Cleveland Clinic, 2021 Governor’s Inclusive Employer Award Winner

In October 2021, OOD announced Cleveland Clinic as the 2021 Governor’s Inclusive Employer Award winner for their commitment to individuals with disabilities in the workplace and being a leader of diversity and inclusion best practices in Ohio. Listen to episode 33 of the OOD Works Podcast as staff with Cleveland Clinic discuss their “disability-inclusive” culture.

Guests from Cleveland Clinic include Diana Gueits, Interim Executive Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; Carmen Roman, HR Business Partner, serving as an Advisor while supporting the Digestive Disease and Surgery Institute and the Glickman Urology & Kidney Institute; and Tim Gibbons, Department Director of Patient Transportation in Operations. They are joined by Michael Hoag, OOD Business Relations Specialist for the Northeast Region of Ohio.

Transcripts and MP3 files are available at ood.ohio.gov/podcast.

Employers interested in partnering can visit the OOD Business Relations Team webpage to get started.

Do you have a disability? Do you want a job? OOD can help! Visit OODWorks.com or call 800-282-4536 to get started. 

Find OOD on social media: @OhioOOD.

Have a disability? Want to work? Visit OODWorks.com!

Transcript

OOD Works Podcast Episode 33

Transcript - Cleveland Clinic, Recipient of the 2021 Governor’s Inclusive Employer Award

Opening:  Welcome to OOD Works, the Podcast.  A show about unique individuals and the services provided by Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities.  The state agency that helps individuals with disabilities find a job and be more independent.  Here is your host, Kim Jump.

Kim Jump: In October 2021, we announced Cleveland Clinic as the 2021 Governor’s Inclusive Employer Award winner for their commitment to individuals with disabilities in the workplace and being a leader of diversity and inclusion best practices in Ohio. And today, I am delighted to be joined by the following guests:  

Kim Jump: Diana “GETS” Gueits is Interim Executive Director of Diversity Equity and Inclusion at Cleveland Clinic. She is responsible for partnering with leaders and caregivers throughout the enterprise to provide strategic direction to key enterprise diversity initiatives.

Kim Jump: Carmen Roman is currently the HR Business Partner at the Cleveland Clinic, serving as Advisor while supporting the Digestive Disease and Surgery Institute and the Glickman Urology & Kidney Institute.

Kim Jump: Tim Gibbons is the Department Director of Patient Transportation in Operations at Cleveland Clinic. And his work is focused on creating the best possible environment for Cleveland Clinic Caregivers by ensuring the team is engaged and the patient experience is world-class.

Kim Jump: And joining us from OOD is Michael Hoag, with our Division of Employer and Innovation Services, is the Business Relations Specialist for the Northeast Region of Ohio.

Kim Jump: Not only was Cleveland Clinic named the Governor’s Inclusive Employer Award winner in October of 2021, they were also a gold level OOD Employer Partner of Inclusion in 2020. And a silver level winner in 2019. So, a long history of partnership, so excited to be able to talk to you today.

Carmen Roman: Thank you, glad to be here.

Diana Gueits: Thank you.

Tim Gibbons: Thank you.

Kim Jump: Why don’t we start by everyone sharing a little bit more about their roles. Diana, would you want to help get things started?

Diana Gueits: Sure, thank you again for the invitation to join both you and Michael in this conversation. As you stated, my role is Interim Executive Director really looking at driving and advancing diversity, equity and inclusion priorities and strategies across the entire ecosystem of Cleveland Clinic. Working in three buckets of workforce and everything that goes under workforce. Everything that impacts workplace whether that’s education and training. It’s the work with our diversity councils and employer resource groups. It’s understanding structures around belonging and then what we call our marketplace. That’s health equity, issues around disparities, economic vitality issues that includes supplier diversity initiatives. That is kind of a shorthand of saying there is a lot of work but we just kind of focus on those three umbrellas to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion practices throughout the organization.

Kim Jump:  That’s great, worthwhile for sure. Carmen, a little bit more about your role?

