Linda Aldred, executive vice president and chief human resources officer at Texas Children's, first joined the organization 35 years ago. Back then, she was a benefits clerk, and the Houston-based system only had 800 employees. Now, it has more than 17,000.
The workforce size isn't the only thing that's changed in the past three decades — or even in the past few years, Ms. Aldred told Becker's.
"The biggest shift that I've seen is that human resources has historically approached things as more of a one-size fits-all. Everyone can come to the same training class and they'll all get the same thing, or we'll design exactly the same benefits or exactly what a career path might look like," Ms. Aldred said. "And what has really shifted the most — and I would say, very significantly in the last five or six years — is it's not a one-size-fits-all. It's about the individual and what they need and what makes sense for them."
As a result, Texas Children's has had to adopt new mindsets and mantras.
"For years, we've talked at Texas Children's [about how] we need to make this a compelling place to work," Ms. Aldred said. "The last several years we've talked about [how] we actually need to make it a compelling place for someone to do their work. They have the opportunity to do their own individual work anywhere."
The system's best recruitment strategy is retention, Ms. Aldred said. If people do not feel that their voices are heard or that the organization is a good fit for their personal needs, they're unlikely to stick around. That's especially true as the composition of the workforce shifts, and more young workers enter the talent pool.
"One of the things we've learned is, although people want some of the same things, different generations have more patience than others, right?" Ms. Aldred said. "If you're a [baby] boomer, sometimes there's a little bit of a mindset that says, 'Yeah, you have to pay your dues, or you have to do X, Y or Z, or it could take you five years to be promoted.' But we've also found that younger generations, they're not going to be that patient, or they're going to need to understand what the career path looks like. [They want] the same things but want to acquire it differently, or connect to it differently. And those are the channels and connections we're trying to make for those generations."
One way Texas Children's helps retain new graduates is by offering flexibility. Someone might start on unit A but later decide unit B would be a better fit. The nursing department keeps a close eye on young recruits and helps them transition where necessary, according to Ms. Aldred.
The system has also undone a COVID-19-era policy that scaled its orientation down to two hours. Now, orientation is a full day again, and the response has been positive.
"[With the shorter orientation], people in their first year never got attached the same way to the values and the vision and the culture of Texas Children's," Ms. Aldred said. "We brought back our all-day orientation, which is really focused on culture, each one of our values, what it means to work at Texas Children's, what our commitment to you as an employee is. And we — knock on wood — are beginning to see our numbers change. The feedback has been incredible; [employees are] coming to the department the next day, really jazzed about Texas Children's."
New hires aren't the only ones who need support; Texas Children's is working to increase confidence in middle managers with more individualized resources. The system has also employed a crowdsourcing tool that allows employees to answer leaders' questions in an open-ended format; they can vote on one another's answers to help prioritize.
"We've gone from giving everybody a score on engagement surveys to, 'We need to hear you differently. And we need to hear your own words differently,'" Ms. Aldred said.
The shift to individualism has been largely positive, Ms. Aldred feels. She doesn't see people saying, "It's all about me"; rather, workers are leaning into introspection, asking how they can be the best team member or mold their future at the organization. It's an HR office's job to support people on that journey to fulfillment, to give them the resources they need to show up as their best selves.
"One of the things I think that all of healthcare is going to need to do is be adaptable," Ms. Aldred said.