MHA-FPX5022_GarciaMartina_Assessment1-1

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Jan 9, 2024

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Family and Medical Leave Act and Core HR Functions Martina Garcia Capella University MHA-FPX5022: Human Capital Management Dr. Wanda Allen November 2023

2 Family and Medical Leave Act and Core HR Functions Emory Healthcare (EHC) is one of the largest health systems in the state of Georgia, with 11 hospitals and more than 425 physician practices and ambulatory surgery centers scattered throughout the Atlanta metropolitan area (Emory Healthcare, n.d.-b). As a leading academic health center, EHC ranks in the top 10 for National Institutes of Health research funding and boasts top rankings in its schools of medicine, nursing, and public health (Emory Healthcare, n.d-b.). Due to its partnership with Emory University, the strategic human resource management of its more than 24,000 employees is conducted by the EHC human resources department, while the human capital management strategies of its nearly 4,000 faculty providers are managed by the university (Emory Healthcare, n.d.- b). As a comprehensive health care delivery system, EHC’s organizational performance depends on a thoughtful and strategic integration with its human capital management (HCM) strategies, as we cannot deliver world-class care without the dedicated, skilled, and engaged teams to provide it. While EHC supports a generous benefit and leave package for its workforce, appropriate planning and strategies are recommended to mitigate potential risks to teamwork and retention when staff exercise their right to extended leave afforded to them by the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) (U.S. Department of Labor, n.d.). The following white paper will review EHC’s commitment to HCM through its directional strategies, recommend strategies departments can use to plan for challenges posed by staff using their FMLA benefits, and assess the impact of FMLA on teamwork, employee retention, and employee satisfaction. Alignment of Human Capital Management with EHC Directional Strategies EHC’s core mission reflects its academic mission by encompassing clinical delivery, research and innovation, preventive and population health, and training the next generation of health care professionals (Emory Healthcare, n.d.-b). This is broadly captured in its mission statement of “improving the health of individuals and communities at home and throughout the world” (Emory Healthcare, n.d.-b). EHC’s vision is to “be the leading academic health science center in transforming

3 health and healing through education, discovery, prevention and care” (Emory Healthcare, n.d.-b). According to Sl åtten et al. (2020), the goal of well-defined mission and vision statements is to attract consumers and to serve as a true north to its leaders in development to programs and policies . For clinical and non-clinical staff, they should feel inspired by and connected to the mission and vision as a primary, intrinsic motivator to improved performance and retention of talent (Sl åtten et al., 2020). EHC is an academic health system focused on education and training; therefore, professional development of its workforce is a fundamental component of its HCM approach to employee retention, as demonstrated by its announcement in 2022 to expand its tuition reimbursement program to include a partnership with Capella University (Emory Healthcare, n.d.-a). Through this program, staff can pursue their professional aspirations at a steeply discounted tuition rate, benefiting both the hospital and the employee. Employees benefit as the online program provides the affordability and flexibility for working professionals (especially those also raising children) to seek advanced training, compared to the steep costs, admissions caps, and inconvenience associated with Emory University’s equivalent brick-and-mortar program. Investing in staff’s professional development and career growth is one of the key strategies organizations can use to increase employee loyalty and reduce turnover (Robbins & Davidhizar, 2020) . In addition, the hospital benefits in its ability to recruit from within people with the skills and credentials required for open positions (Robbins & Davidhizar, 2020) . It is through the EHC values where there is the greatest integration between the organization’s directional strategies and human capital management strategies, such as recruiting top talent, retention, succession planning, and workforce development (Fallon & McConnell, 2014). The EHC values are excellence, innovation, integrity, collaboration, respect, caring, compassion, and embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) (Emory Healthcare, n.d.). One of the ways EHC has aligned its human capital management strategies with these directional strategies has been its 2022 launch of its DEI strategic plan, which includes as one of its pillars its commitment to being the best place for employees to work, learn, and grow (Emory Healthcare, 2022). The health care workforce is, like the

4 rest of the country, becoming increasingly diverse; therefore, HCM strategies must include new approaches to DEI to foster a sense of belonging among staff (Herbert, 2022) and increase staff retention among workers of color by creating more inclusive and welcoming teams (Rahman, 2019). Employee-Centered Approaches to Mitigating FMLA Impact Employee-centered workplaces are ones where organizations emphasize the importance of their people as their best asset and place the employee’s needs and the organization’s culture as fundamental to operational and customer success (Darden, 2023). Within health care, this emphasis acknowledges the relationship between employee engagement and sense of belonging with productivity and patient satisfaction (Darden, 2023). Key drivers to achieving an employee-centric workplace to increase employee retention include a degree of authentic and transparent communication with leadership, emotional connection to a sense of purpose and team belonging, and a sense of leadership and organizational investment in the employee’s wellbeing and work-life success (Darden, 2023). The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it the Great Resignation, where employees left organizations in the millions when they felt unsupported and undervalued and began demanding systemic changes to support work-life success (Darden, 2023). Among their demands were requests for greater flexibility in work schedules, support for family leave and self-care, and mental well-being to reduce burnout (Darden, 2023). This requires tight-knit collaboration between human resources and departmental leaders to enable staff to feel supported and empowered to take the time they need either for family or medical care, while balancing the impacts on morale, productivity, and stress as the team shifts to accommodate the leave. To strengthen employee retention, efforts to create an employee-centric workplace involve creating ways that mitigate potential negative impacts of extended FMLA leave on the employee’s professional aspirations, personal well-being, and disruption to the teams impacted by the employee’s extended leave (National Partnership for Working Families, 2016). From the individual’s perspective, EHC provides an extensive compensation and benefits program, including a generous personal time off policy to allow employees to use accrued time to offset the unpaid FMLA time and short-term disability insurance complemented by the EHC Extended Illness Leave Benefit, or EILB (Emory Healthcare, n.d.-b), which allows employees to accrue additional hours to provide 100%

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