In Michigan, Corewell Health also offers training and supports attendance to conferences when it’s beneficial to employees’ jobs. IT managers meet with employees to come up with a career development plan so they can progress and reach their goals, says Corewell Health Chief Digital and Information Officer Jason Joseph.
“We have purposeful discussions on what their aspirations are, and what they would need to do to achieve their goals,” he says.
Corewell Health — formerly Beaumont Health and Spectrum Health — also holds an annual two-day digital services summit, where the 1,700-person IT staff can network, attend career development sessions and learn from each other, Joseph says.
“We have sessions where staff teach staff, and we bring in clinicians to talk about the importance of digital technology in their world,” he says.
EXPLORE: What’s next for the digital workplace?
Flexible Work Options at Healthcare Organizations
Most IT employees also want the flexibility to work from home. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, only small pockets of Corewell Health’s IT staff were allowed to telecommute. Now, the digital services department has made hybrid work a permanent option for employees who can do their jobs remotely, Joseph says.
Corewell Health does ask employees to come into the office on occasion so they can have face time with their colleagues. Important conversations and collaboration happen differently when team members are together. He asks teams to hold occasional meetings for what he calls “gathering with a purpose.” The focus is on mental health, wellness and sustaining culture, and less about performance and productivity, he adds.
Similarly, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta allows hybrid work for appropriate job roles, but it asks remote workers to come into the office for important meetings. “If there’s a large meeting with business partners, we ask them to show that flexibility back and come into the office,” says Children’s CISO Stoddard Manikin.
Employees can work seamlessly from home thanks to technology. Corewell Health has standardized on Microsoft Teams for communication and collaboration, while Children’s uses Cisco Webex with softphones and Microsoft 365.
Baptist Health staffers use a mix of Dell, HP and Lenovo laptops and a combination of Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop, Citrix and VMware software to access applications and data remotely. They also use Microsoft 365 and Zoom for communication and collaboration, and key security tools that include CrowdStrike and TauSight, Miri says.
