Jim O'Gorman

▶0:00HostWelcome to the Built by People podcast,

▶0:02Introwhere we share the stories and insights of the world's top HR leaders. Join us as we dive deep into the minds of HR executives, uncovering their strategies, challenges, and triumphs in shaping today's workforce.

▶0:39HostI'm excited to welcome Jim to the Built by People podcast. Jim, thank you so much for joining us. And as a starting question, I always have to ask if you could share a little bit more about your career journey.

▶0:48GuestSure, Dave. I appreciate you having me. I've really been led by where technology is going to best change consumer behavior, and that's always motivated me throughout my career. And so I've really spent 10 years in geographic mapping with a company called TeleAtlas, moved into an HR role. Then I moved into entertainment where entertainment was going to— technology was going to change how people watch TV. Spent a great journey at Hulu as the head of HR. And now I'm really focused on how technology is going to change healthcare and really improve health outcomes for people and really focused in that space today as the head of HR for Included Health.

▶1:25HostJim, what are some unique stories or adventures you've had in your HR career?

▶1:31GuestI think the most unique story for me that really grounds me in the work that I do is I've had a terrible leader that I was led in my early 20s by someone who really made it a bad impact on my self-confidence, my self-esteem. And actually, I think now that was the biggest gift because it's changed how I come to work, how I treat people who work for me, and how I engage in my leadership role. And so it's disappointing that a lot of people have a shared experience of bad leadership, and I certainly can relate to that, but I turned that around for me and made sure that I don't create that space for people who work around me and with me.

▶2:15HostJim, what are some HR trends and actionable pieces of advice in your line of work that you'd give to our HR community?

▶2:25GuestFor me, Dave, I appreciated the first conversation that we had is really, I think it's time for us to spend more time really thinking about healthcare and how we create a better health experience and provide better health outcomes for our employees. If you think about it, employee-sponsored healthcare programs have been— were first introduced in the 1950s as a way to attract and retain talent. It's been the constant for corporate America. But what has changed is that healthcare experience is significantly more expensive and significantly more complex. And so while I think it's an important differentiator, I think it needs to be rethought and we need to take a step back and think about how are healthcare benefits truly helping our employees access the care that they need when they need. And I think we can make a great influence. And when I say we, I say corporate America can really influence how health care is delivered today. Over $700 billion is spent by employees— employers via their health care program across America, making sure their employees have access to care. And over 50% of America is represented by employer health care sponsored programs. And so not only is this like a huge cost to employers. It's an opportunity for us to come together and really think about how can we change healthcare for the better, for putting the patient first, putting the member first. And I often think it's not a conversation that we're having as leaders as a collective is like, how do we put our brains together to really change healthcare here in America?

▶4:12HostJim, this leads nicely into our next question, and it backpacks off the conversation that we shared together at Transform. You mentioned that the benefits leader is the unsung hero of the organization. Can you elaborate on why that is the case and provide a real-world example that showcases it?

▶4:33Guest100%. Our benefits leaders, I often think that we— they go unnoticed in HR organizations. They are caught in the middle of the complexity of healthcare, whether that's confusing explanation of benefits, whether that's access to the right provider, whether that's for offering a variety of different point solutions that are ultimately confusing for employees. The benefits leader is caught in the middle of that complexity, and they're not just dealing with your one-off employee. They're on a regular basis, they're dealing with the CEO or perhaps the CEO spouse. At the same time, they're dealing with the frontline employee who's challenged with cost. I mean, they're dealing with very complex issues from pharmacy access to certain pharmacy medicines to access to care. And we need to help them not be so caught both in the cost constraints of like, how do you manage the cost, the rising cost of healthcare while also creating a great experience for their employees? And I don't think we realize sometimes— and I say we, I think chief, people officers aren't always as empathetic as we need to be, as yes, we need to manage our healthcare costs, but we also need to provide a great experience for our employees. And that benefits leader is right smack in the middle of that complicated situation, and they are often unappreciated for the dynamics and the situations they are faced with on a regular basis.

▶6:05HostJim, I want to dig a little bit deeper into that. In your view, what does effective support for a benefit leader look like coming from a chief people officer?

