by CHRC | Mar 25, 2020 | Leadership
As we close out Women’s History Month, and #healthcareheroes emerges as a new hashtag, how fitting that this piece in the New York Times reminds us that some of the country’s first heroes in health care were religious sisters. While this piece focuses on the sisters and nuns that poured out of their Philadelphia neighborhood convents to tend to those ravaged by the 1918 pandemic, religious sisters have been in the United States since 1727.
Too often the images of religious sisters are limited to stereotypes in the extreme: either unfeeling or angelic, and seldom someone in between. In truth, the sisters in the United States were pioneers: on the prairie, in the battlefield (Abraham Lincoln thanked them for their nursing during the Civil War), in the laboratory, and of course, the classroom. They were also pioneers in the boardroom; these women were CEOs of hospitals and universities, at a time when very few, if any, American women were allowed to run major institutions. So, as we confront Covid-19, and celebrate those who have dedicated their lives to healthcare, let’s remember some of the first career women, who built many of the country’s hospitals, including the first Mayo Clinic. Read More Here
by CHRC | Mar 18, 2020 | Productivity, Work Place
COVID-19 has forced many companies to adopt new and expanded work from home policies. But remember—commuting is a 200-year-old fad—previously most everyone worked where they lived. Long before the Industrial Revolution, farmers, carpenters, blacksmiths, teachers, and shopkeepers typically made their livelihoods where they lived. About two decades ago, corporate America got the memo on flexibility. Those companies that have become adept at remote working will have the most ease at adapting to our new set of circumstances and keep a large chunk of the business world operating through the current crisis.
Online tools such as Slack, Zoom, or Skype allow for companies to stay connected while physically distant. CHRC has relied heavily on Zoom, a video conferencing tool, as a communication platform for years. We not only use it for meetings with clients, but also amongst ourselves when collaborating on spreadsheets or reports. Stella Garber, product marketing lead at Trello also uses Zoom to manage a team spread across the country. A recent Chicago Tribune article shares how Garber “spends much of her day in meetings on Zoom…whose stock is up about 60% since the start of the year, which can be configured to show everyone’s face like a ‘Brady Bunch’ grid so colleagues can see each other’s reactions.”
Kate Lister, president of Global Workplace Analytics, believes that this global pandemic will allow companies to see that working remotely “can be done successfully” and also “demonstrate the benefits beyond disaster preparedness.” In order to make working from home successful, Philippe Weiss, president of Seyfarth Shaw at Work, suggests that “managers must set clearer expectations, offer more frequent praise and have more purposeful check-ins on progress when their workers are remote. They should overcommunicate, but not too much.”
We predict that the true test will be of management skills and disciplined and purposeful communication. Investing in training for these capabilities right now will result in a much healthier organization long after we’ve been vaccinated against Covid-19. Read More Here
by CHRC | Mar 11, 2020 | Data, Leadership
In doing our part to stop the spread of COVID-19, we’re all becoming experts at hand washing—and all of this handwashing during Women’s History Month shines a perfect light on Florence Nightingale.
Nightingale was a nurse serving soldiers in the Crimean Peninsula in the 1850s, when she insisted that her nursing staff stick to rigorous hygiene routines. Her hand washing practices laid the groundwork for today’s hygiene principles and nurse’s still attribute her as the foundational philosopher of modern nursing. While she was not the first to suggest that hand washing was important, she collected the data to prove it; which in turn persuaded others to pay attention and demand changes.
She presented her experiences and her data to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1856. This data was the reason they formed a Royal Commission to improve the health of the British Army. Nightingale was so skilled with data and numbers that in 1858 she was also elected as the first woman member of the Royal Statistical Society. ⁱ
How ironic, that the Italian city where she was born, that also inspired her traveling English parents to name her Florence, is now under quarantine.
by CHRC | Mar 4, 2020 | Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Leadership, Work Place
As we begin Women’s History Month, we should acknowledge that long before Rosie started riveting in relatively clean and safe surroundings, her forebearers were working (mostly unpaid) for millennia.
Too often, people associate women’s history solely with the image of Rosie the Riveter or suffragettes winning the right to vote in 1920. But we tend to forget that long before that, women worked for centuries in cottage industries, producing gloves, lace, and woolen goods in their cottages or homes. A huge leap occurred when women took these “handy” skills and transferred them to large looms run by steam power in the north of England and then New England. Often, the women working in these roles were on the lowest end of the social spectrum, and thus had no voice.
The First World War was a major shift. Now women were patriotic to take on paid roles outside of the domestic work that they had always done outside the home. By the end of 1918, American women made up nearly 20% of the workforce. Like their British sisters, once the American women had a taste of autonomy and contribution, they were not content to return to the farm or the home and lose the voice, and perhaps the pay packet, that they had gained once the men returned home. The “average” American woman then realized that the best way to make her voice heard was the ballot box.
So this Women’s History Month, let’s reflect on the contributions of the women before us and continue to celebrate their impact in our world every day. Read More Here
