The Future Of Work: Transcript - Episode 75: Partnering With Education To Ensure Long Lasting Employer/Employee Relationships With Donald Bradburn, Director Of HR Strategy Design, Workforce Planning & Analytics At Kaiser Permanente Episode 75 (2024)

As we look at how we have a relationship with ouremployees, traditionally, American businesses, it's transactional.And what I hear younger generations saying and what I see in theworkforce is they want a relationship. So, managers and leadershave to shift their mind to be in it's not a transaction, but it'sactually, we want a relationship.

The workforce landscape is rapidly changing andeducators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparingstudents before they enter the workforce to make our communitiesand businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education.

But we need to understand how to change andadjust so that we can begin to project where things are headedbefore we even get there. So, how do we begin to predict thefuture?

Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President ofEconomic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City College, andhost of this podcast.

And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co-host ofthis podcast.

And we are starting the conversation about thefuture of work. We'll explore topics like how education can partnerwith industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one ofour highest goals; more internships and PCC students in theworkforce.

We at Pasadena City College want to lead thecharge in closing the gap between what our students are learningand what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. Thisis a conversation that impacts all of us. You, the employers, thepolicymakers, the educational institutions, and the community as awhole.

We believe change happens when we work togetherand it all starts with having a conversation. I'm ChristinaBarsi.

And I'm Salvatrice Cummo, and this is the Futureof Work.

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Future ofWork Podcast. I am your host Salvatrice Cummo. Today, we'll betalking about workforce planning and development and what theoutlook for the next generation of workforce will look like.

We will also talk about what employers can do tomake sure they keep their employees coming back in this fast-pacedworld with high rates of turnover. With that said, we are excitedto welcome back Don Bradburn, who has previously joined us for theFuture of Work Conference. Our first one, in fact.

Don is the Director of HR Strategy, Design,Workforce Planning and Analytics for Southern California and Hawaiimarkets for Kaiser Permanente. With over 12 years of experience inhuman resources and workforce planning and development, Donunderstands the need to support operational departments and theimportance of timely, responsive, and accurate advice from the HRstaff.

As an HR director, he developed his staff tounderstand the primary role of human resources is to assistmanagers, supervisors, and employees with problem-solving. Welcomeback, Don.

Oh, thank you, Salvatrice for having me back.It's a pleasure.

Love it. As I was sharing the intro, I thought,oh my gosh, that's right. Don was our first guest at the Future ofWork Conference back in 2019, right?

Yeah, it was the fall before everything took aturn.

Took an immediate right-hand turn, right?

Right.

Well, the Future of Work conferences, one that weare so proud to always host every year. And some of our audiencemembers might know who you are, others may not. So, I think itmight be really a good idea to share with our audience what led youto this work in human resources and workforce planning, andanalytics, and why is this something that continues to really be aninterest to you?

Actually, I always start off by telling peoplehuman resources was something I always had sworn I would never do.For anybody who's in their college classes saying "I will never,"that could become the exact opposite of your life, just becausethat's the way paths take you.

But originally, when I was studying, I waslooking in business and talking about finance and accounting, andthose were things that drove it, but you also know I served in themilitary, and one of the last assignments I had was doing trainingand training and development.

And that actually brought out a certain part ofme that I really kind of connected with helping people grow andprogress. And then as I transitioned out of the military, it kindof led a natural path into human resources and training anddevelopment, organizational development.

And from there, it kind of grew. And I mentionedthe math part of it and the finance and accounting simply becauseit leads back to where I finally come with the workforce planningand analytics. I think over the time, I've had some experiencesthat really drove and focus kind of my approach in HR, onworkforce, on strategy, workforce development, workforceplanning.

And one of those, I think that sticks out to methat kind of really drives it was in 2008 when the financial crisiskind of happened, I was in Southern California with the county ofSan Diego and their department of health and human services. And in2009, they were going to do a reduction and there was plannedreduction for about 300 staff. And there was a piece of me havinggrown up kind of in the military, you don't leave anybody behindand you want to make sure that you do right by everybody.

