(upbeat music) - Steve Adubato with my colleague, Mary Gamba.

We're now joined by Kathryn Badger.

That name sounds familiar.

Kathryn Badger is director Total Rewards at CentraState Healthcare System.

Kathryn, good to see you.

- Good to see you too, Steve.

- Now, Kathryn, on our broadcast we disclose all kinds of things that are potentially perceived as a conflict or an issue.

Do you, in fact, I mean I feel like a prosecutor right now.

Do you have a relationship with a very high level executive on our production team?

- I do.

I do.

- Would that be Elvin Badger, our director?

- It would.

It would, Your Honor.

- Oh, hold on.

Before we talk about serious leadership issues, what makes Elvin not just a great leader, but a great husband and father?

- Oh, he sees things.

I wanna say he sees like the big picture of everything.

He's always like 10 steps ahead of all of us and he really keeps us, I don't wanna say in check, but yes, he helps keep me grounded, keep us all kind of in check.

He's amazing.

- Wow.

- Aww.

- Can you get my wife here and ask her the same question?

- It depends on what day it is, right, Steve?

- No, what hour it is.

Kathryn, tell us about the work you do and how it's connected to leadership.

- Sure.

So, I am the director of Total Rewards and I am the lead for strategic or strategy communications and compliance for benefits, compensation, and also retirement plans, things like that for our employees.

So, in that respect, I have to lead that function and our team to really be able to bring the best-in-class things, and benefits, and comp, and you know, everything for our employees.

- Kathryn, before, Mary's gonna jump in a second, but Mary, this is interesting.

Mary and our 9, 10 person team and our production team, the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Mary is not only the executive director, but she's the de facto head of HR, meaning we don't have an official HR Department.

I'm curious about this.

HR has evolved dramatically in the last 5, 10 years.

It's a very different function.

How so?

- I think we've really brought a more, I would like to say humanity to it, again.

I think they put the human back in human resources, especially after the pandemic.

We really had to take a step back and realize that these are not just worker bees, these are people with home lives and parents and children or even, you know, loneliness issues at home.

So, I think everyone had to take a step back and bring wellness to the forefront, which has been a huge factor since the pandemic.

Really bringing everyone's mental health, emotional, physical, full body health to the forefront and in the workplace as well.

- So important, Mary, please.

- Kathryn, how have you found you needed to adapt post-pandemic, but just even in general over, as Steve said, the past decade when it comes to the needs, the wants?

I've read a lot of studies, especially tied to the work that we're doing, that what employers may think that the employees want may not necessarily be in direct correlation with what those employees are looking for.

So, have you found a top 1, 2, 3?

I'm a new employee coming in, I'm sitting in front of you, I'm looking for a job.

Tell us what is most important to employees in 2024?

- I think while we think, or we know compensation's important, but also I think feeling valued is huge these days.

Adding value and making sure that what I do as a person, as an employee here, is adding value to the company, that it's recognized.

And I think also we sometimes, as employers, as bosses, forget that employees wanna know that there is a future for them.

That there's growth happening here and that I can be whoever I wanna be, or there's pathways, some kind of succession, something that I can do in the future.

- Mary, follow up on that, because there's an expression, I stole it and I always forget to cite where it comes from.

It's a quote from Jim Collins' book, "Good To Great".

Mary, you ever hear me say it's hire slow fire what?

- Oh, hire slow fire fast.

Yes, we've had every, Steve and I have worked together now going on 24 years and I like to bring that up mainly, because, again, Kathryn, as you were just talking about, Steve has been very flexible, very giving, when it comes to requests for what each of our team members needs.

But even despite of that, sometimes people leave, sometimes you bring somebody on board and they're not the right fit.

So, that is something that Steve and I have talked about a long time is we have to be much more intentional, much more very, very thoughtful as we're hiring new people.

As you are hiring new people, what are, if for somebody watching this who's out there looking for a job, they've got their resume out there, what do you look for in that candidate that's saying, you know, yeah, they are definitely CentraState material?

- Or someone hiring both ways, right, Mary?

- Exactly.

- When we're hiring, I think we need to always focus on the full person and say, "Is this person our material?

Is this person going to really add value?

Are they going to be flexible?"

The people who say, "Well, that's not my job, that's not my function," that's not who you kind of wanna hire.

- We've been there before, Kathryn, and that does not, I love, one time, years and years ago, I'll withhold names.

I had said to one of our team members, I said, "Oh, you know, would you, I really need some help with X, Y, Z project."

And I remember he said at the time, he was like, "Well, how much more am I gonna get in order to be doing that?"

Now, that was just the wrong answer.

- And a lot of people are thinking that way.

And I think, and I always say, I go back to when I first started in HR, I got a, well back then they didn't call it this, but stretch assignment.

It had nothing to do with my job.

It came, but it came from the head of HR and I had to figure out how to solve this problem and I figured it out.

And I think that's what really boosted me in my career in HR, is always saying yes, always would be willing to learn, always wanting to grow.

And I think that's the best kind of candidate to hire in any field, in any company, any industry.

- Lemme make this really tough on you, okay?

- Okay.

