As we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed the American workforce. The pandemic forced many people to begin working from home. Once this kind of work was made a reality, many decided they didn't want to come back into the office. This "work from home" attitude along with America's population decline due to families having fewer children has left a large hole in the workforce and created a large reduction in applicants for jobs across all industries. 

As healthcare leaders, it is up to us to work toward retaining the employees we have and training them to give them an upward trajectory in their careers. One of the projects I worked on in the Human Capital Management class was a workflow study within my Radiation Oncology department. The goal of this project was to improve efficiency within the department but also increase not just patient satisfaction but also employee engagement. With the results of this project, my team was able to make decisions on how we would staff the department. At the time, I was not given the staffing outcome I was hoping for, but I did make some changes, and this improved things within the department. It has now been about 2 years since the completion of this study, and I was finally approved to hire a 2nd Medical Assistant. With that, employee engagement and patient satisfaction has improved even more. Here, you will see my final report on this Human Capital Initiative. Within this report, you will see some of the tools I learned to use throughout this course. Examples include a SWOT Analysis and a Force Field Analysis.   

A second part of this learning process was to interview a Human Capital Leader. For this assignment, I interviewed the Corporate Director of the Oncology Service Line at Valley Health in Winchester, Virginia. Mr. Larry Ponce made me aware of some of the common pitfalls leaders will encounter in their careers. This experience was quite impactful and there are a few things from this interview that I know will stick with me throughout the rest of my career.