HR Vocational Visits - 17th May

The morning of the 17th May in Pinellas County, Anne and Robyn visited BayCare Health System and met with Craig Brethauer the Vice President of Team Resources. Craig was so generous with his time and introduced us to his employees. Baycare is the largest health provider in the Pinellas County and employs over 19,000 staff. We learned so much about the American employee benefits system, where the employer is obligated to provide health care insurance, retirement plans, short & long term disability benefits and the list goes on to all employees. Baycare had an extensive learning and development program for all staff that ranged from the core components required for all staff all the way through to an impressive leadership development program that was provided for on-site as they employ their own educators! Very impressive indeed. All the staff were so friendly and genuinely seemed so happy to work there. This was confirmed in the afternoon when Robyn visited one of their hospitals and met the staff 'at the coal face' and they were all very happy and professional.

Mary and Robyn were given a guided tour of Mease Country Side Hospital by Jerry Massey, Director of Operations in the afternoon. There were interesting facts including 30,000 curriculum vitaes were received a month and 80 new staff orientated a week indicating that BayCare is a popular workplace and offers great conditions for staff. Health care is not unionised which makes for a competitative environment. Mease recognises staff with a party when they have reached five years of service, annually there are WOW Awards whereby nursing and other staff are recognised at a dinner. The winner receives $2,500 and the ten runners-up recieve $500. A picnic is arranged biannually for all staff and their families to thank them for their service. Whilst walking around the hospital we spoke to many staff who impressed us with their enthusiasm and professionalism. These examples demonstrated the great partnership between staff and management.

In the afternoon, Anne met with Peggy Rowe the HR Director of Pinellas County which is the local government equivalent in Australia. However, their are 4 tiers of government in some areas of America - Federal, State, County and City. The County has been hit hard by economic times and has been forced to reduced their staff members from 4500 to 3200 over the last 3 years. This has provided a new set of challenges coming off a substantial growth period. One area that has been impacted is the employee health plans that have continued to increase in cost and with their ageing population there has been an increase in uptake of the plans. The County introduced a comprehensive wellness program that provided monetary incentives for employees to participate in activities (from walking during lunch breaks to healthy eating seminars). They have seen a significant drop in health care costs after three years.  Again, the time that Peggy and her team spent with Anne was so generous and she learned so much, however time was short and Anne hopes to get back there before she leaves.