Author: Chris

I am the public relations manager for MHS.

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2020 June

Leadership Right Now Is Not for the Faint of Heart

by Karen Lehman

These are challenging times!  How many times have you said these words or heard someone else say them?  What makes this time particularly challenging is that so much has been turned upside down. And it happened quickly. All our focus shifted to COVID-19 and its immediate impacts; a global recession, ongoing organizational vigilance and financial stresses, and our own personal anxiety. 

Now that some time has passed, we realize this heightened vigilance is not a temporary situation.  There’s no vaccination around the immediate corner.  People are still testing positive as businesses have started re-opening.  Many are not heeding the advice of experts on distancing and wearing a mask. How do you live with and through this? That is the million-dollar question!

Now is the time to look at your strategy and future if you haven’t started this process already. What is the impact of the pandemic for this fiscal year?  Are there clear operational and strategic changes in direction that need to be made? What is the sustainability of your mission and ministry, not just in this year, but looking toward the future?

The June 4, 2020, Ziegler Investment Banking Senior Living Z-News painted a vivid picture of the impact of non-profit sponsorship transition trends.   Ziegler expects the pace of affiliations, mergers, acquisitions, etc., will not only pick up but will be accelerated because of the impact of COVID-19.   They further suggest that communities going into the pandemic already on edge operationally will come out of the pandemic even more financially vulnerable.

This is a time to take stock of your situation.  How are you positioned to navigate the near and more distant future?  The longer you wait to make strategic decisions, the fewer options you will have and the opportunities that exist today may not exist tomorrow.

Serving in senior leadership and on governing boards right now is not for the faint of heart.  This is likely the most challenging time of our lives.  Strategic and visionary work is hard in the best of times, let alone in the worst pandemic that many of us will ever live through.  Your work requires you to make difficult decisions.  But it also asks of you to prayerfully consider the sustainability of your mission and the future of your ministry. A verse to read as a prayer as you consider decision-making in these challenging times. Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.  Isaiah 41:10

Categories
2020 June

Self-funding Your Health Care Costs

Clare Krabill
Clare Krabill, MHS Chief Operating Officer and MEP Managing Director

by Clare Krabill

During these unprecedented times, many of you will seek strategies to help your bottom line. One major expense most of you share is employee benefits. In fact, some of you may be asking yourself if there is a need to cut back on these benefits even as you are loathe to consider it.

One option to consider is self-funding healthcare costs. Self-funding increases your financial control, plan design flexibility, and plan management options. According to the ASAE article, A Thoughtful Approach to Reducing Benefits Costs When There’s No Alternative, self-funding can reduce your annual healthcare spending by 4 to 10 percent. 

As members of MHS, your organization has access to MHS’ Medical Expense Plan (MEP). Created in the mid-1980’s in partnership with Everence, the MEP has 11 MHS member organizations participating to insure more than 3,000 individuals. The MEP offers wholistic health coverage and many benefits that go beyond typical self-funded plans. These include:

Financial Benefits Through:

  • Risk and cost sharing through a pooled experience
  • Distributions 7 out of the last 10 years
  • Rate stability and reduced volatility
  • Regulation exempt church plan status that lowers administrative and benefits costs
  • Collective purchasing and negotiating power with over 130,000 other participants through the Church Benefit Association

Quality Health Care Through:

  • A national network of medical providers
  • A Wellness program
  • Telemedicine
  • 24/7 care navigation services
  • A collaborative peer network of MHS member organization leaders
  • Shared values

Want more information? If you have 25 or more eligible employees (> 20 hours/week), watch this 5-minute informative video about MEP[CK1] and contact Clare Krabill, MHS COO & Managing Director of the Medical Expense Plan at mailto:clare@mhsonline.org. It may be a path forward that provides your organization’s colleagues with excellent health coverage and helps your bottom line.

Categories
2020 June

Care Purchasing Services (CPS) Brings MHS Members More Than Value That Can Be Measured In Dollars

CPS keeps a pulse on industry trends and focuses on total solutions that help members improve patient and resident experience, as well as reduce operating costs. Don’t miss out on upcoming solutions regarding COVID-19 and recovering from the financial strains, click here to have solutions delivered directly to your inbox.

