Perspective from our People Leader
By: Danny Fleisher
In September 2024, Hummingbird’s nest reached over 100 employees. This is a big milestone for a start-up company and a good opportunity to reflect on why creating good jobs is central to our mission.
I was about six weeks into my new job as director of the health system’s scheduling call center when Evicel came into my office and closed the door. “Evi,” a mainstay within the health system, was beloved by physicians and employees alike. Despite my lack of experience, she had been supportive when I became her new boss.
“Everyone likes you here, Danny, but you’re starting to drive us crazy. You are asking so much from us, but you haven’t taken the time to find out what we need from you,” Evi told me. Her advice was to take a break from implementing all the strategies I had just learned in business school and spend two weeks walking the floor and asking how I could help.
At first it was little things. The coffee in the breakroom was terrible. The dress code was outdated. The walls were bare, and the office was drab. Then it turned to bigger issues, like lack of training, outdated technology, and manual processes. Then it turned to even bigger issues, like low pay, high turnover, and lack of growth opportunities. One by one we worked to address each issue.
Those two weeks on the floor turned into six years. We improved our operations and saw patient complaints turn into compliments. By focusing on strategic talent development, we significantly increased internal mobility, transitioning more than 30 front-line agents into salaried positions each year across operations, analytics, technology, nursing, training, human resources, and beyond—while also reducing double-digit turnover rates. We became a place where people launched their careers, and our operations continued to improve along the way. Since then, I’ve devoted my career to improving patient access in healthcare, both for the patients who need care and the people who help them find it.
The Good Jobs Institute
Hummingbird is part of the Good Jobs Institute, a non-profit organization led by MIT Sloan professor Zeynep Ton. The Good Jobs Institute includes companies like Costco, Trader Joe’s, QuikTrip, and HEB, who are known for paying hourly employees high wages, promoting from within, and having remarkably low turnover. In addition to being good to their employees, they perform exceptionally well financially. Trader Joe’s, for instance, generates four times the revenue per square foot than nearly any other grocery chain in the industry, despite selling only 4% of the “product SKUs” compared to big stores like Walmart.
Good Jobs companies believe that employees are a resource to be invested in, which allows them to set high expectations and empower employees at all levels. This mindset gives them the freedom to remove onerous policies, which in turn allows them to remove layers of redundant oversight. Employees stay with these companies and help continuously improve the way work gets done and the service they provide to their customers. This virtuous cycle is the hallmark of Good Jobs companies. Quite by accident, I started a virtuous cycle when I got out of my office and started asking my employees, “How can I help?”
Good Jobs at Hummingbird
Prior to the 1980s, 90% of positions in the United States were filled internally. Today that figure is only 30%, with most companies spending more on external recruiting than internal development. However, a study from Wharton found that external hires take, on average, three more years to reach the same level of performance as a candidate who is promoted from within. At Hummingbird we believe investing in our own is the better bet, which is one of the reasons we believe so strongly in a culture of learning and upward mobility. In fact, 17 of our first 90 hires were learning and development professionals, and our industry experts in operations and technology embrace their role as teachers. Our value of “Embrace Growth” is reflected in this mindset.
Now we’re beginning to see those values reflected in our employee engagement survey:
“I’m doing a lot of things in my role that I’ve never done before. I feel supported to ask questions and try new things.”
“I feel that I’m growing professionally because I am being presented with opportunities to do work that I haven’t done before.”
“I am challenged every day and learning from my team members and leaders about how to approach new things that none of us have ever done before. I’ve learned more in the last year than in the last five.”
In that same survey, our Employee NPS score is now consistently exceeding 70. While we are still young as a company, if we maintain this level of employee engagement it will place us in the top 5% of healthcare companies. The areas where we rate highest are communication, autonomy, alignment, freedom of opinion, and peer relationships, all of which reflect our commitment to Good Jobs.
In fact, in my role as head of People Experience, I now support functions that I had never supported before joining Hummingbird. I’m a living, breathing example of a stretch assignment, one of the most effective Good Jobs strategies to help people learn and grow within their company. Today, I’m fortunate to work with a team, and with health system partners, that share this commitment to creating Good Jobs and investing in the next generation of talent in healthcare. We’d love for you to join us in that mission.
Danny Fleisher is Hummingbird’s People Experience Leader. After beginning his career as an industrial engineer at Walt Disney World, he spent the last 15 years working across operations, technology, and consulting in patient access. Since becoming part of the team at Hummingbird, Danny has championed the Good Jobs Strategy, a core part of Hummingbird’s identity and mission. Danny leads the People Experience team, which supports human resources, engagement and culture, talent management, learning development, HRIS, and all phases of the employee lifecycle.
If you’re interested in joining our growing nest, you can explore our latest opportunities on our careers page.