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SPOTLIGHT
HR IS ON THE MOVE! 2 BY THE NUMBERS
Human Resources
3 IN YOUR WORDS
Would you recommend St. Anthony’s as a good place to work?
6 BETTER MEDICINE
An interview with Kathy Coombs
Page
4
B Y
T H E
N U M B E R S
Human Resources
800
Average number of job applications received each month
156
Average number of job interviews each month
72 2
in March 2017
NEW HIRES per month
13.3
3,539
Average tenure in years of Human Resources staff
2,200
223
JOB INTERVIEWS
Average number of
Number of employees at St. Anthony’s
Employees who have St. Anthony’s medical, dental and vision plans
43
Average number of employees who begin a Family and Medical Leave of Absence each month SPOTLIGHT SPOTLIGHT
Gloria Jones, HR Business Partner and Gregg Panus, Worker’s Compensation Coordinator, discuss a return to work date for an employee.
Would you recommend St. Anthony’s as a good place to work? Our winner:
St. Anthony’s is a fantastic place to work! I have worked here on the same floor for 17 years and would not have it any other way. St. Anthony’s has such a family feeling. Every time I am here, it feels like home. Many people would say their co-workers are the main reason they stay, and for me this holds true. My co-workers are some of the best and we have the best manager. Throughout my years here, I have been encouraged to further my nursing career and I really feel upper management values everything I have done with the organization.
Beth Nett, BSN, RN, CMSRN
5 East General Surgery Working here is like working with family. You are working beside people who care about you and want to see you be successful not only in work, but in life was well. It is a place where everyone helps one another. A place where going to work does not feel like a chore, but rather something that you love to do. Ashley Nunley Switchboard
My team of co-workers is awesome! Everyone is very friendly. Mary Ann Faust Home Care
I have been at St. Anthony’s for 25 years. St. Anthony’s has a feeling of a small community hospital. We work as a team as we care for our patients. Even under the most stressful situations you are never alone. Laura Szydlowski RN, CCRN Surgical Intensive Care Unit
I would recommend St. Anthony’s because here you learn the best in healthcare and how to bring those values to patients and family members with what you learn. Angela Erb
Everyone is very friendly and actually show they care about each other. I think St. Anthony’s has good benefits and competitive pay, also. Julie Davidson Patient Relations
St. Anthony’s is where you can make a career and be proud of it. You become part of a family here and the teamwork is top-notch: you’ll never feel alone. Staci Tucker, BSN, RN Emergency Department
You couldn’t dream of finding a better work family. Bonnie Rubicz Emergency Department
Main Admitting has very low turnover. We have an employee who has been here over 40 years; I have been here for 15 years and I am still a newbie. We are a team and are friends for life. We have each other’s backs and love each other. This makes coming to work an enjoyable experience. Jennifer Zink Admitting
They share information with their employees, listen to your ideas and treat you as an adult, allowing you to manage your own time. St. Anthony’s has purpose. Christina Chandler Acute Rehab
St. Anthony’s is a great place to work because everyone here is family. When you walk through the halls people acknowledge you – smile at you. You know you are welcome and in good company. In a sense, it’s a feeling of coming home. Nikki L’Hote, MHA Physician Recruitment
It’s a good place to work because of all the great staff and my amazing coworkers. Teamwork makes the dream work! Amanda Jeffries BSN, RN Medical Oncology/Neuro Medicine
Call Center/switchboard
See more responses on the home page of SAMCare.
MAY 2017
3
Right: Gregg Panus, Worker’s Compensation Coordinator; Margaret Vancil, HR Assistant; and Michelle Simmonds, HR Specialist all just toured the new HR space for the first time. Inset photo: Lynn Finer, HR Business Partner, answers a policy question from an SAMC manager.
Back to the hospital:
HR IS ON THE MOVE!
