From equipping employees with the right tools, environment and resources needed to thrive, Ms. Ring connected with Becker’s to share how the system’s forward-thinking initiatives are driving professional development, employee engagement and talent retention in an increasingly competitive healthcare industry.
Note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: What are your top priorities in 2025 for driving organizational culture and employee engagement at Care New England?
Cynthia Ring: Our top priorities for driving culture and engagement are centered around cocreation. Our overarching people strategy is to deliver solutions and tools that enable our team members to actively contribute to driving organizational performance and growth by advancing the health and well-being of our people and the communities we serve.
Ensuring our people have the tools, resources, environment and experiences needed to carry out our mission is a top priority. A few ways we are doing that in 2025 are:
- Establishing an enterprisewide change leadership strategy. This helps us co-create the future with our people to achieve greater efficiency, improve workflow, communication and ensure people receive the training necessary to meet the healthcare needs of tomorrow.
- Implementing Epic puts our people at the center of all that we do. Eighty percent of the decisions are made by the people who do the work directly with our patients and one another. This is co-creating at its best and will improve the quality of work and life for our team members.
- Reimagining organizational development work to achieve the learning and development needs of tomorrow focused on greater agility and channel delivery needed to serve four generations in the workforce amidst technological advancements and offerings.
Q: How does Care New England approach professional development to support both employees’ growth and organizational goals?
CR: Care New England is committed to professional development. We strategically align our growth with the growth of our people. Whether that is in enhancing partnerships to launch new programs like our emerging executive leadership program, offering mentorships, facilitating leadership book clubs, developing career ladders in several clinical areas or piloting LinkedIn learning with 500 of our team members, we are passionately committed to upskilling and investing in the development of our team members.
The role of organizational development has shifted in the last 10 years. It is critical to be an aggregator and navigator first, creator second. It used to be the reverse. Technology advancements have put learning in the palms of our hands and, in many cases, much of that learning and education is minimal or no cost. Organizations must invest in harnessing that for their people to win the war for talent and thrive as a business. We must become clearing houses to aggregate so much of what is out there and organize it to build tracks for our people to engage with. In reimagining our OD department, we have this top of mind and part of our roadmap to employee growth.
Q: What strategies are you focusing on to address the healthcare workforce shortages and ensure long-term talent retention?
CR: The workforce shortages are real and concerning. The number of team members eligible to retire in the next four years will double. The workforce is changing, and we will need to meet modern expectations to win the talent needed to meet patient demand. We will continue to go through an increasing number of major enterprisewide changes that require more collaboration, agility, and modern infrastructure to win. Artificial intelligence and technology greatly impact the future of work, and organizations that win in that space will win the talent market share.
Healthcare organizations across the nation have tired facilities. This is, and will continue to be, a factor in the war for talent. Unlike many other industries, healthcare is still local and much of it is at the bedside. Facility master planning will need to shift toward a hospitality mindset and be part of an organization’s People Strategy to win the talent needed to achieve a margin.
Similarly, the human resources tech stack strategy and investment will win or lose your talent strategy in the future. People want and expect the same ease of life during their 9-to-5 that they have when they are home from 5-to-9, so to speak. It may be a little creepy to pull out your phone after work and see the shoes you were talking about earlier that day but imagine if your phone pulled up maternity benefits on the work app because it heard you talking to a friend at work about being pregnant. We must make work life as simple as that. We must be able to anticipate the needs of our people. Hospitality mindset is key. We expect our team members to give exceptional experience and care to our patients, and I believe the only way we achieve that is to put our people first and provide them with exceptional experience and care as well.
Redesign workforce models, embrace technology, facility master planning and investments in workforce development:
- Growing our own strategies will require new partners, investments, new infrastructure and the right space as well as channel strategy that meets the modern needs of learning. As an example, if you have 150 qualified applications for one entry-level role then you have the ingredients needed to grow your own directly into the shortages you face. It won’t happen overnight, and it will require partners and investments outside of the healthcare system to solve for the staffing shortages the industry faces.
- Partnerships and new pipeline strategies while enhancing existing ones.
- Through a triad strategy of education, retention and technology, we aim to reduce team member burnout, improve clinical workflows, anticipate need, automate for efficiency, simplify for time, invest in our people by offering scholarships, loan forgiveness and remittance, competitive pay, benefits, well-being, flexible schedules and development opportunities.
