Looking to stay current in the fast-changing world of health care? You’re not alone.

Kaiser Permanente leaders, labor representatives and industry experts offered insights at November’s Workforce of the Future Conference in Berkeley, California.

“We’ve made a lot of progress over the last few years,” said Monica Morris, director of National Workforce Planning and Development, who welcomed the audience of 200 labor and management representatives tasked with advancing the Labor Management Partnership’s Workforce of the Future initiative. “Now it’s time to do even more.”

Here are six strategies you can follow to prepare for the workforce of the future.

Learn new ways to work. During the Industrial Revolution, cobblers and weavers had to adapt or get left behind. This process continues today—only now, it’s happening faster, said keynote speaker Art Bilger, founder and CEO of WorkingNation, a nonprofit group seeking solutions for economic change.

“The solutions are local,” he said. “Communication of these issues and solutions is critical.”

Become lifelong learners. Skills used to last a lifetime and career paths were clear. Now there’s a new development every 18 months. Get on the cutting edge and imagine the opportunities technology provides.

“Be deeply curious. We’re all newbies,” said keynote speaker John Seely Brown, an author, scholar and former director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, who gives high marks to the innovative learning approach of the new Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine.

Keep developing your career. Age is not a barrier to lifelong learning, said keynote speaker Sandi Vito, executive director of 1199SEIU Training and Employment Funds, which partners with Montefiore Health System in New York.

“People tend to think that employees in their 50s can’t aspire to career advancement,” Vito said. “It just requires different approaches. Adults learn more by doing.”

Indeed, the average age of participants in the two LMP-supported educational trusts (Ben Hudnall Memorial Trust and SEIU UHW-West & Joint Employer Education Fund) is 44.

Use available resources. Kaiser Permanente employees have many resources to advance their careers, including targeted training programs for workers represented by the Coalition of KP Unions.

To start, learn four critical skills that will be essential to the future of health care. A digital fluency program launched in October, to be followed by programs in consumer focus, collaboration and process improvement.

“We don’t know what the jobs of the future will be,” said conference facilitator Tony Borba, Northern California regional director for The Permanente Medical Group. “We need to use our resources so we are ready for changes in the workforce.”

Tap the power of partnership. As Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of KP Unions have successfully partnered, Montefiore and 1199SEIU have developed collaborative training programs, such as community health worker apprenticeships that benefit employees, the organization and the community, said keynote speaker Lynn Richmond, Montefiore’s chief strategy officer.

Get involved. The conference produced actionable ideas such as developing a communications strategy to show the value of continuous learning and generate more on-the-job training. Other ideas included apprenticeships and reverse mentoring.

“How do we leverage the power of preceptors, mentors and the educational trusts?” said conference speaker Jessica Butz, the union coalition’s national program coordinator for Workforce Planning and Development. “This is your chance to help shape what we do at Kaiser Permanente.”

Kaiser Permanente medical assistant Abelene Cerezo-Kirtley used to fear computers, but not anymore.

Inspired by her 84-year-old father, she took a pilot digital fluency course that made her more comfortable with technology, empowering her to provide better care for her patients—and her family.

As her father’s health advocate, she used her training to create a spreadsheet to track his insulin injections, consolidated his medical records on an iPad, and presented it to his physician.

“He asked me, ‘Are you a doctor?’” Cerezo-Kirtley says. “I said, ‘No, I’m a medical assistant.’ It made me feel 10 feet tall, and I’m only 4-foot-10.”

The new online program is free to all members of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions through the Ben Hudnall Memorial Trust, the SEIU UHW-West & Joint Employer Education Fund, and National Workforce Planning and Development. Visit kpcareerplanning.org, the Ben Hudnall Memorial Trust or the SEIU UHW-West & Joint Employer Education Fund websites to sign up.

A workforce development strategy

The digital fluency program, which takes four to six hours to complete, helps employees understand the role of technology in health care and know where to find additional learning resources. It’s part of a larger workforce strategy to encourage employees to upgrade their skills, advance their careers and meet future health care challenges.

“Digital fluency is one of four critical skills we’ve identified that Kaiser Permanente employees need to meet the changing demands of health care,” says Monica Morris, National Workforce Planning and Development director. “Whether you work in a medical center, clinic or office, we encourage employees to take the digital fluency program.”

Gaining skills builds confidence

Cerezo-Kirtley, now studying American Sign Language to better serve patients who are deaf or hard of hearing, has constantly upgraded her skills during her 19 years as a medical assistant at Kaiser Permanente’s Sacramento Medical Center. Her father, a retired airline mechanic who earned a master’s degree, modeled lifelong learning, and KP has enabled it through negotiated benefits such as tuition reimbursement. Cerezo-Kirtley, a member of SEIU-UHW, jumped at the chance to improve her digital fluency.

“The digital fluency program gave me the confidence to keep wanting to learn more,” says Cerezo-Kirtley. “It helped me care better for my family and my patients.”

