personally, it’s a huge relief to not have direct reports right now, as we’re, you know, recovering from COVID. That the pandemic, towards the end, we’re transitioning out of that phase. But just curious, I’m you and Claire, and your thoughts on no longer having direct reports right now. And you may I apologize if you do have direct reports. But just or even if it’s at a reduced capacity of many direct reports, just how that impacted your transition to the position you’re at now.
Jim Grana
It was a big attraction, because I no longer have any direct reports. And it was probably the biggest one, because I think everybody here has been a manager or is currently manager right now. You that’s most of your day, right there being being a manager. And I’ve managed to about 30 people when I was in Facilities management, which isn’t really that lot. I know a lot of Facilities, managers that manage a lot more. Or, you know, if you’re a director, you manage, you know, manager level, and then on top of the frontline staff, so it was a big attraction. I have zero reports now. And that’s very, very nice.
Claire Salinas
I actually love having teams that I manage. I, I would probably not consider a position where I didn’t have any teams that I was overseeing, I’d have to think hard about that one. That being said, In my previous role before where I am now, I had, I mean, I had Facilities, I had EBS security, food and nutrition. So I probably had 80 to 90 people who rolled up to me in one way or another, and now I have eight. So it is a very different experience to just have eight. And, you know, it kind of ties into Peters initial question about, you know, was it hard to leave the hospital, it was so hard to leave the hospital like Jim, I had a lot of personal factors that I was taking into consideration when I made that decision. And I, I always my phrase is everything is a season. So I consider this a season and who’s you know, I got a lot of runway left in my career. So who’s to say, you know, I will, I won’t be back in an acute setting again, but having the the team I manage now provides me a lot of opportunity to get involved with more customers, right, because I’m just one person, but if I’m working on projects with eight different people, you know, we can expand our scope of impact, working with our customers and I so for the for the times that I miss being in the hospital. You know, that’s, that’s when I have those days where it’s like all I’m going to do today’s talk to customers. That’s all I’m gonna do. I’m just gonna meet with customers, I’m gonna look at their problems with them. Whenever I’m invited to do an on site visit, I always say yes. Always say yes. So it’s definitely been quite a change. Quite a change for sure.
Peter Martin
Yeah. You’re just to clear kind of, like, Jim, I mean, we were talking you were progressing, how you want it to progress. And when we talked in November, and you said, We’re October and you said, Hey, I’m leaving, I was like, wow. Like you. That’s the type of as you said, you have the runway in front of you. These are the people that you don’t want to necessarily be leaving out losing out of hospitals, because you’re that, you know, that future with Facilities manager, but but I think if you could recount this, and I hope I’m not putting you in a bad spot. I don’t think so because you talked about this on the podcast, we did but did the process. You know, we talk about the process in Healthcare for in health care, just in hiring people in general. And in our filling the pipeline. This was one of the conversations we talked about the speed at which Healthcare operates to hire people versus other industries. Healthcare can be as you know, very slow. Was your process to get to FSI with the hiring process was Was there a difference between that and what you experienced in the hospital?
Claire Salinas
It was very, it wasn’t just speed, it was also very personal. It was very, very personal. You know, I in this in this instance, I did have a relationship with my direct manager prior to joining the company. So you know, having that of course helped me because, you know, we can hop on the phone and talk about the position and what he was looking for what what the team needed. But even just from there, like I had an opportunity to meet with our CEO for half an hour before, you know, an offer was made offer accepted. And, and it was, too, if you remember, Peter, I was getting married right around that same time. And so initially, I was like, Oh, now is not a great time for me to change jobs, you know, get married, I want some time off for my honeymoon. And they accommodated that without hesitation. And I don’t know if you know, more, not that big is bad. But you know, typically larger places of employment are a bit more structured. And so it’s harder to accommodate even when folks want to. So it was just, it was a very personal experience. For me, I was able to say, This is what’s important to me, you know, this, these are the things that I hope to be able to do and have a conversation, you know, both what, what can I contribute, but also what, you know, what am I looking for? And that was a really same thing, you know, talking about like, I don’t think I’d consider a physician without reports. Like for me, I don’t think I would have ever left. The employer I was at if I didn’t have such a fantastic hiring experience.
