A few weeks ago I posted on LinkedIn about a phenomenon I’ve been calling ‘climate June bugs’. When my friend, Dr. Reed Omary, invited me to reflect on this in the context of healthcare I readily agreed. In fact, it was an encounter with a senior People Leader in healthcare that initially sparked my curiosity about how shifting interests and values of employees would have an impact on the workplace of the future. I recalled this HR leader saying that her chief concern was attracting and retaining top talent and she’d begun to notice a pattern of younger candidates asking about the hospital’s sustainability strategy. She wondered aloud how quickly climate would become a selection factor in the hiring process. I wondered the same!
That conversation took place several years ago when I was Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Growth Strategy for an HR Tech company called Waggl (acquired by Perceptyx in 2021). I was also a founding team member of Waggl and over a 7-year span we built a disruptive mission-led company with one objective: to give every employee a voice to make their workplace better. Our customer list included diverse organizations like PepsiCo, Boeing, and Freddie Mac – but over time, healthcare became our biggest customer vertical. We were proud to partner with major systems like Texas Children’s Hospital, BJC HealthCare, UWHealth, Christiana Care and the VA to develop multi-year listening strategies and help leaders deepen engagement through real-time feedback.
In 2020, I also established the Healthcare Voices at Work Consortium as a forum for senior people leaders to conduct research and collaborate on topics like COVID, safety, DEIB, and wellbeing. The Consortium grew to 250 leaders from over 75 top-tier academic medical institutions. The overwhelming spirit of this community was cooperation and collective upleveling – not competition. From the outset, I was struck by members’ desire to learn, apply new knowledge and accelerate improvements. They shared a palpable sense of urgency to make their workplaces better in response to issues their employees truly cared about.
So, what does ‘employee voice’ have to do with ‘climate June bugs’? If you’ve ever spent a summer on the East Coast you know the distinctive ‘thwack thwack‘ sound of June bugs hitting the window screens. Many a night I’d watch fascinated as these heavily laden creatures would stall out on the mesh barrier and crawl from corner to corner looking for entry. After a while, unsuccessful, they’d lift off again into the dark.
Odd as the analogy may be…. My own experience tells me that so-called ‘climate June bugs’ are everywhere. These are established seasoned professionals who are electing to take flight, often with new climate training or upskilling, in search of a new beacon: a role in climate. They are robustly qualified, deeply motivated, buoyed by mission, and the supply is growing everyday. I’m a climate June bug myself. Last fall I participated in a top Climate Fellowship program and was struck by the diversity of professionals who were preparing to leave their prior line of work entirely or recast their current work through a climate lens. Where would these upskilled professionals go? How would future and existing organizations take advantage of their new knowledge? How long could or would they remain at the screen door?
In response, I had some immediate recommendations:
- Big/Small Employers: Hire people with sustainability skills even if there’s nothing in the current job description that requires this today. They will help you chart the path toward integration.
- Climate-Interested Employees: Think of yourselves as pioneers and leaders no matter what you do or where you land. The future green economy is yours to build.
- Climate Start-Ups: Leapfrog your company ahead by engaging experienced professionals from diverse domains. If they’re interested in climate, they’ll learn quickly, and you’ll benefit from their expertise and leadership.
- Innovators: There are many excellent platforms out there to upskill in climate. It’s time to focus on the demand side too and develop new ways to help employers easily integrate sustainability skills into every job description.
Fortunately, a wave of new sustainability jobs are being created in industries like finance, energy, and retail. Most of these (e.g., Sustainability Analyst) require advanced degrees or specialist training. However, the Global Green Skills Report 2023 projects that an estimated 120 million new green jobs will be created by 2030. This means the vast majority of green jobs or green credentials in existing jobs are yet to be specified. Every industry must now enter a phase of sustainability skill definition and integration to meet global reporting regulations that will take effect by the end of this decade. I’m not an economist, but it’s clear that this kind of expansive market shift will require a workforce transformation too.
Healthcare has so far remained on the edges of the sustainability workforce discussion, but a brand new survey by the Commonwealth Fund revealed that 4 in 5 clinicians believe it’s important for their hospital to address climate change, and that 3 in 4 clinicians feel they can and should address climate change in their professional roles. Perhaps most telling of all: 6 in 10 clinicians indicated an employer’s policy or action on climate change would have an impact on their career choices. In my mind, these numbers are staggering – and also inspiring. It means that many in today’s healthcare workforce are interested, willing and excited to take on roles or responsibilities that will help their health systems address climate change and meet sustainability requirements. In other words, they are soon-to-be June bugs that are beginning to use their ‘voices’ to express sustainability values and interests. If organizations work quickly to give these professionals a place to land, ‘go to work’ or ‘continue to work’ with new skills, the systems (and the individuals) will benefit disproportionately.
What does this future look like in healthcare? Dr. Reed Omary and I are hard at work on a social venture that addresses this very opportunity. We believe that healthcare as an industry is uniquely suited (but also uniquely compelled) to champion ‘climate June bugs’ as essential to its viability and growth. If you are interested in this topic, Reed and I look forward to hearing from you!
Alex
Alex Kinnebrew is an innovation and growth strategy leader with deep expertise in early venture-building, core narrative development and go-to-market positioning. She’s created award-winning products, platforms and communities in fintech, healthcare and workplace – as well as built and scaled a mission-driven SaaS company in HR Tech focused on ‘employee voice’. She lives in the Bay Area (Sausalito), loves to trail run, hunt for wildflowers and hike with her family around the world.
The Green leap 
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