Panel Discussion Archives

Panelists offer advice for working around construction supply chain issues

A lot of things seem out of control these days. As costs rise and disruptions in the supply chain persist – and without clear-cut ends to some of the most prominent causes of those issues – the pandemic or the war in Ukraine, for example – it’s unclear how long these challenges will persist. However, there are things business owners and executives can do to put themselves on solid footing to navigate and operate under the current circumstances.

During NJBIZ’s The Future of Construction and Development virtual panel discussion experts explained where we are, how we got here, and shed some light on ways to work around and through the setbacks.

NJBIZ Editor Jeffrey Kanige served as moderator for the May 24 event, joined by:

Brad Bohler, principal, Bohler
Zachary Csik, director, Real Estate-Commerical-NJ/PA, Rockefeller Group
Kate Gibbs, deputy director, Engineers Labor-Employer Cooperative (ELEC)
Lisa Lombardo, director, Construction Law & Litigation Team, Gibbons PC
Mitchell Taraschi, co-chair, Construction Group, Connell Foley LLP

“[W]e’re really facing a perfect storm here,” Lombardo said of the current climate. She traced its start back to trade relations between U.S. and China under the Trump administration, leading directly into COVID and the disruptions the pandemic caused to production. “That was worldwide,” she explained. “So it’s not as if we can say all right, only a segment of the world is dealing with this, the entire world was dealing with it.”

And the entire world is still dealing with it, to at least some extent.

Not only have prices for commodities skyrocketed, but availability is precarious. “You just don’t know exactly what it’s going to be, and when it’s going to hit and it’s really difficult to plan for it,” Csik said of access to materials like steel, piping, roofing and even fire hydrants. Bohler agreed, pointing to swaps during construction due to delays for materials. One work around suggested by the group is to plan ahead.

Replay: The Future Of Construction And Development, an NJBIZ panel discussion

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“Folks are ordering their materials in the approval process just to make sure they get in line so they’re not sitting there waiting … to go to construction for 12 months after they get their approvals,” Bohler said.

NJBIZ held its virtual Future of Construction and Development panel discussion on May 24, 2022, moderated by NJBIZ Editor Jeff Kanige and featuring: - NJBIZ — NJBIZ held its virtual Future of Construction and Development panel discussion on May 24, 2022. – NJBIZ

Taking that line of thinking a step further, Lombardo recommended ordering long lead items in advance—not hoarding, she cautioned, but warehousing the essentials, so “you have availability of materials that you know you use all the time in the industry,” she said.

An example provided by Taraschi spoke to another benefit that kind of thinking can provide: avoiding paying premium prices for the items you need. He cited an example of a client building a bridge in New Jersey. Looking ahead, the company purchased most – but not all – of the steel needed for the project when it was awarded the contract. Flash forward and today the cost of steel is almost 300% higher than it was when they purchased the initial load, Taraschi said. According to him, that issue affects all areas of the construction industry.

Another way to plan ahead, and work toward mutually beneficial outcomes, is in the contract process.

Taraschi said for existing contracts nobody wins if the situation does not work. For contracts you’re entering now, though, there are a couple things that you can do to combat pricing, supply chain and delivery issues and it all comes down to sharing risk. “You can have a price escalation clause. That’s now getting to be popular,” he explained. You can also build time into the contract for supply chain issues so that disruptions are “an excusable delay.”

“It’s all about sharing risk because … it benefits both parties to share the risk because if the owner takes a hard line now at the contract drafting stage that the contractor is going to bear that risk, what’s going to happen is every contractor is going to come to that owner with a very, very high price. So the owner is going to be paying one way or the other,” Taraschi said.

Lombardo echoed the idea of working together for mutually beneficial outcomes, suggesting that getting everyone involved in the process as early as possible can help. Having design professionals involved could assist with coming up with alternative materials or methods for getting work done. Bohler agreed, saying that some people are bringing contractors on a little earlier in the process these days, which benefits the design team as well as the developer.

And all that is in the interest of what everyone wants, especially when it comes to upgrading critical infrastructure in the state: getting the work done, according to Gibbs. She cited state legislation that allows for design build project delivery.

“Especially now with what is happening with the supply chain and price escalation, it makes more sense than ever to use this new procurement tool in order to move public projects forward as well as on the private side,” she said.

Experts at NJBIZ Town Hall discuss post-pandemic trends, challenges

It was a robust and timely discussion as NJBIZ held its latest Town Hall Ask the Experts event April 26, featuring a group of business community members including Luis De La Hoz, first vice president, regional director, commercial lending, Valley Bank; Daniel Stolz, partner and chair of Bankruptcy, Reorganization & Creditor’s Rights, Genova Burns; Brian Lowe, president and CEO, BML Public Relations & Digital; and Richard Jania, managing director, CBIZ Marks Paneth.

The event was moderated by NJBIZ Chief Editor Jeff Kanige, who opened the discussion by asking the group about their current workplace realities due to the pandemic.

“I’m curious to go around the room and see how the nature of work for all of you and in your organizations has changed,” Kanige said.

The answers varied, offering insight into how different companies in different types of industries are adapting to the new normal.

“Our firm is trying to bring people in two days a week to try and encourage people to come back in,” Stolz said. “Hopefully, we’re on an upward pattern where they relax things. But it’s been challenging.”

Replay: NJBIZ Town Hall

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“We adjust to using technology. Valley moved 70% of the employees to work remotely in almost like a week,” De La Hoz said. “And we use the branch as our best ally because customers can visit the branches to the drive-thru to provide documents and to provide the information that we need in order for us to assist them.”

“It’s a little bit difficult. Everybody’s trying to find a happy medium between coming to the office and working remotely,” Jania explained. “Our industry has taken the position, for now, both accounting firms, that it’s optional to come to the office. Our offices are open. We encourage employees to come to the office, but at the current time it is optional to the office”

“We actually reopened our office back in February. And I probably don’t sound like the most popular person on this webinar because of it,” said Lowe. “Once we got in, I think that we found that the collaboration just worked better for us.”

