How This Fortune 500 Company Gives Its Employees Ownership Of Their Learning, Development, And Success

Caskie Lewis-Clapper is the Chief Human Resources Officer at Magellan Health, Inc., (“Magellan “). Prior to joining Magellan, she served as senior Director for Human Resources Operations for Helix Health, a Baltimore, Maryland-based health care system. At Helix, she held a variety of senior leadership positions, including Sr. Director of Human Resource Operations and Director of Training and Organizational Development. Prior to joining Helix, she was a consultant with General Physics Corporation, providing training and performance improvement consulting services, and conducting human performance improvement research. She is a published author of articles on team building and human performance improvement. She received her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maine and her Master of Science degree from Johns Hopkins University.

Magellan Health is care management for the fastest growing and most complex areas of healthcare, including special populations, complete pharmacy benefits and other specialty carve-outs. It is “the right care at the right time in the least invasive way”.  With 10,000 employees, they work relentlessly to provide the best care.

Workplace flexibility is something that has been discussed and worked on over the years. Magellan was on the cutting edge of this issue as they were finding ways to allow employees to work off site since the early 90s. And they continue to make flexibility a priority for their employees. Currently 40% of their staff works from home.

A lot of organizations question flexibility because they feel that the best collaboration and innovation happens when employees are in the same location and able to talk face to face daily. But Caskie believes that Magellan is able to make it work because they focus on having purposeful, meaningful in person meetings from time to time that allow everyone to stay on the same page. But they a majority of the time they are able to collaborate and innovate through phone calls, Zoom, and online resources.

A lot of times when teams are in the same location, they tend to waste time in pointless meetings just to say they met. The important factor, whether your team is onsite or not, is that during meetings the leader is clear about what they are there to do.  Caskie says, “Let the work drive when you need to be in a room together.” And then when you go your separate ways everyone knows what they are aiming towards and what needs to get done.

Another topic of debate these days is around who is responsible for the development, advancement, learning, and success of employees. Is it up to the organization? Is it up to the employee?

According to Caskie, Magellan places the main responsibility with the individual employee. Caskie says, “You're the driver of your work. You're the driver of your development, you're the driver of your successes, you're the driver of your learnings. And that means that as a team member at Magellan, and I'm going to use a word that's a really overused, but you're empowered to, you have the power to make things happen for yourself and for our company.”

They feel that it is important for employees to have goals, to be proactive in advancing their careers, and to find ways to keep learning.

What you will learn in this episode:

• How employees at Magellan collaborate while working in different locations
• What mindsets/skills/traits they look for in potential employees
• How to help people navigate change
• How to be a digital citizen and a perpetual learner
• How Magellan is giving employees ownership over their learnings, development and success
• Interesting programs inside of Magellan--Vern and Rita
• What it’s like to work at Magellan
• Changes Caskie has seen at Magellan over the past 20 years

Contact:

Caskie Lewis On LinkedIn

 

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