In the Trenches with Judie Goe HR.com

From the Ground Up: Rebuilding the HR Culture at Phoenix Children’s.

When Phoenix Children’s Hospital made the decision to separate from the Samaritan Health System, they hired Judie Goe to lead their HR team through the hiring and cultural transition processes.

HR.com: Where does your story begin? JG: The Phoenix Children’s Hospital was formed in 1983. We leased space and computer systems from Samaritan Health System. By the late 1990s there just wasn’t enough bed capacity to support either organization so we decided to move Phoenix Children’s into a free-standing area. In early 1999 we purchased a Triad facility and remodeled the building to accommodate the hospital’s needs. It was at this point that the CEO determined that they would need a VP of HR to lead the hiring process and to manage the cultural transition. That’s where I came in. I started with Phoenix Children’s on April 1, 2000. HR.com: What first went through your mind looking at the challenges you were facing? JG: Mass hiring was the first challenge. We had previously contracted many of the positions out through Good Samaritan so we had to rebuild many of the departments. Our main focus was to identify which departments we needed to hire directors for and which departments we could outsource. We started recruiting our Directors in the summer of 2000. We outsourced the hiring for several of our departments to two companies. Sodexho supplied our food and environmental services, plant operations, and biomedical areas. We contracted our security out to Guardsmark. In total the two companies were responsible for the hiring and benefits of about 250 employees. HR.com: What was your biggest challenge? JG: We were recruiting for leadership positions in a very tight labor market which created some difficulties for us. In addition because we were the largest provider of pediatrics in Arizona it was very difficult for us to find leaders that had come out of local acute care facilities. In many instances we had to conduct national searches. HR.com: What was your main sourcing strategy? JG: We did a lot of sourcing through the Internet. We posted job descriptions on the Internet and sent direct emails through professional organizations. We used several job boards including Monster and Jobing.com, but for many of the positions such as our Director of Pharmacy we used a pharmacy professional site. We were very fortunate we only had to use an search firm for one position. One of the most successful strategies was out employee referral program. HR.com: What factors do you think contributed to the success of your sourcing strategy? JG: What we found helpful was contracting a recruiter specifically to source resumes on the Internet. HR.com: Did you use any applicant tracking tools? JG: Yes, but unfortunately the internet-based Applicant Tracking System we chose-- while wonderful in the demo--was a nightmare to implement. After struggling with what should have been a 60-day installation, we found ourselves 120 days later at a critical point in our process without an operating ATS. We had to abandon our original system

and purchase a new one. HR.com: Did you encounter any other problems during you’re the sourcing and recruiting processes? JG: We faced many unique challenges in our quest to fill all the positions. After surveying the labor market we discovered that there were a lot of tenured individuals who wanted to work at our facility but who didn’t want to lose their seniority. Our solution was a bridging package which we offered on a limited basis. We introduced a bridging program for anyone coming from a Phoenix area health care facility and ensured that they maintained their medical benefits and seniority. That approach enabled us to fill approximately 60% of our vacancies in the first 120 days of our major recruitment efforts. We continued to run this program until we opened our doors, which was a scaled-down version, which gave an employee one year of credit for every two years of service at another organization up to a maximum of five years. We also instituted a rehire program to attract some of the individuals who had left our employment over the past years. The program gave them credit for the time that they worked for Phoenix Children’s previously. HR.com: It sounds like you had to employ a variety of strategies to get the job done. JG: Absolutely. Each area requires special tactics and an individualized strategy. We utilized a variety of strategies including holding several job fairs. HR.com: Can you talk about the culture transformation process? JG: The first step in our cultural transformation was identifying our current culture. This task was a little more challenging because Phoenix Children’s was actually split up into three separate buildings. We found we actually had three distinct cultures within our organization. We used Emerge International's Cultural Health Index to provide us with a baseline and as a method of meeting our goal to become the employer of choice. We knew that the organization was going to undergo a lot of changes as we transitioned into a free standing facility and we needed to identify what our current culture was, what we wanted our culture to be, and how to make the transition. We started out the process by sharing with our management team the results of the Cultural Health Index. Their input on the priorities was obtained through a “dot vote” process. We did 35 four-hour presentations about the three C’s: Culture, Communication and Change where we shared the results from the Cultural Health Index survey with our employees. We asked the employees to prioritize their needs and vote on what change or changes were most important to them. The combined input from both sides gave us our set of cultural priorities.

HR.com: Many vendors offer cultural diagnostics, why did you choose Emerge?

JG: In addition to transforming our culture, we also had to coordinate physically moving the hospital. We wanted to find one company who could help us develop transition strategies while remaining true to our corporate values and mindset. We interviewed several consultants and vendors and Emerge came out on top. Emerge helped us re-define our values and make them accessible to our employees. They also worked with senior leadership development and introduced project managers for our transition team structure. In total we created seven transition teams. HR.com: Did you benchmark yourself against normative data? JG: Our main focus was to figure out where we were, but Emerge did benchmark us against normative data which helped us identify our strengths and weaknesses. We

were very pleased with the results. The data indicated that 98% of our employees enjoy their coworkers and 78% trust their managers. The results demonstrated that we had a strong foundation to build on. One area that needed improvement was communication so we created an employee forum to address this issue. The employee forum is a way of communicating what’s happening to our employees and is something we still utilize. HR.com: When you revamped your policies and procedures, did you start from scratch? JG: Many policies were originally brought over from Good Samaritan however, we made a lot of revisions based on the culture we were trying to achieve. For example, we had an internal grievance policy here for a long time but the process only included a review from a manager and HR. To adapt this policy to our new corporate philosophy we instituted a conflict resolution policy in which any internal grievance is reviewed by a committee. The committee is comprised of three employees and two managers to provide the employee with the most objective process possible so that they will feel they have been heard. We also revamped our benefits and compensation programs and have switched to a competency based compensation program for our nurses. Their pay level is directly correlated to the number of competencies they have. They can move up the salary band as they acquire new competencies. Our goal is to reward our nurses for their bedside competencies so that they stay there as opposed to moving into management to get more money. This program is currently in the process of being fully implemented. HR.com: Were there any other actions on cultural issues? JG: We looked at leadership development and issues relevant to transitioning into an employer of choice. One of the questions we asked in the Cultural Health Index was, what does it mean to work in the best place in town? Many employees identified being treated respectfully, having their opinions valued, and communication from their direct supervisor as being important. One of the problems that we identified using the Cultural Health Index was that there were gaps in our leadership development so we are starting a leadership development program with a needs assessment and computer-based training. HR.com: Can you talk a bit about your leadership development programs? JG: Because everyone was so consumed with the construction of the hospital, moving in and opening the doors, we went through a period of time where it was extremely difficult to send our leadership team out for training. So the Director of Education and myself implemented computer-based training. We get together on a monthly basis to discuss the training programs to find out what was learned, what was helpful and what could be improved on. HR.com: Thanks for taking the time to share your story. Will you be continuing to monitor your culture? JG: We probably won’t look at this issue for about three years because we need time to implement all the changes before we will be in a position to re-evaluate our culture.

Judith Goe is Vice President of Human Resources at Phoenix Children's Hospital, with over 15 years of senior leadership experience in health care. In her current position as Vice President Human Resources, she has organizational responsibility for the strategic directions of Human Resources, Occupational Health and Education. She is the former President and current member of the board of directors for the Arizona Healthcare HR Association.