I tip my hat to ASHHRA

I had the privilege of attending this year’s ASHHRA conference and was just blown away by the caliber of programs presented. The theme “Strength through Inclusion” truly resonated throughout the meeting as each presenter shared knowledge and experience with more than 950 attendees.

Stimulating perspectives were presented on such topics as diversity, engagement and inclusion, to name a few. Below are a few of the topic highlights rover three days:

• Thought Leader Forum: Envisioning Tomorrow’s Health Care Workplace
• Health Care’s New Landscape: Leading a Generationally Diverse Workplace
• Taming Abrasive Leaders in the Workplace
• Diversity Panel: Culture of Diversity, Navigating Our Future
• Inspiring Others During Times of Change
• Meeting Workforce Needs Through Collaboration

Rosanna Durruthy, chief diversity officer of Cigna, presented “Inspiring Others During Times of Change.” She closed her discourse with “We have to understand that diversity is the mix and inclusion is making the mix work. As human resource professionals, we create the future for our organizations. We are the alchemists of possibility and the source of all things extraordinary!”

I was lucky enough to be one of three attendees interviewed during the conference. The article ran in the daily electronic newsletter. Below is the result.


Neguiel Francis
HR Workforce Analyst
Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council Foundation
Irving, Texas

My path to HR was not typical. While I’m not in the clinical aspect of care, I wanted to be able to impact others. The work I was doing made a difference, but not exactly in the way that I it wanted to. I moved into the DFWHC Foundation, which basically brings many hospitals together; so in that capacity, I was able then to impact what’s going on in hospitals. As an analyst, I take workforce data for about 70-75 percent of the entire Dallas-Fort Worth area and compile it to push out benchmarks to the hospital systems so they know where they stand. What we’re doing is really innovative and new to health care.

The DFWHC Foundation allows me to touch many different organizations in my community, so I see and hear a lot of what’s going on in these different hospital systems.

The biggest challenge in our area is scarcity—not only in our area, but across the U.S. Inexperienced nurses are finding it harder to find work because hospitals want to hire those with experience, and on the other hand, many who have been in the workforce for 20-30 years want to retire. Not only are we going to lose physically having them in the hospital, but we’re also losing their intellectual property and all the experience they’ve gained over the years.

Before our nurses want to retire, we need to use them in a different way to demonstrate their value before they leave the workforce by mentoring new nurses. Then at that point, we can’t argue that we have a deficit because of not having experienced nurses, because we’re allowing those moving out of the workforce to mentor those with less experience and show that we value both our new and experienced nurses on both ends—by bridging the gap and sharing knowledge.

This is my very first ASHHRA conference, and I’ve been very impressed from the start. This conference has been so impactful because of the consistent messaging of knowing and acknowledging what we can give back to others. I lift my hat to the HR folks who are faced with the issues every single day. They’re the fix-it for everything and have to be able to balance it all. The knowledge we’ve gained at this year’s conference is something that can be used and applied every day to those who walk through our doors and count on us.