Improving more lives in more ways
An interview with HCA Healthcare CHRO Jennifer Berres
Tell me how you got started at HCA Healthcare. What was your first day like?
It’s a great story. I had just graduated from college with a degree in marketing and I was looking for a job, so I asked my next-door neighbor, Lois, to help me with my resume. She was the director of food and nutrition services at Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point, and she set me up to shadow the vice president of marketing for a day. When I got there, she had an urgent situation come up, so she asked the vice president of human resources to meet with me instead. At the end of the meeting, she offered me a job. And that was my entry into HCA Healthcare and human resource. I fell in love with healthcare and I fell in love with human resources. And 26 years later, when I got the chief human resources officer role, I sent Lois flowers with a note saying, “This wouldn't have happened without you.” She called me and left me the most tearful emotional voicemail, saying no one has ever thought of her like that. It was the most touching thing I've ever heard in my life.
What did your years of work in the hospital mean to you?
I spent about four years in the hospital at the start of my career. It was incredibly meaningful work that has stayed with me throughout my professional life. It was the care and improvement of human life, the teamwork, the relationships and the camaraderie within the four walls of that hospital, everything about it was just exceptional. I mean, truly to this day, I still dream about that hospital. I love my job, but I can't imagine not going back to the hospital. I have an absolute passion for the work I did during that time. I still feel grounded by that sense of pride, purpose and belonging.
How does your experience working in a hospital inform your work today?
I have such a connection to the people who deliver care. Not just from my years working in the hospital, but because I have spent time in nearly every area of this company. Those experiences give me a deeper understanding of the work that we do and how it all comes together. It reminds me of how we need to care for our colleagues and how we need to make sure that we're driving a people agenda that helps us deliver on our mission. I don't think you can really do that without walking in the shoes of our caregivers for a while.
What advice would you give to female professionals that might help them on their career journey?
Authenticity matters. Learning to be authentic, vulnerable and real has helped me more in my career than probably anything else. It was 20-plus years into my career before I had the chance to work with an executive coach, and they told me that authenticity was an opportunity for me. They said that I was being the buttoned-up executive I thought I needed to be. I never showed my personality early on because I thought I needed to be this very serious leader. My coach told me I needed to be authentic and comfortable showing the other side of me: the fun, emotional and connected side of me. The person I truly am. And, it was a liberating experience. I felt like a million bricks were lifted from me and I started to loosen up. The value that created directly influenced my ability to build relationships, which has been an incredible asset to my career.
You started in your role as CHRO right before the COVID-19 pandemic began. How did you meet that challenge?
I think it helped me jump into my new role and into a level of contribution quicker than had we not been facing a global pandemic. I think I would have sat back and listened and kind of felt things out before I dove in. But we were in the middle of a crisis. We had to think about our people and protect them in every way possible. It really moved me forward in a way. And probably the best compliment of my entire career was when Sam Hazen, our chief executive officer, told me that I showed up strategically at a critical time by coming to the table and telling him what we needed to do to care for our people.
Industry-wide, COVID-19 exacerbated the existing nursing shortage. How have you worked to address the challenge?
Everyone in this company is very dialed into the people agenda. It's all about our workforce all day long, not only for me leading human resources. The entire executive team has been very intentional about our recruitment agenda, our retention agenda, our development agenda and all of our investments in nursing.
What are some of the ways HCA Healthcare has invested in nursing?
One of the biggest investments is in Galen College of Nursing, which is intended to build a stronger nurse pipeline. We've also made a significant investment in our clinical academic partnerships, offering clinical rotations and scholarship programs to get people into nursing. We've got so many things that we're doing to try to build our workforce. We haven't solved it yet, and getting this right is a place of pride for me. If we solve this healthcare staffing shortage, I'll retire in peace.
Our organization has already made some great progress on major initiatives under your leadership. What have been the key drivers of that success?
What is driving our success is an engaged team, a passion for excellence and a commitment to collaboration. We are actively leveraging resources across the company. We are pulling in new talent and skills across our HR team. We are forging new relationships with IT to help us automate processes and partnering with nursing to go after the workforce challenge. It’s all about teamwork, collaboration and leveraging strengths to make the greatest difference for our people.
As we look ahead to the workforce development agenda, what areas of focus are you most excited about?
I’m excited about creating stronger pipelines. We have the opportunity to leverage our scale and our size, at the local level and company-wide, to help people find and build meaningful healthcare careers. We're doing a good job, but we can do an even better job. I’m also excited about our work in developing career paths for our colleagues. Our vision is that any colleague within HCA Healthcare can say, “I‘m ready for my next step. Where can I go next?” We’re exploring technology that would allow our colleagues to see the different pathways available to them and what they need to do in ordertake the next step in their career . We want to help our colleagues connect all the dots. That’s how we’re going to deliver on the promise of a career of a lifetime at HCA Healthcare.
What has been the most rewarding thing about your career with HCA Healthcare?
Improving more lives in more ways. I love it. I didn't coin that phrase, it's one of our HCA Healthcare taglines, but it just sticks with me. I love what we stand for, and, when I think about improving more lives in more ways, I'm thinking about our colleagues, our patients and our communities. I’m thinking about the impact we can have on human life.
What is it like to be an executive in a Fortune 60 company?
As the first female CHRO at HCA Healthcare, I think the challenge is that HR is already seen as a soft science that is predominantly female and stereotyped accordingly. I've spent my whole life thinking “I'm female, I'm blonde and I have to prove myself.” I think, especially when you’re younger, you wonder whether you're being taken seriously. Do you have the same seat at the table as the men of similar age and experience? I think that the balance of being a female leader and a CHRO is a unique challenge, and I’ve spent considerable time honing my operational and financial knowledge in order to be seen as an equally strategic and impactful partner.
