Becker's Hospital Review

50 WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP POPULATION HEALTH A former Target exec is transforming Banner into the 'employer of the future' By Laura Dyrda N aomi Cramer spent 25 years working at Target, where she rose through the ranks to become vice presi- dent of talent management, before joining Phoenix-based Banner Health six years ago. She brought many lessons learned in retail to her role as Banner's chief human resourc- es officer, which became particularly useful when the pandemic hit. Ms. Cramer joined the "Becker's Healthcare Podcast" to discuss what healthcare can learn from retail, talent acquisition trends and more during an epi- sode that aired April 6. Note: ese responses have been lightly edited for clarity and style. Question: After being an executive at Target for so many years, what lessons were you able to take to Banner? Was there anything inno- vative you were able to bring to the table? Naomi Cramer: Sometimes in healthcare we make things a little bit more complex than they have to be. Clinical care is complex, but not everything related to people has to be. I was able to bring simplicity to the table. We aligned data with our people to give them more opportunity to thrive in their careers, and we became a little bit more transparent. We've really been on a journey to become the "employer of the future." How do we become the best employer out there, not just in healthcare, but anywhere? at's based on being more transparent, having better technology and having a lot of flexibility. We had to practice that flexibility during COVID-19 with things like working from home and having meetings in different ways, structuring our pay and time benefits a bit differently to help team members who work remotely. We've learned a whole lot, and I would say over the last 12 months, our "employer of the future" initiative we had started a couple years ago went into acceleration. Q: What are the big challenges in tal- ent acquisition right now for health systems? NC: Talent acquisition is challenging, in particular in nursing. We saw a large num- ber of nurses leave [during the pandemic]. Some just stayed home with their kids, as they were homeschooling, or decided to change careers aer the devastation they went through. e same with clinicians. So we have a little bit higher vacancies than we had before, and our retention could be better. We're trying to do some really con- verted things around flexible scheduling, different pay initiatives and working on the "employer of the future" idea, so we can offer not just the typical 12-hour shis, but also shorter shis for a little more of the lifestyle our nurses want. We want to be competitive with all things nursing. I think most of my peers across the coun- try feel the same way. at's probably what keeps us up at night: the shortage of nurses. n Mental health issues jumped for women at start of pandemic, study finds By Mackenzie Bean M ental health issues among American women in- creased early in the pandemic and may be driv- en, in part, by greater socioeconomic challeng- es, according to a study published April 5 in the Journal of Women's Health. Researchers at the University of Chicago surveyed 3,200 women in the U.S. April 10-24, 2020. About 40 percent of women reported experiencing at least one health-related socioeconomic risk before the pandemic, such as housing instability or transportation challenges. By April 2020, 49 percent of women reported experiencing a new or worsening health-related socio- economic risk amid the pandemic. Of these, 29 percent had not previously experienced such issues. Food insecurity was the most common challenge women reported, at 40 percent, followed by transportation diffi- culties (17 percent) and interpersonal violence (12 per- cent). About 29 percent of women reported anxiety or de- pression symptoms, nearly double estimated rates before the pandemic, researchers said. "Given very high rates of these problems, we're really con- cerned about the current capacity of our mental health sys- tem," study author Marie Tobin, MD, a professor of psychia- try at UChicago Medicine, said in a news release. "Women are principally responsible for parenting, family caregiving and other essential work — they are key to managing and recovering from this pandemic, and now are afflicted by very significant socioeconomic risk levels that appear to be drivers of anxiety, depression and traumatic stress." n "Sometimes in healthcare we make things a little bit more complex than they have to be." - Naomi Cramer, Banner Health

• Cover