Peter Martin
Yeah, it does. It does make a difference. It really does. You guys are the millennial demographic, I think, you know, what? And rightly or wrongly, people are always identifying generations, right? I’m when I think I’m Generation X 5556 years old, right? That’s what I am. X. I don’t know. I always get them confused. But I do know what Millennials are. Let me ask a question to you guys. Because people are always talking for you, relative to work life balance. And that’s a huge thing, right? We asked the question is work life balance achievable in this role with the demands on you these days, but relative to a work life balance? What’s important to you? And I know two of you, Brittany and and Claire, you’ve had major life events that have occurred within the past year that absolutely affect work life balance. So in your own words, so how important is work life balance? And is it achievable? Do you feel in today’s Healthcare environment?
Logan Landis
So, Peter, I might touch on that, because, and some of the things that I was thinking about prior to coming on, and doing this forum was, what attracts me to Healthcare and what attracts me to the organizations and work life balance was always number one for me. Claire touched on the personable experience with the hiring manager and being so flexible with events going on in your life. I think that’s key, as COVID has shown, and everyone on this call has mentioned, there’s there’s a lot of stress, being in Healthcare, and having that work life balance, and having that ability to say maybe an organization has a few individuals, whether that be mentorship leaders, or there’s someone that there’s mentor ease, they’re able to step in and learn at the exact same time. So maybe you have a chance to work from home One, two days a week. We are so virtual now, because of COVID. Because we had to adapt to do that. Maybe this allows us to take that break when we need to, but still be actively involved. You’re able to save your hour to two hour trip in the morning or routine, and jump on the meetings on one exact day and get all your meetings taken care of and then be in the weeds have that organized chaos on the days you’re there. So I think having that ability to work from home one to two days a week, one, one month, like one to two days a month, that that’s crucial to reducing stress, and keeping individuals and our group involved in Healthcare, because all the other industries are doing it and allowing them to have that flexibility. And that’s what attracts them the most. They say, Oh, you only have to go in the office two days a week. Sign me up. I coming out of school. That’s all I ever asked for. I can go on a vacation when I want to. So it’s just I think that’s a big thing is reducing the stress by having a number of employees that are able to be plugged pluggable. And you still be involved.
The importance of work/life balance
Peter Martin
Are you able to work from home presently?
Claire Salinas
Currently are my health system. I have a fantastic mentor. If those of you on the call aren’t already aware, I know Peter is I worked for Jeff HESNI who is a past president of ASHE and current nominee for president if no Want to know on this poll, so for this current year, and also Frank Conley, he is also the facility manager. So I hit the jackpot with the facility, I work at learning from two of the best, my opinion, sure others the best. So that’s, they give me that ability when I need it. And that makes me want to work harder for them when I’m on site, as well.
Peter Martin
So can I want to ask you a question. I’m not trying to reduce your salary here. But you did say this. So this is kind of like that. gotcha journalism moment. I want to I want to confirm Logan, who is working like was work life balance. And again, you need to be paid fairly, but was work life balance more important than salary for you?
Logan Landis
I would say 80% of me cares about work life balance, or however, to have all the stressors and have the work life balance and be able to do things you want to do, you have to also be fairly compensated. So there’s a given a take, but I think I heard this quote before, from an individual, and I just it really speaks levels. Because I am young, or I feel like I’m a younger individual in green and the industry. No one on their dying bed, or on their deathbed says that oh, man, I wish I I would have worked harder at my job. Yeah, they say, I wish I had more time with my family and friends and loved ones. I wish I had this. So work life balance wins every time over salary. However, I am human. Everyone likes higher compensation in some regards.
Peter Martin
Yeah. No, you know, that’s absolutely right. My mom passed away when I was 29 years old. And I took took, like, when it was coming to the end, I just took time away and never regretted it. And that’s very true. I mean, you’re never gonna regret that time. For that work life balance. That’s a that was something I learned early on. And I’ve always just remembered as like, okay, work will be there. I always I just always think if you’ve had folks tonight, like the world, and the carousel keeps going, you can jump off and you can jump back on. And it’ll be just that organized chaos that you left. It doesn’t stop for anybody. So you gotta jump. Anybody else to work life balance question?