Dianne Piet
Dianne Piet, CPS Client Account Manager

Dianne Piet is the dedicated CPS Client Account Manager to all MHS members. She serves as an extension of your teams by delivering personal attention to every detail of the procurement process, sharing industry insights, creating program solutions and resolving vendor conflicts. Beyond Dianne, there is an entire CPS team that provides ongoing support to deliver an exceptional experience. Working with CPS is easy. Your no cost membership provides you access to quality products and services across hundreds of carefully vetted vendors, complimentary cost comparison and value analysis of your current purchasing program, and help with implementing cost-saving solutions. Our goal at CPS is to ensure you realize the greatest amount of savings from your vendors while implementing relevant and innovative programs to optimize patient and resident care. Dianne is ready to work with you, contact Dianne Piet by phone 603-935-7923 or email pietdianne@carepurchasing.com.

Categories
2020 June

Mennonite Health Assembly 2021 Going Virtual

Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash

After careful consideration, the MHS Board of Directors decided to move to a virtual format for Mennonite Health Assembly (MHA) in 2021.The MHS Board recently debated the merits of having an in-person MHA next March versus holding a virtual assembly. We value being together and will miss the opportunities that meeting face to face can offer. We also recognize the health risks of traveling, and assembling a large group of MHS leaders and partners.

There are currently opportunities in a virtual event that cannot be captured in an in-person event. With lower registration costs and no travel expenses, more members, including chief executives, senior teams, emerging leaders and board members, can have the opportunity to attend.

We will be able to meet without wearing face masks, see each other’s smiles, and avoid the potential spread of infection. As virtual meetings tend to be shorter, we also have an opportunity to strategically focus and condense the content for the greatest impact. We can get creative around chat rooms and other forms of virtual engagement to create a new kind of experience.

As this is a recent decision, the MHA Planning Committee (Amanda Nugent Divine, Kings View Corporation; Bill Hartman, Everence; Jen Foster, CCMS; Steve Lindsey, Garden Spot; Kari Tarman, Oaklawn; Ally Lawton, MHS; and Clare Krabill, MHS) and MHS staff are working through the details. Look for updates soon. Whether we meet in-person or virtually, we are stronger together. We look forward to delivering you an experience that inspires and strengthens your ministries to fulfill your missions.

Categories
2020 June

July Webinar: A Social Psychological Approach to Diversity and Inclusion

Title: A Social Psychological Approach to Diversity and Inclusion
Presenter: Aphaphanh Nussbaum, Diversity & Recruiting Coordinator, Everence Financial
Time: July 30, 2020 2:30 PM EST
Length: 30 min

Description: MHS members have made significant strides in creating more equitable work environments, and yet, we know there is still work to do. Join us in conversation with Aphaphanh Nussbaum to explore the social psychology of workplace diversity, and learn about key resources that Everence uses for training staff.

Categories
2020 May

The S-Word

By Twila Albrecht

My sophomore year of college, I was crippled with social anxiety and a calendar full of activities and due dates. Eventually, I lugged my way over to the campus counselor’s office. In one of our conversations, the counselor invited me to remove the word ‘should’ from my vocabulary. To this day, I feel empowered by the gift of that invitation. Here’s why removing the S-word has been an important practice for me:

  1. I’m challenged to think about the way I communicate with myself and others. I find that when I remove the S-word, I’m forced to reframe what it is that I want or need, or what it is that is inhibiting me from moving forward. By naming any underlying assumptions in a ‘should statement’, I can remain open to more than one way of thinking or responding in any given situation. When I’m conscious about my language, it changes the way I act in the world.
  2. I’m empowered to stay in the present moment. I’m no English teacher, but it strikes me that ‘should’ is used in both past tense and present future. When I remove the demands of what I should be doing, or how I should have responded, I am encouraged to stay in the present moment, noticing where my attention is and choosing to act from there.
  3. I’m allowed to choose me. Rather than using guilt, shame, or regret as a (harmful) motivator, I can choose how to spend my time and energy, and therefore be more present when I do need to give time to others.

Of course this is something I’ll always be practicing. When the ‘shoulds’ come screeching, I turn to the Presencing Institute’s guided journaling practice. Presencing Institute defines ‘presencing’ as “the capacity to connect to the deepest sources of self – to go to the inner place of stillness where knowing comes to surface.” In this space where presence and sensing meet, I use journaling to aid in creating action steps that bring awareness to my current reality. I do this exercise when I want to show up and put in the effort; not because I think I should do it. Click here for the guided journaling practice from the Presencing Institute. Take care of yourself, friend!

