Generation Z healthcare workers do not just ask for career growth and development — “they demand it,” Justin Fulton, senior vice president and chief talent and learning officer at Norfolk, Va.-based Sentara Health, told Becker’s.
Insights from the health system’s workforce planning team, which recently surveyed its internship program participants, show Gen Z’s communication is markedly direct and clear.
“Instead of that cautious ask of, ‘This is what I would hope that you would offer,’ they’re actually telling us very clearly, ‘This is exactly what I want,'” Mr. Fulton told Becker’s.
Interns have expressed a desire for specific expectations and guidance: They want to know exactly what is expected, what the deadline is and how it should be performed.
Mr. Fulton also highlighted Gen Z’s desire to challenge the status quo and pursue more efficient ways of working — a potentially transformative quality in traditionally rigid organizations.
“Especially with all the pressures that are coming at us today, the thinking that got us here from 30 years ago is not the thinking that’ll take us even five years from now,” he said. “There’s a beautiful connection between what Gen Z is asking for and being empowered to find more efficient ways of working.”
Sentara’s workforce strategy
To support professional development, Sentara launched a program with a high-potential track for individual contributors moving into front-line leadership roles. Participants join a development cohort for four to six months to build core skills.
Over the past two years, the system has also aligned talent strategies with business strategy, beginning with its IT group and expanding across its health plan, post-acute and ambulatory business lines.
The process includes identifying workforce demographics, high-impact roles and the capabilities needed to drive future success. From there, Mr. Fulton’s team co-created tailored talent strategies with each group.
“The result, and how we actually measured success, was: What is the actual plan we can look at for now, next, later — and what are the initiatives that support that strategy?” Mr. Fulton said.
For example, Sentara’s IT group developed a four-pillar talent strategy, each with initiatives planned for immediate (zero to six months), near-term (six to 18 months) and long-term (18 or more months) implementation.
“A lot of talent work sometimes happens in a silo … and is often met with a flop because we aren’t aligned with where the business is moving,” he said. “This was different because we co-created what we wanted that future to look like and then we built it together.”
He added that the IT group is now leading its own talent initiatives in partnership with HR.
“The business is actually in the front seat, driving,” he said.