Brittany Remec
Yeah, I can definitely speak to that one. After working in Healthcare Facilities management for, I would say solid 10 years. And my husband can definitely vouch for this. One is that I was never not on call. And Jimmy had said it too. We’re always on call. I recall, the day before my wedding. My boss called me. And he very much knew what I was doing. And he was coming to the wedding. And I just remember answering the phone going, what? I didn’t ask Hi. I didn’t ask you everything. Okay. I just said, what? Because it was one of those moments in my life that I knew I was never going to forget, you know, my wedding. And the fact that he was going to be there too. And I was like, you’re really going to call me and ask me a weird question the day before my wedding. Similarly, I was at Disney World, for my best friend’s wedding. And we were in line for the Tower of Terror. And someone called me it was a Sunday afternoon at like two o’clock. And I was due to go back to work on Tuesday. Another one is the weekend, right? Until you know, I’m on vacation. And even more recently, Peter, I know you, you and I did a podcast, I think right when I found out I was pregnant. And now my daughter. Yeah, my daughter is 10 months now. So that’s a huge thing that for me, my previous position, I was working downtown Chicago and I live out in the suburbs. And so I was taking the train for the longest time and then the pandemic hit. And so I started driving. And then as the world started opening back up, if any of you have ever driven in, in the area of Chicago, you understand traffic. And so that I started to realize my husband and I started talking about expanding our family and we I realized I was like, I don’t feel like I can do the appropriate work life balance with the commute that I have. I love who I work with. I love my team. I very much enjoyed working with Lamar and the team that he created there. We had a great team, they still have a great team. I still talk to a lot of them. But I needed something for me personally, that wasn’t going to be as physically demanding of me. So the position I’m in now i exclusively work from home. I do site visits as needed. And try to do them weekly like yet. What is today, today’s Thursday, right? Tuesday, I was gone from you know 6:30am Until about 4pm doing site visits all day for a project and the fact that I can do one day of all site visits and then have four days at home It is a huge help for me. We’re very fortunate that at 10 months old, my daughter has never been to daycare, between family and just flexibility in my work from home schedule. My daughter gets to stay home with my husband and I know my husband has flexibility in his job as well. And it played a huge role in to me transitioning into the role that I’m in. And something like I said, on my previous positions, I was on vacation, and getting phone calls. And right when I started with advocate health, I had a vacation, we had been planning throughout the whole band Tammy that just kept putting bush and getting pushed, and we were in Hawaii for like 12 days, my husband and I were and I told my boss, I was like, I’m gonna take my laptop, I’ll be available if you need anything, because that’s what I was used to. And he was like, why would you do that? We’ve got it, you’re fine. And I was like, I’m sorry, what? So it was a huge thing for me transitioning to the advocate health, that that’s something that they strongly value is that work life balance. And it’s something that I have very much appreciated with the organization that I’m with now. And that’s it, my previous organization wouldn’t have allowed that it just it was a very different demand being an HSM versus the construction role that I’m in now.
Peter Martin
And you know, we’ll continue on with the work life balance, because I want to get clear, and Jim and I was gonna ask you, Brittany, how you’d like to transition out of FM into the design and construction. But I think you’ve just answered that question. Yeah,
Brittany Remec
it’s definitely a different than everybody was shocked when I was making the transition, because I was on that trajectory to be a Facilities director and I and Claire, as Claire said, there’s nothing to say I won’t go back to that. Right. I mean, I definitely still wouldn’t positions pop up on LinkedIn, I definitely still read them. Not that I’m actively looking to get back into that right now. But um, is I told Lamar, when he asked me, he was like, Really, you’re gonna go into construction? I said, well, one is my degree. And two, if I ever want to be a support services, senior leader, I need to have a well rounded experience in multiple areas. And I feel like this is going to help me get some good experience on the construction side that otherwise I may not have gotten.
Peter Martin
Right, right. And I think that’s Logan, you’re a little bit even on the younger side for this group. But the three of you is as you accumulate the experience, everything you’re doing doesn’t hurt. I mean, it just kind of augments if you make the decision, because I would have to guess, you know, you’ll certainly be presented with opportunities at whatever point you would want your your, your well rounded at this point. I mean, you’re seeing all ends of that spectrum, which can only help you doesn’t hurt, that’s for sure. Yeah. Jim or Claire, you want to jump in on the work life balance?
