Doing everything right made transfer painless

Beth White joined Children's Healthcare of Atlanta as a child life specialist in 1994, helping young patients cope with their diseases and medical procedures through play and counseling.

"I truly loved what I did. It was so rewarding to work with the children, but after awhile I felt like I had skills that I wasn't using," she said.

She often had been a patient advocate and helped families to understand the health care system better, so she thought about working in the customer service side of the hospital. And she didn't want to leave Children's.

With encouragement from her supervisor, White took career development courses through the hospital's learning services department and went back to school to earn a master's degree in conflict management from Kennesaw State University. The hospital partially funded her education, and White's boss allowed her to leave early on Fridays for class.

Two years ago, Children's decided to focus on talent planning and internal hiring, said Megan Graham, director of recruitment at Children's. "We believe that our best future is our current talent. We'd rather build than buy," she said.

The human resources talent-planning process includes coaching people who apply for internal jobs, which are posted exclusively in-house for seven days, as well as proactively searching for employees with talents or potential that they aren't using fully and helping them to develop those talents.

"We call it 'buried treasure,' and Beth was such a case," Graham said. "She was not fully aware of all that she could do."

LEITA COWART/Special

Beth White, supply-chain project manager at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, checks the contents of a box in the hospital's warehouse. White began her career at Children's as a child life specialist. "I truly loved what I did. It was so rewarding to work with the children, but after awhile I felt like I had skills that I wasn't using," she said. The company's human resources department helped her identify different ways to use her skills.

Being asked to consider a job as supply-chain project manager surprised White. The job required bringing clinical, technical and administrative staff together as part of a value analysis committee to make decisions about new equipment and technology.

"All departments think their products are the most important, but our job is to pull objective data, work out differences and make sure that the system is spending its resources wisely and giving the best quality of care," White said.

White first requested an informational interview with her prospective boss. After deciding to apply, she also talked to the staff to find out about the department's environment.

"Just because an employee is selected to interview doesn't mean she is a shoe-in for the position, but our hiring managers are given the leeway to be a little more creative in seeing how talents might translate in a different area with internal candidates," Graham said. "Someone may not have all the training, but he is already acclimated to the hospital system, and that's a benefit to us.

"In order to grow internally, we're committed to contributing to the career paths of our employees."

White, who transferred to the new job in February, describes it as challenging and a perfect fit for her clinical background and education. She's using her listening, counseling and management skills, and she feels supported to keep growing and learning.

"I'm a facilitator and mediator," White said. "I'm not afraid of conflict, and I love bringing people to the table and getting them to solve problems."