Bill Klaproth (host): This is a special podcast produced on-site at SHSMD Connections 2025 in Dallas, as we talk with speakers and session leaders direct from the show floor. I'm Bill Klaproth, and we're joined by Mari Considine, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer. And Cari Burke, Associate Vice President of Marketing, Communications and Development, both from Ascenda Integrated Health. Mari and Cari, welcome.

Cari Burke: Thank you, Bill. We're thrilled to be here.

Mari Considine: Thanks, Bill. Happy to be here.

Host: I'm happy you're here, and happy to talk to you both at SHSMD Connections 2025. Mari and Cari are here to share how their educate, engage, repeat strategy is transforming employee engagement across their organization. So this is really going to be fun.

Mari, let me start with you. You helped champion, Ascenda's educate, engage and repeat strategy across the organization. What inspired this approach and how did you connect internal communications and employer branding to drive engagement amongst such a large dispersed workforce?

Mari Considine: You know, it started back in 2019, we knew we could do better. In healthcare you have mobile workforce, people are everywhere. We really needed a way to figure out how we could reach everybody, and that's the challenge. Because everybody gets information differently. We have a mobile workforce. Some of them are app connected, others are at a desk all day.

And so we figured the problem was not the platform, but it was the strategy. And so for us it was putting together the educate, engage, repeat strategy and have everything fall in line with that. And so it works with our app. It works with our desktop intranet, it works with our email, it works with even individual events when we're trying to promote people to come to our annual staff event for recognition or our annual town hall event.

We really implement this strategy with everything that we do. And what it's done is it's made things easier. Honestly, it has made our staff have to focus less on individual posts because everything is tied to our strategy. And we've really been able to move the needle. One of the things that we're really proud of is our intranet is up at 95% of our staff use it.

And, that's pretty staggering to us when we were starting off with like five, 10% of our staff using our intranet. So we've really been able to move the needle in lots of different areas, help with engagement and help certainly develop our culture.

Host: So Mari, you mentioned strategy several times. Cari, let me ask you this, you were instrumental in putting this strategy into practice. Can you walk us through one or two practical tactics that really moved the needle in reaching your mobile and multi-location workforce?

Cari Burke: Yeah, so we want to make sure that anytime we are starting a new internal initiative, that we always go back to the strategy. So we talk about educate. How are we going to first educate our employees? What does it look like engaging them, and what does the repeat stage look like? How are we going to make sure that it doesn't just stop after one time introducing it? So one way that we've been really successful with that is being a part of our new hire orientation.

So not only do we participate in the two day in-person introduction, but we take it a step further and do a three series email. And so what that entails is having, we talk about what our intranet looks like and what to expect, show them how to use it. But then the email really reinforces that so that they can go back to it.

So, there's so much information that you learn in the first couple of days, the first couple of weeks, at any employment, or any place of employment. So being able to see those emails and walk yourself through that at your own pace, we really have been successful in being able to do that.

And the open rate is great. So we know people are utilizing the next part of that, so.

Host: Which has gotta be a feel good, I would imagine.

Cari Burke: Absolutely.

Host: So you mentioned you built this so it wouldn't stop after one time. It's like, hey, we're doing this for the month and then a month later we forget about it and onto something else.

Exactly. So Mari, from your perspective as a senior leader, how do you make sure engagement isn't treated as a, a one and done, but instead becomes part of the culture? And what did it take to get executive buy-in to sustain momentum? Because that's always very important.

Mari Considine: Yeah, I mean, it's data and dollars. We're really looking at the data and we're showing how the dollars are showing true ROI on everything we're doing. And so when we talk about internal communications, a lot of times senior leaders in particular, think it says this touchy feely type of feel good thing. But we, when we work with senior leaders, we're really talking about the data.

We're really talking about how everything we're doing is moving the needle on employee retention. You know, it's moving the needle on our culture. Our staff satisfaction surveys are better. So we're able to show the data. We're able to show the return. We're able, again, to show the dollars as to why this investment means a lot to the organization, not just from a, oh, it's really nice that we have this pretty intranet and we have fun things that we post on there.

But there is a strategy behind every fun post. So whether that is, you know, hey, kudos to the facilities team for redoing the lobby, it looks great. All the way up to just a fun post about a motivation Monday. There is a strategy behind everything we do. Everything is tied to the strategy to make sure that we have true ROI on it.

And so, again, when we're talking about this, we're really focused on the data. We're really focused on the dollars. We're really focused on that return on investment.

Host: So it sounds like you really thought everything through on this.

Mari Considine: Oh yes. This is a labor of love for us. We've been really working on this since 2019. Things have not always gone great. But you know, I think at this time we're able to really show the return. We're really to show that we've moved the needle on culture at an organization that had a lot of challenges when it comes down to staff feeling engaged and then COVID made everybody feel very disengaged.

But we already had a lot of this in place before, some before that happened, so we were really able to utilize that to help us keep people together, keep people focused, and really keep people feeling connected.

Host: And I just want to say data and dollars. Wasn't that, wasn't that a Clint Eastwood movie?

Possibly. Am I wrong? I prob probably wrong. I think I don't probably, you know.

Mari Considine: It might be, but it is how we talk to our leadership. It's how we get them to understand that what we're doing is really, it's, we're not a cost center.

Host: It's a great phrase. Yep. And I love how you put that because it really does put it into perspective. Yeah. So Cari, the session highlights how closely you worked with HR which is another important component of this. What did that collaboration look like day to day, and how did it help align messaging and make engagement more measurable?

