Leadership Strategy Interviews

An Interview with Eugenia Archetti, Highmark Health

Eugenia Archetti is a Consumer Insights Manager at Highmark Health.

Transcript

Heather: Hi, I’m Heather Kluter. Welcome to the next edition of Decision Analyst’s Strategy Interview Series. Decision Analyst is an Innovation, Analytics, and Research firm located in the Dallas, Texas area, and today I’m so excited to have with us Eugenia Archetti. Eugenia has the very important job of handling Customer Insights for Highmark Health. Welcome Eugenia! I tried to say your name as beautifully as you do.

Eugenia: I’m glad to be here. Thank you, Heather.

Heather: The first thing I wanted to ask you about was, how are things changing at Highmark Health? We know that COVID-19 has changed the way that many businesses are working, so what’s new since COVID at Highmark Health?

Eugenia: Well, many things are happening here. Like many companies, we were forced people to work remotely during the pandemic and started to cultivate new norms and re-imagining what the future of work could look like. Our leaders have been really working hard, daring to create a world in which everyone could do the best work and where geographic boundaries are not an impediment, especially considering that some of our employees are moving or have moved to other areas and some others have taken advantage of other states or countries which offer free relocation. In addition, as we are adapting to these quote/unquote “new normal,” we were able to bust other work-related myths. For example, collaboration increased, despite some of the tech-resistant folks at the beginning. Like overnight, everyone became a Zoom champion, including my 75-year-old parents, right.

Heather: Right.

Eugenia: Yeah. [I mean] that was the only way that you could be in touch with people, and this is the way in which we operate in a hybrid environment. Our effectiveness and our productivity went up, and my favorite of them all, people could still innovate remotely. So, on that foundation, on the foundation, we had about a year and a half under our belt working remotely, is that we created our ‘work from anywhere strategy’ framework. While employee, many employers, and employees are eager to go back to work and secure some sort of sense of normalcy, a company truly understands that many others would appreciate flexibility that comes from working remote. So, in that spirit, we’ve created three different worker classifications. So, the flex workers, which are up to two days at the office, the remote workers, or the working offsite, which will continue working from home and occasionally need for in-person meetings, and then the regular 9-to-5 or inside workers. Of course, given our industry, there are some roles that still require you to be in person, so we strongly believe that the strategy will not only allow us to retain talent, which is become so crucial right now, especially as we all face this great resignation period, but also expand our talent horizon as we can grow talent or hire talent from anywhere.

Heather: I know that innovation is top on your list, and we’ve certainly helped you come up with some very innovative ways to manage healthcare, one that I as a patient (or many actually) that I as a patient would be so excited when they actually come to market. So in doing that, team building can be challenging, right—in a virtual environment. So how are you handling that at Highmark as a company? And you personally as a people leader?

Eugenia: Yeah, well we understand that this working from anywhere strategy is going to bring some new questions and problems that we never had to face before, right. I think particularly for me as a team leader, the whole idea of securing visibility for myself, for my team members, being able to move up and getting promoted. And also, how do we indoctrinate new folks into the organization? How do we indoctrinate culture? It was easy for most of us because we used to know each other prior to pandemic, but that presents a challenge as we are starting to add new employees. So, we need to find new ways to develop or grow our teams as well as finding what works in terms of development for each of these individuals, right. It’s not one-size-fitsall, but rather it’s a catered program, and catered attention onto their workers.

Heather: So, we found that COVID greatly affected women in the workforce, so this makes us ask—how can we better support them moving forward?

Eugenia: Thank you for asking that question. This is an area that I like to call out and invite other people leaders to address. There’s some disturbing statistics out there, and I think we all can be part of the solution. Since February 2021, which is our latest data available, female workforce participation has dropped to 57%, which is the lowest level it has been since 1988, according to the National Women’s Law Center. In addition, in September 2020, when schools resumed, many of them with remote learning still, 80% of the 1.1 million people who exited the workforce were women. By December 2020, women accounted for all of the net job, losses while men achieved some gains. So these are, you know, we have to be mindful, we must become flexibility champions, we must protect our employees as now they’re facing tougher at- home environments. Before we were able to leave home behind and go to work, but now everything comes into work.

Heather: So, what are some of the trends within your business or the industry that you think are here to stay? Eugenia: Well, not surprisingly, I think 2020 was the year of telehealth. We had struggled ramping up that area of health care for a long time, for as long as maybe about 10 years. So, we went from single digits to about a 30%, give or take, even after some of the most crucial aspects of the pandemic have resided. We’re still battling through these, right, and as we continue to vaccinate folks, but what we see is both doctors and patients are becoming more comfortable using the tool, and in many cases it allows us to provide care to some of the most remote areas.

Heather: We know that we’re certainly not through the COVID-19 issues yet…COVID-21 at this point. Do you have other innovations or changes for the business or industry that you see coming? Eugenia: Yeah, absolutely. Some of them that I see coming, and some of them that were or came as a result of the pandemic. So, I like to say silver-linings are always my favorite. So, at a collective level, there is a heightened awareness to build a better, more inclusive world. So, we are being held accountable. The kind of environment we build from now on rests, in a way, on our shoulders, and I would say as a leader in this space that every voice needs to be included. At a more personal level, I do see a trend kind of looking at us, as people, looking inwards, so more self-compassion, more self-care. Paraphrasing Darwin, it’s not the strongest, nor the smartest of all species that survive, but those who are adaptable to change. So, in closing, I like to relay a message that flexibility is key.

Heather: Thank you so much.

Eugenia: My pleasure. Thank you.