Get to know St. Joe's new Vice President, People, Culture and Diversity, Carrie Fletcher
St. Joe’s is excited to officially introduce our new Vice President, People, Culture and Diversity, Carrie Fletcher! With over two decades of diverse clinical and transformation experience, Carrie joins St. Joe’s with a focus on strengthening labour relations, championing and supporting innovative and successful recruitment work, staff health, safety and wellness initiatives, and anti-violence and anti-discrimination work.
Read on to learn more about Carrie’s journey working in healthcare from the frontline to executive leadership, as well as helpful approaches in supporting an equitable, inclusive and diverse environment.
Join us in giving Carrie a warm welcome to the St. Joe’s family!
What are you looking forward to most working at St. Joe’s?
I'm most looking forward to getting to know the organization, and in particular, all the people that make it operate. The organization is so complex and every single role is integral to the operations, and so I have learned in my very short time how fantastic the culture is and how welcoming and friendly the people are.
I'm most excited to get to know people, build relationships and continue to grow and further improve the culture here at St. Joe's, which is already so incredible.
Can you share anything about your experience working in the healthcare sector during the pandemic?
That we truly are probably some of the most resilient humans on earth. We continue to get knocked over, wave by wave by wave of COVID, and we find some way to continue coming back to provide high-quality care to support the operations of the hospital. But it has been extremely challenging. We are all stretched so thin. I've learned that the power of the human spirit continues to come together to try and do the best for our patients.
As someone who started on the frontline as a certified Clinical Kinesiologist, what have you learned about yourself as you grew into a healthcare leader?
I learned that I love learning. I have had so many different roles within health care, and every role has just continued to put a piece of the puzzle together; health care is this huge, probably 5,000-piece, puzzle.
When I was in my frontline clinical role, I did an Emerging Leaders program at Trillium when I was there, and I know that St. Joe's has a similar program. It really ignited my desire to become a formal leader, so I looked at opportunities and schooling for that and learned and grew over 15 and a half years at CAMH in a variety of leadership roles, leading me to where I am today.
I’ve loved learning about how different roles, different parts of the health system, different parts within an organization, all need to operate together and I continue to want to learn. That's another reason why I'm so thrilled to be here at St. Joe's, because it brings two large pieces from my acute care background, and mental health background, both together within one organization. Learning a new region and population that we're serving continues to keep me fully engaged and excited about the work ahead.
You have a strong background in staffing and recruitment, healthcare worker wellness, retention and safety – our three priorities. How do you hope to share your knowledge and experience with St. Joe’s?
I really want to learn what St. Joe's has already been doing, and I know there is a ton of work underway.
I've been very impressed in my first few weeks here that this hospital is providing open opportunities to listen, learn and speak with staff, physicians, learners and volunteers on how we can make a really challenging work environment better with tangible ways to improve. I want to be able to understand what's happening, and then take what I have learned from some challenging times that we came through in my previous organization and how we worked with the staff, with our union partners, to make things better. Listening to the ideas that our staff have, that our union leadership have, and working to find ways to put those into practice in the organization.
I feel really strongly that to make things better, we need to listen to all of our healthcare workers. They have the great ideas, and then we as a leadership team have to be able to take those ideas and help bring them to life.
What are some approaches you’ve found helpful in supporting an equitable, diverse and inclusive environment in a healthcare setting?
It comes back to listening. It comes back to ensuring that we acknowledge privilege, that we acknowledge power dynamics.
We need to understand that we don't walk in the shoes of other individuals, so we need to actively listen to their experiences to understand. Understand that the individuals who are really being impacted — whether it's an underserved population or racialized population — that we don't put it upon them to implement the solutions.
We need to open ourselves up. We need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. We need to check our egos at the door. That's the only way we're going to open ourselves to truly make a difference when it comes to equity, diversity and inclusion.
We all have a lot to learn. We all have a lot to unlearn. We all have unconscious biases that we need to self-reflect on, we need to be self-aware of and we need to quite actively change ourselves. It takes a lot of reflection and a very open heart and mind to make true change.
What EDI project are you proudest of?
I’m proudest of the introduction of what we called healing circles and then restorative practice at CAMH.
To conduct the healing circles, we brought in an external facilitator and brought together our Black staff, and then all staff, to share their experiences at the organization. First, the healing circles were conducted with no management so people felt very safe to be able to come together. They were so successful that staff and leaders from those groups asked specifically for myself and our President and CEO at the time to attend so we could hear and listen. The feedback from those healing circles was huge.
The President and CEO and I were able to come in being very vulnerable and comfortable with getting uncomfortable, and it was really uncomfortable to hear some of the feedback at times, including what we needed to do is an organization. Acting upon what was asked for by the organization out of those healing circles, so that we could address the past and move forward into the future was so critically important. It truly is what allowed us to move so much work forward, and then led us into restorative practice.
We asked ourselves how do we come together, how do we work together and how to make things better for both our staff, physicians, learners, volunteers and ultimately patient care at the organization. It sounds like a relatively simple thing to do, but it was so powerful and it took a lot of time to build trust to be able to have people come and honestly share at the table, which is so critically important for people to have that courage, and it does take courage to come forth and share their truth.
What has been your most memorable experience in your career?
So many, but I think it’s most memorable when people come together. I’m hopeful for the day when we are able to physically come together to celebrate.
My most memorable experience was a 20th anniversary celebration of the organization I was at, and we had close to 1,000 staff members, management and union leadership all coming together. We had [a musical ensemble] Choir! Choir! Choir! leading us through a rendition of Don't Stop Believing and it was so incredibly powerful.
Honestly, all of the most memorable things are when I've been able to be with people, with teams, whether it be working through some of the most challenging issues and then, of course, leading those to positive outcomes. For me, it's all been about developing relationships, positive outcomes and really driving work together collaboratively with people. The Choir! Choir! Choir! event was just this culmination in my mind after some really, really challenging times, that that we were able to all come together and celebrate everything that had been accomplished.
Who do you admire and why?
I kept on coming back to all these strong, female leaders and one person that continued to come to mind was actually Michelle Obama. She comes across as humble and wise, and she wants to make the world a better place. She's a strong supportive woman. She's raising, who appear to be, two strong women. She doesn't take a back seat to anyone, even the President of the United States, and she's incredibly accomplished and sees value in every single human being. I really, really admire her.
Do you have a favourite quote?
Yes, I do. To be honest with you, any Maya Angelou quote, but the one I love is:
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
What is your go-to Tim Horton’s order?
A large double-double. It used to be a triple-triple, but I'm cutting back. I jokingly once said to somebody that if I could, I'd order a quadruple-quadruple but it's just too hard to say, and somebody told me that's actually called a four-by-four. I'm proud to say I've never gone there. I also do love their bacon, egg and sausage breakfast sandwich on a toasted, everything bagel.
Are you a cat person or dog person or both? Do you have any pets?
I am a dog person. I accept cats, but I’m 100% a dog person. I have two dogs – a Pug who’s eight (Lucy) and a Victorian Bulldog who’s five (Kramer).
Where can people follow you on social media?