On Human Resources

Sabbaticals for CIOs – why not?

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I talk to several CIOs each week. I listen to them and try to figure out how we might help them through our advisory services at StarBridge Advisors. Depending on where the CIO is in his or her career, they canstockphoto51125301 sabbaticalsometimes ask, “How and when can I join you at StarBridge?”. The idea of getting off the permanent CIO track and having more flexibility can be appealing.

The idea of a “substitute CIO” came up from one of the CIOs I talked to recently. He was thinking about how to get his organization prepared for someone else to lead for a period with the knowledge that he would be back after several months. I told him it sounded like a sabbatical to me – not a bad idea.

Sabbatical means a rest from work or a break. When we think about sabbaticals, we typically think of professors and ministers. It’s a time for them to go away, reflect, study, research, write, and get rejuvenated.

Just think what a CIO could do with an opportunity like that!

When I was working as a CIO fulltime and would visit other countries on vacation, I thought how awesome it would be to spend several months studying another country’s healthcare system. The lessons and new ideas I could bring back to my organization. But that’s just one idea. What about taking time to learn about leading edge healthcare organizations in the U.S. Or studying a particular problem that every healthcare organization is trying to solve. Or working with start-ups on a new and innovative product.

Wouldn’t our industry benefit from letting our senior practitioners step back from the day-to-day and go deeper on work we need to do?

You earn vacation time each year, so why not earn sabbatical time? Continue reading →

Being valued, doing meaningful work

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I’ve had at least three different conversations in recent days providing career advice to colleagues. Different industries, organizations and types of roles. And each person was at a different stage of their canstockphoto10463933 (002) career choicescareer. Yet, there were common themes we discussed that are worth sharing:

Being valued – Do people listen to you? Is your input taken seriously? Is your work appreciated? For most people, there are many signs each work week that show whether you are valued or not. Don’t ignore them.

Doing meaningful work – We each define what we consider meaningful and what we are passionate about. And we all probably do some tasks that we dislike as part of our jobs. Overall, finding your passion and doing work that you consider meaningful can keep you happy and motivated to go back every day.

Options – As you consider to stay or go, to move up or out, there is always more than one option. Make sure you are clear with yourself and stay grounded in what really matters to you as you frame and evaluate those options.

On your terms – Take control of the discussion and shape the opportunity if there is room for negotiation on the type of work and the role. Remember that you own your own career.

Trust – Do you trust the people you are working with or negotiating with? Continue reading →

Tech is king and soft skills matter

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These are just two of the key findings of the recently published, “LinkedIn 2017 U.S. Emerging Jobs Report”. Not at all surprising. The report is worth checking out regardless of where you are at in your canstock 121417 tech is king and soft skills mattercareer. As I always tell people, be open to the possibilities.

The report notes the estimate that 65% of children entering primary school today will ultimately hold jobs that don’t yet exist. Just think back to what your options were when you started primary school.

I know as a young girl in the 60’s, it seemed like teacher or nurse were the options. My sister did become a nurse and then went on to get a master’s degree in public health. By the time she retired a few years ago, she had run many of the state health departments in Minnesota at one time or another. I wanted to be a math teacher when I was young. Instead I found my path to computer programming in the early 80’s when the field was starting to really explode. Here I am today having served several healthcare organizations as their Chief Information Officer before starting a health IT advisory firm.

Back to the “tech is king” finding. The report says that the top emerging jobs are machine learning engineer, data scientist, and big data engineers in a wide range of industries.  It also notes that there are currently 1,600 open roles for machine learning engineer in the U.S.

The report also found that there is a low supply of talent for top jobs. For example, data scientist roles have grown over 650% in the past 5 years but only 35,000 people in the U.S. currently have data science skills. Any CIO looking to build out the analytics capability for their organization is probably all too aware of this gap. Continue reading →

You need to own your own career

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December brings the holidays and social time with co-workers, friends and family. It’s also a good time to take stock and reflect on your work and career. Two years ago at this time I planned my next chapter and canstock120117 careerdecided to leave a permanent CIO position. My two goals were to live where I wanted to live and have more flexibility in my career.

I talk with a lot of people at different stages of their career who are taking stock and trying to figure out their choices.

They may be in their 30’s, relatively young in their career, and thinking about the next right move and where that would position them for the long run.

Or, they may be someone in their 50’s or early 60’s and thinking about how long they want to work and the one final job change that might make the capstone to their career.

Or, they may be someone who has made the decision to “retire”, but not quite yet. They are considering what kind of work they still want to do, and how much.

For people in that last group, I ask them to think about 3 questions:

  • What do you want to do? After all, what you are good at and enjoy the most?
  • How much do you want to work?  If you’ve been working 60+ hours a week at a demanding job, it’s time to consider how much time you want for yourself, your family, your other passions and hobbies.
  • What do you need financially? There are 3 ways to look at it: continue at roughly the same income level and continue contributing to your retirement, make enough to live on but not contribute any further to retirement, or start drawing on your retirement savings.

Until you ask and answer these important questions, it’s hard to make a solid plan.

For people younger in their career, these questions still apply. But there are others: Continue reading →

Thinking about relocating?

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“My spouse won’t move.” You may have heard this if you have ever hired someone who would need to relocate their family. You may have even heard it after you extended the offer. If it happens that late in thecanstockphoto49324635 process, it may be just an easy excuse because they weren’t going to accept the position anyway.

