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Diversity and Inclusion are at the Business Core of
Kaiser Permanente
 John
Nagelmann is the HR Director, Learning, Organizational
Development and Diversity for Kaiser Permanente
Northwest. As head of Learning and Organizational
Development, he is responsible for a team that annually
runs over 300 training events for the regional staff
complement of 8000 employees. Under Diversity
initiatives, John’s office supports Kaiser’s Diversity
Council and five different diversity-related staff
associations, as well as doing consultations and
interventions on cultural competence issues. John has
recently joined the Board of the OBLN. In this article,
he shares some of his professional experiences and
personal perspectives on issues of diversity and
inclusion:
OBLN:
John, we understand that both Kaiser and its CEO have
won national awards and recognition for leadership in
diversity initiatives and practices. What can you tell
us about that?
 John Nagelmann: Yes,
Kaiser has earned a good national reputation around
diversity issues. Our national CEO, George Halvorson
believes very strongly in the importance of diversity.
He has taken great pride in making our Board of
Directors represent a very diverse group of people.
Organization-wide, diversity initiatives at Kaiser
Permanente are very robust. We have a national diversity
office that sets the diversity agenda for the
organization and, regionally, we pursue that agenda by
establishing goals that are linked to our operating
plans.
In the Northwest region we have
made some particularly good strides in the past three
years. We developed a strategic plan and hired a
wonderful Manager of Diversity, April Lewis. Through
that, we have put many different diversity efforts in
place that are really catching the imagination of our
managers and employees.
The exciting thing about
diversity and inclusion is that we can get more people
with different types of ideas, different types of
skills, different types of experiences – and it makes us
a more creative environment. From that creativity we can
do better business and offer better care.
OBLN:
Can you tell us more about what you do to develop this
inclusionary thinking within your company?
John Nagelmann: We do a
lot of work with different workgroups around
inclusionary issues. We teach people about styles of
interaction, so our employees can better understand and
appreciate their own styles and learn how best to work
with people who have different styles. We train people
on cultural inventory assessments, so that our people
can see the benefits of many different cultural
backgrounds.
I am also really impressed with
the new notion of “cultural humility”. In the context of
wanting to be sensitive to everyone’s backgrounds,
people have traditionally felt that ,in order to be
well-informed and receptive individuals, they needed to
learn everything that there is to know about all the
different cultures – a task which is nearly impossible.
Through cultural humility, however, where I may not be
well-informed about your personal background or culture,
I can be humble enough to ask the respectful questions
that will help me to learn more about you and the
diversity that you bring to the table.
In the context of our broader
inclusionary practices, Kaiser Permanente has also
developed a unique Labor-Management Partnership which
brings labor to the table to work cooperatively with
management in dealing with organizational issues and
improving services.
Another good example of our
inclusionary practices is the Advisory Committees that
Andy McCulloch, our Regional President, has formed. On a
quarterly basis, he holds separate meetings with a group
of Managers and Supervisors, a group of Physicians, a
group of nurses and a group of front-line workers. At
each of these meetings, folks from these groups are able
to give their perspectives on issues that are of current
importance to the organization. He has plans to start
another Advisory Group made up of people who represent
diverse backgrounds.
OBLN:
We understand that your Regional diversity efforts are
supported by several staff associations. Please tell us
more about them.
John Nagelmann: The staff
associations are affinity groups or cultural groups. We
have five of them: the African American Association, the
Latino Association, the Asian Connection, the People
with disABILITIES Association and the “KP Pride” or LGBT
organization. They are a means for people of different
backgrounds to get engaged with one another, to offer
feedback to the organization, and to do outreach in the
community. Their activities vary from group to group. As
an example, the People with Disabilities group did some
work with our recruiters a couple of years ago to help
them understand the population and what a gold mine of
recruiting opportunity it is.
OBLN:
How does your office engage in maintaining workforce
diversity through Kaiser’s recruiting and hiring
practices?
John Nagelmann: We are
responsible for our Affirmative Action Plan, so we
create partnerships with our HR Recruiters and make them
aware of our Affirmative Action goals. In turn, they
guide and consult with our hiring managers about how to
cast the recruitment net wide enough to make sure that
we are drawing on enough candidate pools of people from
diverse backgrounds. That leads to initiatives like last
fall where Barbara Dirks from Diversity partnered with
Debbie Alsop from Recruiting and represented Kaiser at
the OBLN Job Fair.
