- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been provided by The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The New Jersey Education Association.

PSE&G, committed to providing safe, reliable energy now and in the future.

The Russell Berrie Foundation.

Making a difference.

NJM Insurance Group.

Serving New Jersey's drivers, homeowners and business owners for more than 100 years.

The Fidelco Group.

And by Seton Hall University.

Showing the world what great minds can do since 1856.

Promotional support provided by NJ.com, small news, big news, true Jersey.

And by New Jersey Family A resource for New Jersey parents.

- This is One-On-One.

- I'm an equal American just like you are.

- The jobs of tomorrow are not the jobs of yesterday.

- Look at this.

You get this?

- Life without dance is boring.

- I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always something to learn.

- Do you enjoy talking politics?

- No.

- People call me 'cause they feel nobody's paying attention.

- Our culture, I don't think has ever been tested in the way it's being tested right now.

- That's a good question, high five.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Steve Adubato, welcome to another compelling program in which we look at the issues, the topics, and talk to the people who know.

Hey Tom Bergeron, you like that intro?

- Pretty good to not bad, you should be on TV.

- That's Tom Bergeron you know him from being with us all the time, owner and editor of ROI-NJ, we'll put up the ROI websites, you can find out more.

It is a must go-to platform for information that matters.

By the way, Tom and I are gonna be talking about a forum that he and I are moderating on April 28th between 9:00 and 10:00 AM.

New Jersey's Economic Future In These Very Uncertain Times.

We'll plug later for now, as we tape this program on the 16th of February how would you describe New Jersey's economic situation?

How we doing Tom?

- Well, we're in a waiting period.

I think people are seeing some reasons for optimism.

The vaccines are starting to come out.

You know, the process' been slow for a number of reasons, but people are seeing hope.

The numbers are kinda going down.

The governor starting to opening up a couple of things.

I think there's a little bit of hope right now.

Its just gotta steam roll a little bit.

- Yeah again, we're on the 16th, things are changing rapidly.

We pray, hope and pray more and more people are vaccinated.

Well, the variants are another issue, boosters' another issue.

That's why you should need to be following our series on COVID 19: What You Need to Know.

It's an ongoing series with some medical experts.

Tom, let me ask you this.

The vaccine distribution implementation into arms if you will.

Direct correlation between that effort and the economy - 100% yeah.

And a lot of it comes not just with the vaccination with the confidence that comes with it.

You're starting with first and foremost the schools you wanna get the kids back in school that frees the adults up a little bit more but also you have businesses that are worried about you know, do I wanna bring people back to the office if they have or have not been vaccinated.

- You know, Jack Ciattarelli, we don't do a lot of politics here.

We don't do horse race.

We don't do prognostication about elections, 'cause frankly they bore me.

You can find that in other places, we do policy.

On policy, on the question of Jack Ciattarelli the likely Republican candidate for governor, saying that Governor Murphy doesn't particularly care about the business community and arguing that the lockdowns are killing businesses, not that simple, is it?

- No, not at all.

Listen, the governor certainly cares about the business community the governor has to care about everything and it's easy to say he's a little more interested in this than that.

- You mean like public safety, but go ahead.

- Well I mean yeah and it's a perpetual balancing act.

My only qualm with the governor is he's got a little bit too much into data's determined everything.

It hasn't, there's certainly a political question that comes into that on, on how we close, and how we reopen, the speed we do it.

Trying to look at the numbers the best we can, trying to measure those versus the economic reality of the longer things are closed, the harder it is for businesses to come back.

There's a lot to balance here.

- You know ROI is a great place to go to find out about trends, if you will, in healthcare in business in government, et cetera, et cetera, university life.

But you know, as we do this program and I've said this before, I can't believe we're a year into this.

It'll be seen after that plus, we shut our offices down.

We're giving up our office space.

Everyone on our team is in different places.

We have a great producer right now producing from Texas.

She's the best, she's leading the effort today.

There's a reason for me saying that Tom.

Are most of us is gonna give up our offices and do what we do where we are and try to be as productive as possible.

A and B if that what happens, what does that mean in the commercial real estate industry?

- Look, the, the best answer to that is there's a lot of scenarios and nobody really knows.

Let me give you a couple of things that I'm hearing about from businesses and from commercial real estate.