Claire Salinas
Yeah, I mean, that that I also exclusively work from home. Now. You do. Yep. I work from home. We’re remote company. We do have a small office in Pittsburgh. So we claim Pittsburgh as our quarter headquarters technically. Yes, yep. So working from home exclusively. Wow. You know, I mean, I love being an in person, person. But I didn’t have the Chicago commute. But I was commuting in and out of the Charlotte metro area. And at a certain point, it was just not worth it. Like, no job is worth getting home every single day already exhausted, frustrated, because I sat on the interstate for way longer than I thought I would, you know, to me at least note, no job is worth that. And so eliminating, I mean, I completely eliminated commute i Not only did I shorten it, I eliminated it. That was a big a big appeal, frankly, for the position in TJC. You know, we’re sick, we do some great recruiting because we’re able to recruit folks from anywhere. And as everybody else is saying, you know, if I can get an extra hour, hour and a half back in my day, just from commuting, that can have a really big impact on me and my family and my happiness. I’d say like when I was in the HFM space, I would try to guard my vacation time ruthlessly. It’s kind of like a trade off, like, Hey, I’m on call all the time. But on these days, I just can’t be and, you know, relying and I was always very, very fortunate to have managers, supervisors, directors who I could rely on to say, Hey, do not call me, will you please handle anything that comes up and if you need help skip me and call my leader. I think just having open and honest conversations with your peers as much as you can. Again, I was always in a very supportive department where I could, you know, kind of put that stake in the sand and say, Hey, this is my time and I really need it. But I did have to actively guard my time.
Jim Grana
Oh, no worries. I’m trying to formulate the answer for work life balance, because it’s, I struggle with a way to like to formulate it, because there’s just so many variables to it, it’s hard to put up, put my finger on what I find most important. So just for some background, so I was a Facilities manager before, before this job, this job, I’m about 90% remote. So I’m working from home today, I was in the office the last couple of days, if we’re doing teaching, we usually have to go somewhere for a seminar or something like that. And at some point, the pandemic kind of stopped this, but my department is also supposed to participate in surveys, once a quarter. So just to make sure that we’re well rounded, we know what this sort of experience is like, I haven’t gotten to do that. And I’m really looking forward to when it happens again, they Let’s do that again. So there’s there’s some travel and some of that involve my job, which is great, because I do like to be able to get out and about a little bit. But I will say it was a breath of fresh air to not have a two hour commute every day. You know, when you get into the office at about 630. And you love that about 630 Most days, I’d say. And then you got home at about 730 at night. That’s a long day. And during that five days a week, it got all it really did. I almost didn’t know what to do with myself with how much time I had once I transitioned on this role. And just so everyone knows, like I, I was approached for the position that I’m in right now I was recruited. So I really didn’t know it was coming. I wasn’t actively looking for it. You know, I enjoyed being a Facilities manager, as much as one can, like I enjoyed the job, I was making progress. But, you know, when I talked to her McKenzie, who most you probably know where the scene was, my current boss is fantastic. You know, he, when he explained me like how the job worked and everything that was involved, and kind of all the perks and everything. Like, I think the light, the work life balance light bulb clicked for me. And I realized some interesting things I can do with Mike, because I really wasn’t doing much else. I was getting my masters while I was also in Facilities manager. So I don’t remember like doing anything other than either being on my computer classes or just doing work stuff. So it was like those two years were an absolute blur. And I think everything all together kind of constituted where I was, I realized that I want to make a change because I was just I felt like I had no breathing space at all. So it’s kind of weird, I don’t want to I definitely don’t want anyone listening to this. I think that the role wasn’t great because it was but I had a lot of personal variables that were making it very complicated. I had a long commute, I was in school, I was also trying to kind of rebuild a department at the time that had gone through a very rough transition. And I was all aware of these things going into them. So I was definitely not blindsided by anything. But then everything just kind of compounds and all sudden you find yourself in a position of like, man, could I do something else right now because I feel like I could and I feel like it might be a might be better if nothing else would be different. So I definitely wouldn’t ever want to get away from the challenge of doing something new. And that’s that’s how I approached the new role kind of jumping back into the reasoning. Because I got a lot of people ask me, like, what are you doing? It’s like, because it’s it was almost most people were like, it’s a horizontal move, you’re not gonna be a manager anymore, you’re not going to be an operation. So like, what are you doing? And I a few times I asked myself, What am I doing? I don’t know. But I thought that if nothing else, I’d have the opportunity to take a step back, take a breath of fresh air, and enjoy some more aspects of life. And I’ve absolutely been able to do that. And I feel far more organized. And what I want to do next, going forward in this role is definitely provide a lot of opportunities to get different experience in the field, that I know I can reapply if I was to jump
Peter Martin
That’s interesting, Jim, because, you know, I never once thought of that move horizontally for you did that didn’t cross mine? I thought, well, risk and compliance and regulatory is such a huge component of the Facilities role. So that’s interesting. That horizontal perspective, I didn’t see it that way. Well, I think that you asked me.
