Workforce, Post-M&A Integration, Cost Reduction, HR Function

---

Through the pandemic we've learned that workforce stability is essential for financial stability and quality outcomes.  

A comprehensive workforce strategy  coupled with the supporting operational implementation plan and infrastructure required should be foundational to any healthcare organization's operating plan. 

Representative services include: 

• Evaluate and recommend changes and enhancements to the recruitment and on-boarding processes to speed time to fill

• In collaboration with key operations and HR internal leaders, develop a multi-year human capital strategy with key goals for workforce recruitment, retention, compensation, and future pipeline development. 

• Develop and recommend specific workforce engagement strategies that are both practical and actionable to improve overall engagement and retention.

Designing and implementing an integrated HR structure that successfully supports the needs of a system can be challenging. Representative services include:

• Develop a complete inventory of current policies and practices, facilitate agreement on where best practices already exist, and develop and prioritize a plan to leverage those best practices across the new combined organization. 

• Recommend organizational structures that provide access to specialized expertise, lowering reliance on expensive external resources. 

• Work closely with you and your team to assess  your current legacy HR structures and opportunities for consolidation or reassignment. 

60% to 70% of operating expense in most healthcare organizations is labor related.  A realistic plan to standardize and consolidate labor and benefits expense is critical for long term success. Representative services include:

• Work closely with your Finance, HR, and Operations teams to help you inventory, assess and prioritize opportunities for vendor consolidation and the standardization of benefit structures, followed by detailed implementation plan.

• Help facilitate agreement across organizational leadership teams regarding cost savings opportunities and acceptable cultural trade-offs.

• Identify areas where consolidation to a corporate services model can deliver savings through reduced management overhead.

Today's post-pandemic operating environment can challenge the most effective HR teams. Representative services include:

• Work with you to objectively assess your current HR talent through a structured and facilitated process.

• Provide you with practical recommendations that can be implemented over time and in harmony with your overall strategic plan.

• Offer interim executive leadership if needed during periods of intense change and restructuring.   

• Mentor an up-and-coming  HR leader to ensure their success in a newly expanded role.

Organizations under operating stress or in transition create unique challenges for executive teams. Retaining top performers when the future is uncertain is difficult, and some leaders are unable to scale to new and expanded roles. Representative services include:

• Provide leadership assessment and recommendations for the retention of key talent to help stabilize  operations.

• Provide confidential advice and counsel to you and your senior team regarding organizational restructuring, executive  alignment, executive coaching, and change management. 

• Offer perspective on the formation of other corporate service divisions, advice and counsel on executive team organizational structures, and related matters.  

Over these last 3 years healthcare organizations have faced unprecedented staffing shortages. There is nothing in the "management playbook" that could have prepared us for this, and the long-term trends do not promise an easier future. 

Like all healthcare leaders, HR leaders have been faced with the need to constantly stretch and re-prioritize their teams. External pay pressures,  evolving  policies, urgent recruitment and retention demands, employee and labor relations support, employee health and safety-- all of these efforts have required an extraordinary and adaptive effort -- often without the skills, resources, technology, and organizational alignment required. 

A  comprehensive plan to stabilize and sustain the workforce while remaining fiscally viable is essential.  In order to support a long-term, sustainable workforce strategy leadership teams will  need to align on the resources, structure, skills, and IT support required for a robust and successful HR function.