Carmen Roman:  Sure, and just to add on the introduction to my support here with our clients. I am also supporting, at this time, Lutheran Hospital as an HR business partner.  So, we are embedded into our institutes and hospitals providing our administrators and caregivers with support and guidance under policy administration. It’s making sure our caregiver’s questions are answered. We are involved with different employer resource groups. For instance, the Diverse-Ability Employer Resource Group as one and Salude as another for Latinx group, as far as my involvement. And my role really covers anything to do with caregivers in the organization. And making sure that the caregivers and leaders are provided that support. 

Kim Jump: Right, excellent. And Tim, how about your role?

Tim Gibbons: Thanks for having us on Kim and Michael. My role deals with a lot of moving patients throughout the hospital with patient transport.  I also oversee the red coats which is patient guest services, a concierge. A call center which is service express and admin services. So, like lost and found and if there is a death we do death certificates, notaries. A lot of it’s really when we talk about customer service and the way someone feels when they are coming into a hospital. It’s so important that they are greeted. That they are well taken care of from the first part to the last and then everywhere in between. So, my team really has an impact on that customer service and the overall feeling of what Cleveland Clinic brings to every single patient visitor as they come into the hospital.

Kim Jump: Awesome.

Tim Gibbons: So, we move close to a thousand patients a day, so we are really busy.  It’s a department that really has a huge impact on the flow and the movement of the hospital.

Kim Jump:  That’s awesome. And Michael, for those who aren’t familiar with you.  Your role here at OOD?

Michael Hoag: Sure, I’m a Business Relations Specialists. I am part of a team that supports cultivation and maintenance of ongoing employer partnerships with businesses across the state of Ohio to connect them with resources of our agencies. And connect them with qualified candidates that can meet their workforce needs. 

Kim Jump:  Awesome, great. Well, thank you all for explaining a little bit more about what you do, it’s fascinating. So, I have heard Cleveland Clinic has what is coined as having a disability inclusive culture.  Just curious if you could shed some light on for you, what does it really mean for that to be the culture?

Diana Gueits: I’ll start.  I think it is really looking at the entire framework and looking at the system “ness” of inclusive culture, right? It’s our policies and our practices. It’s some of the support systems. Having certainly clear policies on hiring and retaining individuals with disabilities. How we handle reasonable accommodations and also ensuring that we are consistently looking at how we are providing accessible physical spaces, electronic resources, disability training. Just everything that goes into that. So, what we have done is really develop a lot of opportunities for learning around disability. We have a disability etiquette training plus all of our new employees complete an online learning module that speaks to how we promote diversity and inclusion.  It really contains information on the Americans with Disabilities Act and there is a lot of deep dive work that we also ensure that our managers are aware. Certainly, the work that we have done with project search that has been elevated over the last five years. It’s the work of our employer resource group. Right, our Diverse-Ability resource group that serves as an internal sort of user group that provides feedback and recommendations on our priorities and signal to us when there are gaps and opportunities that we need to look at.  And so, we become much more agile as an organization when you are engaging your workforce which is 72,000 strong.  We have 72,000 employees and in 2020 we saw about 1.5 million patients. So, understanding that we have not only an ear for what our employees are telling us in terms of opportunities but also creating reliable reoccurring channels for feedback from our patients to continually advance our inclusive culture and practices throughout the organization.

Kim Jump: That’s great, I really love how the approach is really about all facets and whether staff have patients that you are looking at wholistically. That is just great. So, how far back does the partnership between OOD and Cleveland Clinic go and how did that come about?

Diana Gueits: Carmen, I think you should take this one.

Carmen Roman: Right, I think with my involvement it has been at least six years and I was primarily introduced through our Project Search as being a co-business liaison under UCP of Greater Cleveland. That really opened up the doors for me to understand all of the resources and partnership that was available to us as we worked with a lot of the business clients around how to best be able to engage our candidates. Our Project Search students to really identify all of their abilities and how the Cleveland Clinic can really contribute to the things that they can do. It’s really a testament and we have proven results and Tim can speak very good about this. His involvement with OOD and the support he has received with a lot of the students, hires and those hires that have helped other project search students. My involvement really early on was also making sure those resources were made known to our managers and administrators and our town requisition team.  So that they knew there were resources, experts that can provide us guidance.

Kim Jump: That’s great. Tim, do you want to add on to what Carmen was explaining with that? And maybe for those that don’t know too if you could speak to the Project Search model.