4
R PROFILES
T
wenty-one years ago, Katie Horton landed a job in St. Anthony’s Human Resources department, on the first floor of the hospital. In late June, after many years at Hyland Education & Training Center, Katie and her 15 co-workers are heading back to the first floor, around the corner from the cafeteria. “I’m excited about the move,” said Katie, Manager of Employment. “It will be more convenient for our applicants – they can come to us and we’ll get them right to the manager. And for employees, we’re just down the hall from the cafeteria.” The new space has been custom-built to the HR team’s specifications and is divided into three sections: Employment, HR Business Partners and Benefits. “They built it to our needs and the way we operate in HR, and
for future growth that we would anticipate,” said Kathy Coombs, Executive Director of Human Resources. “I don’t know if it’s ever been done that way before.” The HR team stays busy serving St. Anthony’s 3,500plus employees. It also serves former employees who still have pensions or 401ks at the medical center, as well as some contract employees who still feel most comfortable calling St. Anthony’s HR department for questions and assistance. And everyone who works on campus – whether employee, contract employee, or those who visit regularly – must train through new employee orientation, held every other Monday. “I think sometimes people don’t realize all the behindthe-scenes work we do on a daily basis, from fielding questions to our regular job duties to running turnover and
Katie Slinkard, HR Assistant II
Maureen Donnelly, Benefits Specialist
Years at St. Anthony’s: 1
Years at St. Anthony’s: 18
A majority of my day is spent on the phone scheduling interviews and verifying references, in addition to their work history. Other tasks include tracking of new hire bonus information, coordinating management orientation for new managers, and assisting recruitment with new employee orientation preparation. The best part of my job is my work family. We truly function as a team and provide every kind of support needed, every day.
On a daily basis, along with my two co-workers, I assist employees with their benefit questions. This includes explaining the benefits that are offered by SAMC, helping employees enroll for their benefits, and assisting with benefit changes. My job is about helping others and service to others. I enjoy that. St. Anthony’s Medical Center has a great Human Resources team. I’m very thankful for my co-workers and enjoy working with each of them.
SPOTLIGHT SPOTLIGHT
Katie Horton, Manager Employment/Recruiting interviews a potential new employee.
other benchmarking data,” Katie said. Kathy agreed. “At any given time when you walk into someone’s office, chances are they’re on the phone answering a question, or working with a manager or employee,” she said. “You come in and think you’re going to do whatever, and if something pops up you have to take care of, you don’t get upset. You plan your work around the priority work to do, but also what occurs that day.” Often, departments that don’t have an obvious home report to HR, she said. The Child Care Center reports to HR, and at one point so did Pastoral Care. HR also collects all new hire paperwork including high school and college diplomas, licensing information and driver’s licenses, and ensures new employees have badges. Every two years, employees work to ensure all RNs have a valid license. And the 700-plus physicians added to the Tier 1 insurance network in 2013 required HR staff to compile accurate data on names, addresses and tax ID numbers. It’s a constant process, updated on a quarterly basis. “It would be helpful if you were an attorney, a communications person, a finance person and an employee relations person,” Kathy said. “A lot of what we do is confidential. We have three and a half business partners, three of whom are dedicated to serving all the departments relative to employee issues or situations, or questions from managers or employees relative to policies or workplace issues.” One employee who relied on Benefits was terminally ill and didn’t have family. Toward the end of her life, she sent the staff a cake in gratitude, and employees provided encouragement and kept in touch. “It’s helping employees from that perspective, too – helping to care for someone with a serious illness who doesn’t have family, and has claims and long-term disability to work through,” Kathy said. The medical center averages about 300 full-time openings, and the two full-time recruiters in HR carry a heavy load, so Katie helps out with the recruitment
and interviews. In addition, there are cyclical duties such as performance management, open enrollment, annual contributions to 401k and pension plans, salary increases and ETO sellback. HR also handles the workers’ compensation program which is administered internally to ensure claims are handled with the employee in mind. Staff also process unemployment claims, and longtime HR Business Partner Gloria Jones chairs the Employee Crisis Fund committee, which provides assistance to employees experiencing a financial crisis. Beth Thornhill, Manager of Compensation and HR Analytics, oversees and builds all the benefit programs for open enrollment and the performance management evaluation form annually, produces the total compensation statements sent to each employee, and monitors the market to ensure positions are paid competitively. That’s a strength of the whole HR team – its members are interchangeably qualified and customer servicefocused, Kathy said. Kathy joined the team nine years ago. “I’ve worked in HR since 1984, and I’ve never worked with an HR team that was as cohesive as this one,” Kathy said. “Everybody’s always covered for each other: it’s just been an awesome group to work with. I would probably say that’s what keeps the turnover rate in HR pretty close to zero.”
