The healthcare staffing crisis is over — from the perspective that “this is the new normal,” according to Lisa Abbott, executive vice president and chief human resources officer at Boston Children’s Hospital.
“We’ve got to figure out mechanisms to function in an environment where there are just fewer people coming to healthcare,” Ms. Abbott said on a recent episode of the “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast.”
One key initiative Ms. Abbott has implemented since joining the organization more than two years ago focuses on rethinking annual performance reviews. She began by modernizing the human resources function — creating a new structure and building out the team — to lay the groundwork for change.
“Without that, I don’t think we have much capability to create an organization that is future focused and really meets the healthcare needs of our patients, the research needs of our upcoming researchers, and certainly the community mission that we’re serving,” she said.
In her first year, Ms. Abbott introduced a standardized focal review date, replacing anniversary-date evaluations. The shift allowed for a more consistent and inclusive feedback process.
“It allowed us now to have a real performance management strategy that focuses on continuous feedback, not just that annual review — which most of us have come to really find no favor with, right?” she said. “No matter how simple we make it, nobody wants their annual review.”
The human resources team has since built a framework to include periodic check-ins and stay interviews, pushing the momentum forward around continuous improvement and conversation.
“We’re really making that investment in employee engagement in a way that feels more meaningful and impactful,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like that scary one-time-a-year conversation that we don’t exactly know what’s going to happen and what’s going to be said.”
Another priority is reimagining what it means to be a professional in academic medicine. Part of that work is helping team members connect to a larger mission and purpose.
“We’re really looking to cultivate that interest in the younger generation so that we start to revitalize people’s interest and their passion about working in healthcare,” Ms. Abbott said.
Flexibility is also top of mind as Boston Children’s prepares for ongoing workforce challenges. Ms. Abbott said healthcare needs to embrace a gig economy mindset.
“We are historically very rigid, very structured, very scripted,” she said. “Young people — and even people midcareer — just want something more flexible. They want something more agile. They want multiple themes of intellectual stimulation. We’ve got to create that work environment that provides for agility, provides for growth, but provides for the opportunity to be much more creative and enriching in the things that we offer.”
The need for agility also extends to responding to changes at the federal level.
“We’re all needing to be agile and flexible and really nimble, and make sure that we are responsive to what the current administration is expecting, and that we’re positioning ourselves for success as we move through this transition,” Ms. Abbott said.
Looking ahead, she sees artificial intelligence playing a growing role in shifting employees toward more value-added, interpersonal work.
“AI is taking care of those transactional things that we’re still doing now,” she said. “I think it will also allow us to create that environment that is just much more enriching, much more able to meet people where they are — as opposed to trying to fit people into a really traditional and dated structure.”