Tim Gibbons: Sure, so we’ve worked with Project Search over the last five years. Carmen and I have worked together for I think the last five years now.  We promote this Project Search and we really advocate for these interns and their abilities to come in and be a great asset to the Cleveland Clinic and really take care of our patients and visitors. At the end of the day, I think everyone has potential and everyone has a place. It is just identifying where is that place, where do you fall into that place and how do we get maybe more and help you grow. We have hired three interns from Project Search and just in patient transport alone. And we’ve seen such great growth. So, Isaac is four years from Project Search. He has been hired full time for the Cleveland Clinic and today he helps train those coming in to do their ten-week internship. So, we’ve had that turn, you know, and we are seeing others that are stepping up and helping and it has a huge impact. It really shows that growth to those interns coming in. Wow, he came through this same program, or she came through this same program, I do have an opportunity here too.  It’s such a powerful message from the start when someone is starting into this internship to say that I can see myself doing what he is doing, or I can see myself being a part of this organization and taking care of people every day and really growing. Because from the start when we first hired, we were keeping tasks very simple and now all three of these interns that have now become Cleveland Clinic full-time caregivers, they’re moving patients around the hospital. So, we’ve seen such great growth. And their maturity, the way they are able to communicate and connect with patients is so powerful. It really is impactful to me personally because I have family members who have disabilities and I know how important it is for everyone to have a place. A place they can go to and call it a family. You know when you leave your home you are going to another place of employment and feel that you are part of a family. We would like to create that family atmosphere. I am very excited for the program every year and I’m grateful to have it. We’re truly grateful. 

Kim Jump: Oh, we are truly grateful. I just love what you had to say about everyone having potential and everyone having a place. I mean that’s really what it’s about. Just hearing the passion from you all and your commitment to inclusion is just really outstanding. 

Kim Jump: This question is really for any of you. What would you say is valuable about partnering with OOD, day- to-day? Carmen you kind of talked a little bit about providing resources for managers and others. What comes to mind as the benefits of partnering with us as state agency?

Carmen Roman: It’s making known through them that there are other resources that are available. And even when we hire our students, knowing that we can reach, if there is a need to obtain additional support, understand better or different learning techniques that someone might have.  It’s reaching out to OOD and say, “we have a caregiver that we have hired and all of a sudden we are noticing a change in their performance.” And having that conversation to say what are some of the things that we should be focusing on or doing differently? And knowing we have that expertise to be able to follow and be able to help us.

Diana Guiets: I want to add the partnership has really helped us support with like Carmen said additional resources. But even the thought leadership in terms of and looking at evidence-based practices and supporting us with continuing education for our own caregivers, right? We all mentioned that we have a personal connection, I am the daughter of an individual who is paraplegic, I have a child who has hearing loss, and so this becomes very personal to me, above and beyond my role, and so partnering with OOD is part of our continuous improvement to continue to evolve our strategy around not only workforce but even how we engage patients, patient access, help engagement. I will tell you recently like lots of organizations we have gone remote and our Diverse-Ability employee resource group just gained 25 new members in the last 30 days. And just before joining this call, had them introduce and they all had a personal story, and so even this new sort of transition that I think a lot of organizations are struggling with in terms of remote-based working has really opened the doors for additional opportunities for individuals to find career growth and be able to thrive here at Cleveland Clinic. So, we are excited about continuing this partnership with OOD as we continue to cast the widest possible reach for talent for our organization but also make sure that we have a pulse on some of the challenges that individuals face when trying to navigate through healthcare systems.

Kim Jump: And Diverse-Ability, you mentioned that, explain what is your Diverse-Ability group?