Lowe also referenced Jania’s happy-medium point, saying his organization has strived to reach it. “We’ve also instituted a bank of remote time that are virtual days that people can use,” he Lowe.

The discussion ran through issues such as technology, inflation, interest rates, hiring and retention costs, and, of course, questions from the audience.

A full wrap-up from this event will be featured in the May 2 issue of NJBIZ.

For women in STEM, laying the groundwork starts much earlier

The scene has changed for women working in STEM careers, which historically held a reputation as “men’s work.” In fact, the scene has changed in the field, generally. According to a 2021 Pew Research Center report, women accounted for half of people working in STEM jobs; and at 50% that figure is even slightly higher than their share of the overall workforce (47%).

When LANXESS Plant Manager Pamela Dudish was starting out, though, she says she did have quite a few people ask her if she was sure she wanted to be part of a male-dominated career. “[At] Rutgers, I think my graduating class was 250 and there were maybe four women that graduated in mechanical engineering that year,” she said. “But to me, that was kind of a challenge … I don’t want to hear that I can’t do something I am interested in.” Now, her company runs four plants in New Jersey – and they’re all led by women. Beyond that, Dudish said it’s not the same experience she’s had with her own children.

Dudish offered her insights as a woman working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics on March 29 during an NJBIZ virtual panel discussion on the subject also featuring Burns & McDonnell Project Manager, Transmission & Distribution Services Michelle Butler; Kean University School of Computer Science and Technology Executive Director Patricia Morreale; SJI Utilities, South Jersey Industries President Melissa Orsen; and HDR Lighting Designer Anne Ullestad.

Though some women, like Dudish who said she started looking at engineering schools when she was 14 years old, know early on that they want to be involved in STEM, that isn’t always the case. Which makes it even more important to lay a strong foundation early on that encourages interest in its subjects.

“[T]he earlier that you can start the better, and definitely making it fun,” Butler said, equating the early start to laying the foundation for building blocks to be added to throughout a child’s lifetime. And blocks aren’t just a great metaphor for these childhood experiences, they can be literal. Butler explained that playing Legos with her 5-year-old son, for example, activates problem-solving skills. “That way of thinking, kind of training your mind, is something that’s transferable throughout your entire life,” she said, and important for a STEM focus.

Replay: Women in STEM, a NJBIZ panel discussion

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Ullestad, whose father was an engineer, was averse to the industry growing up. “It was kind of reverse engineering,” she said of the impression she got seeing people in his office working from their cubicle, stuck in front of computers. “It look[ed] so boring, to me, so I was kind of always like I don’t want to do that.” But, Ullestad’s interest in math was accompanied by an aptitude for the subject when she was school-aged, which she said prompted her teachers to tell her parents to encourage her prowess in the subject. “I always was drawn to math and science in school, as well as art classes,” she said, which led to her taking some architecture classes in high school that then led to her pursuing architectural engineering in college.

According to Morreale, having a parent – particularly a father – who is an engineer is one of the biggest predictors for women entering the STEM fields. In fact, Dudish said her father was also an engineer.

Examples of people working in STEM fields and, even more so, that encouragement, the panelists agreed throughout the discussion, is really important to cultivating long-term interest in STEM. Another touchstone for cultivating success: creative thinking.

“[W]e had to practice a lot and I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact that these … problem-solving skills, we need to practice,” Morreale said. “And practice and positive feedback to the learner are really, really important to encourage them to persist and try harder.”

From the infrastructure perspective, Orsen used renewable energy as an example. “It’s problem solving, right?” she said. “STEM and STEAM [which incorporates an “a” for arts] is that perfect example, so we need young people coming in and problem solving on how we can get there. What are those solutions that we can come up with? And it’s fascinating to see those young minds at work.”

As the makeup of workers in STEM continues to evolve, and time passes, appreciating and keeping those young minds at work will make all the difference.

“We must be careful as adults, not to project our biases, if you will, on to the children,” Morreale said. “They may be preparing now for jobs that we can’t even conceive of, so we need to keep them in the game and in the hunt for those future opportunities.”

Layering your defenses: NJBIZ panel explores cybersecurity concerns

According to Mike Bridges, president and chief operating officer of Paperclip Inc. – a tech company focused on secure document capture, processing and storage – as we approach the third anniversary of COVID-19, we also find ourselves amid a “breach pandemic.” And even if your business isn’t operating on the scale of, say, the Colonial Pipeline, that doesn’t mean you’re safe.

Bridges spoke during a virtual NJBIZ panel discussion exploring cybersecurity on Feb. 22, joined by Karen Painter Randall, chair of cybersecurity, data privacy and incident response at Connell Foley LLP; Julie Tracy, vice president of cybersecurity at Withum; and Carl Mazzanti, co-founder and president of eMazzanti Technologies.

Ransomware attacks, for example, are proliferating. According to Randall as many as 4,000 take place each day. And that adds up in dollars and cents, as well. A Financial Crimes Enforcement Network Financial Trend Analysis covering the first six months of 2021, found that the value for ransomware-relation transactions reported in suspicious activity reports, or SARs, was at its highest since 2011: $590 million – or a 42% increase – compared to 2020.

Maybe you think being a smaller-scale operation can inherently protect you from being a target. But according to Randall, that’s no longer the case. “Unfortunately, in this day and age, these attackers are focusing on the small- to medium-sized businesses,” she said.

And even if you think your business – a hair salon, for example – doesn’t deal in the kind of data bad actors are looking for, you need to take into account the kind of information you have on hand.

Replay: Cybersecurity, a NJBIZ panel discussion

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“People need to sit down and classify the electronic data they have,” Bridges said. “Do I capture any non-public information? Or is there any personal information that I’m collecting, in the conduct of my business? Because that’s going to be a big defining line.”

And, Bridges cautioned, it’s important to remember that once you capture that data, you’re on the hook for it.