Recruitment, however, is only a
partial solution. We must continually work on our
cultural competence to create a welcoming work
environment so we retain the people we recruit.
OBLN:
From all that you have said, your diversity efforts seem
to be a truly integral thread that runs throughout the
Kaiser Permanente organization.
John Nagelmann: Our
diversity initiatives all directly tie in to our
operating plan and the very core nature of our business.
We have five strategic areas in our operating plan:
People, Culture, Service, Quality of Care, and Financial
strength. Diversity addresses each one of them.
-
People and Culture –
diversity creates a sense of inclusion and cultural
competence so that we treat each other well and
create a welcoming environment for people of diverse
backgrounds to work here.
-
Service and Quality of Care:
- with the foundation of diversity in our own people
and organizational culture, we can offer better
culturally-competent care and service to our
Members.
-
This then helps us attract
more Members from culturally diverse populations and
makes us financially stronger.
It all fits together very
nicely.
As the population of Oregon and
southwest Washington becomes progressively more diverse,
we have to be able, not only to be culturally-competent
within our workforce, but to offer culturally-competent
care to an increasingly diverse Membership base. When
people are served by our organization, we need to
understand their cultural attitudes about health and
illness and the epidemiology of certain diseases that
might affect their particular groups. This level of
individualization is core to our mission – to offer
everyone the best experience and the best quality of
care.
OBLN:
Sometimes it seems that, within the spectrum of
“diversity”, disability seems to be treated as a “poor
cousin” to the more prominent groups. How integral is
disability to your diversity efforts at Kaiser?
John Nagelmann: People
with disabilities are so integral to our diversity
efforts, that I jumped at the chance to join OBLN.
Also, as I mentioned earlier, disability is the focus of
one of our five different staff associations. Here, with
our staff association and on our Diversity Council,
people with disabilities are pretty well-represented.
They have done some really nice work in recruiting and
helping people here understand the impact of
disabilities. We have a series of educational videos at
Kaiser Permanente that portray the different experiences
of people from various diverse backgrounds. It includes
a portrait of a man who had an injury and now relies on
a wheelchair for his mobility – and what it was like for
him to return to work. The video builds our
cultural awareness, prompts good discussion and helps us
change behavior so that we are more and more inclusive.
OBLN:
Can you comment on your involvement with the Oregon
Business Leadership Network and what that investment
represents to you?
John Nagelmann: I just
recently joined the OBLN Board of Directors. It is a
fascinating group with incredibly loyal and committed
members. I am amazed at the energy of Lucy Baker and the
OBLN staff, and all the networking they do.
I like how creatively the OBLN
partners with other organizations. For instance, when
the OBLN partners with groups like Incight, it creates a
nice complementary relationship. As the OBLN works at
the issue from the employers’ side – getting employers
to understand the benefits and the possibilities,
Incight works with people with disabilities to help them
prepare for the job market. They have carved out nice
complementary niches for themselves.
I think the Business Case that
the OBLN developed is fascinating. People with
disabilities represent an incredibly gifted candidate
pool of employees who, as a group, are very loyal,
dedicated and hard-working. There is great opportunity
for employers there. How to get employers to see the
benefit in hiring people with disabilities… to help them
see the kind of candidate pool that is available to
them… this is very energizing work!
See Kaiser Permanente’s website information on
Diversity and Inclusion
Read about
Kaiser Permanente’s experience at the OBLN’s 2007
Job Fair
Read the OBLN’s
interview with Sue Hennesy, V. P. of Health Plan
Operations for KP Northwest
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"The exciting
thing about diversity and inclusion is that we
can get more people with different types of
ideas, different types of skills, different
types of experiences – and it makes us a more
creative environment.
Bill
Tolbert
Scheduled
for October 5 - 8, 2008 in Portland, the Annual
Conference & Career Fair, "Expanding Inclusion: The
Business Strategy" is the preeminent national event for
business, community leaders and BLN chapters that have
an interest in hiring, retention and marketing to people
with disabilities. 
The
USBLN has released a smart little online video featuring
"business case" facts and figures about the need for
companies to embrace the significant talent pool and
customer base that is represented by people with
disabilities. Most of the narrative is delivered by
business leaders from leading corporations like
Highmark, McDonald's and .Hyatt.
2nd
Annual Project SEARCH Conference July 13 - 16,
2007 Seattle, WA.
