Becker's Hospital Review

29 WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP New CNO's biggest challenge: Balancing excellence with staff vacancies By Lauren Jensik Y olanda Coleman, PhD, RN, became Chicago-based Weiss Memorial Hos- pital's chief nursing officer in October 2021. She spoke to Becker's in December 2021 about staffing challenges and shared her advice for other women in healthcare leadership. Note: is interview was lightly edited for length and clarity. Question: What trends are you noticing at Weiss in regards to the staffing cri- sis, specifically regarding the departure of nurses? Dr. Yolanda Coleman: Our trends are prob- ably similar to a lot of other hospitals in the area and across the nation. Our vacancy rates have increased, almost tripled, from what they were pre-COVID. And we have nursing vacancies in areas that we probably wouldn't have seen as many vacancies in [had it not been for COVID-19], and our vacancies go across the specialty board, even into areas like case management, which we didn't see huge vacancies in in the past. Q: How do you plan to navigate these staffing issues? YC: Some of what we've been doing is col- laborating with colleges of nursing to tap into our new grad pool. We've also instituted bonuses to try to be competitive with the agency and the travel rates. We're also work- ing with international agencies to bring in nurses from the international arena. Q: What do you anticipate being your biggest challenges in your new role? YC: Well, staffing is one of them. And then when you have gaps in staffing, you have a concern with your quality and safety. So you have to ensure that you're maintaining your level of excellent standards with your vacan- cies that are open. Q: What advice do you have for other women in healthcare leadership? YC: I would say you have to be passionate about your leadership role. You should have a desire to be a positive mentor. You should always exhibit a conscious concern for pa- tient care, continually focus on quality and safety, have a commitment and dedication to the profession and also maintain the highest level of competency, and you need to be proactive in an ever-changing and hectic environment. n Ranking women's performance can be harmful to their work, study says By Georgina Gonzalez P erformance management reviews can create a particular kind of competitive environment that may work to the detriment of wom- en, Harvard Business Review reported Dec. 13, 2021. In a study, participants were asked to complete a simple math task, and for every correct completion they would receive a small monetary re- ward. One group of participants were told that a peer would rank each individual's performance in the tasks against others in the group. The other group weren't told anything about ranking. When participants were anticipating being ranked, women performed worse and men performed better compared to the men and women in the group that was not being ranked. In the non-ranked group, men and women performed the same. Men solved almost 40 percent more tasks than women when they knew they were being ranked. The researchers stipulate that the driving force behind the gender disparity are deeply held stereotypes about men and women. They suggest certain competitive environments may trigger societal bias that state superiority of men and prioritization of kindness in women. Thus, competitive social ranking has majorly different effects on men and women, and perhaps isn't the best objective measure of perfor- mance. Alternative metrics for performance measurement can be used instead, such as measuring performance and personal development of an individual over time. n Women's wage growth outpacing men's By Georgina Gonzalez T he economic situation for women may be improving since the beginning of the pandemic-induced recession, Intelligencer reported Dec. 15, 2021. Women's wages are growing faster than men's. In September 2021, the Federal Re- serve Bank of Atlanta saw the largest gap in earnings growth between men and women since 1997, according to the report. The three-month average of women's wage growth was 4.9 percent, while men's earnings growth was at 3.4 percent. However, women have much further to catch up than men, according to one expert. Wom- en are already disproportionately likely to be working low-wage jobs, said Martha Ross, senior fellow focusing on labor policy at the Brookings Institute Metropolitan Policy Pro- gram. In addition, women have been more likely to quit their jobs during the Great Res- ignation, according to the report. This created a tighter labor market and forced employers to raise wages in sectors like retail and hospi- tality, which are typically worked by women. n

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