Watch the Webinar Here! https://compliatric.com/developing-a-pathway-for-promotion-leadership-opportunities-within-your-organization/ Join us for this informative session where we will explore the importance of looking internally within your organizations for ways to create enthusiasm, and opportunities to create pathways for learning and leadership. Asking questions such as, "Are our entry level job descriptions robust and do we have the right people filling those jobs?" and, "What are our blind spots for identifying leadership?". We will focus on optimizing internal recruitment, reducing turnover, and stabilizing those entry level positions that are critical to the foundation of your organizations. We will provide real world examples from rural FQHCs in hard-to-recruit areas as well as suggestions and resources for opportunities to promote engaged and committed personnel to your organizations.

1. z
"Developing a Pathway
for Promotion &
Leadership Opportunities
within your Organization“

2. z
▪ Beth Little-Terry, Director of
Healthcare Strategy and
Governance
▪ Over 3 decades of diverse health
care management and leadership
▪ FQHC CEO, COO in Maryland
and Alaska
▪ Grant Reviewer for HRSA
• Jeremy Wilson, MBA & CPA,
Director of Healthcare Finance
and Compliance
• FQHC CFO and Compliance
Officer, Interim CEO
• Certified in Federal Grants
Management
• Over a decade of executive
level financial leadership
experience

3. • A national health care consulting firm comprised of a team of
experts in every facet of FQHC management, specializing the
needs of FQHCs.
• Former FQHC executives with decades of health center
operations experience, providing a broad range of consulting
services
• Provide FQHC related services to FQHCs, FQHC Look-Alikes,
primary care associations, hospital systems, behavioral health
centers, medical practices, academic institutions, not-for-profit
community organizations, health departments and more

4. z
▪ Taking a look inside, opportunities
▪ Gateway to your health center
▪ Findings
▪ Opportunities
▪ Apprenticeships
▪ Development tracks
▪ Culture and Organizational commitment
▪ Investments
▪ Tools and resources
▪ Real life examples
▪ Leadership potential

5. z
Rough Labor Market
▪ Tight labor market means fewer candidates and higher labor
costs
▪ Burnout and disengagement leads to “quiet quitting”
▪ Increase rate of retiring employees

6. z
Leadership Implications
▪ If we’re struggling to bring people in
▪ And we’re struggling to keep people who are already here
▪ How will we identify leaders and find ways to invest in them?

7. z
Polling Question: Who’s in the audience?
▪ HR or Payroll
▪ Accounting/Finance
▪ Clinical
▪ QI/QA
▪ Other

8. z
Turnover
▪ Which departments have your highest rates of turnover?
▪ Medical Assistants
▪ Front Desk/Patient Access

9. z
Polling Question: Does your FQHC have a
recruitment and retention plan or policy?
▪ Yes
▪ No
▪ I don’t know

10. z
What isn’t needed
▪ Another policy
▪ Another toolkit
▪ Another compulsory training

11. z
The solution may be right in front of you
▪ What if the solution to identifying leaders were in your “problem” departments?
▪ We don’t see what we aren’t looking for, so we are going to ask you to be
honest and open-minded as you evaluate your health center’s practices,
culture, and existing leadership.

12. z
An internal look
▪ Why is there turnover?
▪ What are we searching for? Filling a task defined role or potential?
▪ Should we hire “Not a job but a career opportunity”
▪ Develop jobs that include pathway to opportunity.

13. z
Pathways to Leadership and
engagement
▪ Requirements
▪ Investment
▪ Knowledge
▪ Commitment
Not everyone is a leader even if they express a desire; but most people want to feel
included, committed and contribute.

14. z
Organizational commitment
▪ Organizations must understand the investments necessary to
make change and improve organization and patient experience
▪ CEO is committed and able to obtain Board buy-in and support
▪ Culture shift
▪ Develop and support and fund education department; everyone
must know the business!
▪ Maximize the use of technology.