First of all, the idea that when we come back it's gonna be a straight, you come in on Monday, I come in on Tuesday, somebody else comes in on Wednesday.

I don't think that's gonna be the case.

Generally we hear from businesses and business owners and employees is it's really three buckets.

You have a certain group of people that are never gonna come back to the office.

You have it for a lot of it for health reasons and community reasons.

There's another group that wants to be back every single day for whatever reason, they can't work from home for a number of reasons.

And then there's a third group which is probably the biggest.

And I don't know if this is 50% or 70% or 40% of, "yeah I think I wanna to come back maybe for a day, maybe for two days," you know as we talk, we're in the middle of a big potential ice storm, when that happens everyone's gonna say look, I'm gonna stay home.

Ultimately, it's gonna play out with one key factor that always happens is how do you attract and retain your employees?

Not just the ones you have, but the next generation.

Any kid coming out of college, anyone young, you know the number one question used to be what are you gonna pay me, and how much my days off?

I think the number one question's gonna be what is your flexible work program?

And people are gonna vote and move with their feet.

And companies are gonna need to adjust to that in many different ways.

So once they see that play out that will help influence their commercial real estate needs.

- You know, in the event that we have, it's on the 28th, by the way, put up, if we could, the ROI website people can sign up.

The event is on the 28th, from 9:00 to 10:00 AM Tom Bergeron and I will be moderating it.

We'll have two members of the legislature, a leading Democrat and a leading Republican, also a leader in the business community.

I believe it's John Harmon, we're looking to bring in.

The leader of the African-American Chamber of Commerce in the state.

Let me ask you this Tom.

What kinds of questions and issues do you believe will come up in this event called New Jersey's Economic Future In These Uncertain Times.

What kinds of questions do you think people are gonna wanna talk about?

- I think they're gonna wanna talk about the workplace of the future and how that's gonna to be impacted by this.

We have proven, as you've just said you've got someone in Texas that we can work from anywhere but I don't think anyone thinks that that's the best long-term solution.

So everyone's trying to figure that out where the balancing act is.

- But isn't it industry specific Tom, like for us and it's not really about us, we're in a service situation, we're producing.

Yeah, I wanna be back in NJTV, I wanna be in that studio.

I wanna be at WNET in New York.

But until that happens, we can do this.

Not everyone can do that though, right Tom?

- You're correct and where are you're gonna see is where companies that need the most collaboration, how much can they push to say, look, we need to be in the same room, collaborating.

We need that water cooler talk, we need that type of thing.

Balancing against the needs of the employees.

You've got a lot of employees that say, hey, you know what?

I like being able to have dinner with my kids.

I like that I can shut down at 4:30, come back on at 6:30, that commute issue, which is always a huge one.

You think about all the people that are willing to commute to New York city.

I think that changes for most people forever.

I don't know that people are gonna look to get on a train for 90 minutes or two hours, five days a week anymore.

- You know, you mentioned eating with your family, so at 30 seconds left, I got to do the restaurant thing.

And we're gonna try to stay on top of that by talking about leaders in the restaurant industry.

As we speak 25, I guess 35% restaurants.

Again, we're taping on the 16th of February real quick, Tom we're gonna lose a lot of restaurants family owned restaurants.

What do you believe the future that industry is?

Or is it again, we just don't know.

- Listen, we don't know the industry will, people need to eat.

The industry will always be there.

These people are getting crushed right now.

What happens to the people that go out of business?

How are they able to restart a business later?

How is anyone else able to do it?

You wanna be able to keep what you have and we're gonna lose a lot of that.

And how that plays out going forward is really a sad situation for a lot of people that have given blood, sweat and tears for many years to build their businesses.

- Yeah, it's not a, I don't wanna sound insensitive.

Oh, we're producing remotely, why can't you?

Restaurants can't, a lot of industries can't.

And by the way, that's Tom Bergeron, checkout ROI great source of information every day.

Also I'm gonna remind folks, April 28th between 9:00 and 10:00 AM, Tom and I moderating a very compelling, important forum with members of the legislature business leaders on New Jersey's Economic Future In These Very Uncertain Times.

Tom Bergeron, Steve Adubato.

Thanks for watching, Tom we good?

- We're good.

- We're good.

- Thanks for having me.

- You got it, be back after this.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- We are honored to be joined by Dr. Joseph Duffy, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of St. Joseph's Health.

