Carl: Welcome to the Well Within Reach Podcast. I'm Carl Merona. And today we're going to be talking to Tim Weston. Tim is the manager of recruitment and workforce planning at Riverside Healthcare. And today we're going to be talking about Riverside as a military friendly workplace. Tim, welcome to the podcast.

Tim Weston: Thanks Carl.

Carl: And again, Tim is the manager of recruitment and workforce planning at Riverside Healthcare. And a quick note about that, Tim, that, so you're an HR human resources as we used to call it. I think it's still called that. So you're, you're hiring people. That's what you do. You're part of that team.

Tim Weston: Always. Yes.

Carl: And a lot of that goes on at Riverside.

Tim Weston: Yes. for sure. Yeah. Always looking for great

Carl: Yeah. And we're going to talk about our initiative that can expose the organization even more great talent as being a military friendly workplace. Talk a little bit about what it means for an organization to be military friendly.

Tim Weston: Sure. So Carl, I think really at its core being a military friendly workplace means that your organization sees the value that veterans bring to the table and just to helping you accomplish your goals and live your mission. While also helping them to accomplish their career goals as well. Again, we see the value that these veterans have brought not just to our community, but to our country. And we want to respect and honor that. And make sure that Riverside is a safe place to land as well.

Carl: Oh, I love a couple of the words you use there at its core. Like Army Corps, Marine Corps, air Corps.

Tim Weston: Maybe we'll have a few more puns in midst of today.

Carl: You said it's a good place to land as those air guys need to land. so Tim, what made Riverside decide to start this journey of becoming a military friendly workplace?

Tim Weston: I tHink it is important just to point out the fact, I think it's something that Riverside and its leadership team has always seen the value in just not necessarily through maybe some formalized efforts and steps that we've taken in the last year or two. So some of this was really just sparked from a training that I stumbled across through Sherm, an HR organization that I'm a part of the name of the training was called the veterans at work. So again, it was just a lot of education geared toward HR professionals, recruiters.

On ways to incorporate more veterans into the workplace and make sure that again, they feel supported where they land. So, I think that kind of opened up my eyes to a lot of different possibilities of things that we could do on top of what Riverside is already doing. And at that point it was really just a matter of capturing the energy that already existed internally. Again, this is not something we decided to flip the switch on and say, all right, as of today, we're going to be veteran friendly, military friendly.

It's something that's always existed. You talk to any of our leaders, they all support our local vets. So it's just a matter of again, capturing that energy. And steering, well using a steering committee in order to be able to guide our efforts.

Carl: And there already existed a number of veterans in the organization, some in leadership positions. So, a veteran working at Riverside is not a new idea.

Tim Weston: Correct? Yeah, we Normally, again, we have about 2,800 employees on any given day. I would say we normally have somewhere between. 50 to 70 veterans within our workforce.

Carl: I would have guessed that there are some skills that they bring in some background that they bring that sets up very well for a healthcare

Tim Weston: Oh, for sure. Yeah. I think just the training that they go through in some of, again, those life and death kind of situations, being able to be first responders to emergency situations. It really lends itself perfectly with the healthcare field.

Carl: Yeah. the kind of people that walk toward crisis as opposed to turn away from it. So as you said, you don't flip a switch and suddenly that you're a military friendly place. What goes into that? what all did you have to do? And Riverside have to do to become designated?

Tim Weston: Yeah, I think a lot of it is really just a self-reflection on policies, procedures, practices that we have in place. And as I mentioned, Being military friendly isn't a goal that I feel where we'll ever fully achieve. And cross off the list and say, all right, we're done with that. As we're learning, there's always kind of a need for continuous improvement. And in that way, it really is similar to healthcare. There's always going to be continuous process improvements to be the best of what we do.

Carl: Sure. Be the best you can be. That's what we're aiming for. And there are certifications that are available. We're talking about the military and they generally have protocols and processes that need to be followed. I assume that was the case here. What were some of the certifications that we had to attain it, to receive this designation?

Tim Weston: We used a what's called a military friendly company survey. As a measuring stick. There's actually Kankakee community college locally. They have a slightly different process for the educational field. So there's this really geared towards again, are you military friendly towards the students who are applying and enrolled in school there? So, we met with leaders over there and kind of pick their brain just to figure out Hey, how'd this process go for you?

What are some things that we need to keep in mind? But the company survey is actually split Kind of four surveys within one. So there's a military friendly employer. Military spouse, friendly employer, military friendly supplier, and then a military friendly brand. So, as you can imagine, four sub survey has within an overall survey, there were hundreds of questions and really those questions drove a lot of our conversation as to what sorts of things we needed to be evaluating.

Things like setting, hiring, and retention goals of veterans. Partnering with veteran owned businesses. Using them as suppliers, developing work skills training programs and even just providing manager training on how to support veterans in the workplace, are all things that we're kind of part of that survey. And then not to mention, just meeting and exceeding a lot of federal guidelines related to the employment and pay of active service members as well, because we do have some folks who are in the national guard.

And again, legally you have to let them go and you have to let them come back to the position that they were working in. And even Give them an opportunity to be able to apply for jobs that they would have applied for had they never left. So those are the things actively that we have been doing. So that was the nice part of going through the survey process is it gave us, again, Kind of some, assurance that, Hey, we're doing the right thing here. So we were able to look back on some of those situations and say, yes, we've handled those appropriately.

