People.

01/12/2022
Stacie Nutt, CHRO


The last two years have been all about separating ourselves from… you know… people. Other people. Those people. Them. As much as I want to believe, still, that pre-pandemic normalcy is surely right around the corner, I struggle with a pragmatic belief that we probably are living our new normal and must adapt. I miss the people. And I know you do too. I think the biggest change every single one of us people had to adapt to was the isolation and separation from other people. This was required of us all. All ages. Globally. In both physical and psychological ways, it’s taken a toll and impacted our lives and relationships. We need to get our peopling opportunities back. The energy created, the understanding achieved, the motivation sustained, the respect appreciated, all feed off our ability to be present with our people. We have an amazing group of 161 people. (That active staff number is as of the writing of this piece.)
 
As we progress through the new year, let’s prioritize putting other people first, taking care of our people, serving other people, and appreciate our need for peopling. If not for our people, our 161 amazing healthcare-providing people we have at IHCRC, we wouldn’t be where we are today…45 years into an amazing existence. An existence excitedly on the edge of second expansion and an existence only attributable to the people who come to IHCRC every day and care about other people.
 
Let’s get to know each other, let’s get to know our people again. This is what the people at IHCRC are made of. Enjoy the demographics!
 
Of the 161 employees who are active this day, 135 of those are women. We are an organization who truly appreciates and strives for diversity and appreciation of women in the workforce, in healthcare! 84% of our workforce are made up of amazing women! One of which has been with IHCRC for our entire 45 years of service to Indian people, Carmelita Skeeter. Carmelita started with IHCRC in August of 1976 and has dedicated her life to the mission of providing healthcare services to Indian people in the Tulsa area. Carmelita has provided leadership to our IHCRC community, to our people, for 45 amazing years that have been full of growth and achievement. In her 45 years, in the clinics 45 years, we’ve seen the workforce, the people, grow to a staff of 161 and growing. We have all 5 generations represented with our largest being Generation X. Generation X represents 43% of our workforce, followed by our Millennials at 37%, and Baby Boomers making up 17% of our people. Interestingly, the remaining 3 percent belong to 3 young IHCRC professionals in the newest generation, Generation Z, and one amazing leader of the Traditionalist Generation, also known as the Greatest Generation and for good reason.
 
Demographically, today our workforce people are comprised of 57% salaried professionals and 43% hourly professionals. 97% are considered full time status. 32% of our current staff have advanced education and are Licensed to perform the health services we provide to our patient population, with an additional 18% having training Certifications to either assist in or perform certain other health services. The remaining staff is comprised of both management and support staff whose function is to support the service providers by maintaining the infrastructure and leading the people.
 
Our workforce people are made up of many tenured individuals who have more stories and memories of the growth and development of our organization than we could ever capture in entirety. Thank goodness for a trove of old photo negatives and slides we have kept safely in administration all these years. Interestingly 32% of our people have worked for IHCRC between 1 and 4 years with an additional 19% of our current staff having been with us for under one year. That means half of our staff, due to both healthy turnover and adding new positions, have a history of less than 5 years with IHCRC and bring so many new, creative, ideas and experiences with them to add to our talents. 29% of our staff have a tenure between 5 and 9 years and 17% have been with our organization between 10 and 19 years. We have a total of 4 people who have been with us between 20 and 29 years, with one person having dedicated the last 37 years of their career to IHCRC, and one other, 45.
In the last year and a half that we have been avoiding people, we have had amazing and incredible stories of resilience and tragedy and celebration among our people. Many of these experiences need to be shared in person to be truly respected and appreciated with the compassion and empathy we people need. We’ve had marriages and divorces, births and deaths…too many deaths. We’ve had promotions, terminations, office moves, and Plexiglas grooves. We had program growth and facility expansion hopes, and we’ve again run out of office space. And we had a really amazing street party. In all of it, remember the most important part, are the people.
 
On a purely entertaining side, 44%, almost half of our staff, prefer the Fall season, with both Spring and Summer seasons each being preferred by 22% of staff. Winter is the preferred season of only 3% of our staff and 9% of our staff fell into another season category by answering with new seasons including Hunting, My Birthday, Vacation, and Monsoon season. Very funny people, very funny.