“[W]hen you get into the areas of a breach that’s when people are able to steal confidential information that you’re entrusted to protect. … [I]f you’re collecting confidential information you are considered the data owner, and you’re ultimately responsible. Even if you hire someone or take information and put it … into a third party, they are considered the data holder. And if the data holder has data that’s extricated, you’re on the hook.”

Help is on the way

So what can you do? Mazzanti says start building.

“Defense and depth … the idea is you layer it, like a cake … Here’s one device, and if it got through that then there’s another one below that, there’s another one below that,” he said. “So when we mention firewalls, email security, endpoints on the devices, DNS security for outbound request — you can layer on a whole bunch of different technologies so that no matter which ones fail, it would be very difficult to go through all of them and then have some sort of outbound result take place.”

Maybe all those layers sound expensive – even more likely, they probably sound confusing. According to Tracy, when it comes to costs – and confusion – there are options. Like, hiring a qualified consultant instead of bringing someone into your organization full time. Another important precaution is to figure out where you stand with a business impact analysis.

“Saying, OK, so this is my business, this is what it costs me … if I were to have a breach, these are the things that could happen and so really looking at it in a dollars and cents perspective from people, and not just a firewall … But understanding that those costs are investments in securing what is most precious to them and helping them keep those costs in line with our business,” she said.

After you have your layers in place, it’s important to test your work.

“Once people start to layer these defenses – the firewalls, features, email filtering, the endpoint MFA [multifactor authentication] and the like – you need a security test. Like a pen test or assessment or something out of the environment to point out all the things that you don’t do,” Mazzanti said.

In an increasingly digitized world, making sure you’re not ignorant about what’s going on with your cybersecurity and taking a proactive approach to protect your information can be the biggest step toward making sure you’re not vulnerable.

“You’re not going to be judged as much by the cyberattack because the number of cyberattacks are increasing on a daily basis,” Randall said, “but you will be judged by the response effort.”

As hiring shortage persists, employers must change tactics

New Jersey employers should not expect the hiring shortage to end soon, and employees will likely have leverage for quite some time.

That’s according to a group of experts gathered for a Nov. 30 NJBIZ panel discussion titled The Great Resignation: Recruit & Retain, which covered a variety of issues related to hiring in a difficult environment.

“We don’t see this as a temporary situation,” said Manisha Subramanian, the owner and strategic partner at the Edison recruiting firm PrideStaff & G.A. Rogers.

While COVID-19 had not been the “primary culprit of the hiring shortage” – the exact cause has been debated in academic, political and business circles – the hiring shortages will nonetheless “continue for the foreseeable future,” she said.

Initial expectations in the spring and early summer were that once the federal $300 weekly unemployment relief checks ran out around in early September, many people would simply return to the office, or to their retail, restaurant or other hospitality jobs. But the effect was muted at best.

A recent survey by the New Jersey Business and Industry Association found that three in four employers – 73% have been faced with hiring shortages over the past year. Many reluctantly raised wages in order to attract workers. Many prospective workers – 57% – simply did not show up for their interviews, while 49% opted to stay unemployed and 46% canceled interviews.

The NJBIZ panelists suggested that employers will have to work harder and adopt some tactics that might have seemed unthinkable before the pandemic.

Some are obvious. Base pay is important and “you want to be competitive there,” explained David Pearson, a senior vice president at the Woodbridge human resources firm ExtensisHR. But benefits – paid time off, holidays and health care – should be high-quality.

Smaller firms that can’t afford these more “generous compensation packages” can be creative with perks such as unlimited vacation time, Subramanian explained.

And remote work offerings may be considered essential, according to Delores Murphy, who heads human resources at the information technology firm Integris. “So many more candidates are looking to work from home as opposed to coming into the office, so we have to have that flexibility,” she said.

Subramanian said that this remote-work reality means that employers can recruit from outside their local areas, and even “reach across the country.”

In addition, employers should reach out to non-traditional communities. Lynn Spence, a senior executive for human resources at the engineering consulting firm T&M Associates, said that virtual career fairs, scholarship opportunities, participation through professional organizations such as the society for women engineers all help to build “brand recognition.”

“Again, showing that it’s not just words, for us, in terms of waiting to diversify our population, but supporting and making changes in our process and the way we approach the relationships that we build to expand the diversity of our workforce,” she continued.

Murphy agreed, saying that employers will need to go beyond the higher education route for finding talent. That means working with community schools such as two-year colleges.

“We’re helping younger students branch into the IT world a little earlier than they would because they’re still in school, but getting that exposure,” Murphy said.

On job interviews and the recruiting process, Mazars USA Managing Partner Paula Ferriera said that employers need to conform more to the applicant’s timeframe, rather than the other way around. “It can’t be at the same pace that we did 18 months ago. We have to act a little bit quicker because there’s a lot of people out there looking for candidates,” Ferriera said.

“So where in the past, we may have taken a few days to a week to get back to somebody, I don’t think that time exists anymore.”

In addition, employers might need to be more “forgiving” in what constitutes grounds for rejection, amid the hiring shortage Pearson said.

“Whether it’s in somebody’s home and the dog is barking in the background, rewind the clock a couple years ago, ‘no I am not working with this candidate’,” Pearson said. “If they have to hold the interview in their car, that’s OK because they’re trying to get out of a noisy environment.”

Start making sense

New Jersey is home to 287 companies that make some type of personal protective equipment, or PPE. New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program CEO John Kennedy shared that with panel members and attendees of NJBIZ’s manufacturing panel discussion. Panel members, including Gillian Bleimann Boucard, executive vice president at Carteret fragrance manufacturer Berje Inc.; Mazars CPA Alisha Jernack, and Mark Howe, vice president of sales and marketing at Berkeley Heights industrial equipment supplier The Knotts Co., told Kennedy that they didn’t know about the state’s PPE manufacturing presence.

Clockwise from top left: Moderator John Kennedy, CEO of the NJMEP; Alisha Jernack of Mazars; Gillian Bleimann Boucard, executive vice president at Berje Inc.; and Mark Howe, vice president of sales and marketing at The Knotts Co.