5
Steve Jacquin, HRIS Analyst/Benefits Specialist
Gloria Jones, PHR, HR Business Partner
Years at St. Anthony’s: 2 1/2
Years at St. Anthony’s: 20
The majority of my day is usually spent assisting employees with their benefit issues and questions. I also work on our HR Rounds quarterly newsletter, managing the employee fitness center, and working with our vendors to make sure our bills are paid and the files are correct. Whether it is a birthday celebration, a holiday lunch party or just a quick current events update before a meeting, we always find a little time to add some laughter to the day.
I serve as an advocate for our employees and managers, assisting with policy application/clarification, providing coaching, as well as ensuring we remain compliant with wage and hour and other labor laws. HR has a truly awesome team! Everyone is willing to pitch in and help whenever, wherever needed. Sometimes it’s difficult to see a solution to a problem when you are in the middle of it and you just need someone who can look at the situation from the outside and help you see a different point of view; so I’m that someone. MAY 2017
AN INTERVIEW WITH
KATHY
COOMBS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HUMAN RESOURCES
6
Kathy Coombs, Executive Director of Human Resources, has served St. Anthony’s for nearly nine years. She and Gene, her husband of 30 years, live in Fenton. The couple has two grown children: a son who works in finance in Kansas City, and a daughter who will graduate from nursing school in August. They also have a very energetic yellow lab named Griffin. Kathy enjoys walking Griffin, working in the yard and doing home remodeling projects.
SPOTLIGHT SPOTLIGHT
Kathy, how did you gravitate to the Human Resources field? I have always liked people and wanted to have a job that allows me to interact with people. I first started in the compensation area doing job evaluations and market surveys, and later moved into benefits and HR generalist work. What day-to-day functions does your position entail? Every day is different and the work constantly changes. First, I try to check in with the HR staff and make sure there are no major issues. I sit very close to the other HR managers and they are close to their folks: since it is a lean department we are very much in touch with each other. There are typically daily issues that arise with benefits, compensation and employee matters – either an out-of-the-ordinary question from an employee or a physician’s office, an issue from one of the vendors that handles our benefit plans, the need for a particular communication for employees, or a meeting with one of the HR staff members or other SAMC managers. One of our top considerations is compliance, as laws and regulations change constantly.
Please tell us more about the complex functions of the Human Resources department that many of us may not be familiar with. HR is commonly perceived as “pushing paper” or “taking care of employees.” There are so many technical and legal aspects to HR that you never, ever feel like you are an expert. You may have specialized for numerous years in a particular aspect of HR such as recruiting, compensation, benefits or employee relations, but there are so many internal and external factors that impact our work that we are constantly in a learning mode. A great deal of the work done in HR is confidential in nature, so we cannot always promote or illustrate our value on a chart or graph. And some of the smallest details, such as an average payday, can have a great number of repercussions, whether from an incorrect benefit deduction or a manager who made a change that didn’t flow through to HR. We do a lot of behind-the-scenes activities that no one really knows about. When our department works well, no one notices, and that’s the way it should be.
Kathy enjoys some quality time with Griffin.