Cari Burke: Well, it really had to come from building a partnership and really treating it as a partnership. And seeing how we don't want to take ownership of communication, it really is being able to look at who's important in all of this. And that is our staff, our employees. So working with them to have a better process and making sure that what they want out there is getting to the right people in the right way and just working together

in that matter. It took a little while. It wasn't something that just, oh, yes, we're, let's do this. You know, it really took coming to the table, what is this going to look like? Who's going to do what? And, coming from the creative side and bringing the information and really meshing that together in a good way.

Host: So you had to get buy-in, oh, and put the process together so it all works and fits together. So Mari, I imagine this has strengthened Ascenda's external brand. What changes have you seen in your reputation as an employer and care provider since launching this initiative?

Mari Considine: Oh, it's been really revolutionary for us because I think that, when we have staff talking about how much they like, where they work and how they feel connected about where they work, not only does that help bring in new fabulous employees, but that also helps bring in clients and patients that need care. And so, you think about being in line, in a store and you, always hear people talking and we want somebody to hear, somebody saying how great they love where they work.

And we want them to have their Ascenda swag on when they're doing it. Because it could be the opposite. And I think that we were at one point, probably the opposite, where people felt very disconnected, they felt disenchanted, they felt burnt out. But you really, the work that we're doing, we're listening and we're trying to grow based on what staff is telling us.

And we want people to feel connected. Our employee satisfaction surveys don't lie. And they really are telling us what we need to know, what's working, what's not working. But Top Workplace awards for flexibility and culture. We were very excited this year to win an award specifically for Top Workplace Culture and that really speaks a lot to the work that we're doing.

It speaks a lot to the partnerships that we have with HR and the other teams, and it really speaks to the employee experience.

Host: Well, you mentioned it helps bring in new employees. I would imagine it helps in retention as well.

Mari Considine: Absolutely. I mean, retention is key. Where in healthcare right now, people are leaving at an alarming rate and we do not have the employees to come and take those positions.

I mean, it's just, we're all looking for the same people. And so keeping our people happy, keeping our people engaged is just so important. And it comes back to that data and dollars. It's all about the bottom line. And, when people speak about the touchy feeliness of internal communications, they're really missing the point.

The point is keeping people engaged, people keeping people employed and keeping them at that workplace and they love it.

Host: You know, at this point we just call it D and D.

Mari Considine: Yeah, exactly. You know, I like it.

Host: You know, D and D. Yeah. How'd you guys do it? Eh, D and D, you know. So Cari, every engagement strategy has its surprises. So looking back, what were some of your biggest lessons learned? What worked better than expected? And what might you tweak if you were starting over?

Cari Burke: So I'll tell you one thing that is just universally loved, and that is pets.

Host: Okay? I like it.

Cari Burke: So we've done some things, um, where we've done in contests winning things, right?

And so, we did something this year where we turned a, the March Madness tournament into an internal campaign all about pets. So we had people submit their pets for the contest. They got their cards of their name, their loves, just fun facts about their pets. And people got to vote on their favorite pet every week. And we brought in more engagement for people that, and we can see, you can tell on the back end looking at the analytics, are we getting new users? Are we getting, you know, looking at the engagement skyrocket? And it just blew our socks off. Like we just, yeah, we did not see that happening.

And it was, yeah, it was fun to watch behind the scenes of how many people were engaged and bringing in their colleagues. Vote for my, you can tell, vote for my pet. And, it was really fun. Such a cool idea.

Host: Well, people are proud of their pets and they always want to show them off, right?

Yes. So what a great idea. Yeah. I love that. That is really cool. And when you were talking about something universally loved, at first I thought you were going to say the SHSMD Podcast. Okay.

Mari Considine: True. That's

Cari Burke: coming. Okay. They will love it when we introduce it. That's, that's,

Host: that's, educate, engage, repeat 2.0.

Exactly. Okay. I love that. This has been a great discussion. I want to thank you both for stopping by our podcast booth today. Before we wrap up, I would love to get final thoughts from each of you. Anything you want to add? Mari, let's start with you.

Mari Considine: Yeah. I think, our message really is to start small. I mean, I think that one of the things that we did, that worked really well was we rebranded our communications. We kind of personified it with like a this graphic and really it didn't cost us anything. We got the graphic on shutter stock. We, did all the creativity in-house.

But we rebranded it, we named it something, we made it, really proprietary to our organization so it felt special. My messages start small. I mean, there's lots of little things that you can do to increase engagement. And, again, we have the strategy that's scalable.

It's worked, it's been very successful to us, but it, you don't have to like full on have this big strategy. You really can start small and it's really those small details that make the big difference.

Host: Great advice. Start small. And Cari, how about you? Final thoughts?

Cari Burke: I think, you don't have to come up with a brand new idea every time. You can look at what your organization already has in place that is engaging part of your workforce or, and seeing how you can expand that to include more of your workforce, bringing that higher connection and bringing people together. Everybody has something that's going on that they can just really say, how can we make this better?

Host: Yeah, that makes sense. Well, thank you both. This has really been fun. I really enjoyed it. Mari and Cari thank you.

Cari Burke: Thank

Mari Considine: you Bill.

You. Thank

Cari Burke: you, Bill.

Host: And I was joking earlier before the podcast, these two would make a great morning show. Mari and Cari in the morning.

Cari Burke: It's coming. Yeah, it's coming. We'll do it. That

Host: is 3.0. It's coming people. Alright. Thank you again. We appreciate it. Once again, that is Mari Considine and Cari Burke. And a recording of Mari and Cari's presentation recording will be available to members during SHSMD Connections virtual conference. So make sure you check that out.

And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and please subscribe so you get every episode chock full of goodness people of great healthcare strategists, marketers, topics and solutions, and to access our full podcast library, visit shsmd.org/podcasts. I'm Bill Klaproth.

This has been a production of Doctor Podcasting. See ya.