Children’s Minnesota is pleased to announced that Laurin Cathey, senior vice president and chief human relations officers, received one of the Minnesota Hospital Association’s first-ever Workforce Innovation Awards. Laurin was honored with the Hiring and Recruiting Leadership Award, which recognizes innovative recruiting and hiring initiatives focused on attracting new workers to an organization.
In the face of a challenging labor market, Laurin and his team changed their approach to attract talented employees and ensure new hires reflected the diversity of patients and families.
Here are a few of the innovative strategies Laurin’s team took to meet hiring goals:
- From the first interview to the job offer, they reduced clinical hiring timeframes by an average of 25% by condensing time between interviews.
- Introduced pop-up recruitment moments at non-recruitment events, such as vaccination events, Minnesota Wild Games and the Minnesota State Fair.
- Initiated a strong presence at career fairs geared toward Black, Indigenous and People of Color, e.g. People of Color Career Fair.
During the past two years, Laurin has led innovative enhancements to benefits and professional development to increase employee engagement and intent to stay:
- In January 2022, Children’s Minnesota was one of the first health care systems in the area to introduce paid parental leave, including an additional two weeks for the birthing parent and two weeks for the non-birthing parent.
- In January 2023, Children’s Minnesota added the following progressive benefits:
- Expanded mental health therapy benefit to provide 25 free therapy sessions to all employees and dependents – regardless of whether they’re insured through Children’s Minnesota. Previously, three free sessions were provided.
- New family planning benefit coverage for infertility/fertility services, adoption and surrogacy.
Congratulations to Laurin and all the other MHA Workforce Innovation Awards honorees.