Consumer-Centricity as the Heart of Cultural Change at Blue Shield of California

The healthcare industry is heavily regulated and while compliance can yield best results for the business, it also slows down change to be more connected with the consumer. And this industry is one that is in dire need of change as the cost of healthcare continues to rise and consumers become increasingly financially responsible and therefore more demanding about the quality and impact of services. Healthcare insurance companies have, in the past, mostly been the faceless entities behind “EOBs” but in this consumer-oriented world, we got the story of how one of them is looking to change and emerge with a different kind of interaction.

In an interview, Pradip Khemani shares how the Global Business Services (GBS) organization he leads is on a mission to help change the culture and impact of Blue Shield of California (Blue Shield) to make health care worthy of family and friends in a way that is sustainably affordable, a daunting task in the U.S.’s most populated state. At Blue Shield, the GBS team partners as a trusted advisor for the organization to deliver strategic sourcing, supplier relationship management, and governance. 

Barbra: Pradip, how do you describe the cultural shift at Blue Shield and why is it happening?  

Pradip: We’re here to make a difference. And we want to put that at the heart of what we do at Blue Shield. Our mission is to ensure all Californians have access to high-quality healthcare at an affordable price. This means doing our part to transform a dysfunctional healthcare system that is bankrupting us as a society into one that is worthy of our family and friends. We also pride ourselves on being not-for-profit and being socially responsible and active in our communities. This is what drives us every day, and pushes us to lead, not follow, the change we desperately need to make quality health care affordable.

As operators in our company, we can only push others to reduce their costs if we’re doing the same. And that can’t come at the expense of our customers’ experience. We need great people doing their best work if we’re going to have any shot at pulling this off. A satisfied employee creates a satisfied customer.  So we have a Great Place to Work strategy to develop leaders, enable opportunities for our employees, enhance our employee experience, and support business growth. We want leaders who can attract, motivate, coach, and develop people while making sure they connect their work to the larger picture—our mission. Leaders will set the performance bar high, inspire our teams, act on our values, and create opportunities to learn, grow, and win.

Barbra: That internal employee focus is such a critical connection to a satisfied customer. How is Blue Shield of California building an integrated partnership model between employees in GBS with for example, business unit and IT?  

Pradip: To use the example of sourcing arrangements, we have created an integrated operating model that is clear about roles and focuses on total cost of ownership, considering customer needs, organizational goals, and market conditions. It’s underscored by shared goals linked to performance and pay to emphasize the value of teams working together across the organization.

The work we are trying to do to modernize our processes and infrastructure and to evolve customer experience relies a lot on technology advancement, so it’s imperative that we collaborate for success. The business continues to drive initiatives as we in GBS strive to become trusted advisors to our members and technology is at the table to advise, inform, and enable the business on what we can do to leverage, develop, or acquire the needed infrastructure elements.

To enable better speed to market and responsiveness, we’ve done a lot of work to streamline the sourcing process and establish best-in-class standards, while promoting trust across the respective organizations. Bottom line: we want to live the Blue Shield core values of building trusting relationships to do the right thing, busting silos and bureaucracy to respond to our customers’ needs.

Barbra: Moving at a faster pace must be challenging. What sort of habits and behaviors are critical for change the way people work across the organization?

Pradip: As Blue Shield strives to deliver upon the “critical few” and achieve objectives which best position the company, everyday decisions become even more important. Some of what stands out to me: 

• Collaboration and Consistency: Promoting transparency and being collaborative to deliver support of the shared corporate agenda and trusting peer relationships that can help reduce silos and create more consistent employee experience.
• Being Candid and Constructive: Being available, open, and direct for important discussions and debates.
• Continuously Learning: Inviting feedback from others and making appropriate changes based on that input. Improving relationships through authentic engagement.
• Commitment to Aligned Direction: Make tough choices to delay or even stop other work if it is necessary to align with the “critical few” focus.
• Contribute: Demonstrate enterprise behaviors – continuously learn, build high-performing teams, get results. Collect peer feedback.

Barbra: These seem like habits everyone in the organization should adopt. How about you and your role: What leadership challenges keep you awake at night and what are you doing about them?

Pradip: In a word, talent: Do we have the right talent to become world class and deliver sustainably affordable health care worthy of our family and friends? We are looking to: 

• Balance compliance with “freedom” to make customer-centric decisions. We are working on a “Source to Excellence” training program series to educate our GBS team and business stakeholders on sourcing policy and best practices as a framework for making decisions with high ethical standards and protecting Blue Shield’s and our members’ interests.

• Create an attractive work environment in a competitive landscape. The Bay Area is a highly competitive place for talent across all industries. To make Blue Shield a great workplace we focus on: developing great leaders, providing opportunities for our people to grow personally and professionally, creating an enhanced employee experience and supporting business growth.

• Upgrade skills and reward talent: We continually look to invest in upgrading skills to make GBS team a high-performance team. Developing our people and investing in their career progression is key to building our dream home and fulfilling our mission. Rewarding high-performing talent that lives the Blue Shield values and consistently delivers results at exceptional levels year after year is immensely fulfilling, and is also an inspiration to a broader base of committed team members at GBS.

Barbra: This talent shift can’t be easy…. How are you approaching staff development and interaction across the business in light of the disruptive business environment?

Pradip: I constantly encourage everyone on my team to read extensively and educate themselves in terms of what potential avenues they can explore to learn and do things differently, match with mentors, create succession plans to ensure movement, and evolve into new roles and responsibilities. One example is how we are making investments in job shadowing to have people step outside of their comfort zone and explore different avenues for career progression.

Bottom line: Building our dream home and achieving the long-term goal of being a trusted advisor in Blue Shield and in our community requires that people are at the heart of what we do and how.  We want to create the right environment for people to act in a way that delivers on our mission.

Barbra: Excellent, thanks for sharing your experience with us, Pradip. We look forward to catching up with you in Chicago! We will be exploring this further at the Future of Operations Summits. If you won’t be there, you can follow the live action (or replay) via Twitter at #HfSSummit.