(Part 1 of 2) Candace Williams talks about her term as co-leader of the Women Business Resource Group at Novant Health. Learn why their work was awarded the #1 spot at the national Impact Awards. Then join us for Part 2 where Candace shares how BRG leadership impacted her and how that's opening up new opportunities for her.
Ashleigh Hargrave 00:05
Welcome to mosaic, your Novant Health podcast for diversity, inclusion and equity. You'll learn more about the mosaic of similarities and differences that make us stronger, and how health equity benefits us all. Piece by piece, we're telling the stories of the beautiful mosaic of Novant Health.
Becky Knight 00:24
Hello, happy to have you with us for this episode of mosaic, where we focus on what Novant Health is doing in the areas of diversity, inclusion and equity. This episode will highlight the work of our Women's Business Resource Group or BRG at Novant Health. All of our BRGs are impactful and so so instrumental in embedding our value of diversity, inclusion and equity in every aspect of our organization. And the Women BRG is our most award winning. Their mission statement is the women BRG strives to offer a safe place for hard topics, a resource to gain tools for self-care and a place to increase skill, confidence and competence for team members in reaching their professional goals. And they have done just that. With me today is Candace Williams, who recently completed her term as Co- leader of the Women BRG, here to talk about how the BRG impacted our team members, and also how leadership impacted her personally and professionally. Candace, welcome, so glad to have you on this episode. Can you begin by telling us a bit about yourself and your role at Novant Health?
Candace Williams 01:27
Thanks so much, Becky. As you said, my name is Candace Williams, I serve as Director of Patient Advocacy and health humanities. What that means is I have the pleasure of supporting work across the organization that supports our patients and their loved ones. I think at Novant Health we're all advocates. And my role, I get to do things like our patient rights video in English and in Spanish to make sure our patients understand their rights, support our community voice patient family advisory councils, which is a way that we bring the voice of patients and loved ones in as we're making decisions and coming up with ways to better care for our patients. And then on the health community side, really the pleasure of the arts, bringing the arts into our facilities, partnering with other teams, like guests and volunteer services. And recently we've begun installing murals in our parking decks just to create a new environment. So it's about the patient and family member experience, and a team member experience and how can we use art to impact that?
Becky Knight 02:31
And Candace, you just ended a very successful term as C0-leader of the Women's BRG here at Novant Health. In 2020, the BRG placed number two at the impact Awards, which are a national recognition, and in 2021, you took the top spot -- number one! What did that moment feel like and what was running through your mind?
Candace Williams 02:52
Going into it, Becky, all we knew was that we were in the top 25. We didn't know where we fell in the top 25. We just knew we were there. And honestly, in 2021, I was feeling a lot of pressure. Because when you've been number two, where do you go the next year? you want number one! And so in my mind, I thought, Is it even possible could it be but this is what we want. We want to continue to improve and get better. So there was just a lot of anxiety. So as the countdown was happening, I was absolutely on pins and needles. I was actually in the car driving my youngest daughter back from college for the weekend and was listening in. And the closer we got like I'm screaming in the car, I'm making all sorts of noise in the car. And when we got to I think it was like number four, number five, and we still hadn't been called. I very wisely pulled over at a rest stop because I was kind of losing it and pulled over the rest stop. And I'm just sitting there just waiting. And when they said when they announced the number two spot, which meant we were the number one spot. I absolutely lost it. I was screaming, I was crying. My daughter was like looking at me like it was also strange. It was amazing. It was so amazing to hear that. And I think at some point during the night, I thought am I right? Like, I think we're in the top 25. But the numbers are still going down and they haven't gotten to us yet. Like it was very surreal. It was an awesome experience.
Becky Knight 04:18
Yes, that was very exciting. And you definitely, I recall, kind of putting out the intention of you wanted to be number one, and you would share that on calls. And so what did you do to earn the number one spot what was the work that was recognized?
Candace Williams 04:35
Definitely was believing for that number one spot and we were saying it all the time as a BRG and just were really amazed when it happened. In terms of work itself, we saw an opportunity to create something for our team members frontline through supervisory roles. Now, while Novant Health has a training and personal development available, we really saw an opportunity to leverage some existing training. It was available in sort of a self-paced way and really create some accountability. And the way we did that was by selecting specific modules that we thought would help a team member who wanted to grow in their career. We also set specific timelines there were, there were timelines by which certain things had to be completed. We worked with this company to provide coaching sessions for our team members. So as an organization, Novant Health would cover team members to coaching sessions for free. And additional coaching sessions were $10 Each, we wanted to make sure that even that $10 wasn't an obstacle. So we agreed and determined that we would support any team member who needed that assistance with that $10. So that that even wouldn't be an obstacle for the team members. And so it was really amazing the feedback we received from those who participated in it, because they weren't taking advantage of what was already there. So instead of us we thought about do we want to build something from scratch, but we didn't need to completely reinvent the wheel, what we needed to do was present it in a way, like I said, that created that buy in, that created that level of accountability that encouraged people to take advantage of coaching, which is so valuable, and so many people don't understand the value of it. And so everybody who participated, agreed to a certain number of coaching sessions, a certain number of modules to work on resumes, and interviewing skills, and all those things. And so I think it really produced something wonderful. And those who participated gave wonderful feedback about it.
Becky Knight 06:34
That is, that is, yeah, great work, and was so thrilled that it was recognized, and I think sets the standard for what other people and other companies can do for their team members. And I like what you said about you don't necessarily have to reinvent it, but customize it. Know who, who your members are and what they need and create something that is accessible and relevant to that was so well done. And you did have a lot of other things that you did during your two years. When you look back, are there other moments that stand o...