15. z
Strategies to consider
▪ Onboarding and Ongoing Development of Staff
▪ Promoting from within/Succession Planning
▪ Preceptor and Mentorship Opportunities
▪ Connection with local community groups or organizations, high schools, colleges,
universities, and past students
▪ Develop jobs that include pathway to opportunity

16. z
Commitments
▪ Bridging the Gap Between Recruitment and Retention
▪ Connection to Mission/Vision/Community of CHCs
▪ Recruitention
▪ Stay Interviews – The Power of Stay Interviews by Dick Finnegan
https://www.finneganinstitute.com/stay-interviews/
▪ Financial Support
▪ Communicating equitable bonuses or other financial incentives
▪ Staff recognition, professional development, and advancement
opportunities
▪ Creative incentives that set you apart from your competitors

17. z
Advancement Plan/Career Ladders
▪ Tuition reimbursement, CEU support, loan forgiveness program
▪ Formal development plan by staff position
▪ Learning management systems
▪ In-house educational development
▪ Organization culture
▪ Connection to onboarding and performance management of staff.
▪ Coaching and mentoring

18. z
Steps from others
▪ Assessed our workforce needs and existing resources
▪ Built a workforce program including developing mission and vision
statements and a list of goals
▪ Identified activities that align with each component of the workforce
development spectrum
▪ Developed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to monitor impact and
progress
▪ Workforce development plan a living document to be revisited and updated
on a regular basis
▪ Strategic plan alignment

19. z
Who is doing it ?????
▪ Neighborhood Health Center – Oregon
▪ New Health – Washington state
▪ Alluvian Health – Montana
“ Achieve and maintain the position of an employer of choice in our
community by assessing and continuing to improve the culture of
empowerment, engagement and resiliency. As part of this, Alluvian
Health will continue to cultivate and support leadership at all levels
of the organization that will drive its evolution”

20. z
Resource
Neighborhood Health Center
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKGN1gaX52s&embeds_referring_euri=http
s%3A%2F%2Fnwrpca.knack.com%2F&source_ve_path=OTY3MTQ&feature=emb_i
mp_woyt
New Health
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3NA5ZPEJOM

21. z
Redefining positions/roles with
predetermined pathways
▪ Develop pathways each with a curriculum and expected level of
attainment; includes pay increases with attainment and
performance
▪ Considerations:
▪ PSR entry level to finance track
▪ PSR entry level to clinical support
▪ PSR to HR and staff education
▪ PSR to Administrative support
▪ PSR to IT and technology support

22. z
When someone mentions the front desk staff, is
this your reaction?

23. z
Common view of the front desk positions
▪ Not revenue-generators
▪ Not high earners
▪ Easily replaced (or at least they used to be)
▪ Entry-level
▪ Dismissive
▪ Disparaging
▪ Contemptuous?

24. z
Look in the mirror
▪ Do you see yourself staying in an organization
that sees you as
▪ Overhead
▪ Expendable
▪ Uneducated/unskilled
▪ The cause of all kinds of problems (scheduling
issues, billing errors, collections depressed,
data management errors, poor patient
experience)
▪ Remember the millennials?

25. z
Reality of the Front Desk positions
▪ The “face” of your health center
▪ Know your patients as well as your clinicians
▪ Integral part of billing and collections
▪ Direct impact on provider satisfaction and clinical efficiency
(scheduling)
▪ Driver of HRSA and QI requirements (Sliding fee, demographic
info)

26. z
Identifying Leadership Potential
▪ So much priority is given to the clinical side of the house for
leadership and expertise
▪ That’s all well and good
▪ It shouldn’t be exclusive though
▪ There is a wealth of knowledge, skill, and expertise in your front
desk that you are not seeing or using

27. z
Creating the Capacity for Leadership
and Excellence
Step 1: Check your culture, assumptions, and perception.
▪ People can live up to your high expectations
▪ They can also live ‘down’ to your low expectations
▪ Even if unintended, your baseline assumptions and perceptions
of entry-level staff are perceived and will affect morale and
engagement
▪ Disengaged, grumpy staff will automatically be written off as
having no leadership potential; this undermines your effort from
the word ‘go.’

