DEAL program shows staff how to navigate their careers at UAB

Ayana Underwood, a business officer I in the School of Public Health, says participating in the first DEAL cohort has been an exceptional experience. “Being a part of this program has unlocked a new level of professionalism within myself that has been a tremendous help in my day-to-day workflow, and I have been fortunate to pass those newfound skills over to my team.”How do you get ahead at UAB? For the nearly 12,500 employees in the “professional nonfaculty” job category here, this can seem to be a daunting question. UAB is Alabama’s largest single employer, but each employee’s view of our vast enterprise is often little wider than their own office or workspace. Your boss’s job may seem attractive, but she already has the role. Do you just need to wait around until she retires? Or go somewhere else?

“We have heard a lot of people say, ‘I’m clinical.’ Or ‘I’m research. I’m not a finance expert. I don’t know where I learn what I need to know to advance,’” said Cynthia Joiner, Ph.D., vice chair and associate professor in the Department of Medicine and executive director of the department’s Clinical Research Enterprise. But the truth is “you can still move and have a lot of career opportunities at UAB, because it is so big,” Joiner said.

Conversations like this inspired Joiner and several colleagues, including Ryan Outman, executive administrator in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, to build a program focused on encouraging promising staff members. Last spring, they received a grant from the Health Services Foundation/General Endowment Fund to pursue the idea. In October 2022, they launched the Developing Emerging Administrative Leaders, or DEAL, program.

DEAL exposes promising UAB staff members to the essential components of administrative and management positions across UAB, including human resources, finance, research, education and clinical operations, along with space and facilities planning.

“We anticipated that we would struggle to get the 25 applicants we wanted, but we got 86,” Outman said. He and Joiner have already seen a strong response to their call for applications for the second DEAL cohort; applications close Nov. 1. (Apply here.)

“This is for everybody”

“This is not a Heersink School of Medicine initiative,” Outman said. “We want to get the word out across UAB that this is for everybody. Anyone across UAB who has a bachelor’s degree, has been in their role for at least a year, and has some experience managing people or projects can apply.” The employee’s supervisor must agree that the employee can dedicate one day a month for the roughly yearlong program.

“We can’t do our jobs at UAB without strong administrative leaders,” Joiner said. “The goal is to identify emerging leaders who are at UAB and show them how they can stay here and grow their careers.”

What participants have to say

Participants in the program’s first cohort say the DEAL program has done just that.

Ayana Underwood is a business officer I in the School of Public Health who has been at UAB for 10 years. She heard about DEAL from her supervisor and applied because “I wanted to learn more leadership skills that could help me grow in my current role,” she said.

“We can’t do our jobs at UAB without strong administrative leaders,” said Cynthia Joiner, Ph.D., principal investigator for the DEAL program. “The goal is to identify emerging leaders who are at UAB and show them how they can stay here and grow their careers.”DEAL “has been an exceptional experience,” Underwood said. “Being a part of this program has unlocked a new level of professionalism within myself that has been a tremendous help in my day-to-day workflow, and I have been fortunate to pass those newfound skills over to my team.”

Coy Tyler, R.N., supervisor in UAB Hospital’s Cardiology Support Center, has worked at UAB for six years, ever since he graduated with his BSN degree from the UAB School of Nursing. He is still a student as well; he is working toward a master’s degree from UAB’s Master’s in Health Care Administration program. Tyler was looking for opportunities for growth when he saw the DEAL program advertised on UAB Medicine’s ONE intranet. “My ultimate goal is to ascend to organizational or operational leadership,” Tyler said. “I saw this as a great way to see UAB as an entity, not just segmented into clinical or academic organizations.”

UAB’s size may give the impression that it is “too big to handle,” but “having a large employee workforce actually means there are so many opportunities to find solutions and gain understanding,” Tyler said. “There is a specific person to solve every particular problem you have.” Another takeaway for Tyler: “UAB as an entity fosters self-driven excellence — senior leaders are looking for people who have a desire to improve.”

Before he joined DEAL, “I thought I had to silo myself in the clinical area”; but the program has “really opened my mind to all the opportunities on the academic side of UAB,” Tyler said. “The organizers have done a great job of exposing us to key leaders in various roles — to hear them speak but also an opportunity for us to network with these individuals.”

The power of networking

Joiner and Outman, along with their colleagues, had seen the value of networking in their own careers at UAB, so they made sure to intentionally build in opportunities for participants to network with guest speakers, the DEAL program leaders and other members of their cohort.

“Being able to network with so many successful individuals throughout UAB has given me the courage to venture out of my comfort zone,” Underwood said. “Each month, I have been able to learn about every major division on campus and who to contact for specific questions I have.”

“We want to get the word out across UAB that this is for everybody," said Ryan Outman, executive administrator in the Department of Family and Community Medicine. "Anyone across UAB who has a bachelor’s degree, has been in their role for at least a year, and has some experience managing people or projects can apply.”Jennifer Dunn, program manager in the Professional Education department in the Collat School of Business, has been at UAB for a year and a half. Before that, she was director of student services at a local independent school. “My passion has always been to help others succeed,” Dunn said. “At the school, that was with students; here we help other employees grow in their careers.”

Dunn says she has enjoyed hearing about the career paths of the various speakers. “They are not necessarily linear — a career can take a lot of different directions,” Dunn said. One other helpful aspect of the DEAL program, she added, is “you get to hear from all kinds of people about how their departments and their processes work. That has helped me to develop, and it is the type of information that can make our department stronger.”

Dunn has forged especially strong connections with several other women she met on the first day of the program. “We immediately became friends, and we text each other all the time,” she said. “We have gotten together for coffee and after work. These are friendships that will continue after the DEAL sessions.”

Her fellow DEAL cohort includes “really strong participants,” Dunn said, and two have already been selected to take part in another training program offered at UAB, the Healthcare Leadership Academy, which is led by Collat Professional Education.

Making connections

One of the primary benefits of the DEAL program is that “it gives you people to connect with,” Outman said. “These are people you can call and say, ‘How did you deal with this issue?’ or ‘Can I run this idea by you?’ We have created a safe space to share information and help people understand how to apply their skills across the UAB enterprise.”

Joiner and Outman recently presented on the DEAL program at the national meeting of the Association of American Medical Colleges. “We are in a unique place with this program,” Joiner said. “We talked with people at several other universities, and they said, ‘We don’t have anything like this.’”