▶6:15GuestYeah, one is a strong partnership with them when it comes to cost and understanding that driving just great cost does not necessarily serve— cost-effective solutions doesn't necessarily serve the employee in the best way. For years, the only way for employers to really drive down their healthcare costs is to go out to market and to rebid rebid their carrier, rebid their insurance. Often that means a change. Like in order to get a lower cost, you've got to change your carrier, you've got to change your provider. That is incredibly disruptive to their employees, their network changes. And so all this change, yes, drives costs down, but that change is also affecting health outcomes for the employees themselves. Having a leader only think about their benefits as a number on a spreadsheet and not about the differentiator that we can make. One, in making sure that our benefits are a talent attractor, but two, are improving health outcomes and creating better productivity for that employee. The two must go hand in hand. And I oftentimes find that CHROs are just looking at it as a dollar figure on their cost line rather than a true differentiator for not just their employee experience, but also as a productivity lever in their organization.

▶7:41HostJim, I want to switch gears here and talk about some of the work that you're driving at Included Health. Can you tell me about a specific initiative at Included Health where you've used AI to enhance things like career development or increase talent mobility? What impact did it have and what can others learn from it?

▶8:02GuestAI is an important kind of cornerstone for the work that we do at Included Health. And we employ over 1,000 clinicians who are providing virtual care, either virtual behavioral health, virtual primary care, virtual specialty care to employee-sponsored benefit programs, making sure that clinician is effective and driven by data at their fingertips, whether that's access to information about an employee benefit, how is this benefit If a pharmacist is supporting an employee online in a virtual situation, they have to have immediate access to their employer benefits plan design, their formulary. And through AI, we can answer those questions on the spot in real time for that pharmacist, for that therapist, for that doctor who's trying to like make sure that employee has the best care that they can have. And so we're actively using AI to make sure that our clinicians are marrying their EQ and the quality in the work that they do, their education, and bringing AI onto the table to bring AI and EQ together to service the member in a more effective way and drive better health outcomes and make sure that employee is maximizing their insurance benefit to their best cost. And so that is an area that we're spending a lot of time in. We believe that the clinician that partnered with strong AI tools is going to be the more efficient clinician, the smarter clinician, and is going to be the clinician of the future versus the clinician who is holding back in using AI tools in their day-to-day practice for a variety of reasons. But we are leading the way here with our clinicians within our organization.

▶9:55HostJim, can you tell me how you've approached preserving Included Health's longstanding culture while also bringing in fresh thinking and driving transformation? What lessons would you pass on to other leaders facing that same tension?

▶10:09GuestKnow your values. Be really clear about your values. We've taken a step back. Included Health came together through a number of integrations. It was first Doctor on Demand, a strong organization. Grand Rounds came together in 2021. And we didn't Frankenstein our approach to that, to our values. We actually didn't take a piece of Doctor on Demand and a piece of Grand Rounds and try to make everyone happy. We actually stepped away from what the values from those previous organizations and really took the time to understand who are we going forward and what our values are going forward. And that allowed us to make really important decisions about return to work or remote work. We're going to be a great virtual care provider. We are going to be great at virtual work. And so we lean helped us make those decisions and future decisions around healthcare, particularly if we are driving better healthcare for our members. We need to make sure that our employees have the same equal access to that care, and that is grounded in the values that we have. So my advice to anyone is to be really clear about your value. And so that allows you to not get distracted by what I call the clickbait out there when it comes to calling people back to work or Oh, like, this is the new trend in leadership development or in career mobility. It's like, when you know who you are and you know your values, then you are able to figure out where you want to lead the way and where you want to differentiate versus where you want to follow. So that's a really important piece for HR leaders to think about.

▶11:44HostJim, what parting advice would you like to share with our community?

▶11:48GuestPlease think about how we can change healthcare for the better for our employees and to not use the last 70 years of employer-sponsored benefits tactics and administrative actions as your future playbook. But let's take a step back and rethink how should we be driving better outcomes and better care for our employees. And I don't think we're doing it as, as best as we can today. We should be able to come together as leaders and really drive change in the American healthcare system.

▶12:26HostJim, thanks so much for joining us on the Built by People podcast. It was a pleasure to have you involved.

▶12:31GuestYeah, thanks for having me, Dave. Really appreciate the time.