28. z
Creating the Capacity for Leadership
and Excellence
Step 2: Elevate the job description
▪ Elevate the job description
▪ Far more than receptionists, clerks, or cashiers, so don’t pay them as if they were
▪ Review the job description
▪ Is it accurate?
▪ Does it reflect corporate values?
▪ Is it challenging and meaningful?
▪ Is the performance review based on duties (what) and culture (how)?
▪ Hire for attitude and soft skills, train for duties and tasks
▪ Set the expectation, provide the tools and training, watch the excellence rise to the top

29. z
Creating the Capacity for Leadership
and Excellence
Step 3: Be prepared to coach and invest
▪ If the one responsible for developing leaders (supervisors) are inundated with
work, how will they have bandwidth to invest in new leaders?
▪ Having a great potential leader on staff with no one to invest in them is a shame
▪ Are supervisors properly supported? Are executives and directors so ‘in the
weeds’ they can’t invest in new leaders? If so, you’re going to be the dog who
caught the car when you find that great leader.

30. z
Have a Plan, Know the Needs
Step 4: Have a plan and know the demands
▪ Formalized paths (accounting, billing, CHW, administration, etc.)
▪ Recognize and document strengths
▪ Does your customer service supervisor *really* know what hiring needs
other departments have?
▪ The more they know, the more they can evaluate and recommend

31. z
Keeping a good thing going
Step 5: Have systems in place to produce new leaders
▪ The hardest part is getting that first leader in each department/location
▪ Birds of feather flock together
▪ People of character who pursue excellence tend to know other people of character
who pursue excellence
▪ Think of a generous recruitment bonus. Double it*.
▪ Make sure you’re a quality employer with quality processes (someone worth
working for).

32. z
Recap
1. Check your culture, assumptions, and perception
2. Elevate the job description (duties and compensation)
3. Be prepared to coach and invest
4. Have a plan for development, know the need for leaders
5. Have a system the produces new leaders

33. z
Real Life Examples
Autumn
▪ Patient Access Specialist and we enhanced her job description
▪ Quickly became the go-to for any questions
▪ Far and away the best trainer for new staff
What we did
▪ Shadowed billing to see their process
▪ Shadowed MAs to see clinical process first-hand
▪ Promoted to PAS Supervisor and eventually to Operations Manager, just below the Chief
Operations Officer
What we got:
▪ All new PAS’s with markedly better performance, fewer billing denials, improved relationship with
MAs

34. z
Real Life Examples
Kerrin
▪ Brought onboard by Autumn as PAS
▪ Great rapport with (difficult) providers
▪ Rock star at administrative tasks (schedule management)
▪ Excellent communicator, both written and verbal
What we did
▪ Autumn was aware of the CMO’s scheduling woes and inability to focus on critical tasks
▪ Autumn suggested she should be CMO’s Admin. Assistant
What we got
▪ Improvements to QI program since CMO could focus on it
▪ Improved Provider Satisfaction with increased access to CMO/faster responses
▪ Improved clinical efficiencies
▪ Improved satisfaction/retention from a high-value CMO

35. z
Real Life Examples
Jen
▪ PAS- paperwork master; extremely accurate and timely
▪ Friendly, but not super bubbly
▪ “Overqualified” for the job (education w/out experience)
What we did
▪ Autumn knew I was struggling to find a staff accountant and recommended Jen
▪ I had the bandwidth to train her up to do bookkeeping and reconciliations
▪ Invested heavily in training and continuing education
What I got
▪ Within a few years, she became Senior Accountant and 340b compliance manager
▪ Certification in grants management and 340b ace
▪ Oversees 2 FTE
▪ Interim CFO

36. z
Real Life Examples
▪ Krista- PAS to Admin Assistant to Grants Manager
▪ Steph- PAS to Executive Assistant
Other opportunities
▪ Community Health Worker
▪ Outreach and Enrollment Assistance
▪ Medical Records
▪ Billing

37. z
Questions?
▪ Jeremy Wilson – Jeremy.Wilson@thriveandachieve.com
▪ Beth Little-Terry – beth.little-terry@thriveandachieve.com
▪ https://www.thriveandachieve.com/