And all I said was "If this is what we're goingto do, then let's talk about it now. Give me a year," because as Ilooked at the numbers and I looked at turnover, I looked atretirements, and promotions, demotions, all those things - and Ilooked at all those factors and I said we can place these 300people if we just turn internally.

And there may be times where we need to goexternal. But if these are the types of jobs we're filling, we needto do it internally and we need to shift our workforce and keepthem engaged. Because it stems from a couple of ways. One, Ibelieve you have to do right by people and you don't leave thembehind. Everybody has that piece.

From an organizational perspective at that point,it was a challenging time. You know, there was a lot of people, atleast one member of the family had lost a job after that crisis.And to put somebody out that we could repurpose (for lack of abetter word), it just didn't seem right. And then there was thefact that you want to make sure that you address what I would callsurvivor guilt.

Anytime you do a reduction in force, the peoplewho are left behind had connections with the people who were goneand it does drag on morale. The good thing was we were able to doit. We placed all 300 people and that kind of drove a commitment tosay, we have to do better in human resources when we look at theworkforce; how we bring them in, how we treat them, why they'rehere, and how we help them transition to retirement.

And so, those are some pieces that really stuckout to me, as what drives my passion for the work. I often sharethe other piece is I came from a low-income community in theMidwest. I didn't know it at the time, but I got an internshipusing what they called JTPA (Joint Training Partnership Act), Ithink is what it stood for, which is the predecessor of funds thatstill trickle down today.

That gave me a sense of work ethic, it made mehave a sense of purpose. And so, I also see it as giving back inthat regard that I once benefited from an internship with thesemonies, and now, I have the ability to kind of bring that to lifefor other people.

That's beautiful. You know, we use these terms,HR strategy, workforce planning, all of these technical workforceterms that are very fluid in my humble opinion, depending on theindustry sector, depending on who you're speaking with. Throughyour lens, the terminology of workforce planning, analytics, HRstrategy, what does it really entail? What are all the weedsinvolved in that? And what does that look like for you?

It's a very all-encompassing thing. And even somedays, I go, "Wait a minute ..." Like we seem to be shifting in whatwe do, but it's really just adapting to the current environment andanalyzing our workforce on a micro level and looking at kind ofwhat movements we're seeing as far as turnover is a driver inthere.

Also, we have in Southern California market, wecall it a churn. And this is where people are moving from oneservice area to another maybe to be closer to home, but it causes adisruption in the workplace. And so, we kind of try to like to beable to manage that. And it also, for our line of work, it gets tothat continuity of care because you don't want different peopleshowing up every day at the patient's bedside. And so, that playsinto it.

We also look at when we expand in the market totry to identify what are our true needs. And an example of that, aswe are getting ready to open an MOB, a medical office building,sorry about that - I start using acronyms. And the question is, iswe know when we want to staff, but we don't know like how many ofthose are external or how many people will want to move closer tohome from where they currently work.

And so, if we work in doing some predictiveanalytics to kind of say where pieces might fall, because eventhough it's opening in Marietta, the reality is the end state maybethat there're more vacancies in Riverside or Moreno Valley, or evenSan Diego where people are saying, "Hey, like I live in Mariettaand I want to be closer to home" because all of the changes in theenvironment with COVID-19, one thing didn't change; people likeshort commutes. So, that's been a constant through there.

So, we do those from the analytics perspectiveand we try to kind of keep our pulse on what the needs of thebusiness are to deliver the service. And the strategy piece reallyties into how do we fill those gaps? And specifically with HR, it'sreally, how do we fill in those talent gaps? But it also can be howdo we identify and fix performance gaps on an organizationallevel?

Yeah. You got me thinking, is there a specificentity or who or what entity I should say, are you looking at forthe information you need to do some of that strategy work? Yes,you're looking internally, but I have to believe you're lookingexternally too, especially with all the stuff happening out in theworld. Who are you following that kind of helps inform thosedecisions for you?

