Many jobs at St. Peter’s Health cannot be done from home. But some can.
As COVID-19 arrived in the Helena area, St. Peter’s Health determined that all staff should work from home if able to do so. The fewer people in the hospital and other buildings, the better. Each person that someone comes in contact with brings some risk of exposure to the virus, and ensuring employees are safe is a priority.
Kelsey Pocha is the Human Resources On-Boarding Specialist at St. Peter’s Health. After welcoming a new baby girl in December, she was set to return to work following her maternity leave. She received word that she would be working from home on the same day that she was slated to return to work.
Working from home was a new concept for the organization’s human resources department, a department that is in frequent contact with the over 1,600 employees from across the organization.
The new work-from-home request meant figuring out new processes to ensure employees received the human resources support they needed, remotely.
St. Peter’s Health continues to hire. The human resources department needed to find a way to welcome new employees, and ensure they received a top-notch orientation. Still a work in progress, the entire human resources team has banded together to make it work. According to Kelsey,
“Each team member shared suggestions that has helped to streamline this process.”
Even as the organization begins to reopen some service lives, many staff will continue to work from home to continue to reduce exposure themselves and other employees.
Kelsey misses her colleagues and work family, but has two new co-workers, her young daughters. They may not be proficient at sending emails or completing background checks, but they do remind her daily why she does what she does: to help ensure everyone in our community, even our youngest community members, have access to exceptional health care so they can live their healthiest lives.