Her manager, Jennifer Henson, RN, agrees. “It’s important to support our staff to advance themselves, which in turn promotes better health within the company,” says Henson, who has used tuition reimbursement herself to earn her nursing degree and is now working toward a master’s degree.

Workforce Planning and Development

Key accomplishments

• Program enrollments in Kaiser Permanente’s two education trusts grew from about 3,000 in 2007 to nearly 62,000 in 2016. 
• Tuition reimbursement course applications nearly tripled, from less than 20,000 in 2008 to more than 57,000 in 2016, largely benefiting members of unions in the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.
• Critical skills training launched in June 2017 with a Digital Fluency pilot program for more than 2,000 employees.

Going forward

• A top priority will be addressing the impact of economic, social and technological changes on care delivery and future KP staffing models. (Learn more at kpworkforce.org.)

Workplace Safety

Key accomplishments

• Since program inception in 2001, KP’s injury rate has been reduced by 69 percent.
• Injuries associated with patient handling and/or mobilization have decreased by 32 percent since 2011.
• The program-wide workplace safety strategy was strengthened in 2016, based on the National Safety Council’s model.

Going forward

• The strengthened safety strategy will be implemented, with the goal of closing the gap between KP’s injury rate and the Bureau of Labor Statistics adjusted injury rate for health care.

Total Health

Key accomplishments

• More than 76,000 employees have taken the Total Health Assessment (THA) since 2014.
• Ninety percent of eligible employees completed their recommended health screenings in 2014 and 2015, earning a $40 million payout under the Total Health Incentive Plan.
• More than 3,000 UBT health and safety champions helped teams across the organization conduct 1,756 wellness projects in 2016—a 45 percent increase from 2015.

Going forward

• New awareness campaigns, including one focusing on prediabetes education, will inform and empower employees to take charge of their own health and wellness.

Joint Marketing and Growth

Key accomplishments

• Helped secure more than $108 million in revenue for Kaiser Permanente in 2016.
• Supported the 20-year growth in the number of employees represented by a union in the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, from 57,000 to 116,000, and in Kaiser Foundation Health Plan membership, from 7.4 million members to 11.8 million. 
• Since 2012, mobilized 51 union ambassadors who attended more than 300 community events and engaged more than 70,000 KP members and potential members—many of them unionized—increasing community knowledge and understanding of KP.

Going forward

• Through the expansion of health plan membership, support job security and the continued growth of the coalition.

Attendance 

Key accomplishments

• Enhanced time-off benefits to provide incentives for appropriate use of sick leave.
• Developed the Time-Off Request Tracking System to provide greater flexibility and responsiveness in managing planned time off.
• Achieved 21 percent fewer lost workdays in high-performing UBTs. 

Going forward 

• Attendance data, systems and results will continue to be assessed and improved.

“The No. 1 reason for the success of our teams has been personal engagement,” says Alan Kroll, a primary care area administrator in Colorado who co-sponsors nine unit-based teams with his labor and physician partners. “Everyone needs to buy into the process to make partnership work.”

Building engagement and ensuring a consistent work experience have been goals of the Labor Management Partnership since the beginning. But, at the same time, there’s been a good deal of variation around these efforts from location to location across Kaiser Permanente, to the frustration of many managers, workers, and KP members and patients.

That’s why the 2015 National Agreement mandates partnership training for everyone, including the mid-level managers and union leaders who guide others. Early versions of the partnership training for mid-level leaders, which will be available this year, have gotten high marks from UBT sponsors and other leaders who have taken it. 

Consistency counts

The agreement calls for “a learning system that supports sustained behavior change, partnership and performance.” This includes joint training and refresher courses—delivered in-person
and/or online—to “achieve the same partnership and employment experience wherever one works in KP.” 

The new training for mid-level leaders will include segments on: interest-based problem solving examining the forces that support or undermine partnership core partnership behaviors and principles the strategic importance of the LMP 

Joint training is key 

The programs are designed to develop successful leaders who can model partnership and spread successful practices—and to ensure that the managers or union representatives helping teams have what they need to support those teams.

“It is very powerful for managers and union leaders to be in training together,” Kroll says. “It sends the message that everyone is important, and sets a foundation to work from when an issue gets stuck.”

The training served as a reminder that good partnership practices also are good leadership practices. 

“People want to hear from their leaders,” he says, and to “know what issues we are dealing with and that we can help remove obstacles.”

See the 2015 National Agreement, section 1.E, Education and Training (pages 31–33) for additional information.

Last year, the outpatient procedure unit-based team at Capitol Hill Medical Center rewrote the instructions it sends to patients scheduled
for a colonoscopy. A patient who found the earlier directions confusing played a leading role in the process.

The new instructions helped reduce by 20 percent the number of colonoscopies that needed to be repeated. Involving the patient was “a transformational experience
for the team,” says Jennifer Walker, RN, lead UBT consultant and improvement advisor in the Mid-Atlantic States region.

It also showed the power of a new provision of the 2015 National Agreement.