How St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital maintained culture amid major change

An organization’s culture helps it stand out from the crowd and make it more than just a place to work. Since a company’s culture roots directly from the employees that work there and how they interact with one another, organizations with a detailed and proud history can build robust cultural norms.

But what happens to the culture when a storied brand suddenly onboards a load of new employees?  Can it remain or will it become watered down?

That’s exactly the situation that St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has faced over the last several years. With a 40% increase in workforce over the last five years, St. Jude faced a conundrum — how can you incorporate such a large number of new employees while maintaining the carefully built, family-oriented culture that the organization has been known for over the past six-plus decades?

“We took a close look at how we could retain our unique culture we’ve established with this influx of new employees,” Elizabeth Whittington, senior director of executive communications at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, told Ragan.  “When you also consider the disruption from COVID, we knew we needed to take a thoughtful and proactive approach.”

At Ragan’s Employee Communications and Culture Conference this April 9-11, Whittington will discuss how she and her team helped retain the hospital’s unique culture with an influx of new talent.

Maintaining culture during big changes

St. Jude’s unique culture underwent a few major stressors beginning in 2020. The first centered on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Whittington told Ragan that prior the pandemic, the hospital didn’t have a remote or hybrid work culture to speak of.

“This led us to redefine our culture outside of the on-campus experience, but it also helped us understand our relationships with each other,” she said. “Collaboration and teamwork took high priority.”

Whittington added that St. Jude needed a way to show that there were shared cultural values between all employees, old and new and in-person and hybrid.

“After the pandemic, there was a move to have employees return to campus,” Whittington said. “We knew that wasn’t possible for everyone – one reason is that we now have limited space because of our growth!”

She also said that the comms team undertook several internal studies to determine what employees valued in their workplace experiences.

“The research showed us that our employees valued their time on campus and interacting with their coworkers,” Whittington said. “This helped us to develop a program that took all of that into consideration. During our town hall meetings, we pay attention to online questions and comments, answering questions online and sharing questions during the live event — that can help us down the road with creating messaging.”

A sense of shared values and visible leadership

The comms team leaned into its “Living Our Values” campaign, a series of emails and videos that highlight the shared mission of providing top-flight healthcare for children in need.

“Living Our Values program has been an exceptional way to encourage people to embrace the St. Jude way,” she said. “It’s also motivated employees to highlight their coworkers when they see them live the values in their everyday work.”

The program works so well because it allows St. Jude employees to see their colleagues in action through a visual medium. In turn, this helps them see themselves within the campaign as well.

Whittington added that creating content that focused on the hospital’s value system helped bring new employees up to speed on the company’s culture, especially in a time of rapid hiring. These shared values form cultural cohesion of employees old and new, and seeing them in action helps drive that home.

“We have a set of seven values at St. Jude, and each year, employees are encouraged to submit examples of how their colleagues live the St. Jude values,” Whittington said. “Last year, we had more than 400 submissions. We select 40 employees and highlight them and their stories throughout the year, culminating in an in-person and live-streamed town hall.”

Leaders were also highlighted for their role in building culture.

“We understood that having a mission-driven culture, a culture of collaboration, innovation and urgency, was important, especially when considering the work we do,” she said. “That’s why our CEO hosts frequent town hall meetings and Lunch with the CEO. He also meets regularly with patients’ families and is visible throughout the hospital. This shows that employees, patients and their families all have a voice in how St. Jude advances its mission.”

Whittington also gave comms pros faced with cultural pressures some advice for charting the way forward.

• Values in action. “Define your workplace culture and values and illustrate them with employee and organizational stories,” she said. “We share examples, recognition, and stories that show our values in action.​”
• Communicate the rules and norms. “Set up guidelines on how to use technology to collaborate, especially with remote and hybrid workers,” Whittington told Ragan. “With our distributed work policy, we try to remove the guesswork so they can concentrate on what’s important.”
• Provide regular updates. “One of the benefits of having a strong, defined culture is that it helps not only during times of positive change, like organizational growth but also when change brings uncertainty,” Whittington added. “We try to regularly update employees on organizational changes, even if they’re still in progress or uncertain.​”
• Create feedback loops. “Use short polls, pulse checks and informal feedback to adjust comms and strategy in real-time,” she said. “We have an annual employee engagement survey, as well as frequent town hall meetings with open Q&A sessions and lunch with the CEO that offers employees an opportunity to discuss challenges and successes with leadership.”

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports and hosting trivia.