Diana Guiets: So, it’s an employer resource group that is sponsored through the office of diversity and inclusion. Our employer resource group serve as ambassadors for the practices and applications of diversity and equity and inclusion throughout the organization, and so it’s a group of individuals who feel a calling to this whether they are an individual who has a disability or a family member or caregiver or someone with a disability or just someone who wants to be an ally. And so we really look at opportunities we have in the system – and so they were really the thought leaders and the support around bringing Project Search to Cleveland Clinic as a partner. We are in our fifth year, with a 72% placement rate of students who graduate from that program within our system and with our contracted vendors in our community. We’re very proud of that. But really then again, really, they’re a user group and they provide us feedback in terms of opportunities, there’s business plans that they develop and they identify strategic issues they kind of want to push forward for the organization, whether it be Project Search and workforce recruitment and retention planning. It could be work around ergonomics and accommodation. It could be hosting lunch and learns to kind of understand how to identify those resources so you can be a much more inclusive leader and hiring manager or colleague. So, really the sky is the limit in terms of what employer resource group can provide in an organization and our Diverse-Ability employer resource group has certainly done that for the organization, really developed some signature programming, is a trusted sort of thought leader when we are looking at opportunities to advance and evolve what we are doing to make sure wea re always trying to be the most inclusive as possible.

Kim Jump: It’s great how you utilize that. Outstanding. Michael, what are the supports and services that you are able to help offer to Cleveland Clinic. 

Michael Hoag: Sure, well OOD really does strive to be a full partner to employers committed to building a disability inclusive workplace. So, from supporting their recruiting and hiring needs to offering training resources, to cultivating a culture of inclusion, we want to be there to support our employers every step of their journey. Many employers, and Cleveland Clinic is a shining example, don’t really demand a lot of us, but they leverage what we do offer and incorporate a lot of those tools, into their own DEI toolbox. Recruiting and hiring referrals is often where it all starts with employer partnerships and Cleveland Clinic has participated in OOD sponsored job fairs and hiring events since 2017. So, five years of ongoing engagement with OOD to interact with our participants, discuss opportunities that they have available, interview candidates for jobs. Just this past month, during National Disability Employment Awareness Month, we had a virtual hiring event and Cleveland Clinic was right there to engage with us again and interviewed four candidates through a virtual platform for job opportunities, with a member of their talent acquisition team. And over the past five years we’ve seen over 130 individuals secure part-time or full-time roles within the Cleveland Clinic network. It’s been an ongoing and very successful partnership.

Kim Jump: Yeah, those numbers really speak for themselves. That’s a lot of connection between OOD participants and the Cleveland Clinic, that is really great! For the Cleveland Clinic team I’m curious about your process for providing reasonable accommodations (RA’s) for applicants maybe from OOD that are coming, or your employees who maybe acquire disabilities.

Carmen Roman: Sure, so as a recruiter is made aware of an employee’s disability that is disclosed, they will work together with a team to make sure that applicant is comfortable as possible, making sure that the right questions are being asked to ensure that there is a successful experience. And so, again, I refer to Tim because as co-business liaisons, he really gets it. And he’s involved in that direct hiring process, and could probably even speak to the different types of things that he has done differently just to make sure that that candidate experience is being met and that we can clearly identify the skill set and the abilities that match the person to the job.

Kim Jump: I’d love to hear from you.

Tim Gibbons: So, this is very recent. So, we had two candidates come in, and both had stated that they are autistic. And so, as the conversation continued, we engaged in open dialogue and they were very open to the conversation of how they liked to learn, what type of questions or situations or comfort situations they are strong in and what are some things they shy away from. So, we had some great conversations and actually brought both candidates back in for a shadow, both of them hired on. So, we are kind of working with our team to help create an environment where these new caregivers that are autistic, come in and learn and grow with the department. And so, we have a couple of our caregivers who work in the patient transportation department that have family members or siblings or kids of their own that have autism, and so they kind of came out and said, “hey I’d love to train. I’d love to be a part of this opportunity to give back and be a part of this.” So, we’ve had some really positive input so far from these two new caregivers who are training right now, and just kind of keeping things simple, because it can probably be very overwhelming with over 3,000 locations and huge footprint at the Cleveland Clinic Main Campus. So, we kind of shrink it down and we kind of take things very, very slowly, but methodically.  And we want to really, really listen in on what’s working well, and what’s not working well, because both of these new caregivers they really speak out and I’m glad they do. But we try to create the environment where they can speak out and we can work with them instead of saying, “hey it needs to be this way or not. You know we can work with you and adjust things as we go.”

