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The training and education resources negotiated by Kaiser Permanente and the Partnership unions are helping employees advance their careers. These opportunities are making KP’s promise of a diverse and inclusive workplace come to life. Learn more from employees, managers and leaders who shared their stories during the first virtual Workforce Development Week.

Addie Darby, UFCW Local 1996, quality control, Health Information Management, Georgia

With the help of the Ben Hudnall Memorial Trust and encouragement of manager Sophia Wilson, Darby has earned an associate degree in business management, a bachelor's in health administration, and a master's in health technology and education. She’s not stopping there. Darby is enrolled in a doctorate program and plans to graduate this year (2021).

Sadao Nakachi, UNAC/UHCP, emergency room nurse, Southern California

After leveraging workforce development opportunities to become an RN and earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing, Nakachi went on to get a master’s in business for veterans. He holds numerous professional certifications and connects fellow nurses to educational opportunities. “I always try to find courses that’ll overall maximize my potential at KP,” he says. Follow him on Instagram @NurseScholar.

Crystal Muir, OPEIU Local 2, clinical assistant, Mid-Atlantic States

Muir is using tuition reimbursement to pursue her bachelor’s degree in nursing. She’s also used the Ben Hudnall Memorial Trust’s Individual Stipend Program to attend school once a week, which she says, “I've been fortunate to do with trying to balance school, work and life being a mom.” She aims to graduate in 2022.

Sophia Wilson, supervisor, Health Information Management, Georgia

“I encourage all my staff to pursue education to stay marketable and relevant,” Wilson says. “I tell managers, ‘Please do not be so rigid as to make it harder for your employees to soar.’ If you put the resources into your staff, it can be nothing but a win-win.”

Philidah Seda, director, Specialty Care, Georgia

Not only does Seda encourage her staff to use workforce development resources, but she herself is studying for her doctoral degree. “The health care environment is getting more and more complex,” she says. “For us to prepare the workforce of the future, we have to invest in their learning.”

Eula Smith, SEIU-UHW, medical assistant, Northern California

Ask Smith why she wanted to work in health care, and she will bluntly tell you she didn’t. She started at KP as a shuttle bus driver. When that department was outsourced, Smith was offered the opportunity to train as a medical assistant with the help of the SEIU UHW-West & Joint Employer Education Fund. She has overcome her initial reluctance to deal with patients, saying “I love it now.”

Ingris Solares, SEIU Local 105, medical lab technician, Colorado

Solares began her career at KP as a phlebotomist before getting trained in her current field in an apprenticeship program with the help of SEIU Local 105 and the SEIU UHW-West & Joint Employer Education Fund. She intends to get more education to become a clinical lab scientist. “I knew I wanted more because I'm the first generation here in the United States,” she says. “My parents came from Guatemala, so I always felt like I needed to make the trip here worth it.”

Michael Brown, senior vice president, HR Consulting, National Functions

Before embarking on a career path that would bring him to KP as an HR leader, Brown went to law school. His father was frank with him: As a Black man, he needed an advanced degree to position himself for the same opportunities that others had.

“Before I even started working, I knew that education was going to be the equalizer.” That’s why he encourages KP employees to use workforce development programs and cultivate learning agility by trying different shifts, joining different departments and seeking informal leadership roles.

Kerrin Watkins, manager, Dental Office, Northwest

It's hard to lose top performers, but amazing to see them grow. “Invest in your employees and let them know you want to see them succeed,” Watkins says. “This will benefit you in the long run, because you will have employees that will feel more valued. If you take care of your employees, your employees will take care of your business.”

After learning more than a year ago that patients were having trouble getting doctors’ appointments, members of the Keizer Station Family Medicine team in Oregon began exploring ways to improve service and access. Their solution? Offer more video visits.

“What we didn’t realize at the time is that this work would put us in a unique position to be ready for the pandemic, which wasn’t on anyone’s radar in fall 2019,” says Ruthie Berrell, medical office director and management co-lead for the Family Medicine/Nurse Treatment Center unit-based team. 

Collaboration by the team’s frontline workers, managers and physicians has served as a partnership model for UBTs in the Northwest Region. It’s also earned the department applause for improving service and access at a critical time in health care, as teams across the enterprise adapt to the rise of virtual care. 

“It wasn’t always easy,” says Molly Maddox, RN, the team’s labor co-lead and OFNHP member. “This took a lot of working out the kinks and working together.” 

Overcoming resistance to change 

One of the team’s earliest challenges involved staff resistance to virtual care. Worried that patients would perceive virtual visits as a “takeaway,” some staff members pushed back. 

“The culture of how we delivered care was in the medical office, and people had different levels of acceptance across the spectrum,” says Caroline King-Widdall, MD, team co-lead and physician in charge. 

So, team members educated their peers on the benefits of virtual care and developed scripting to help them feel at ease offering video appointments to patients.

“People are more comfortable now taking the lead and scheduling appointments,” Berrell says. Others feared that older patients were less tech savvy and would have difficulty accessing their virtual visits. In response, team members posted informational fliers in exam rooms and emailed instructions to patients before their appointments. 

Building team engagement

Key to the team’s success was engaging everyone, including physicians. Medical assistants and nurses partnered with providers to review physician schedules and flag appointments they could convert to virtual visits. 

Also, UBT members participated in weekly huddles “where we brainstormed new tests of change and talked about what worked and what didn’t work,” says Maddox. The team’s efforts paid off. 

Patient satisfaction scores for ease of scheduling appointments jumped from 53% to 85% between August 2019 and December 2020. And because members access video visits through kp.org, website registration among the department’s patients increased by nearly 10% during the past year. 

The hard work has not gone unnoticed. This past fall, the team received the region’s UBT Excellence Recognition Award for improving service and access. 

Maddox attributes the team’s success to strong relationships rooted in partnership. “We know that we would not have had this success if our team didn’t work together.” 

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.