“Neither did I before [the pandemic], and that’s part of our problem: we don’t understand our supply chain,” Kennedy said. He’s working with U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez on legislation to support a national supply chain database, so MEPs around the country and the manufacturers they serve can source materials from places around the country they may not have known existed.

The panelists addressed several issues critical to the manufacturing sector during the Oct. 26 virtual event, including supply chain problems, raw material costs, labor challenges and how to attract young talent.

“We often hear [that bringing manufacturing] back to the U.S. [would] be more costly. However, I would argue the point of you’re going to have faster turn times and you are likely missing out on revenue today as a manufacturer or distributor if you’re getting stuff from overseas and you’re unable to get that inventory,” Jernack said. “If you’re not able to get the inventory or you’re not able to receive it timely, then you don’t have a sale. So you can offset the increased costs by having your inventory, your raw materials, your goods closer to you. And by understanding the consumer and the patterns better and being able to have that predictability, you’re able to turn faster and the outcome of that is you’re going to have increased sales, which should offset any increase that you’ll have for additional labor costs.”

Howe said one of the manufacturers that Knotts works with has an average run size of three items, and that having local suppliers with the right inventory in stock is important. “To manage that level of supply chain, it could be something as simple as a bearing could hold up an entire order for months because it’s stuck on a boat somewhere. With our local customers that we work with it really comes down to ‘can we look at a different part within the system? Can we substitute it with with something else?’ [Asking] ‘what is your lead time you promised to the customer?’ so we can have a better understanding what you need, [and figuring out] how we look at our portfolio of what we offer to get you where you need to be.”

It comes down to flexibility, he said, and Knotts has had manufacturers it works with change material requirements and even certifications due to that. But having something that works in inventory is “mission critical right now,” he said.

“Inventory’s king, so if you have enough in your facility to answer some orders then you’re gonna win that top spot in that instance,” Howe said.

Bleimann Boucard noted that in some instances, sourcing domestically isn’t a possibility. Roughly 40% of Birje’s materials are produced in China, and it’s Mother Nature’s doing.

“Eucalyptus oil—there’s not the land, there’s not the environment … to allow a lot of those products. [That puts] us at a severe disadvantage that we’re still struggling with,” Bleimann Boucard said. “Because of those factors mark, either the regulatory landscape, or people, [there’s no way for] many of those products be made here, and there are formulas that are reliant on those products that we supply and produce here.”

Labor costs, as mentioned by Jernack, are one thing, but a constant issue in U.S. manufacturing is staffing in general.

Replay: Manufacturing, a NJBIZ panel discussion

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Knotts has been involved with FIRST Robotics, a nationwide program that introduces grade school and high school students to robotics and engineering. “I think one thing we as manufacturers can do is we could potentially develop more partnerships, not at the college level, but with the middle school and high school levels, and give them tours give them opportunities to see what see some of the high value jobs. Manufacturing gets this this bad rap of being all dirty and dangerous, when the reality of it is manufacturing has advanced tremendously. There’s a lot of technology and a lot of thought process that goes into the floors,” Howe said.

“If you don’t start building a pool now, again, with the amount of individuals retiring and the generational shift, we’re just making manufacturing a lot harder to get … future needs,” he added.

The pervasive negative perception of manufacturing sector work keeps people out of the pursuing jobs in the sector, and the responsibility of changing that perception, Jernack said, falls on industry leaders.

Kennedy noted that 33,000 manufacturing jobs were open in New Jersey pre-pandemic, and now 45,000 positions must be filled. Some of these jobs don’t require degrees, and some do.

“Cost accountants are in that top five, because if you can’t make money making it, don’t make it. Engineers, we’re not producing engineers, we’re just not. Others, CNC machinists, we can’t find them, welders … but the one that comes out on top that surprises me is technical sales. Because, look, if you can’t sell it, what are you building?” he asked.

Younger people need to be informed about these jobs, Kennedy explained, but they also have to learn that a manufacturing job is like a job anywhere else: “We also have to educate our young people that you don’t start at the top. I’ve worked with a lot of young people, and they get disappointed if they don’t get a raise and promotion in six months.”

Bleimann Boucard said Berje noticed that dynamic when the company had a training program for people right out of college. She said the company “wanted to be people’s second job, not first job,” because executives found that “a lot of expectations that people had for their first job were difficult to live up to or unrealistic.”

To stay competitive, Berje heightened its focus on retention. “We’ve changed our shifts I think over three times, really listening to people, saying ‘OK, what works for families? What works for working [parents]? Constantly being flexible,” she said.

Despite challenges, panelists agreed that making things here in America and sourcing more materials domestically would be a good thing. “You know 95% of our blood pressure medicine is made in China; 50% of the American adults are on blood pressure medicine. How is that good business?” Kennedy said.

Kennedy later tied in the blood pressure medication with commentary on tariffs and on made-in-America requirements. When the machine shop he owned was doing an installation in China, Kennedy said he was required to do 50% of the manufacturing within the province or he wouldn’t get the job.

“That was China’s rule. I’m not saying we should have the same, but we certainly should control some of that,” he said.

Experts untangle supply chain issues, labor shortages at NJBIZ manufacturing panel

New Jersey is home to 287 companies that make some type of personal protective equipment, or PPE.

New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program CEO John Kennedy shared that with panel members and attendees of NJBIZ’s manufacturing panel discussion. Panel members, including Gillian Bleimann Boucard, executive vice president at Carteret fragrance manufacturer Berje Inc.; Mazars CPA Alisha Jernack, and Mark Howe, vice president of sales and marketing at Berkeley Height’s industrial equipment supplier The Knotts Co., were unaware of the in-state PPE manufacturing presence.

The panelists addressed several issues critical to the manufacturing sector during the Oct. 26 virtual event, including supply chain issues, raw material costs, labor challenges, and how to attract young talent.

Labor costs are one thing, but a constant issue in U.S. manufacturing is staffing in general.