Carmen Roman: I think be flexible during that interview process, being flexible as to how we interview, makes a key difference. Making sure that the candidate is feeling comfortable. Not that we are having to go out of our way to do something completely different because of their disability but only because of the fact that we are adjusting our processes so we can hear them, understand what they are looking for, and as an employer we want to make sure that we have the right match for a role, so why not make an adjustment to our process.

Kim Jump: Yeah, it really strikes me as so respectful of the individual.

Diana Guiets: I will add, Carmen is being a little modest, and so I think it has been a while ago that we had a candidate that we thought would be a phenomenal sort of hire for a particular department and you know departments in lots of organizations, you create a panel and you have diverse individuals on a panel to ensure some sort of equity. And we knew because of the neurodiversity of that candidate, that a panel would be a foreboding experience. And so, there was a conversation had with that hiring manager and he was able to pivot and scale the interview in a way to accommodate that process. And we came back hiring that individual, but that was all Carmen coaching that individual around that as an opportunity for this particular candidate. And we hired a phenomenal individual as a result of that – that would not have done well in a traditional sort of panel interview. So, having that foresight and being flexible as Carmen said to pivot and to make the accommodation at the interview process, not after the hire, right?

Carmen Roman: Thank you, Diana. It is learning experiences, but I think this comes with being part of a partnership with OOD, being able to be part of, you know I was a former board member of UCP of Greater Cleveland. It’s having Project Search involvement. It’s listening to the stories of the impact that it places on the caregiver. You know you’re continually learning as you go along and you want to make sure you’re sharing that with all of the leaders because it is part of my role as leadership development and this is an aspect of that.

Kim Jump: That is just great. That must’ve felt like a real win for you, Carmen?

Carmen Roman: Oh, it was phenomenal.

Kim Jump: …To be able to see that through. That is really great.

Carmen Roman: Yes, absolutely. Very appreciative. The employee is extremely appreciative, felt very much heard, felt like there was finally this opportunity where people were understanding, that she just needed to be looked at differently for the interview process, but still be accepted for who she is.

Kim Jump: Important distinction, there. Curious to what you all would say to other businesses considering a partnership with OOD?

Diana Guiets: Run, don’t walk.

(Laughter)

Tim Gibbons: I would say be open, inviting, you know really give it a try because I think they’ll be pretty surprised about how many people are out there that can have an impact on your organization or business, and really give it their all and really give 110%. A lot of our interns or a lot of our employees that have disabilities give it 110% every day. And just the level of consistency and passion they develop for the job is remarkable. So, I would encourage, even if they would need us to come and talk to them, we would definitely build a case because it is so important. I think everyone has someone they know, maybe even a neighbor or someone that they know that might have a disability and that can really impact that person’s life by giving them an opportunity.

Carmen Roman: I would also encourage that there be an employee resource group, a place where they can have a voice. A place where they can feel comfortable. Know that it’s not about just having policies in place it’s about having specific actionable items where their contributions, their insight, can place an impact.

Diana Guiets: I would ditto the comments of Carmen and Tim. I think what a lot of organizations is they do an analysis paralysis because they don’t have the bench strength of what OOD brings to the table and so that’s the beauty of the partnership you don’t have to have that. You can have OOD sort of coach you in that process and take a look at your processes and identify what are aspects of how individuals navigate this that I need to support and shift in order to be much more inclusive in my employment practices and my retention practices for individuals with disabilities, and utilize OOD as a strong partner in that work and also not be afraid to utilize some of the wrap around services for your employees as you are bringing them on board and make sure those employees have an awareness of those wrap around services that OOD provides. Because that could be a real pivotal moment in terms of retention for individuals.

Kim Jump: Yeah. Thank you for those employer tips. Those are great. Michael by way of background, can you share a little bit about the evolution of the 2021 Governor’s Inclusive Employer Award?

Michael Hoag: Sure. So, historically, we always were mindful to recognize what we considered to be model employers of inclusion. During our annual job fair events we would typically recognize employers as best practice candidates or employers who are really models of disability inclusion. And we are really excited that this year, the governor’s office actually, took note of what we’ve been doing, and given the governor’s commitment to disability inclusion, he wanted to put his name and position behind an acknowledgement of disability inclusion with an employer award this year.  So, we helped in cultivating the framework for that employer award we encouraged employers to apply and articulate their best practices in disability inclusion and had internal teams that reviewed the applications, used a scoring matrix to identify an employer that would percolate to the top, and very honored to have the Cleveland Clinic be the employer that was recognized this year as the first-ever Governor’s award winner of this Disability and Inclusion Award.