And also Lisa Brady, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, St. Joseph's Health.

Good to see you, Joe and Lisa.

Thank you for joining us.

- Thank you, Steve.

- Thank you.

- Lisa, let me jump right into this.

I'm a student of leadership.

I actually lead a leadership academy at St. Joseph's Health.

Leadership and logistics as it relates to vaccine distribution, loaded question I know.

What are we learning?

What do we need to do, better?

- Well, what we focused on at St. Joseph's Health is really making sure that there was ease of use for accessing the vaccine as much as possible.

So when people came in, we got the critical information we needed to make sure that we could capture their information, safely comply with CDC requirements and get them through the process with the safe administration, the vaccine, and then the monitoring to make sure there were no side effects.

So the team at St Joe's did an amazing job simplifying that process, capturing critical information.

And really viewing things from the customer's perspective.

So making sure that as people are coming in we understand what their concerns are.

And we address those in our process.

- Well said, by the way, St. Joseph's Health is a supporter of our public health care programming.

Joe, let me ask you this.

You joined us on a different segment and I'm gonna have people if they haven't seen it on the air, it will go on the website.

Which will be up right now to find it.

I'm gonna follow up on a question I asked you then Dr. Duffy.

Resistance, first of all, having it accessible and getting into people's arms, hard enough.

Resistance particularly in communities of color.

What progress are we making in terms of public awareness and reducing that resistance to the vaccine?

- I think Steve were reaching out to the communities where they need to be reached at their level within the community.

We're not asking them to come to presentations, et cetera.

Although we're making presentations available online but we realize not everyone is online.

So we're educating the community to the level of their education.

We're helping them understand the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.

And we're hoping by introducing our community leaders here and our physician leaders who are people of color and ethnicity, that the overall community will understand that this is a very safe and effective vaccine.

- Lisa let me ask you, we talked again about leadership and logistics, but also the vaccine supply and the demand you put those together as well.

How much is a team, the team at St. Joseph's Health plus there are a lot of other healthcare, a lot of hospitals and hospital systems involved in this as well.

How much are you and your work St. Joseph's relating to vaccine distribution?

How much are you dependent upon the supply of the vaccine coming from the manufacturers whether it's Moderna, Pfizer, soon to be hopefully Johnson & Johnson moving forward, how much are you just dependent upon that versus some other factors?

- Well, right now, supply is really the critical element.

We have our infrastructure established at St. Joseph's Health.

We have three locations that we're administering the vaccine and the rate limiting factor is really the vaccine supply.

We have our infrastructure set up.

We have our nurses and others in place to administer the vaccine.

And when we get notified each week of how much vaccine we're getting the following week we have it almost automated now where we identify, okay if we're getting this much vaccine we set up the appointment schedule for the next week.

And the supply is really the critical issue there.

So once we know we're getting 2000 doses next week, the team runs with it and we get those appointments opened, get them booked, and get them administered the following week.

- You know, I asked Dr. Duffy this in a previous conversation.

I'm gonna follow up with you, Lisa.

And I'll come back to you, Joe.

To what degree within St. Joseph's itself as a microcosm of a hospital or hospital system, in terms of frontline physicians, nurses, others who are right down the front lines.

There are some who say, you know what if they're not getting it, well, maybe I should wait.

What progress are we making there Lisa Brady.

- We're making great progress with our employees.

We have, or approaching 65% of our entire employee staff that are vaccinated already.

So that includes our highest priority as you mentioned Steve was that frontline staff.

So the people who are directly caring for people with COVID or people who may have COVID.

That was the first group we approached and we've been working our way through others in more support roles.

But in total, when we look at our nearly 5,500 employees about 65% have now been vaccinated.

And we continue our efforts for the remaining 35% to address whatever reluctance or hesitancy they have so we can meet those specific concerns or questions that they have with targeted information.

- And by the way, Dr. Duffy is one of the participants in the Leadership Academy at St. Joseph's.

And one of the conversations we had Joe.

I wanna follow up that was offline.

I wanna do it right here, was that I was pressing you on the whole question, because we do a lot of role-plays and scenarios and case studies.

The case study around the variants.

A lot of leadership is about confusing information in the marketplace.

And if we don't know, we don't know.

We often say that.

What do we know about the variants and the effectiveness of the vaccines that are available in how to deal with the variants, A and B.