The Knotts Co. has been involved with FIRST Robotics, a nationwide program that introduces grade school and high school students to robotics and engineering.

“I think one thing as manufacturers can do is we could potentially develop more partnerships, not at the college level, but with the middle school and high school levels, and give them tours give them opportunities to see what see some of the high value jobs. Manufacturing gets this this bad rap of being all dirty and dangerous, when the reality of it is manufacturing has advanced tremendously. There’s a lot of technology and a lot of thought process that goes into the floors,” Howe said.

“If you don’t start building a pool now again with the amount of individuals retiring and the generational shift, we’re just making manufacturing a lot harder to get toward that future needs,” he added.

Kennedy noted that 33,000 manufacturing jobs were open in New Jersey pre-pandemic, and now 45,000 jobs must be filled. Some of these jobs don’t require degrees, and some do.

“Cost accountants are in that top five, because if you can’t make money making it, don’t make it. Engineers, we’re not producing engineers, we’re just not. Others, CNC machinists, we can’t find them, welders … but the one that comes out on top that surprises me is technical sales. Because look if you can’t sell it, what are you building?” he asked.

Replay: Manufacturing, a NJBIZ panel discussion

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Bleimann Boucard said Berje noticed that when the company had a training program for people right out of college. She said the company realized they “wanted to be people’s second job, not first job,” because they found that “a lot of expectations that people had for their first job were difficult to live up to or unrealistic.”

To stay competitive, Berje heightened its focus on retention of the people they already have.

“We’ve changed our shifts I think over three times, really listening to people, saying ‘OK, what works for families? What works for working [parents]? Constantly being flexible,” she said.

Here to stay

Clockwise from top left, NJBIZ Editor-in-Chief Jeff Kanige, Hackensack Meridian Health Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Mark Eimer, Holy Name Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer Sai Kandamangalam, Caregility Chief Strategy Officer Peter McLain McLain and Online Computers CEO and founder Carl Scalzo take part in the NJBIZ Health Care Technology Virtual Panel Discussion on Sept. 28, 2021. – NJBIZ

Telehealth was bolstered by the pandemic for two reasons, Caregility Chief Strategy Officer Peter McLain explained during an NJBIZ virtual panel discussion on Health Care Technology held Sept. 28. For one thing, it was what was available for patients because offices were closed. Second, hospitals had more patients coming into them, thereby causing shortages in personal protective equipment shortages and staffing, which “prompted the idea,” he said.

“‘If we have a camera in the room, maybe we don’t need to go into the room as much, so we can communicate from outside the room through video. That spurred a lot of innovative problem solving of ‘how do we get the camera in the room?’” Some used baby monitors. Some used security cameras.

In one instance, McLain said, a phone with a camera was taped to the wall to have a live call.

The clever ways doctors communicated with others from inside hospital rooms grew and changed over the pandemic, moving from a “whatever works” mindset initially to “what is better and more secure.”

McLain was joined by Hackensack Meridian Health Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Mark Eimer, Online Computers founder and CEO Carl Scalzo and Holy Name Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer Sai Kandamangalam; the panel was moderated by NJBIZ Editor Jeffrey Kanige.

If a technology company wants its health care products to be broadly adopted, the tech should be ubiquitous and accessible through whatever device someone is using. “For those of us that have an iPhone that has great videoconferencing, FaceTime — that didn’t become the standard during the pandemic. What did? Zoom, the technology that worked across all the platforms,” Scalzo said. “The ones that are going to be siloed and niche and proprietary, the bigger players … are not going to want to have a hallway filled with 25 different technologies.”

One obstacle to telehealth remaining so prominent would arise health care companies stop getting the reimbursements for providing telehealth. Eimer said his organization is lobbying for such reimbursements to remain and that Congress just needs to understand how the health care system has shifted.

If technology can reduce the average stay by a day … that means better patient outcomes. If a patient can be discharged because they recovered faster, that’s great for the patient. For me, that’s part of the calculation.

– Peter McLain, Caregility chief strategy officer

In addition, Eimer predicts that 5G broadband will be a game-changer for telehealth, but for now, bandwidth remains a challenge today in rural areas.

“Internet bandwidth alone in rural communities is a travesty. I think there’s like 25% of homes within the U.S. that are running [insufficient bandwidth] to deliver real-time health care at home,” he said. “Which is why the telehealth providers have to be really smart about compression and bandwidth consumption just because trying to get to rural communities [is a challenge.]”

Teamwork

Eimer said he believes the companies that created telehealth and video conferencing technology are, at this point, all compliant in terms of their own back-end cybersecurity programs. The bigger issue now, he said, is on the privacy side, “in making sure you have dedicated closed rooms as you’re talking to patients so you’re not exposing [personal health information] verbally into public spaces.”

The same goes for remote work situations, Scalzo noted. “When you sent employees home [in March 2020], did they have a headset?” he asked. “Or … was that whole conversation on the computer speaker and microphone and if they weren’t in a private room everybody in the family knew about someone’s condition? What was acceptable during the height is no longer going to be acceptable, and changing to newer standards and more compliance.”

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“The security threat is real,” Kandamangalam said. “First you’ve got to accept that a security threat is real, so we’ve got to continue to educate our end users [on] phishing emails like, how do you know when you need to click [a link and] when you should not click one? When you need to open your PDF, when you should not open your PDF?”

HMH conducts email phishing tests monthly, according to Eimer, to keep employees on their toes and they don’t let their guard down. If an employee fails the phishing test, he or she must then go through training. Most malware and ransomware comes through phishing, he said.

In closing, Kandamangalam noted that technology is evolving, and that “the good lesson for us is technology is really facilitating and helping our patient care.”

“If technology can reduce the average stay by a day … that means better patient outcomes. If a patient can be discharged because they recovered faster, that’s great for the patient. For me, that’s part of the calculation,” McLain said.

“I think what people are learning is it’s actually taking care to a higher level,” he said. “There’s now this combination in the hospital setting, you got bedside staff, but also a whole virtual care team helping with the patients. So it’s an elevation of the quality of care … I’m a patient, I have a stroke, and I’m in a rural ED; by bringing in a neurologist over video, that was elevating care.”