Categories
2020 May

Tips For Managing Your Ethical Dilemmas During COVID-19

By Karen Lehman, President/CEO

Karen Lehman, President/CEO

There’s nothing like a pandemic to bring up ethical issues!  How are you managing ethical decisions in this season? If you made a list of all of the issues that have developed just with the COVID-19 pandemic, it would likely more than fill this page.  Thankfully, we won’t ask you to draft a list!  But as we consider ethics and ethical decision-making in the MHS May eConnections newsletter, there may be no better time than now to bring your awareness to this topic. 

Ethics and the setting of ethical policies and decision-making processes has always been a part of the role of MHS.  Many, if not all, of the policies regarding end of life care, palliative care and other ethical dilemmas MHS members face on a regular basis have been argued and documented since the very beginning of our members’ histories.  

But did any of you expect to be living in a time when your organizations, serving the most vulnerable of this world’s population, would be confronted so directly with the impact of a deadly virus?  A time when communities have to be locked down regardless of the life and death issues at play.  Physically separating families, husbands and wives, and children.  Putting your direct caregivers at risk.  And then there’s the issue of all that free money many of you have been given access to. 

How do you confront an ethical decision?  Even if you don’t think it’s an ethical decision, you’re often faced with a challenge or a difficult choice that needs to be made.  No matter how big or small these dilemmas are, do you have the right tools to appropriately process and respond in the best interest of the organization and all your stakeholders? 

There are many ethical decision-making process tools that can help you tackle an issue.  And sometimes you can take all the right steps, follow the decision-making matrix, and still at the end not be totally comfortable with your decision.  Or you find yourself in a defensive posture after announcing the decision and it makes you feel uncomfortable.

Recently, I was given a letter that was two pages of defense for a decision that was made.  Paragraph after paragraph described how this decision was affirmed, even though it went against some long-held faith values.   If it takes two pages of defense, maybe you should reconsider the decision!  

If your decision or action would hit the front page of the newspaper, how would that make you feel?  When everyone around you forcefully agrees with the decision, does it make you wonder just a bit if you’ve thought through all the pros and cons?  What would a resident or individual’s family member say?  How would this impact the most vulnerable of our staff and those we serve? Ethical decision-making is not rocket science!  It does not have to be daunting.  Sometimes it’s just a simple gut check – when I really listen to what my heart is saying, is this the right decision?  And if all that fails, then use an ethical decision-making matrix and ask for help!

Categories
2020 April

Slack is Anything But

By Twila Albrecht, Member Services Associate

Twila Albrecht

In response to stay-at-home orders, MHS staff have taken to their bedrooms, back porches, and basements for work. As for me, my living room has been transformed into an office complete with a standing desk, two monitors, and all of my two files from the MHS office.

I feel fortunate that I have everything that I need to do my job well from home.

I feel fortunate that I have a job.

And, despite the anxiety that accompanies this crisis, I’m grateful for a team that quickly embraced the necessary changes. While some MHS staff typically work remotely, our office adopted some additional tools to help us navigate the unforeseeable future.

In addition to more frequent Zoom meetings, our team adopted Slack – a digital workspace that allows teams to chat, share files, create various channels for projects, and connect email and calendar notifications. We can also create custom emoji’s, which, quite frankly, is really cute and fun.

Yes, I do miss being in the office with my co-workers. Yet, Slack has been an awesome resource for us, and there are so many aspects of it that we have yet to tap into. It’s a tool that we’ll continue to use even as we change our status back to “in the office.”

Slack goes beyond serving as an infrastructure for communicating remotely. As their blog makes evident, team building isn’t just an aspect of their work, it’s at the center. I’ve enjoyed some recent articles, and would encourage you to check them out as a resource for your team!

Categories
2020 April

Dare to Lead

By Karen Lehman

As a way of getting to know each other, learning to work together and building a culture of trust, the staff in the MHS Goshen office decided to start a book club.  You simply can’t go wrong if your first book in your new book club is the national bestseller, Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead!

We barely got started reading Dare to Lead when everything in our country shifted and changed due to COVID-19.  The idea of spending time discussing a book felt frivolous to me and for the first weeks into our decision to work from home, I found it hard to concentrate on anything that required a great deal of processing and detail. 

Now in the fourth week of home office and the mandatory stay at home order, it is clear that there is no going back to how it was.  For the foreseeable future, our way of work and our very way of living is not going to go back to “normal.”  With that awareness and acceptance, the question now is how to live and work within these parameters?   