What attributes are necessary for one to excel in the Human Resources field? Flexibility, perseverance, integrity, compassion, patience and a sense of humor! Each day you interact with employees and their managers. What does this tell you about the staff at St. Anthony’s? Our employee engagement questionnaires in the past show St. Anthony’s as a community-based, family-feel type of hospital, characterized by close-knit friendships among coworkers both here and away from work. We look forward to helping to forge those relationships more closely once our department moves to the hospital. St. Anthony’s is a really nice place to work: I think that’s what’s kept me and most of the HR staff here for so many years. Can you tell us about the total reward statements that are mailed each year to every employee? Five or six years ago, we began compiling a yearly Total Rewards Statement for every employee, which enumerates the many investments St. Anthony’s makes in every employee. After analyzing the costs for an outside organization to do them, we decided to complete them inhouse. This saved the organization a great deal of expense. The Total Rewards Statements include the direct pay compensation and bonuses, and also the value of your ETO bank, tuition reimbursements, taxes the medical center pays on your behalf, savings plan matches and more.
What are other unique services that HR provides? We are happy to provide a representative affiliated with our savings plan administrator, Prudential, to meet with employees in the hospital cafeteria twice a month for the whole day. I don’t know of any other organization that provides that. Additionally, our new employee orientation is noteworthy. I’ve heard a number of people say they’ve never gone through an orientation that was as thorough or as personable as ours. What have you learned about the medical center’s pending affiliation with Mercy? I’ve been in contact with their senior-level HR leaders, and they have been professional and very welcoming. They’ve discussed our relationship as being a collaboration, and I think it’s going to be a good opportunity for us. For instance, we’re going to have access to programs and services that we aren’t able to provide ourselves, such as training opportunities for employees. That’s really exciting.
MAY 2017
N E W
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A N T H O N Y ’ S
Medical apprenticeship program launches
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Sabrina Wilcher, left, HR Business Partner, mentors former student Tramaine Thomas.
Certified medical assistants are hard to find. • SABRINA WILCHER •
ndrea Dickson always has been interested in a health care career, but she has been busy earning a living and raising her son. Enter the Medical Assistant Apprenticeship Program, developed by St. Anthony’s Human Resources department in conjunction with staff from the St. Louis Agency on Training and Employment (SLATE) and the Missouri Hospital Association (MHA). Funded by a federal Health Professions Opportunity Grant administered through SLATE, the accelerated 16-week course began Jan. 9 at Hyland Education & Training Center, four afternoons and evenings a week. After completing their studies and working on their interview skills and resume prep, nine students completed 100 hours of clinical hours through the St. Anthony’s Physician Organization offices or the urgent care centers and graduated on May 19. The program also covered the cost for the graduates to take their medical assistant certification exams. “Our students were very committed to traveling here from all over St. Louis,” said Kathy Coombs, Executive Director of Human Resources. “If they take a job here, they understand the commute, the campus and what it’s like to be here all the time. When we partnered with SLATE and MHA, they funded all of it. So we created basically a grow-your-own with grant money from MHA and SLATE.” The HR staff cherry-picked the best candidates from resumes provided by SLATE, said HR Business Partner Sabrina Wilcher, who worked with SLATE and the MHA to develop the program. Those who complete their testing are eligible for a sign-on bonus if they join St. Anthony’s staff. “Certified medical assistants are hard to find,” Sabrina said. “This program allows MA candidates to put themselves in a situation where they can get the training they need without going into debt.” Andrea, 39, holds an associate’s degree in social work from St. Louis Community College – Forest Park and started a training program for medical assistants 16 years ago. But she didn’t finish, due to the time demands of being a single parent to her young son and the cost of the certification. She came straight to the classes after working 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. as a cashier at a retail store. “I like the medical field,” Andrea said. “I hope someday to become a registered nurse.”
Spotlight is published quarterly by the Marketing Department of St. Anthony’s Medical Center. Writer: Robbi Courtaway, ext. 4003 Photographer: June Potts, ext. 4934 Graphic Designer: Stephen Walker, ext. 4767