Do you believe a booster will be needed moving forward, and what does that mean?

It's a loaded one I know.

Go ahead, Joe.

- It's a very hot topic, Steve.

And the two main variants which have come to attention, of course were the South African variant and the Great Britain variant.

What we know now is that the South African variant may have not only increased virulence meaning it can attack more people and spread more easily, but it may have some overall way of thwarting the vaccination to a certain extent.

Similar to the influenza vaccine though, we know that by providing at least partial protection, everyone will benefit by that.

They'll have a lesser case even if these variants seemed to penetrate through.

In the future, looking forward if we have more people vaccinated it will become less likely that we'll need to try to catch up to these variants.

Meaning there'll be less variants.

But there's no guarantee in medicine at any time that a book is written at a path that has to be followed.

This is a day by day, week by week situation.

And we're learning every day about these variants.

- Final question for you, Lisa, as you listened to Dr. Duffy.

So much of leadership in the healthcare world is pivoting, being flexible.

We don't know what we don't know, and then finding out and having to make decisions on the fly.

This is a really loaded question.

How can you be engaged in long-term strategic planning when there's so much we don't know around us?

There's so many variables.

Go ahead.

- Well, it's interesting.

We are actually doing long-term strategic planning at St. Joe's.

We've learned a lot through the pandemic about what we need to continue to have that longterm viability, critical decision-making or rapid cycle turnaround.

The importance of innovation and transformation in how we lead the organization.

And that's a critical part of our strategic planning going forward.

The other two elements that are also essential and have had important roles in the response to the pandemic as well is making sure that there's access for individuals particularly those in vulnerable populations.

And that's the final element that we foresee in our long-term strategic plan is really around health equity.

So it has expedited in some ways the elements of the long-term strategic plan and the critical components that will make us successful in the future.

- That is Lisa Brady.

Dr. Joseph Duffy I wanna thank you both.

Best to both of you and the entire team at St. Joseph's Health, particularly the frontline healthcare workers who do so much to protect us every day.

Thank you folks.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- I'm Steve Adubato.

We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- We are honored to be joined by Claude Richardson, Senior Vice President of Human Resources at Delta Dental of New Jersey and Connecticut.

Claude, great to have you with us.

- Thanks Steve, is good to be here.

- Delta Dental a long time supporter of public broadcasting and the work that we do.

Let me ask you, Claude, the reason we're having you is primarily to talk about workplace issues.

Before we talk about some diversity and inclusion issues, to what degree has COVID impacted the traditional workplace if you will from your experience as an HR executive and leader?

- Yeah, it's been extensive, Steve.

Probably the most extensive event in my career that I've seen.

So, you had a workforce that all of a sudden needed to be virtual.

A lot of organizations weren't prepared for that, not only from a technology standpoint but culturally.

Teams weren't used to, what does it mean to work virtual, how do we stay connected, how do we still collaborate, things like that.

So all of us have had to come up to speed with all that in a very short period of time and still be effective.

- You know we're taping this on the 16th of February.

Say this is seen a couple months down the road, to what degree do you believe Mr. Richardson that this it, this is largely remote communication, remote interaction.

This is what we'll be doing six months a year from now, even if and when things get better around the virus?

- Well, I can tell you were from my perspective I think a lot of businesses had a business continuity plan in place before COVID hit.

And a lot of that business continuity plan took into account being able to move work to a different location, if your primary location was affected.

Well, what COVID taught us is that wasn't really a sound plan because a pandemic affects everybody.

So what we found is being able to get a workforce that can work remotely at any given moment is really a key part of your business continuity plan going forward.

So what I would like to see when we decide to come back to work, when vaccines, mask mandates, and all of that allow for it, is that a certain percentage of our workforce is always working from home.

What I would hate to see is right now we've got that muscle flexed well.

So, say we come back to a regular routine, everybody's in the office five days a week, something else comes up and then we're struggling again.

My monitor doesn't work, my speaker, my internet.

So if we've got a constant rotation of people working from home then we know that whether it's inclement weather or something bad that we can always still be effective working remotely.

- Well said.

Let's talk about diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Define it from your professional perspective, A and B why is it so important now more than ever?

- I would say diversity inclusion in the workplace is essentially making sure that wherever it is that you're underrepresented you know where that is and you've got a plan to address it.