In order for us to have any sense of connection with each other as people, to grow as a team, and to interact as colleagues, we need to find virtual ways to have meaningful conversations, interaction and discussions.   So the MHS team had our first virtual book club discussion and while we’re learning how to navigate using a workbook along with discussion, we know that this way of connecting is going to work for all the purposes that I mentioned; to know each other better, to learn to work together and to build a culture of trust.  When we selected Dare to Lead we had no idea how perfect this book would be for this time of uncertainty, risk, emotional exposure, vulnerability and courage. 

A book club is just one idea for building a cohesive team.   It is not as much how you work at team building, it’s that you’re always working on it in one way or another.  Those of you working on the front lines of this pandemic are, by the very nature of your work, demonstrating courage and vulnerability, cornerstones for building trust within your teams.  For the rest of us, we’re needing to be a bit more creative in finding those ways of connecting and relating.   I encourage us all to find the ways that can work for you – and find hope and joy in doing it!

Find more information at Brené Brown’s Website.

Categories
2020 April

Teamwork with a Common Vision, Clear Objectives and Incredible Results

by Jeremy Kauffman

“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.”   Andrew Carnegie

Jeremy Kauffman

The above quote from Andrew Carnegie is perhaps my favorite regarding teamwork.  Each sentence has the ability to stand on its own. However, when you add all three together it creates a powerful image of what teamwork can and should look like.

Dealing with and managing our current reality of COVID-19 has raised many questions for me related to the teams within our organizations.  Will teams rise to the challenge?  Are there hidden “cracks” in the team that stress will unveil?  What is the impact of teams that are only able to use technology to meet?  What potential consequences are there if our current mode of operation continues without a clear end in sight?  And finally, how will teams change and evolve as we return to normal?

Perhaps we want to emerge with a realization that future possibilities are boundless due to our ability to meet the challenge of this crisis.

As I ponder the questions dealing with the present, I believe the focus should be on the words from Carnegie in his quote on teamwork.

As organizations, we need to redefine our vision. It can be as simple as stating that we want to emerge from this pandemic as a viable organization.  A place that put a laser focus on meeting the needs of its customers and employees.  Perhaps we want to emerge with a realization that future possibilities are boundless due to our ability to meet the challenge of this crisis. Whatever that vision is we have the opportunity to state it clearly and allow our teams to embrace it together.

The objectives are to keep those we serve and the people who serve them healthy.  Yes, we want to find every means to make them happy along the way. But we cannot lose sight of or sacrifice safety for happiness.  Our short-term goals, procedures and tasks should be aligned with this objective and vision.  Teams can and will rally around these things if they understand the objective.  Instead of focusing on “me”, there is a focus on “we”.

The beauty of Carnegie’s quote is found in the last line.  Who doesn’t love to experience incredible results?  How many of us have gotten choked up talking about our employees and what they are sacrificing and accomplishing during this crisis? Or teary-eyed reading a note of appreciation from a customer or listening to a story someone shared about how they have been impacted by the team?  I know that I have. 

The team I have the fortune to work with as Interim CEO at a CCRC is definitely achieving uncommon results. It’s not so much that we haven’t had a positive case among our residents and team. Yes, that is something to celebrate and rejoice. But a positive case doesn’t diminish the extraordinary efforts that are being made to keep people safe.  Every organization has been forced to reimagine how they do their work.  Because of that, people are pitching in to help out wherever they can.  Learning tasks that are new to them and they weren’t hired for.  Coming in at odd hours or on their day off. Being willing to be flexible and creative in their work.

But most importantly it’s the results of those efforts that count the most.  The many thank-yous.  The smiles on people’s faces. The notes and words of appreciation and encouragement. Every organization is accomplishing things that may not have seemed possible when we embarked on this wild journey.

I don’t know how this will end.  I’m not wise enough to know what the impact this crisis will have on our teams.  Will the strain have long-term affects?  Or will they emerge better than ever?    There will be many studies done to evaluate how we handled COVID-19 and what can be learned to benefit our world, communities, organizations, and teams moving forward.  The MHS team is already thinking about how we can help members de-brief and use this experience to fuel future growth and success.  However, maybe it’s just a matter of returning to the words of Andrew Carnegie. Possibly we just need to continue our focus on teamwork with a common vision, clear objectives and incredible results.

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