Jim Grana
Oh, no, no, no, I think it’s fair. And I kind of thought about too, because I was absolutely on the track for Facilities director and I’d already applied for a role. And I hadn’t gotten it because they thought I was a little green and I didn’t disagree with him at the time. But I think the fact that I was getting out of kind of the running for that role, at least in the organization That was that that’s why it was kind of viewed that way. And I agreed I was kind of, I was taking the risk of taking myself out of the Network. Yeah. But I also have found and I’d be curious on everyone else’s thoughts on this is I felt like sometimes to move up professionally, you got to jump out of the pool, and go look at what’s going on around outside of the fence. And it feels like sometimes when you leave, you can actually come back and you’ll be in a better position than when you if you just stayed there, and I find that very strange are. And then maybe it was just the organization I was I was working with, or the people I’ve got the experience with. But I don’t feel like I’m alone, where most people have made that realization that leaving and then having the opportunity to come back might be more fortuitous for you than just staying on the path.
Peter Martin
What do you guys think about that? Jim, Jim, and anybody have thoughts on that?
Logan Landis
Jim, I think I think you hit it on the head there, I I’ve had a couple of different mentors, throughout the few years on various different hospitals and industries, and one of which became a he’s a fire and life safety engineer. And he moved to loss control and manufacturing. And he was in Healthcare and move there. And one of the things that he brought up to me was to gain more experience to move up if you’re always where you are. And this is more so just paraphrasing what you just said, you, you’re not going to gain anything other than what you’re already doing, you’re going to put in three to four years of time, gaining the same, just improving the same attributes that you you won’t get unless you move somewhere else. So that’s always been a thought deep in my mind, how do I better myself as a safety professional, so that way, I can potentially go somewhere else and then come back in as the Healthcare manager, all the individuals on this call have said it. I think that’s the key thing with Healthcare that we have to really navigate and try to change in a sense. And I don’t know if that’s through mentorship, or if that’s through different projects, opening the doors, and to a construction project, and B and using your Networking relationship skills to open those doors. Because that’s, that’s really the issue at hand. If you want to attract people, and especially figurine people, if they don’t see there’s a succession plan moving up, then they will eventually leave. And I will also state that I am extremely happy with where I am. I I feel incredibly blessed to be in such a great organization. It’s just it’s difficult seeing others move on and get such great experience from it, and not being qualified for certain positions until you do so.
How does healthcare facilities attract younger employees?
Claire Salinas
I think like hearing Jim describe the responses. Some of his colleagues, I experienced similar comments that people like thought I was throwing my career away by leaving hospital like a hospital employer. And that really reminds me to your opening question, Peter, you know, what can the profession do to attract people and and this idea of like, the linear, like climbing up the mountain career, I think is long gone. I think it’s long gone. And the quicker we all let go of that. You know, it’s a it’s a service to the profession, and it’s a service to our colleagues.
Peter Martin
Well, you know, and, Brittany, I’ll let you have about the last word. When I was listening to you guys talk in my mind. I was like, that’s a generational difference that is occurred and absolutely flipped. And I you know, I’m kind of in the middle of my youth a bit of my dad’s generation, then there’s me and I guess I’m two generations ahead of you. But we’ve kind of moved off that but you guys have completely moved away from that. I mean, that generation where you put in 15 years and you just kind of move up by duration is flipped. And that’s a parent listening to you guys. Britney go please. I’m sorry about that.