“There’s a positive outcome in health care related to the pandemic as far as technology. The pandemic is unfortunate and horrible, but I think the positive is it will change the future of health care dramatically and accelerate it forward and make it more available to many, many people,” Scalzo said.

Telehealth is here to stay, panel says

Telehealth was bolstered by the pandemic for two reasons, Caregility Chief Strategy Officer Peter McLain explained during a virtual NJBIZ panel discussion on Health Care Technology on Sept. 28.

For one thing, it was what was available for patients, because offices were closed. Secondly, hospitals had more patients coming into them, thereby causing issues such as personal protective equipment shortages and staff shortages, which “prompted the idea,” he said, “‘if we have a camera in the room, maybe we don’t need to go into the room as much, so we can communicate from outside the room through video. That spurred a lot of innovative problem solving of ‘how do we get the camera in the room?’”

Some used baby monitors. Some used security cameras. In one instance, McLain said, a phone with a camera was taped to the wall to have a live call.

McLain was joined by Hackensack Meridian Health Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Mark Eimer, Online Computers CEO and founder Carl Scalzo, and Holy Name Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer Sai Kandamangalam; the panel was moderated by NJBIZ Editor-in-Chief Jeff Kanige.

If a technology company wants their health care tech to be broadly adopted, the tech should be ubiquitous and accessible throughout whatever device someone is using.

“For those of us that have an iPhone that has great videoconferencing, Facetime—that didn’t become the standard during the pandemic. What did? Zoom, the technology that worked across all the platforms,” Scalzo said. “The ones that are going to be siloed and niched and proprietary, the bigger players … are not going to want to have a hallway filled with 25 different technologies.”

Teamwork

Eimer shared that he believes the companies that created telehealth and video conferencing technology are, at this point, all compliant in terms of their own back-end cybersecurity programs. The bigger issue now, he said, is more on the privacy side, “in making sure you have dedicated closed rooms as you’re talking to patients so you’re not exposing [personal health information] verbally into public spaces.”

Replay: Health Care Technology

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Same goes in work-from-home situations, Scalzo noted, asking, “When you sent employees home [in March 2020], did they have a headset? Or … was that whole conversation on the computer speaker and microphone and if they weren’t in a private room everybody in the family knew about someone’s condition? What was acceptable during the height is no longer going to be acceptable, and changing to newer standards and more compliance.”

“The security threat is real. Let’s accept it, first you’ve got to accept that a security threat is real, so we’ve got to continue to educate our end users [on] phishing emails like, how do you know when you need to click [a link and] when you should not click one? When you need to open your PDF, when you should not open your PDF?” Kandamangalam said.

HMH conducts email phishing tests monthly, according to Eimer, to keep employees on their toes and aware of them, so they don’t let their guard down. If an employee fails the phishing test, he or she must then go through training. Most malware and ransomware comes through phishing, he said.

In closing, Kandamangalam noted that technology is evolving, and that “the good lesson for us is technology is really facilitating and helping our patient care.”

Surveying the field

New Jersey Office of Diversity and Inclusion Chief Diversity Officer Hester Agudosi moderates the NJBIZ Diversity in the Workplace virtual panel discussion on Aug. 31, 2021. — Agudosi

Fewer than 10% of New Jersey’s public expenditures goes to diverse businesses, according to New Jersey Office of Diversity and Inclusion Chief Diversity Officer Hester Agudosi. The number comes from a disparity study Agudosi’s office is currently working on and was shared while she moderated the virtual NJBIZ Diversity in the Workplace panel on Aug. 31.

“Oftentimes [DEI is] focused on the HR side, and that’s important, because that’s our workforce. But the other side which oftentimes is neglected, which is very problematic to me … is DEI as it relates externally, and particularly as a business. Even on the public sector side, what’re we doing externally? Supplier diversity,” Agudosi said. “We as institutions provide and purchase goods and services, and of those goods and services, which for the state of New Jersey is billions of dollars, and there are businesses that exist and grow and thrive because they’re part of our supply chain.”

Agudosi was joined by panelists Sean Baptiste, chief human resources officer and vice president at RWJBarnabas Health Medical Group; Pete Hinojosa, thought leadership director at Insperity; Tammy Garnes Mata, senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer at Valley Bank; Avonia Richardson-Miller, senior vice president and chief diversity officer at Hackensack Meridian Health; and Darius Smith, director of talent marketing and engagement for Brother International Corp.

New Jersey is the fourth most diverse state in the nation and one of its most densely populated, Agudosi noted, giving its companies the chance to be a model for others strengthening their DEI focus and initiatives.

Sean Baptiste, chief human resources officer and vice president at RWJBarnabas Health Medical Group takes part in the NJBIZ Diversity in the Workplace virtual panel discussion on Aug. 31, 2021. — Baptiste

Baptiste said that RWJBarnabas Health Medical Group has established goals and strategies to hold people accountable to ensure that they have “x-amount” of dollars out of their budget spend on local women- and minority-owned businesses.

“An organization of our size – 44,000 – we can almost put them out of business with what we need. It’s about that true partnership and building up our supply chain to invest in, again, those minority-owned businesses, and educating our internal managers and changing our processes and policies to make sure everyone understands what our organizational initiative is around supply chain supplier diversity and procurement,” Baptiste said.

Pete Hinojosa, thought leadership director at Insperity, takes part in the NJBIZ Diversity in the Workplace virtual panel discussion on Aug. 31, 2021. — Hinojosa

For employers bringing DEI into the business, Hinojosa explained, “training will change your day, development will change your culture.” To support diverse employees as an organization and to weave DEI into a company’s culture, a training session here and there isn’t going to cut it. And when leadership goes to implement a strategy, they must do it from the top down.

“Not just from the top. You have a group of people, and they’ve spent months talking about it, thinking about it … and then they share it with employees in a five to 15, or 30-minute opportunity, and everyone is supposed to take a 180 and go toward that change.

