HR's Financial Imperative: Proactive Talent Strategies Drive Business Growth

Title: John Malanowski, Interim Chief Human Resources Officer Date: Mon, 19 May 2025 09:00:00 GMT Duration: 00:11:18 Link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/previ/episodes/John-Malanowski--Interim-Chief-Human-Resources-Officer-e327jfn GUID: 34890bfa-83b7-4a20-8895-19e3f4268fff ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

John Malanowski has 40-plus years in HR across financial services, defense, and healthcare — and his most celebrated program wasn't a culture initiative or a leadership curriculum. It was an apprenticeship for medical assistants that the Obama administration recognized as a national model and helped a hospital system train hundreds of new clinical staff it couldn't otherwise find or afford.

John describes himself as "an HR professional with a business operating background" — and that framing is his lens on everything. At Raytheon, he inherited what he calls the "bathtub effect": a workforce shaped by two massive hiring waves in the 1960s and '80s, with a visible valley in between representing the talent gap that would hit the company when the older generation retired. His response was data-first — demographic analysis, accelerated learning programs, partnerships with community colleges, and a pipeline strategy designed around facts rather than intuition. At Dartmouth Hitchcock, the same business-first logic led him to notice that medical assistants were spending significant time on administrative work that prevented physicians from seeing more patients. His team built an apprenticeship program that trained people with no clinical background to credential within 18 months — generating millions in additional revenue while expanding patient access.

His parting principle is the one that runs through both case studies: understand how your company makes money, then build HR programs that enable it to make more. If a mechanic is filling out intake paperwork instead of fixing cars, that's not an operations problem — it's a talent design problem.

• The "bathtub effect" workforce gap — how John used demographic data at Raytheon to predict and close a talent cliff before it hit
• Accelerated learning for hard-to-fill roles — building programs that develop people with no prior experience for specialized positions
• The medical assistant apprenticeship — a nationally recognized program that trained hundreds of new clinical staff and generated measurable revenue growth
• Applying a financial lens to HR — understanding how initiatives connect to what the company earns, not just what it costs
• Community college partnerships as talent pipelines — building long-term local supply chains for skilled labor in competitive markets
• Diversifying your HR experience — John's advice on building a true business operating background across industries and roles

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