Brittany Remec
That’s actually that’s what I was gonna say. I think we’re having a generational conversation. I think that that’s a huge for the longest time for me the M word millennial was a swear word when it came from anybody outside of the millennial generation. It was an instant trigger. For me, there was quite a few ASHE chapter leadership where people would get up and talk about the millennials and they never had a nice thing to say about us. And in my head, that’s how do you want it how do you how can you succession plan when you have nothing nice to say about the people you’re trying to recruit? And they say you know they they’re not serious. They don’t want to stay with an organization they job hop is what they would call it. But we job have a job have when there’s no opportunities where you’re not providing us any growth. There’s certain points there it might it’s some of my previous positions. There was a gentleman who he very much When he was very direct with anybody and everybody who asked leadership, his direct leadership, he’s like, I need a growth path. And if I don’t have that, I’m gonna have to look elsewhere. He didn’t burn any bridges. But he was just very honest about what his ambitions were, he had just finished his master’s, he wanted a higher level position. And they’re like, well, we just don’t have that. So I think that our, the millennial generation is very honest about what their expectations are. And I just don’t know if some of our leadership that may be of a different generation is receptive to that. And then that’s when they start seeing millennials in a negative light.
Peter Martin
Well, and that’s why I want to ask the questions of you guys relative to kind of that work life balance, because that’s usually the the jumping off point where they talk about generation generation where they don’t want to work. But you guys can speak for yourself and you address, you address it very well. You wouldn’t, you know, you can’t broad brush any one group of of people in that manner. Last question, because I know we’re coming up on it, but and I wanted to ask something generationally, but we’ll get away from that just a quick yes or no answer. And I think I know it, but relative to your Healthcare career, it’s a little bit varied now, but you’re all still in Healthcare. I consider you all still in Healthcare, which is why I think you can always jump back in and do I mean, you haven’t lost that. But would you you know, going back to your college self, would you everything. We’ve talked about work life balance, generation, salary, blah, blah, blah, would you encourage college students about this career about this path? Logan, we’ll start we’ll go the same way that we introduced ourselves.
Logan Landis
I think it’s a two fold question, Peter. I think I would. However, as long as it’s done correctly, I think if someone is just thrown into health care, with an organization that doesn’t have that foundation set, I think they could get overworked or see a lot of bad habits that will make them grow to dislike Healthcare as a whole. I think you have to have that precedent set of the structure, as Brittany mentioned, the growth path, the support that Claire and Jim, as stated with the collaboration aspects, I think you have to have the whole team build together and have buy in all the way up to the upper senior C suite leadership, which with a pen, we do. Very lucky. So I think I would and those aspects, but other than that, I would say no, I think it depends on the organization and how their values for generations are. If they’re adaptive, then absolutely, I think you can learn so much in Healthcare, that other industries are only focused on certain aspects where Healthcare, that that industry can go into any of the other trades at any other company and succeed and succeed very quickly, where if you throw someone from manufacturing, you throw them in Healthcare, they’re lost, they don’t know if others agree with that.
Peter Martin
I agree. I agree with you. Not that I’m all the others. But I agree. Claire, how about you,
Claire Salinas
I would wholeheartedly recommend this industry to folks, and just you know, so thankfully, every single day is an opportunity to make a better experience for someone who’s possibly in one of the most vulnerable, you know, periods of their life. And when I would look at my work through that lens, and I still look at my work through that lens, right, I’m helping the folks who are making that daily impact. You know, it’s the patient room window that was leaking. Now, it’s not leaking, that’s a big deal to the patient in that room, you know, your co workers and EBS. Their elevator never works. Now it runs perfectly. So they’re not, you know, stacking trash somewhere. That’s really impactful. And so when I, you know, I would encourage people wholeheartedly to consider the profession, especially if they have a service minded approach towards it every single day is an opportunity to make something better for somebody. Thank you.