“Be careful that you don’t lose the perspective of the five months you spent on it,” he said.

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For recruitment, panelists recommended starting with HBCUs, or historically Black colleges and universities. Garnes Mata noted, though, that when recruiting from HBCUs, students there don’t necessarily know about Valley Bank because they aren’t located within the bank’s footprint. “But we have predominantly Black and Hispanic institutions within our footprint,” she said, which then is a good place to start seeking diverse applicants.

Avonia Richardson-Miller, senior vice president and chief diversity officer at Hackensack Meridian Health, takes part in the NJBIZ Diversity in the Workplace virtual panel discussion on Aug. 31, 2021. — Richardson-Miller

Richardson-Miller noted that institutions can also look to the Divine Nine, which are the nine fraternities and sororities under the National Pan-Hellenic Council historically composed of African Americans, to source diverse applicants.

“What is it that you can propose to that candidate as the value proposition of coming on board to your company? [What] development opportunities? Maybe you do get picked up by a large company, but maybe you’re not … getting exposure, getting that really high impact development work assignments or opportunities, and maybe that’s something that a smaller organization can provide to someone more entry level,” Richardson-Miller said.

“One of the things we center our DEI around is that … inclusion is the goal, diversity is the outcome,” Garnes Mata said. “We believe if we do all that, more diversity will follow. … Don’t focus so much on what your percentages are right now in the population, focus on ‘what am I trying to achieve?’ I’m trying to achieve access for populations that have been historically excluded.”

Darius Smith, director of talent marketing and engagement, Brother International Corp. , takes part in the NJBIZ Diversity in the Workplace virtual panel discussion on Aug. 31, 2021. — Smith

For businesses without a DEI plan or chief diversity officer in place but are nonetheless interested in being mindful of DEI, Brother’s Smith said vulnerability is key. “The thing that I appreciate from our leadership [is] vulnerability. In order to provide a safe space, your leaders have to be vulnerable, and they have to show it,” Smith said.

He related an experience with fellow leaders in Diversity Discussion Starters, a discussion meeting of individuals from different areas of the company. Another Brother executive, who is white, adopted a Black child seven years ago and shared with Smith and others the challenges she faced in raising this child alongside her other child, who is white. “The first thing you’ve got to get your leaders to provide a safe space, and to do that, they gotta be vulnerable, and to do that, they’ve got to talk about some of the issues that ignite them,” he said.

In addition to vulnerability, panelists mentioned transparency and credibility as important qualities to maintain when implementing DEI initiatives.

And, Baptiste said, active listening is crucial. “Getting a key understanding on a perception of how we treat people, whether internally or externally; and then understanding where our values are, so where are we heading and how do we want to integrate DEI into our culture … but then, what’s the reality? What’s our data telling us? That’s a simple thing we may be able to pull,” he said. “What are our hires? What does our executive team look like? If we’re doing succession planning, how are we succession planning and who’s in that pipeline?”

Tammy Garnes Mata, senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer at Valley Bank, takes part in the NJBIZ Diversity in the Workplace virtual panel discussion on Aug. 31, 2021. — Garnes Mata

Richardson-Miller echoed that data should be used to help guide and inform the work that an employer is going to do. If an employer is unable to demonstrate that they’re actually doing what they say they’re doing, they can’t expect their staff to buy into it, Baptiste noted.

To implement DEI initiatives and a DEI culture into the workplace, Garnes Mata said that the message needs to be tailored so it resonates with a variety of people in different working situations. “The way that you do that is making sure that you’re … listening to your peers, listening to your teams at all levels, and providing a number of opportunities for people to express their opinions and their questions, and making sure you get back to answer those questions,” she said.

Panel tackles how to enact DEI inside and outside of your organization

Less than 10% of New Jersey’s spent public dollars goes to diverse businesses, according to New Jersey Office of Diversity and Inclusion Chief Diversity Officer Hester Agudosi.

The number comes from a disparity study Agudosi’s office is currently working on and was shared while she moderated the virtual NJBIZ Diversity in the Workplace panel on Aug. 31.

“Oftentimes [DEI is] focused on the HR side, and that’s important, because that’s our workforce. But the other side which oftentimes is neglected, which is very problematic to me … is DEI as it relates externally, and particularly as a business. Even on the public sector side, what’re we doing externally? Supplier diversity,” Agudosi said. “We as institutions provide and purchase goods and services, and of those goods and services, which for the state of New Jersey its billions of dollars, and there are businesses that exist and grow and thrive because they’re part of our supply chain.”

WATCH the full NJBIZ Diversity in the Workplace virtual panel discussion here.

New Jersey is the fourth most diverse state in the nation and one of its most densely populated, Agudosi shared, giving its companies the chance to be a model for others strengthening their DEI focus and initiatives.

Baptiste said that RWJBarnabas Health Medical Group has put in place goals and strategies to hold people accountable to ensure that they have “x-amount” of dollars spent out of their budget into local women- and minority-owned businesses.

For employers bringing DEI into the business’s culture, Hinojosa noted, “training will change your day, development will change your culture.” To support diverse employees as an organization and to weave DEI into a company’s culture, a training here and there isn’t going to cut it. And when leadership goes to implement a strategy, they must do it from the top down.

“Not just from the top. You have a group of people, and they’ve spent months talking about it, thinking about it…and then they share it with employees in a five to 15, or 30-minute opportunity, and everyone is supposed to take a 180 and go toward that change.

“Be careful that you don’t lose the perspective of the five months you spent on it,” he said.

“But we have predominantly Black and Hispanic institutions within our footprint,” she said, which then is a good place to start seeking diverse applicants.

“One of the things we center our DEI around is that … inclusion is the goal, diversity is the outcome,” Garnes Mata said. “We believe if we do all that, more diversity will follow … Don’t focus so much on what your percentages are right now in the population, focus on ‘what am I trying to achieve?’ I’m trying to achieve access for populations that have been historically excluded.”