That's actually a great call-out because I didn'tgo to the macro level, which is really driving a lot of what we seetoday and a lot of the work we do. And I'm sure we'll get into it alot more later, but we're looking at we have a partnership withGartner Group. They provide a lot of healthcare-related statistics,and then we also work with the American Hospital Association ofSouthern California.

But we also work with our education partners, thepeople that we're working with, and seeing what they're seeing onthe ground as far as ... specifically one of those is enrollmentsand programs. And that sets the table for how we look at what ourfuture holds because we know there's a growing demand. Internally,we see what exits happen, but the piece that you don't always haveand you have to go external is to say, what do those enrollmentslook like? And are we going to produce and graduate enough talentto fill those pieces?

And so, yeah, that's a very good call-out. Welook to a lot of people for benchmarking about where we are againstother organizations in our field, but also, to education partnersto see like what could be the future gaps and what demand do weneed to have?

So, it's interesting, you're looking ateducational institutions as one of the partners, as one source ofinformation. And then we're looking to you. So, it's like we'redoing this exchange of information, which is really helpful becausewe can tell you through our perspective and our lens what we'reseeing as the ask and the demands from our participants, ourstudents, our adult learners.

And then you're sharing with us really kind ofthe exact pulse and so that we can adapt to what you're facing andensuring that we're filling the talent gaps or trainings, or fillin the blank - anything that you need, we can help. We cancertainly help with that.

You mentioned adapting to the currentenvironment. Like that's really the theme across strategy work andplanning, and with the support of the analytics is adaptation. Andthere's been an enormous amount of disruption the last fewyears.

I cannot even imagine the level of intensity ofthose disruptions within an institution like Kaiser, both at acorporate level and a hospital level. What major changes reallyhave been made in the way that we look to the future of work, asfar as the future workforce, and what mindset change there's beengiven all these disruptions?

I think we just live in a disruptive world rightnow, if I was just to be completely honest. But the last few yearshave been very challenging. You know, for us at Kaiser, we hadalways embraced this virtual visit with physicians, and some ofthem were just done via voice or phone, but we really startedupping the game as lockdowns occurred.

And the idea was there's still people withchronic conditions that need access to healthcare . And so, what wereally started moving more towards was these virtual visits, wherethey were video conferences between the doctor and the patient.

And then that took a change in what people had toperfect as far as their skills, because it's one thing when you'retalking to somebody face-to-face and you can see all the nonverbalsof a patient who maybe is going through a very stressful time todoing it virtually.

So, there is pieces that even though it becomesmore real than just a phone call, you have to tighten up your softskills and be able to read the room, so to speak, and understandwhat's going on and how to carefully probe for the patient toprovide more information over that.

So, I think there was a big shift there and howwe look at it. We had a lot of administrative work where peoplewere actually just, we went virtual being, I being one of them. Andeven that as simple as it sounds sometimes, can become with its ownset of complications about how you keep that connectedness withyour teams and with others and with operations.

So, there was a lot in that space, but I thinkwhat's really disruptive in healthcare has been with the responseto the pandemic and being that it was so broad geographically, wesaw nurses and healthcare people moving more to this travel, whatwe call travel nursing and travel staffing.

And so, they were basically more kind of like thegig economy and healthcare came together. And so, we saw peoplemoving towards that. At first, people, I think say that was reallykind of about compensation, but as I reflect on it, I see and hearyounger generations talking about what they want out of theworkforce with more flexibility, they want to have a little moreownership.

I can see where that business model actuallyappeals to them. And I think that requires organizations like oursto start to think about how do we provide that same flexibility tothe worker, even in a healthcare setting because clearly, noteverybody can work remote when they need to be by the patient'sbedside.

But do we have to go with the virtual or remote?Or is there something else about how we deliver services that canbe repackaged so that it's more attractive to younger generationsfor one; and two, how do we package it so that maybe people whowere thinking of retiring, maybe still have a commitment, stillwant to work, but they don't want to work the traditional 40-hourweek or 12 hour days as we often see in patient care settings.