Brittany Remec
To rephrase a little bit of what Claire said, one of the things I always tell people when they’re considering this industry is that you never have two days that are the same every single day, you’re always going to have a new experience every day, similar to what Claire was saying, but kind of said a little differently. I definitely still encourage people into this industry. And the biggest thing I say is like you don’t know what you don’t know. And, you know, when I first walked into my first internship, I said, you walk into the hospital and they say, oh, it’s Healthcare facility. Leave management needs to end i the light bulb went off for me. And I was just like, Oh, you want us to take care of this place? I’m going to keep this place running. And that’s something that a lot of people don’t think about. I unfortunately, started college in 2008. My dad had just gotten laid off from the trades. So right, you know, when when the economy is taking a decline? Yeah. Yeah. So one of the biggest things I told people in my program at Purdue, I was like, That’s great that, you know, you’re going to build the building, but there’s always going to, they’re always going to need somebody to maintain it. Yeah, there’s, I mean, capital will run out. And there may not always be money to build things. But there’s always going to be money to maintain something. So that’s one of the biggest cells that I always try to put to somebody to and you’re definitely going to have career. What’s the word? I’m looking for job security. You do that in? One thing that, you know, they may ask us to run lean, but they’ve always gonna have somebody to run the program.
Jim Grana
Like, I would say that you can recommend it to people and I don’t think the market or however and I think it’s changing with the help of people like you, Peter, I don’t think there’s a lot of awareness out there with regards to this, this job field. But there’s some there’s limitations to this job field. One, there are only so many positions that are open, right? It’s a fairly small market, like Healthcare is very big, but Facilities management, Facilities, maintenance, construction, pretty small departments in general. And I think to Claire’s point, it takes a certain type of person to do this kind of job. Yeah. So I have a lot of thoughts on this question. And I’m a little bit 5050. And, like, for me, the the negatives are, I look at a lot of my friends that I grew up with, who are you know, they’re my age, they’re at st point, they work in other fields that are mostly sales oriented in some manner. And just putting a straightforward, they make a lot more money than I do. Like, they’re all They’re all very well off. So like, you can’t come into this job. And I was aware of this, right, I’m here. I absolutely believe this is something that I enjoy doing. And I’m glad to be here. I think if I could go back and do it again, I’d probably do a little bit different, I think I’d actually have gone to engineering school. And I would probably come at it from that perspective, more on the construction design side. Because I think that would have been more of the way I would have liked to approach it. And every day, I wish I had an engineering degree like I can’t even like it’s frustrating to me how much I wish I could just design stuff. But there’s a lot of things that I think people would have to take into account to make sure that they would be satisfied working in this field. And that is that you are going to kind of give up that compensation. Because there’s a lot more money that you made out there and other fields, it’s just not here in this field. And that’s just the truth of the matter. I mean, you can still make a very positive living for yourself, I don’t think anyone here will debate that. You also need to have, I think, a hard working mindset. And you need to have that service oriented mindset that Claire talked about, like when you walk out of a patient’s room after she talked about fixing the window and I’ve been there hundreds of times, and I’ve never in my life felt more satisfied than after I walked into a patient room and I was able to fix whatever issue was plaguing them, because their day is now made so much better. And I missed that every day that I’m not doing that I missed that when I was a Facilities manager it took everything in my power to not just go and answer calls because I like I like wanted to go do that I want to fix things. And I was worried that people were that were going there weren’t approaching it with the same enthusiasm that I had, which is a very selfish thought but it’s one that I had to had to deal with. So I think you have to have that mentality to be successful and to actually bring something positive to the field so that’s why I kind of temper what I say is yes, you should I would I would definitely recommend to people but there’s some people that I know that I’m very good close with. They would be awful in this field. It just they they would not be able to do it. And it wouldn’t be because they they wouldn’t be able to do it on a professional manner. It’s for personal they wouldn’t be able to do it. I don’t think they would get self satisfaction and I don’t believe they would bring anything positive to the field because it’s just not the way that they’re wired so yeah, that’s that’s kind of my hot take on that one.
Peter Martin
So Logan Landis, Claire Salinas, Brittany Remec and Jim Grana. Thank you so much for your time. And this morning, I really do appreciate your time hopefully, come back again, if you don’t mind because there’s some some stuff there left on the table. But we got to break for now. So I thank each of you for for appearing today.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai