Transcription:
New Thinking on Workplace Flexibility So the Great Resignation Doesn’t Leave You in the Dust!

Bill Klaproth (host): This is a special podcast produced onsite at SHSMD Connections 2022 Annual Conference as we talk with keynote speakers and session leaders direct from the show floor. I'm Bill Klaproth. With me is Rose Glenn, Chief Communications and Marketing Officer at Michigan Medicine. Rose, welcome.

Rose Glenn: Thank you so much, Bill. It's a pleasure to be here.

Bill Klaproth (host): Yeah, pleasure to have you here. And Denise Beaudoin, Director of Digital Strategy and Engagement at Michigan Medicine.

Denise Beaudoin: Thanks, Bill. Great to be here.

Bill Klaproth (host): Yes. Thank you for being here. I love it. So we're going to talk about new thinking on workplace flexibility, so the great resignation doesn't leave you in the dust. Wow. This is a hot topic. The great resignation has hit all industries, but especially ours. So Rose, let me start with you. Have you moved to a hybrid or remote model? And what made you decide to do that? This certainly is a big topic of discussion right now.

Rose Glenn: We've gone through multiple phases and we're basing it upon our staff input. We are doing a lot of surveying of our staff. And when we returned to work in April of this year, we surveyed them first and said, "How many days would you like to be here?" And the answer was zero to one. So we were a little taken aback by that. And we said, "Well, why don't we try two days a week onsite, hybrid. And we'll do it over a 90-day period, and then we'll resurvey and see how it's going." And so we did that beginning of April and we resurveyed in July. And it was very evident that people wanted to work remotely full time, unless it was intentional. They didn't want to go into the office just to Zoom all day which is totally understandable. But if it was intentional, if there was a staff meeting where we were doing some team; if it was, obviously, an interview with a doctor that needed to be onsite; if it were gatherings to build culture, a retreat; or perhaps a social event. So we have to be very intentional and we're trying to get people at least once a month onsite. And then, planning the day around that, so there were other meaningful activities onsite. So it has been a big change, yes.

Bill Klaproth (host): Yeah, that's amazing. "How many days you want to come in?" Zero to one. Okay. Now, what do we expect? That probably wasn't what you were expecting, was it?

Rose Glenn: It really wasn't. I did really expect people to say two, maybe even three. But we were fully remote when the pandemic hit us hard in March of 2020. And we remained that way until April of this year. So people got quite used to working from home, having the tools they needed at their disposal, being able to throw in a load of laundry in between meetings. Not having the commute was a big deal, especially when gas prices are so high. And so it became really clear throughout the pilot that people were thinking, "Oh, this really isn't what I want to do." And so we said, "Well, you know, let's just finish out the pilot, see what the feedback is." And we got the feedback and it was very clear.

Bill Klaproth (host): Wow. Well, I mean, kudos to you for doing a survey and then listening to your team instead of just mandating, "You're coming back at least three days a week," right? Wow.

Rose Glenn: It definitely had to do with wanting to keep my staff engaged, but it also had to do with retention and recruitment. You know, our disciplines are so made for remote work. And it's not just healthcare we're competing with, it is other industries. And so I knew that if we wanted to retain, we had to make changes.

Bill Klaproth (host): Absolutely. Well, let's talk about that retention, Denise. How do you think this is going to help retain talent? Give us your thoughts on this.

Denise Beaudoin: Yeah, that's a good question, Bill. And so, what we're really trying to do is like Rose said, to really work with what folks need, right? So we have a diverse group of people. We have people who take care of their parents, who take care of their kids who take care of their grandparents. And so we want to make sure we make it better for them, and to be able to kind of retain people who are good workers who, you know, want to be at home more. We're trying to be more flexible with schedules where we end the day at a reasonable time period. And we start the day at a reasonable time period as well. We also are working on things like being flexible.

I just was giving an example during the conference here of one of my team members, who's near retirement, but she owns a home in St. Louis, right? And she owns a home in Ann Arbor. And so, she actually works from St. Louis one week a month. And it just enables me to retain her a little bit longer. She doesn't really want to retire. And she's a great employee. So, I'm doing those kinds of things. I also have a fully remote person who's in North Carolina. And again, we're based in Ann Arbor, so he can do his work from there. So, those are just some of the things we're doing in terms of retention. We know this is so important to keeping employees because it's hard to recruit right now. It's very, very hard to recruit because so many people are leaving the industry, leaving work, and we need to do those things to kind of meet people where they are and accommodate when we can.

Bill Klaproth (host): Yeah, I love how you said that, meet people where they are. It sounds like a real individualized approach, if you will, with the examples you gave, like, "Hey, I want to do this." "Okay. We'll make that work for you." "Hey, I've got this." "Okay. We'll make that work for you." You said it. You know, once we find a good worker or a great employee, we're going to do what it takes to retain this person. It's taking you to be flexible. Is that right?

Denise Beaudoin: Right. Yeah. So some of my folks want to be in a lot and they want to be in almost every day, and that's okay.

Bill Klaproth (host): So people that want to come in, you're like, "Fine. Come in." But for the people that don't, you're saying, "Okay, let's work this out and make this work."

Denise Beaudoin: Right. And we try to be in on that same time every month. So we're in the first Tuesday and third Tuesday of every month, so we're in together. So when we come in, like Rose said, that intentional, we want to be together. So we kind of set those days as the right days. And I asked my team what days they want, how many times a month they think is good, and so we settled on two.

Bill Klaproth (host): I love that. So I'm going to ask you both this question. Rose, let me start with you. You know, remote work is great, but building that team culture, the teamwork, you know, we're all pushing the wheel in the same direction. I'm stopping by the cubicle, "How are you? What's going on? Did you watch this last night?" That's kind of gone now. So how do you build this culture when people are not seeing each other, having lunch together? How do you do this?

Rose Glenn: I'm so glad you asked that, Bill, because you cannot do the same things and have the same processes and get the same outcomes, going from fully in the office to almost fully remote. You've got to rethink it. And so we are redesigning all of the time. We have this wonderful group we created called the Culture Squad. And they're volunteers from our department and they are constantly putting together activities. So we just had an ice cream social at a beautiful park at Ann Arbor. They're planning a Donuts Insider Day. They are really thinking about how to intentionally bring people in to engage. Even before we were in person, they were doing it online. We would have a trivia night or we would have pick your own Zoom room night. And in one Zoom room, we would have a book club and another Zoom room, we would be teaching people how to make a cake. And in another Zoom room, we would be playing Jeopardy. So we're really trying to make people comfortable, getting to know one another not in the usual office setting.

The other thing I would say is we have to use technology. So Teams has a chat function. So some of my groups use the Teams chat function more just for convincing, you know, personal comments back and forth. We're looking constantly at ways to engage without utilizing email because people are getting burned out on the amount of emails. So, whether that's texting, God forbid a phone call, you know. But I mean, people have to give way for connecting in ways they were not connecting with before. And especially for newly hired staff, we're rethinking orientation. And how do you bring people into an environment and get to know the culture when the folks are all separate? So we're being very intentional with orientation as well.

Bill Klaproth (host): Yeah, you had me at ice cream social. The Donuts Insider, that's amazing. Denise, what's your thoughts on this?

Denise Beaudoin: So similar, I mean, Rose gave examples of a lot of what we're doing. But from my perspective, you know, when my team's in on that one day or those two days a month, it's really important to give them time to talk, right? To interact, to be more social. Because people are feeling the pressure just to produce, produce, produce. And so they feel that same pressure in the office. They can't really get up from their cube or their office and talk to folks. So really making people feel comfortable about that.

I do walking meetings. So we'll take a break at 11:30 and we'll just walk around. You can only do that so much in Michigan. But we'll make sure we try to keep that going, but we do those. We just make sure that we have time for lunch and we eat together. So really again, like Rose said, intentional. So when we're in the office, we need to be very, very intentional. From an outside of the office, the culture, you know, really is just making sure that we're talking to each other on a regular basis and having those huddle meetings and those staff meetings, and really talking about what we're getting done and how we're getting it done, because you're not in the office enough to understand that. And so we have to do that kind of via Zoom meetings and via those one-on-one meetings.

Bill Klaproth (host): Yeah. So you're making it work. You're rethinking and redesigning, as rose said. So Denise, let me stay with you. So, have you seen an increase in burnout over the past three years during the pandemic? And do you think these efforts of what you're doing is going to decrease this burnout that everybody's feeling?

Denise Beaudoin: So, absolutely. We just had an employee survey right in the middle of the survey process that we did with our team at DOC, Department of communications. And our burnout rate is pretty low. Like, I mean, it's pretty significant in terms of the number. And we talked to our team members just recently about that, and they really gave us feedback on we need to be intentional. We need to be careful about hours worked and emails in the evenings and when to send emails and when to shut down. I talked about we need to really be conscious of shortening those longer days that we had during the pandemic and kind of getting back to pre-pandemic hours because we all were in healthcare all in 24/7, 7 days a week. And it's hard for some of us to step back. And so we're very focused on some major things to make that happen. Lunch and learn, so we can cross collaborate because we're not in together and talk about what each of our teams are doing. So, you know, we have to really work on this because our burnout rate was pretty significant and kind of, as leaders, earth-shattering to us, because we feel like we, you know, are, are doing the right things, but it was a good eye-opener for us.

Bill Klaproth (host): Yeah. I like how you say getting back to those normal hours, because when you work out of the house, you're always at work so that seven o'clock email can creep in there. So Rose, was this a decentralized decision or there wasn't an across the board mandate to do this, right? It was kind of a decentralized decision for your company, yes?

Rose Glenn: That's correct. Michigan Medicine left it up to leaders and depending upon what they did on a daily basis. Obviously, all the people that provide clinical care don't have that option. A lot of us in shared services, whether it was finance, IT, human resources, we had the opportunity. But it was decided to allow the director and the leadership team of that area make their own decision. That put a lot of pressure on me personally. And that's why I started with serving my staff because I wanted to be responsive to their needs.

Bill Klaproth (host): This has been a great discussion. I love all your wonderful ideas. Rose, give us your final thoughts on this new thinking on workplace flexibility so the great resignation doesn't leave you in the dust. Give us your final thoughts.

Rose Glenn: I would say don't be fearful of trying new things. You can always make a change. So have the courage to listen, and to respond. And call it a pilot, try it out, see if it works for your team. And then, don't forget about, if you are hybrid and remote, trying to reduce Zoom fatigue.

one of the things we do is we hold 50-minute meetings instead of one-hour meetings. So people have 10 minutes to use the restroom, get a cup of coffee. So you're really rethinking so much about how you operate as a department when you move to this new kind of workplace,

Bill Klaproth (host): Absolutely. And Denise, your final thoughts.

Denise Beaudoin: Yeah, I would totally agree with Rose, really thinking about being flexible and really thinking about your team in a diverse way. You know, I mean, we have so many different folks on our team and we really need to, like you said, Bill, think about them individually. It's not a one-size-fits-all for everybody. There's people that want to be in five days. There's people that only want to be in once a month. And we got to meet in the middle and just be very, very flexible.

Bill Klaproth (host): Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing these great thoughts. I really appreciate it. Rose, thank you for your time.

Rose Glenn: You're so welcome.

Bill Klaproth (host): And Denise, thank you.

Denise Beaudoin: Thank you, bill.

Bill Klaproth (host): And make sure you sign up for this year's SHSMD's Virtual Conference, October 12th, 2022 plus on-demand through the end of the year. The virtual conference will feature access to 50 plus sessions recorded from the September in-person annual conference plus all new live sessions. Just go to SHSMD.org. That's shsmd.org/virtual to learn more and to get registered. And please join us at the next SHSMD Connections Annual Conference September 2023 in Chicago. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and find access to our full podcast library at shsmd.org/podcasts. I'm Bill Klaproth. As always, thanks for listening.