For businesses without a DEI plan or chief diversity officer in place but who are nonetheless interested in being mindful of DEI within their company, Brother’s Smith said vulnerability is key.

“The thing that I appreciate from our leadership [is] vulnerability. In order to provide a safe space, your leaders have to be vulnerable, and they have to show it,” Smith said.

He shared an experience shared with him and fellow leaders in Diversity Discussion Starters, a discussion meeting of leaders from different areas of the company. Another Brother executive, who is white, adopted a Black child seven years ago and shared with Smith and others the challenges she faced in raising this child alongside her other child, who is white.

“The first thing you gotta get your leaders to provide a safe space, and to do that, they gotta be vulnerable, and to do that, they gotta talk about some of the issues that ignite them,” he said.

On being well

Compared to April 2019, calls to the NJ Mental Health Cares hotline and the NJHopeLine were up 37% in April 2020 when residents were in the earliest and deadliest throes of the pandemic. Statistics from hotlines around the country showed similar increases as the pandemic and its effects—public health challenges, economic issues, isolation—compounded.

Employers should take the challenges of this past year as impetus to bring mental health into the workplace, a panel of experts explained during the NJBIZ Mental Health in the Workplace panel on July 27.

How to get people to ask for help is “the million-dollar question,” said Hackensack Meridian Health Chief Wellness Officer Dr. Amy Frieman.

“For a lot of people, it’s really — it’s human nature that we should just be stoic. We should just put our heads down, and we should power through it, even if we’re struggling … everybody else seems to be coping with this, right? Everybody else is doing just fine, so what’s wrong with me?”

Frieman, whose industry’s employees were particularly hard hit by the traumas of the COVID pandemic as frontline workers, said employers can step up and break through the stigma of asking for help by simply giving workers the chance to talk.

Clockwise from top left, NJBIZ Editor Jeff Kanige moderates the Mental Health in the Workplace virtual panel discussion on July 27, 2021, featuring Baker Street Behavioral Health Founding Partner and CEO Dr. Joe Galasso, Hackensack Meridian Health Chief Wellness Officer Dr. Amy Frieman and Penn Medicine Princeton House Director of Outpatient Services and Director of Addiction Services Nicole Orro. –

“It’s about doing listening groups and it’s about doing facilitated sessions for team members, because people need to share their experiences. We’ve done a lot of change management sessions and I think the whole goal of all of this is helping people to understand that they are definitely not alone,” Frieman said.

Frieman was joined on the panel by Penn Medicine Princeton House Director of Outpatient Services and Director of Addiction Services Nicole Orro, and Baker Street Behavioral Health Founding Partner and CEO Dr. Joe Galasso.

Galasso said his clinic had an uptick in calls from legal and financial services sector employees over the pandemic because their jobs never slowed down, and they had fallen into substance use or into a pattern of depression. In response, Baker Street worked with various New Jersey employers to set up psychology groups within their firms. Adding a mental health component to the inner workings of a business is “rethinking within your organization,” he said, and it doesn’t just have a selfless, supportive purpose. It makes business sense, too.

“We just can’t say we’re not going to deal with this. We have to have a conversation about how to deal with this, and that’s the best thing we could do, because not having that conversation is going to sink your business because people will ultimately leave if they don’t feel cared for,” Galasso said.

The panelists said employers should also consider offering mental health benefits such as an employee assistance program, which is a work-based counseling program where employees put forth the problems they’re facing to try to work through them.

First thing’s first, though: Before getting people to work through their issues, Orro said they need to be aware it’s offered.

“They may understand the dentistry piece of [the insurance they’re offered], but they may not understand what it means to have an intensive outpatient benefit, or a medication management benefit. One of the key elements is going to be as an employee being able to access human resources and whatever online portals there are to be able to see [what benefits they can use] to access [mental health services],” Orro said.

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Proactively make that information available to the employees that are going to be needing them, she said. Wellbeing is multi-dimensional, noted Frieman: “It’s not just mental health and physical health. It’s social and emotional health, it’s the environment that create around our team.”

For small and large firms, forging partnerships with local wellness businesses is a good opportunity to promote wellness among employees. Maybe the yoga studio or hair salon down the street will be willing to partner and offer discounted services to employees, or maybe they already do offer free or discounted services, and employees just need to an employer to highlight that for them.

“I think there are ways to integrate [wellness] in and really the the purpose of it is to have that holistic approach. It’s not just coming in, doing your job, going home, it’s being able to have wellness everywhere. That’s one thing that I think we really learned obviously this past year and a half,” Orro said.

Galasso noted that many business owners are in a bind now trying to get their employees back to work, and that offering wellness amenities would be a challenge for a business that can’t afford them. “But they are really also important, because those are the things that make us feel good. Those are the things that would feed us as employees. Those are the things that would you know make us feel better and they would help us blow off steam, and when your body is healthy, that would push you through your hard work week,” he said.

Some consideration

What’s been so unique about the COVID pandemic, Orro noted, “was the lack of literal safety that each person experienced on all different levels.” Whether that trauma was experienced as a physician on the front lines in the emergency room at a hospital, or it was experienced as a child who looked around and suddenly got a “message that your world is not very safe” by the masks everyone had to wear, or trauma experienced due to financial hardship, job loss, or death of a loved one, it was “pretty traumatic and it was chronic,” she said.

With that in mind, how can manager or employer resistance to considering mental health challenges when dealing with employee performance issues be addressed? It comes down to understanding the resistance—is it being uncomfortable with mental health issues due to personal experience, or is it just not knowing how do address it?—and to education, Frieman explained.

“We’re certainly not trying to turn all of our leaders and managers into mental health professionals, but we are trying to give them some of the basics of psychological first aid … it’s about recognizing the signs and symptoms of distress, number one, and then it’s about knowing what to do when somebody walks into my office and they are distressed or I’m seeing a team member who is usually so engaged…who is now showing up late,” she said.

The education, she said, serves two purposes: It helps managers and employers recognize mental health challenges in their team members, and at the same time helps recognize signs of distress within themselves.

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