So, I think there's been disruption, there's beensome change. I've seen shifts in leaders who have said absolutelyno remote, actually go to more flexible where they're willing towork with the employees to say maybe on these days for that type oftask, you can do it elsewhere, but other times, you come here.

So, I think the conversation still continues. Ithink it probably should get broader and not just focus on thecontext of the location that people are at, but also, the time, thedays, the hours that we ask of people. You start to see thatthere's a shift going on in the workplace where people like to havea little bit more work-life balance.

And I imagine it has to be challenging becausethere's a level of care or there's a level of promise throughKaiser's mission and servicing and caring for their patients. So,it's like that delicate dance between repackaging, what you weresharing earlier - repackaging the job. I'm going to just say itthat way, and still delivering the level of care that Kaiser'ssuper proud about. But I have to believe that's hard. I don't wantto be in your shoes right now.

That is definitely a challenge for that veryreason, because first and foremost, the commitment is to themember.

I like that you call them a member and not apatient, I like that. I picked up on that. Well, through that,through addressing these and seeing where the opportunities are andadapting, is there one issue or challenge that rises to the topwhen we speak about this fluidness within our workforce and theadaptation? Maybe just not through the lens of Kaiser that you'reseeing, but kind of across the board in the healthcare sector,might there be one?

I'm going to call it one, but it's got two sidesto it. So, if I can use some flexibility here myself.

For sure.

And I think we sit here and the problem is wehave a critical nursing shortage, not just in Southern California,not in California - across this country, there is a critical nurseshortage that's only getting worse. You know, I think when I hadjoined the Future of Work Conference in 2019, I had mentioned therewas a brewing talent war and I think some people thought that was alittle dramatic to call it that.

But here we are a few years later and you see,you can't turn on the TV, open a newspaper and not see thatemployers are struggling to keep, to retain, to attract talent. So,I don't know what else to call it, because I'll tell you, thattalent acquisition folks feel like it's a blood bath. They areprobably the hardest job there is right now.

But it's twofold in the sense that I want to gobigger because it gets to the heart of the problem is, and I thinkit holds true for other occupations, but it's really important forhealthcare, as we have these factors as aging population, we havebaby boomers that are retiring. I think it's what 10,000 a day thatpeople are leaving the workforce of the baby boom generation. Yet,we're not bringing in that same number of workforce.

So, the drain is pulling so hard and it's justmaking the situation so much worse in nursing. So, I think there'stwo things. One is we got a problem with low enrollments in careerfields or education programs that lead to this career. But we alsohave this problem with people leaving.

So, this nursing shortage is really created bythis pull from both sides. But like you said, is it a problem or isit an opportunity? And I think when we talk about it in a futureperspective, this requires us to stop, think about, and reframe howwe attract talent and how we retain talent.

And I'll say specifically, this is going torequire industry and colleges and education partners to reallycoordinate. And it gets back to what we were sharing. We have someinformation and you have some information. But at the end of theday, what we both really want to know is how many people do we needto get through these programs, to land in these jobs, to meet theneeds of the community.

And so, that's a piece of it, but I think theother one is, is we have to rethink how we view the traditionalwork-life. In the sense of we've always had this; you come into anorganization, you work, and then you retire, and it's that abrupt.And that, for many years worked because you needed to free up theopenings for younger generations to take on the roles and to begainfully employed.

But that's not the case today. We need the olderworkers to stay and we also need more newer workers. And so, Ithink the challenge on the employer side is how do we change theirwork so that they're interested in staying longer? What does thatlook like? And how do you partner with the education? Becausethere's opportunities there.

We know that a lot of people don't want to justabruptly leave, but as an employer, we're often rigid to, well, youneed to work the full schedule or retire, but you can't have thislike flexible thing. I call it a transition to retirement, which isgood for them, but it's also good for us. I think we've got tofigure out that.

And then if I circle back to what I originallysaid with the shortage in the community colleges and not gettingthe enrollment or the other piece of the puzzle as we all know, isclinicals. And community colleges can train more people but if youdon't have a place to do the clinicals, it's not going to work.

