At a time when demands on the health care workforce are escalating, it’s important to understand the role of frontline leaders in team engagement and patient well-being. Panelists in a recent American College of Healthcare Executives webinar explored trends in this area, highlighting how frontline leaders can ensure a cohesive experience for employees and the patients they serve. Emerging technologies such as software platforms and AI can play an active role in the effort.
UNC Hospitals Chief Operating Officer Rowell Daniels and Memorial Hermann Memorial City Medical Center Chief Nursing Officer Donna Beecroft offered suggestions on how to support new frontline leaders, balance managers’ growing “spans of control” and understand ever-changing hiring needs. A recent set of national survey data from Laudio Insights underpinned their insights.
Laudio President Tim Darling pointed out that there are more junior frontline managers in US health care than ever before. Data show that about 60% of support service managers have five or fewer years of managerial experience, and that trend has been widening over the past couple of years as older managers depart the workforce.
Darling noted that senior managers are more likely to check in with their team members, interact with them meaningfully, celebrate their achievements and recognize their efforts than younger ones are. Taken together, these trends underscore the need for different “generations” of staff to interact and share their perspectives on patient care.
Paving the way for new leaders
Daniels pointed out that UNC Hospitals is constantly working to identify and invest in the next group of organizational leaders. It also focuses heavily on retaining and supporting existing managers and conducts regular check-in meetings to ensure their career paths remain clear. Like other systems, Daniels said, UNC Hospitals “experienced a great number of turnovers coming out of the COVID years. So we’ve been in a rebuilding process.”
The system’s retention efforts have included annual service award celebrations recognizing people in five-year anniversary increments, and its latest effort awarded about 1,200 leaders and staff with a combined 13,000 years of experience. “By far, the bulk of those years were represented by individuals just hitting their five-year mark,” Daniels said.
Purposeful succession planning meetings are conducted to keep teams engaged in the system’s future. “It has really positioned us well to know what are the opportunities that are coming up, what are the strengths and weaknesses of our current leadership team, how do we supplement those weaknesses, and how do we ensure that we’re really not skipping a beat as it relates to the integrity of our leadership team,” Daniels said.
The system also creates “strike teams” that partner a hospital executive with a physician leader to address specific service-line issues. Mentoring opportunities in areas like fiscal and operational planning and clinical services help future leaders grow in confidence.
Daniels offered an example of a recent succession planning “win.” A highly senior clinician leader in perioperative services was on the cusp of retiring, and the system was able to identify the situation early so a successor could be identified and prepped for the role.
Prepping next-generation talent to step up
Beecroft described how Memorial Hermann nurtures a pipeline of new managerial candidates to respond to changing needs. “Our frontline leaders are where we’re really leaning in to ensure we provide them with the best opportunity to be successful,” Beecroft said.
Beecroft stressed the importance of intentional connection and purposeful interaction with emerging talent, adidng that a leader’s own self-reflection should be the first step in the staff-building process. “If I don’t understand who I am, then I can’t share myself with you or others, and I think that’s really powerful,” Beecroft said. Assessment tools, purposeful reading, one-on-one conversations and idea-sharing meetings have been helpful in this process.
A highly structured mentoring program pairs new and senior leaders, grouping individuals according to shared interests. A succession planning process identifies how far staff members are from retiring, and which internal candidates may show promise.
Technology also plays an important role in the system’s drive to support its workforce. Deploying new platforms and software to ease stress and workload is a key part of employee stewardship, Beecroft said. “We have all this data coming in. We’re really looking at how we can truly alleviate administrative burden for our managers.”
Beecroft discussed an initiative called the “tag-team approach,” which pairs staff members on projects based on their strengths and interests. One team included an administrator known for good cultural and hiring instincts, as well as a health educator and a patient navigator, and together they began handling all acute-care recruiting.
“We leverage talent,” Beecroft said of the system’s staff development philosophy. “We’re able to give people something that they love to do.”
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