Carl: Yeah, you mentioned as we started. The question, the answer to the question is really a lot of self reflection for the organization. And that sounds like a lot of that was done. And a lot of, great things came from that. And aside from the certification or the designation, just the process probably brought a lot of learning and a lot of exposure to things that we were doing. Right. And some things that we can expand on.

Tim Weston: Absolutely.

Carl: We're talking to Tim Weston, Tim, again, the manager of recruitment and workforce planning for Riverside Healthcare. And we back the Tim in a moment. But now I want to mention that you can work close to home with a team that feels like family. Riverside to regions. Healthcare leader is growing its clinical and nonclinical team entry-level and experienced positions are available. apply at rhcjobs.org and see what family feels like at Riverside healthcare.

And we're back talking to Tim, Western, Tim again, manager. It's still, I believe a manager of recruitment and workforce planning here at Riverside that hasn't changed since we started the conversation, but Tim talk about some of the needs that veterans may have aside from other employees, perhaps.

Tim Weston: So I think succession planning is one of those things that within the military is very clearly laid out in order to move up in rank. Right. So it's very clear. All right. These are the things that are missing or the skills that I need to obtain. Or the years of service that I have to have in order to be promoted. It's not always as clear with civilian careers. So again, that's an area that we've recognized that we could do a better job of is making sure that it's very clear to these employees, what they can do to get that next promotion.

Also military spouses. That's another big part of this as well. Not necessarily focused on those who are actively serving but the spouses of those individuals the ability to work remotely Is huge for individuals who may be moving fairly regularly. So the ability to just pick up, move, due to a spouse's relocation or deployment, it makes it very difficult to maintain a stable job. If it has to be the traditional sitting in a desk. In an office building. So we've taken a look again internally to say, which positions do we have that could be done remotely.

So that we still have some longer tenured employees in those positions that stay with us through the years, even moving all across the country. And then the big one again, this one you do hear about, I think more often than the others, but mental health services. So we have a great internal employee assistance program called well in mind. It actually just received the platinum bell seal for mental workplace, mental health by mental health America.

So we have these therapists and counselors trained to work with individuals like veterans who might struggle with PTSD or other mental health issues. So that's a huge benefit that we have having them right here, onsite available at the drop of a hat.

Carl: Yeah, That is an important one. Are there any other unique benefits for veterans or active military that Riverside offers?

Tim Weston: Yeah, we offer flexible schedules. So again, as I mentioned just the ability to work remotely for certain roles, be able to flex your hours. That can be very useful for those who are connected to the military. Also we offer job protection during the deployment. Again, we're going to make sure that you come back to that same job that you were in before and again, we'll take a look to see, all right. Were there other positions, promotions that may have come available while you were gone that you would have applied to had you left? And we'll take a look to see if we can give you that promotion.

We have supplemental compensation programs as well for reservists or members of the national guard. And then we also have just decided to reserve spots in our leadership development programs as well, for those connected to the military community. We're actually kind of blocking off and holding some spots there. In some programs that we have called emerging leaders or young professionals internally.

Carl: Some great stuff other than this fine podcast, are there ways that we're getting this information out? So if, those in the military veterans are looking for work. How are we making sure they know that Riverside offers all this?

Tim Weston: So again, something else that came as a result of the steering committee is we decided to really build out a landing page on our website. So, RHCjobs.org. We'll get you to our main careers page, but then there is a military friendly page on there as well. So that has a lot of great information about the things that I've been talking about. Also on that page, again, you can actually text with one of our recruiters. Tiara is her name. She's actually a veteran herself as well. She served in the army, so she was a great win just in order to be able to recruit a veteran, to help recruit veterans. Again, the kind of credibility that comes with somebody who's been there, done that, just goes way above and beyond anything that I could do, as a recruitoer.

Carl: Well, as you mentioned earlier at any given time, there may be 50 to 60 employees working who were veterans. And so having that network support of veterans and having somebody you can talk to who may understand a veterans point of view, better than others. Th in and of itself, I would think would be a big benefit

Tim Weston: Correct.

Carl: Yeah. how does the community, and, Riverside itself benefit from all this?

Tim Weston: It really gives Riverside. a better chance to recruit and retain the best talent. So a service men, service women they're highly skilled, motivated, and responsible workers. Not to mention battle-tested maybe that's another pun. To throw in there that goes along with this. But as we talked about right at the top, right, these are the folks running into some of those emergency situations. Healthcare workers, they routinely operate in those kinds of high stress life or death situations. So the more veterans that we have working at Riverside, the better health outcomes for our community.

Carl: Well, again, we've been talking Tim Weston Tim is the manager of recruitment and workforce planning for Riverside Healthcare. Talking about Riverside as a military friendly workplace. A lot of great things in place for and their families, and that really benefit, not only those folks that come to work at Riverside, but Riverside and the community as well. So I appreciate you sharing all that.

Tim Weston: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Carl: This has been Well Within Reach and be sure and leave a review or check out our other podcasts wherever you're getting your podcast. And thanks for listening to Well Within Reach.