And so, there's an opportunity there. How do weuse these folks who are getting ready to retire, how do you takethose, and maybe they can help with the clinical rotations. Maybethey can help the community colleges with having more educators.There's a way to use their knowledge, skills, and abilities, andtheir talents that they've accommodated over 40-plus years versusjust saying, "Well, here's your retirement gift, I hope you enjoyretirement."

What do you think is that hesitation, Don? Likewhat do you think is that hesitation on the flexibility piece?

I think it's a hard shift for people to shiftfrom because we're so used to it, it's so ingrained in us overyears, but then operationally, people struggle with, I need to havea schedule done and that can be complicated if I have to workaround folks.

But I think at the end of the day, you know what,life is going to get more complicated when you don't have anybodyeither. And so, sometimes, you have to say maybe that's not easy,but it's better than what I have. And I have to adapt to that.

Maybe it takes a little more creativity to do thescheduling, but I think we got to start the conversation soonerrather than later of this population, twofold, how do we get inthere? How do we make sure the younger generation says,"Healthcare's the job for me? That's my calling. I want to doit."

And how do we say, hey, maybe you're thinkingabout retiring and there are days that you think are better thanothers. And sometimes, you're ready to throw in the towel. But whatif we had an opportunity for you to share with the next generationwhat you've learnt and that be your focal point?

I think there's a lot of complex pieces aroundit, but we know that from other dynamics, when you take youngergeneration and older generation folks and you create like amentor-mentee relationship in there, that you often find that, thatyounger generation will flourish with that.

And as well, it's also good for the seniors inthe community and people who are getting up there to be able tostill have that value, feel that worth, and actually make adifference in somebody else's life. And I think it's right inhealthcare because that's really what these folks have done theirwhole career, is help others.

Right. And be of service, and they're alreadywired that way. Are there other examples that Kaiser is workingtowards on internal growth? I mean, we talked about bringing in newtalent and retaining the talent that is in transition, but whatabout those kind of in the middle? I'm curious to kind of see likewhat programs are involved in helping grow and upskill everyoneelse in between

Salvatrice, this is probably the most importantpart of the conversation today with that. And I often hear, we talkabout talent acquisition and people will say, oh, we want to havean early career initiative and bring in younger people. If that'sall you do, you're going to fall short. The math is just not onyour side.

More people are leaving than you can bring in.And so, in 2019, we started doing apprenticeships. We have thissterile processing apprenticeship that we do. It's an internalpipeline. We take people who are in housekeeping, environmentalservices, food services, and we upskill them with a program, givethem 600 hours of on-the-job training, then connect them with amentor in the line of work. We grow our own essentially inthere.

There's still room to bring people from outside,yes. The demand is ... you can't do one or the other, you have todo both. It really changed the way we do it. We're now in ourfourth cohort. We continued those through the pandemic. We also doupskilling programs for our nurses. We have programs so that theycan change specialties. So, if they're just in med surg, but theywant to go be a nurse in the ED, like we have a program for them tochange that specialty.

We also still had new grad programs. They kind ofgot paused. And now, we're back with them again to bring in newtalent. We also did a wound astronomy care nursing program. Woundastronomy care nurses are so hard to find. It was one of those weidentified and said we could keep searching or we can say, "Hey,who do we have that wants to do this?" And our response was reallygood.

We had challenges during the pandemic withdifferent requirements for people to get into the clinicals. Butall in all, we got through it. They've graduated, they got theircertifications. They've all transitioned into the work. So, thoseare a couple, we're always looking for ways to do it because at theend of the day, we also know younger workers are looking for careerpaths. They want an employer that's invested in their growth.

And I always tell people, they're not just sayingit, when they show up, you're going to have a retention problem ifyou can't show it in action. And so, you have to be doing that withyour internal people. Otherwise, when they come in, they're goingto be like "They're not doing it for the people who are here, whywould they do it for me?"