Kim Jump: Pretty special. So, Cleveland Clinic team your reaction to being the award-winner?

Carmen Roman: I was so proud to be able to submit that application on behalf of the Cleveland Clinic. You know, one of our six values is around inclusion, so it is not just about it being around one of those six values, it’s about what we have done to be able to say that we are an inclusive organization, and that application gave us that opportunity to be able to share that, because it’s about our applicants, it’s about our care givers, it’s about our patients, it’s about our community and it asked all the right questions and I knew we had the answers.

Diana Guits: I think we were extremely humbled right because when we enter into some of these surveys or benchmarking-type of surveys, the intent is always to kind of find where you are in terms of your trajectory and where it is you need to go and it becomes kind of a gap assessment sort of tool for a lot of our work. And so, the intention was we were actually floored that we were selected because our intention was not that- our intention was we have done some things, we’d like to see how we compare to other organizations. And so I think again, extremely humbled by the recognition for what we believe are really sort of humble beginnings for this work, because we have ideation of evolving beyond where we’re at. Again, thrilled us to have it, but didn’t go in for the recognition, more of like wanting to see where we compared and wanted to at least storyboard some of the great work that we think we’re doing.

Kim Jump: We’re not surprised that you were the award winner were we Michael? (laughter) So, if someone is listening and they are interested in starting a career with Cleveland Clinic where would you want them to begin?

Carmen Roman: Well, we would have them begin by looking at our career site and filling out an application. Even though they may have a disability they follow the same process. And so, we will make sure that if they disclose what their disability might be and they need an accommodation, sharing that information and being comfortable to do that would be the place to begin.

Kim Jump: Great. Michael if there’s an employer that’s seeing or listening to this and interested in partnering with OOD what should they do?

Michael Hoag: Sure, well OOD’s business relations team is here to help any business get started. Myself, and I’ve got four counterparts that blanket the state in building business partnerships to support companies’ disability inclusion efforts. We can meet with them either in-person or virtually to get a partnership started. I often tell employers one of the things that attracted me to working for OOD is that we generally take a dual customer approach to our work. Individuals with disabilities are a primary customer of ours, but equally important to us is being mindful to what businesses need and want in an inclusive workplace. Adding individuals with disabilities to their teams doesn’t mean asking for a favor or to take on a charity case it must be based on simply encouraging employers to be open to a diverse and competent source of talent that we can help connect them to, while supporting our participants in meeting their career goals. We currently have over 900 business partnerships across the state, in every sector of our diverse economy, but we know there’s plenty more businesses out there, and we welcome any of them that desire to create a talented and diverse workforce, to join us in meeting the governor’s mandate to make Ohio a disability inclusion state.

Kim Jump: Great. Well as we wrap things up, I want to offer the opportunity if there are any final comments? 

Michael Hoag: I’ll just lastly want to give a shout out to Kim Peavy who is another member of Cleveland Clinic’s Workforce Diversity Talent Acquisition Team at the Clinic. Kim literally has been a trusted partner to me personally and to OOD. She is always responsive to us whether it's engaging in our hiring events, accepting direct candidate referrals or sharing some constructive feedback on participants that don’t end up getting selected for positions. These are all really important ingredients for successful partnership with OOD. So, thank you Kim for everything that you do, to make this partnership work so well.

Diana Guiets: Thank you Mike, I was just going to mention that we were missing two really essential key individuals who have been part of this and that is Kim and Patty that couldn’t be with us today. And so really having trusted sort of individuals in the organization who are your liaisons and can take this work and really work collaboratively to kind of grow that partnership is really important. And Kim and Patty are certainly part of that make -up for Cleveland Clinic. 

Kim Jump: Great. Thank you. Well to Kim and Patty, Diana, Carmen, Tim, everyone at Cleveland Clinic, we thank you. Congratulations.

All: Thank you.