And I think it's more important now than ever at least in my career I've seen it become increasingly important as the years have gone by.

It's more important now because the workforce of tomorrow is looking very different than the workforce of today, which looks different than when I joined a workforce some 30 something years ago.

And so all these different and new entrance into the workforce have different needs.

And so if we plan to be relevant in our marketplace we need to be able to attract, develop and retain an inclusive workforce, so that we can still provide products that will be valued by the changing customer base as well.

- Can you sense that in the advent of the horrific murder on video of George Floyd, fair amount of time has passed.

We're all playing catch up from how bad things have been for so long.

Do you sense from your professional experience as a leader in the HR field that most organizations in this state, in this nation, you're in both states, New Jersey and Connecticut, we're in several states as well, but across the nation as well, that there's a genuine commitment to greater awareness of institutional structural racism A and B that there's a real commitment to diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

because things are different.

The workplace is different.

The workforce is different.

Go ahead.

- Yeah, I would say most organizations that I'm aware of, 'cause I've got friends in similar positions in other organizations.

I think there is a genuine commitment to being better at diversity and inclusion, 'cause I think they also recognize that changing demographic is coming.

And so we need to be prepared for it.

But what I see is not everyone is effective in trying to manage it.

So diversity and inclusion at a lot of organizations to me it looks like there's a collection of activities and events.

So people have to- - I'm sorry for interrupting, let's check off the box.

Let's say we did that.

You know what I'm trying to say?

I've seen a lot of organizations say we have a lot of activities and they get points for it, whatever.

That's not what we're talking about, is it?

- That's right.

That's right.

Because after a while people say, well how many times can we have, you know, say hello in a different language?

And what does that really driving towards?

I think to have an effective strategy for managing diversity and inclusion, there's really four parts to it.

The first part is a business case.

I think when I was younger the business case while it's the right thing to do.

Well a lot of people in big, especially in bigger organizations, they think that somebody else is gonna do the right thing.

But if you come up with a business case that resonates with all your managers.

So for example, here at Delta Dental our business case has two parts to it.

One is talent is equally distributed.

And by that we mean talented people come from all walks of life.

Be they taller, smaller, older, younger, male, female, et cetera.

And the second part of it is that diverse backgrounds leads to diversity of thought.

And it's diversity of thought that gives you that creative and more robust business solution that can help you get a competitive advantage.

So when people then understand, okay I get why this is important from a business perspective then your activities and events transforms you becoming a more strategic imperative that's gonna help us all stay relevant in the marketplace.

- I think the second thing is, now that you've got your business case, what's your strategy?

What is it we're trying to achieve?

And our strategy has three pillars to it.

Awareness, representation, and inclusion.

Because I see diversity and inclusion as a journey.

A lot of organizations see it like a destination.

We're gonna get from here to there.

But because the workforce is always changing I don't think you ever really reach a destination.

So our journey is we're gonna start with awareness, so people are aware externally of cultures, people, plights of others.

And then internally their own biases in the workplace that might be detrimental.

And then we're gonna use that awareness to say, okay where are we in terms of representation?

Where are we underrepresented?

I have some data we're pulling data for that.

As our own internal data.

Males versus females, where do they stack in the organization?

How does their pay compare?

As well as minorities and non-minorities.

And then we can see where we're underrepresented, put a plan in place to address it.

And then once you've got more people in your organization that are looking different backgrounds, how do you then create a culture where they feel inclusive?

That's the third pillar, so that they stay and you don't have a revolving door.

- You just helped a lot of people.

Claude Richardson is the Senior Vice President of Human Resources at Delta Dental of New Jersey and Connecticut.

Mr. Richardson, I wanna thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it, Claude.

- Excellent, thanks for having me, Steve.

- You got it, I'm Steve Adubato.

Thank you so much for watching.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The New Jersey Education Association.

PSE&G, The Russell Berrie Foundation.

NJM Insurance Group.

The Fidelco Group.

And by Seton Hall University.

Promotional support provided by NJ.com, And by New Jersey Family - [Narrator] This is the Seton Hall story.

One that comes to life every day on our campus.

This is the place where great minds discover, innovate, collaborate, and find their true calling.

This is the place where passion has a purpose, where learning inspires leading.

The bonds we make, the values we teach, inspire our community to take heart and take action.

This is Seton Hall University.

This is what great minds can do.