Whether your spouse and family are willing to relocate to a particular city is something that should be discussed and agreed on together very early in the process. Why waste everyone’s time if it’s not going to work.

Relocating is a big decision. I’ve done it several times. And each time, my husband and I discussed it early on. Was this a part of the country we were willing to live in? Was this city one that we’d be happy in? What did the housing market look like? These are just some of the considerations.

If you are early in your career, you probably want to figure out what kind of future opportunities are in that area, is it family friendly, are there good schools, and can you afford to buy a house. If you are later in your career, you may think of your next move in terms of where you might want to eventually retire or living closer to your grandkids.

Regardless of where you are in your career, there are some common considerations. Assuming it’s a job you really want and an organization you really want to work for, here is my advice on what to consider when relocating: Continue reading →

10 tips for next generation leaders

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I recently had the opportunity to do a talk as part of a Women in Leadership lecture series. The title of the talk was “Yes We Can – Developing Next Generation Leaders”. I covered leadership lessons from my canstockphoto23302155many years of experience, the challenges for women in STEM, and general career advice. The group had a lot of great questions and comments from their experience, so it was a lively and interactive session.

Regardless of gender, if you are a leader or future leader, these tips may be useful to you.

Find a mentor –  You can’t do it yourself. Find someone you consider a role model and who is willing to invest some time and energy in helping you develop.

Let go and be willing to delegate – If you try to do it all yourself, you won’t develop others nor have time to do the work that allows you to grow.

Give up on perfectionism – It is the enemy of good. It wastes time and keeps you from doing other work.

Ask for feedback – Take off the blinders and ask for honest feedback from your staff, your boss, your peers, and your customers. What should you start doing, stop doing and continue doing.

Consider everything a learning opportunity – Remember that you can learn from every experience. Whether it is a new skill, knowledge or lesson on how to improve for next time. Continue reading →

Family support systems: priceless

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I am regularly reminded how much young working couples with children need family support systems. Even with the new more flexible work arrangements and the ability to work from home occasionally or on canstockphoto43984614a permanent basis, working parents need help from time to time.

We have four young working parents in our family. They balance the demands of their jobs and raising young children. That’s my two daughters and our sons-in-law or as my husband called them on Father’s Day, “active duty dads”. And he of course is an “active duty grandpa” when needed.

My oldest daughter is a nurse practitioner who works three 12 hour shifts a week and a fourth shift one week a month. She has an hour plus drive each way to the hospital. She leaves the house before her 1-year-old and 2-year-old children are awake. She gets home in time for bath and bedtime stories.

On the days she works, my son-in-law gets the children up, dressed, fed and off to the day care center. He is a senior loan officer at a mortgage company with an office in downtown Boston. He takes the train in and out and works from home a few days a week. Continue reading →

The power of co-location

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There continues to be a lot of focus on telecommuting and open office space for knowledge workers in large organizations. Both are important yet not everyone agrees they are good – a lot depends on the canstockphoto12582566 for colocationorganization and the culture.

But I want to focus on another “space planning” topic, co-location. As health care organizations grow, administrative departments including IT often end up being spread out in many office buildings, sometimes at great distances from the hospital with a lot of traffic in between.

The investment needed to centralize all the administrative functions in one building often takes backseat to investing capital in clinical space. No surprise. Video conferencing is always an option for bridging the miles. This technology continues to advance and become more of a commodity. National and global companies must leverage technology but health care systems are mostly local or regional.

In my many years of health IT management, I’ve experienced a variety of space situations: Continue reading →

When does the honeymoon end?

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Remember those first few days on a new job? You were officially onboarded, and signed a lot of forms. You learned all the basic processes and policies that new employees need to know. And you canstockphoto31122040 onboardinggot the big picture of the organization’s mission, vision, values and culture. Your head is spinning by the end of day one and even week one, but everyone is patient with you. They recognize that it is a lot to take in.

In that early period when you are introduced to lots of people, everyone is so happy to see you. Everyone is offering to help you get up to speed, and do whatever they can to make your onboarding smooth.

And then you realize they all need something from you. They all think you can solve all the problems. But you are still given some time before you start waving your magic wand.

You’re on a honeymoon. It will be measured in days or weeks but usually not months. You must drink from the firehose, get to know all the key people and start adding value. “Proving yourself,” as they say.

You may have relocated, so you’re also getting to know your new town.

It can be exhilarating and overwhelming all at the same time. Continue reading →

Taking control of your life

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It was a year ago that I did just that. I decided it was time to make a major life change professionally and personally. Since then, many people have wanted to learn how I did it. In fact, I spoke just this canstockphoto12123429week with a former mentee about her next professional move.

My advice was basic. Look at your last few professional moves. Why did you want to stay somewhere and why were you willing to leave? What were you looking for in the next opportunity? And what isn’t there today that you’d look for in the next opportunity.

I told her if she looks carefully at this, she’ll see a theme as to what makes her happy and what frustrates her. Then there will be more questions:

  • What kind of work do you want to do?
  • What kind of team do you want to be part of?
  • What mission will keep you committed and passionate?

But I told her not to get caught in the “grass is greener” trap. Because it’s not. Every organization has its crazy. You just need to figure out what that is and how to work effectively within it. Continue reading →