- So, there's a chapter, I'm very uncomfortable promoting my book, but in this book "Lessons in Leadership 2.0: The Tough Stuff", there's a chapter and it asks a question, but in the question, in the chapter, I try to answer the question and the question is, "Is everyone a leader?"

And I make the argument that everyone on a great team, not a mediocre or average team, on a great team, everyone has to be a leader of some sort, regardless of their title, regardless of their position, or their place in an org chart.

Do you believe that, that everyone needs to be a leader of some sort?

Or can we be the best as an organization with people who do and wait to be told what to do?

I know it's complicated, but I think about that all the time.

- Oh, I love that.

I think, I never thought of it that way, but now that you mention it, I think we all can be leaders, even, you know, on great teams, I'll even say mediocre teams.

Because even if you're not leading people, you can lead a project, you can lead your job.

- You can lead yourself.

- Right, you can lead yourself.

Very good point.

You are taking, you being proactive and doing your job.

You don't have to wait for me to tell you what to do.

So yeah, that's a great point.

Anyone can be a leader.

We all have it in us to do it.

We just have to bring it out each day and be intentional to do the work.

- Mary, you think we can get Kathryn to work with.

No, I'm sorry.

- That was all part of our master plan.

Don't, you know, tip your cards.

- But Mary, how many times have we had people say, I'm not, I'm not.

See, Kathryn said it's in someone you have, but it's our job as leaders that whatever the means at the top of an organization, to bring it out in people, how many times we have people either say or imply, I'm not, I'm not, don't try to make me a leader.

- Exactly, it happens all the time.

- Wow, that's unfortunate.

You know, to your point, we all have it in us.

We can do it.

We just have to want to.

- Yeah, a quick follow up on that, Kathryn.

When it comes to leadership, and again, I feel like, sorry, this is another somewhat loaded, tough question.

But do you believe that men and women lead differently or that we need, 'cause you're a woman leader in healthcare, I'm a woman leader on our team.

Do you feel like we have to lead differently?

Is there a difference between the way that men and women have to approach their leadership style?

- Ooh, good question.

- What program do you think you came on to, Kathryn?

- I know, I should have known better.

I hear you all the time and I hear you guys.

- Kathryn, we have nothing but hard questions.

I just don't have any answers.

Go ahead, men and women in leadership.

- I don't think they do lead differently.

I'm trying to think over time how my leaders have led me and helped me to become a leader and to be able to do my best.

And no, I think everyone kind of comes from, again, a place of humanity.

As long as we can remember that we're all human and we're trying to do our best and we want to learn, men and women can do the same type of leadership or have the same type of leadership style, in my experience.

- Well said, let's do this.

Kathryn, stay right there.

I wanna thank you officially for joining us, but is it possible to bring in someone behind the scenes who is directing the show as we speak right now, Elvin Badger, our director?

Elvin, can you come in right now?

Elvin?

I asked.

- I'm still doing the show.

Yes, sir, yes.

- Oh, sorry.

What?

Multitasking is not in your job description?

So, Elvin, I asked Kathryn about you.

What makes your great husband and father, leader.

A great wife, mother, person, leader, or your wife, or Kathryn?

- So, I'm very lucky to have married Kathryn and to have met her.

I don't think we work, I think we work side by side.

I push her, she pushes me, she's pushed me in my career, I've pushed her in her career.

We raise the kids together.

We're always on the same page, most of the time, when it comes to the kids, most of the times I'm the easier parent.

She's the one that's a little more stricter than I am, but I think that we make a great team.

- And dare I ask, in our home there's one CEO and I know it's not me.

And you?

- It's not me.

It's not me.

- You're not co-, hold on.

Mary and I have worked with organizations where there are co-CEOs and I never am convinced that co-quarterbacking or CEO's work.

Are you co, Kathryn, co-CEOs of the home?

- He's COO, I'm the CEO, and he's the COO.

- That's perfect, I love that analogy.

- He chairs our operations 100% and I just kind of help lead that, you know?

ensure that we're going to the gold.

- You're the strategic.

- Sorry, Steve.

- Go ahead, please.

- With one of my sons this weekend and I was looking to go buy a new iPhone and I said, "You know what, I think it's time to buy a new phone."

And then my son was like, "You better call mom."

(people laughing) And I was like, "What do you mean I have a job, I make my own money."

He was like, "You better call Mom.

Before you come home, you better call Mom."

- I love that.

- He knows who the CEO is?

- Yeah, the COO has to check with the CEO.

- Yes.

- And in our company, Mary, I've gone from being the CEO to working for you somehow.

I don't even know how that happened.

- Oh, only on certain days, Steve.

Most days you're the leader.

Sometimes I just need to nudge you a little bit.

- Yes.

Well, listen, Kathryn, I wanna thank you so much for joining us.

I'm sure this was not what you expected when we asked you to join us.

- It was great.

- We learned from you, we enjoyed having you, and you're welcome back on our series anytime.

Thanks so much.

- Thank you so much everyone.

- And thank you for Elvin.

We'll be back, I dunno if that makes any sense, but we'll be back.

- It doesn't make any sense.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

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