Glens Falls Hospital has a new President and CEO, Paul Scimeca. Scimeca, 59, has spent 33 years working for the hospital and has held the interim role of President and CEO since January 1st. He began his career with Glens Falls Hospital in the communications department in 1989. In 1989, gas prices were 97 cents a gallon and George H. W. Bush was sworn in as president.
Scimeca has taken over the leadership position from Dianne Shugrue who held the position for 14 years. She held this top position during challenging times. During her tenure the hospital faced a fiscal crisis brought on by erroneous billing and the CoronaVirus Pandemic. It was also during her tenure that Glens Falls hospital became affiliated with Albany Med. Shugrue was praised by her colleague Dr. Chris Mason, the President of Glens Falls Medical staff, in an article posted on the hospital website, “It is said that smooth seas do not make skilled sailors. Diane Shugrue is a skilled sailor.” Shugrue retired December 31, 2021.
Scimeca, who has a calming and friendly demeanor, explains why he spent his career at the hospital. “The culture here is incredible. It is a reflection of the community’s deep concern for doing the best for the patients.” He said, during an interview on September first. Scimeca has found the work to be fulfilling and career opportunities were available. “It has been a tremendous place to make my career. It’s an organization that is evolving and developing.”
Scimeca balances the weight of the responsibility of his office. “Regardless of the job that you have at the hospital, at the end of everything there is a patient. It is a privilege to take care of that patient and take care of the community.”
He remains conscious of the needs of the community. “The industry is evolving and significant changes are happening every day.” Two and a half years into the pandemic, Scimeca sees the need for some fine tuning. “The Emergency Department is our front door. We need to provide the right environment for both caregivers and patients. Mental health is a big part of that for both the staff and the patients.” He said. The 43 bed Emergency Department takes care of more than 46,000 patients annually.
Scimeca was an unanimous choice of the Glens Falls Hospital Board of Governors.
Many SMBs (small & mid-sized businesses), and local employers, are looking to the big multi-national corporations to answer the question – “is hybrid work the new normal?”
We regularly see articles pointing toward the evolving decisions Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google or Tesla are taking. Perhaps they are calling their employees back to the office, maybe they have gone fully remote, or perhaps they have seemingly split things down the middle with a hybrid approach. Either way, it may be misguided to take your SMB/local business direction from the popular tech giants.
Let’s consider the decision instead from the perspective of your team/employees and the scope, costs and risks of all three approaches.
Your Team (Employees)
In 2019 the lion’s share of local businesses believed their teams needed to be in the office and most of their teammates/employees likely agreed. However, after the last two years of trial, error, observation and learning, many employees, most notably knowledge workers, have come to a new decision. Love it or hate it, many knowledge workers now require the flexibility of working from home.
As we look at both retention of great talent, and the attraction of new talent, one thing is crystal clear – a flexible work environment is nearly a requirement to attract and retain top talent.
This newly felt requirement is driven by a number of “at home” considerations such as individual productivity, rising gas prices associated with the ‘ol commute, and child care or home school concerns. These concerns seem to have been highlighted by every business magazine for the past nearly two years.
A driving factor often not spoken about is the big multi-national organizations are now more virtual than ever and attracting small town, local business, top talent. They are allowing your, now former, top employee to work from the comfort of home while commanding a salary and benefits historically only available in big city, big corporations, all while the pool of available employees in most sectors has shrunk creating a classic supply v. demand problem to boot (another article, for another day).
It’s now 100% critical for the regional SMB to consider the risk of not embracing a flexible work environment and the cost to replace employees lost to new, virtual, “big business” opportunity if slow to respond!
Your Business Structure & Systems
No sooner do we acknowledge the employee risk, and make the decision to pivot our regional SMB to a more flexible virtual environment, we are quickly faced with a very contemporary second order problem.
Business structure and systems, and I don’t mean IT structure & systems, that’s an entirely different article as well. I’m referring to the people structure and systems that allow both the virtual, and on-site teams, to have an undeniably clear view of “what success looks like” and access to the tools required to succeed? Following is a partial list of both.
What success looks like in a hybrid environment:
Ability to build competence in role(s) virtually and in-house
Clear Functional Accountabilities for each role in the business
Clear Behavioral Accountabilities for each role in the business
Key Process Indicators (KPIs) or an alternative accountability system
A system to maintain, and further, company culture
Non-virtual team members incentivized to ensure success of the hybrid environment
Tools required to succeed in a hybrid environment:
A conscious Organization (people) Design
Electronic onboarding of virtual workforce
Boundaries of virtual workforce & work environment clearly identified and managed
Budget allocation for virtual workforce needs (technical & social)
Complaint decision-making, consistency and documentation of virtual role go/no go
Leadership & business system(s)
Leadership coaching/mentoring and/or training
Your Challenges (risks)
Pivoting to a virtual or hybrid work environment comes with a host of challenges or problems, the first of which is usually the emotional decision to make the switch. The second is most often the IT considerations to make it thrive. The third is most commonly, and I’m not advocating it should be, changes in policy to combat new employee “problems” popping up.
But the fourth challenge takes a little time to manifest! For those entering their 18-24 month timeline in a new hybrid or virtual environment, you are likely beginning to see weaknesses in both people & process leadership! A pivot to virtual is one of the fastest ways to shine a light on historically mediocre leadership, and culture, hidden by a co-located team. One more pro-tip: mediocre leadership equals lower then optimal productivity, which in turn equals higher operating expense and lower margins.
This 4th challenge may become visible in a number of ways not limited to: a frustrated employee base, frustrated leaders, a change in how it feels to be at work, resignations/turnover, increased errors, late delivery, increasingly dissatisfied internal and external customers and even the feeling of “always being stuck in a meeting.”
Your Success
Your success navigating this new playing field is largely based on your businesses systems and methods to lead successfully through reasonably complex change! If your business has not been faced with this level of “complex” change prior now might be the time to ask for help.
If your business has been faced with complex change prior and has not navigated it well, this is most commonly due to your leaderships strength being based in operating, not changing, your business. This may also be a good time to ask for help while keeping your leaders focused on the day-to-day “normal” challenges of winning in your marketplace.
For the last nearly 10-years HR Resolved, Inc. has been helping lead business just like yours through complex change with its remarkable ability to tailor decades of past startup and Fortune 200 successes into happier, more aligned employees, performing where and how they are needed, driving profit into your business! Visit www.HRresolved.com.