So, it puts the pressure back on the employer toreally make good on developing staff. And the last piece that Iwould just say to that is, is I have these conversations wheremanagers go "It takes time." Well, you can keep sorting throughresumes, scheduling interviews, have people cancel theirinterviews, and go back to the drawing table over and over again oryou can invest a little bit of time in the people who are alreadyhere and grow them.

But at the end of the day, the other one is, is Ialways put out to people, when we talk about improving employeeengagement, workforce development, career development is at thecore of engagement. Nothing says engagement more than investing inthe people you have and giving them an opportunity to grow. That'show you engage people.

It's not just some appreciation luncheon. Theyhave to see it, feel it, live it, experience it every day. Andthat's the shift that I think we and other employers are startingto realize.

Do you think it's too little too late? Obviously,it's something we should be doing right now.

I think for some, it may be a little too late asfar as keeping up with the competition. For us, I look at it and Isay, well, we have a foundation, we just need to scale up. We needto make this a way of life. It shouldn't even be a challenge, itshould just be the first thing that people think of.

I use the example - I told you we did the sterileprocessing apprenticeship. We filled internally. That was a job,but that came about because we were having trouble retaining andattracting sterile processing types. To this day, all of them aregetting filled internally through our training program.

We still get some that come in from outside, butthe majority of them are internal ones. And so, as we facerecruitment challenges, that's an example of where if we do it, youhave less of a strain because you have a pool of people that youcreated, but then you can look externally too, but you're notsolely reliant on one thing or the other.

For sure. There's so many little like goldennuggets from this conversation, Don. I really appreciate it. I'lltell you what; I really hope that our listener is picking up onthose golden nuggets too. Oftentimes, we just said it - we spend somuch time concentrating on those who are departing andtransitioning out and filling in those gaps. But we spend verylittle time, sometimes no time into investing in the people thatare already here to fill those gaps.

And I love the fact that you said - look, tell meif I got this right; career development, invest in the people,that's how you get employee engagement.

Absolutely, spot on.

These one-off cookies and coffee, and theseone-off appreciations, yes, they're helpful. You know, don't get mewrong, but that's not part of culture. So, what I heard was this ispart of culture.

Yes. It has to be part of the culture. And Iwould just share a little bit more on that and it gets a little bitbig. I go on the macro level. But I think as we look at how we havea relationship with our employees, traditionally, Americanbusinesses, it's transactional.

And what I hear younger generations saying, andwhat I see in the workforce is they want a relationship. So,managers and leaders have to shift their mind to be it's not atransaction, but it's actually we want a relationship. And with therelationship, a healthy relationship, you get good engagement, youget outcomes, you get people who are committed. And that becomes socritical.

And I will just end with this part saying it'sreally critical in healthcare because at the end of the day, as Ihave always said, our employees will treat the patients the way wetreat them. And so, we want the members of Kaiser Permanente to betreated well, we have to treat our employees well.

We have to take care of them the way we want themto take care of all of our members, because they're the face of thebusiness. The member-facing people have to realize there'sopportunity, there's growth, there's value. And that takes a lotfor leadership to get that.

Well, I'll tell you what, we couldn't have endedin a better note, Don. I really appreciate that. This has beenabsolutely lovely. Thank you again for all of your commitments, andto your commitment to helping us as a system, solve all theseopportunities. We thank you very, very much.

I know this is not a one-and-done conversation.I'm sure you and I will be chatting again. If there are audiencemembers that would like to connect with you, what would be theappropriate place or appropriate way to contact you?

They can always connect on LinkedIn. I think youhave that piece on there, but you can also email usscal-wfpd@kp.org. Again, that's scal-wfpd@kp.org.

Thank you so much. We'll make sure to put thosein the show notes. Don, it's been wonderful. You've got a busyschedule. I want to let you to it. Thanks again. Thank you verymuch. Have a good day.

No problem. Anytime Salvatrice, have a goodone.

Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you for listening to the Future of WorkPodcast. Make sure you're subscribed on your favorite listeningplatform so you can easily get new episodes every Tuesday. You canreach out to us by clicking on the website link below in the shownotes to collaborate, partner, or just chat about all things futureof work. We'd love to connect with you.

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