Workforce Development Director

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Company: State of Tennessee
Location: Nashville, TN 37219

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Workforce Development Director

TENNCARE OVERVIEW

TennCare is Tennessee’s managed care Medicaid program that provides health insurance coverage to certain groups of low-income individuals such as pregnant women, children, caretaker relatives of young children, older adults, and adults with physical disabilities. TennCare provides coverage for approximately 1.4 million Tennesseans and operates with an annual budget of approximately $12 billion. It is run by the Division of TennCare with oversight and some funding from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

WHY WORK AT TENNCARE?

TennCare’s mission is to improve the lives of Tennesseans by providing high-quality cost-effective care. To fulfill that purpose, we equip each employee for active participation and empower teams to communicate and work collaboratively to improve organizational processes in order to make a difference in the lives our members. Because of the positive impact TennCare has on the lives of the most vulnerable Tennesseans, TennCare employees report that their work provides them with a sense of meaning, purpose, and accomplishment. TennCare leadership understands that employees are our most valuable resource and ensures professional and leadership development are a priority for the agency.

JOB AND DEPARTMENTAL OVERVIEW

Long-Term Services and Supports is one of the largest units within TennCare with a team of 78 highly capable staff who are committed to leading the ongoing development and operation of an innovative, sustainable, person-driven long-term services and supports (LTSS) system in which older adults and people with disabilities and chronic conditions have choice, control and access to a full array of high quality services and supports that assure optimal outcomes, such as independence, health and quality of life.

TennCare serves more than 40,000 individuals in its LTSS programs. Services in these programs are delivered by a direct service workforce upon whom these individuals rely for the day-to-day assistance they need to meet personal and health care needs, to live safely in their homes and communities, and to work and participate in community life. When individuals served in these programs live at home, their families rely on this workforce to provide reliable quality support so they can work and have respite from the day-to-day stressors of caregiving.

Quality Improvement in Long Term Services and Supports (QuILTSS) is a TennCare value-based purchasing initiative to promote the delivery of high-quality LTSS, focusing on the performance measures that are most important to people who receive LTSS and their families. The QuILTSS initiative includes as a foundational component of LTSS quality the ongoing development of the LTSS workforce.

Tennessee like all states, is facing a critical shortage in the workforce needed to provide critical LTSS. Because this is a national workforce shortage, there is a growing body of research that has identified evidence-informed practices to address the workforce crisis. They include:

  • improving professional identity and recognition;
  • teaching business and organization leaders skills to improve their ability to recruit, select and retain direct service employees; and
  • using competency-based training models that lead to credentialing or certification of staff and yield wage increases.[1]

These are the central tenets of TennCare’s comprehensive workforce development strategy. The approach combines a competency-based post-secondary education and training program, value-based workforce incentives (currently proposed as part of the FY 21 budget), and provider capacity-building investments (helping providers implement evidence-informed strategies to workforce recruitment and retention), focused on enhancing and facilitating access to LTSS programs by addressing the direct service workforce shortage through data-driven and evidence-based strategies.

TennCare seeks an innovative, self-motivated HR (or related) professional to collaborate with LTSS leadership and with system partners (the Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, contracted Managed Care Organizations, LTSS providers, and people receiving LTSS and their families) to plan and implement key workforce development initiatives, in order to achieve measurable improvement in workforce recruitment and retention, and ultimately in the quality of services and quality of life experienced by people who receive LTSS.

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Lead and direct TennCare LTSS Workforce Development Initiatives, providing vision and strategic direction around workforce challenges and workforce development.
  • Provide leadership, direction and oversight of contracted MCOs in their implementation of contract requirements pertaining to LTSS workforce development including workforce data collection, analysis and reporting; integration of workforce management responsibilities into policies and procedures for network management and support; the development and implementation of an annual workforce development plan; working with TennCare, other MCOs and/or providers to establish Statewide WFD goals, and to collaboratively plan and implement workforce development initiatives; and direct assistance, support, investments and incentives to contracted providers in order to develop the quality, competency, and sufficiency of their workforce.
  • Provide oversight on LTSS contracts related to the Direct Support workforce.
  • Collaborate with Assistant Deputy Chief of Quality, Accountability and Innovation and the LTSS team on a comprehensive workforce strategy that leads to the successful implementation of the QuILTSS Workforce Development training program.
  • Work with the TennCare Value Based Purchasing (VBP) Director, vendors and stakeholders to design and implement (subject to availability of approved funding) value-based workforce incentives and investments across LTSS programs and authorities.
  • Coordinate with the Value Based Purchasing Director in the implementation of workforce milestones, including:
  • Continued development and statewide rollout of WFD Training Program with the QuILTSS Institute
  • Establish processes for collection/use of workforce-related data at provider and system levels
  • Provider-specific analysis and training/technical assistance by national subject matter experts to support providers in analyzing and using data
  • Training/technical assistance by national subject matter experts to support providers in learning and adopting evidence-based and best practices
  • Implement wage incentives for Direct Support Persons (DSP)s upon approval of funding and completion of training milestones
  • Incentives for data collection, reporting, and use at the provider level
  • Provider incentives for adoption of evidence-based and best practice approaches to workforce recruitment/retention and organization culture/business model changes
  • Build partnerships with other state agencies to collaboratively address workforce issues

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

  • Bachelor or advanced degree with background in direct support workforce development.
  • Workforce Development experience including staff recruitment, retention and training.

DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS

  • Strategic thinker and planner; analytical in approach to solving problems
  • Demonstrated capacity to successfully lead and navigate within a fast-paced environment with shifting priorities and varying degrees of ambiguity
  • Excellent organizational skills, including the ability to prioritize, multi-task, and manage workload to meet specific timeframes and deadlines with minimal supervision
  • Results/action-orientation; demonstrated leadership abilities
  • Highly developed written and verbal communication and presentation skills; active listener and can easily adapt communication to the needs of diverse audiences and partners
  • Excels at developing teams, building relationships and networks; influences others to achieve challenging outcomes on ambitious timeframes
  • Systems and process-thinker; loves building and rebuilding, creating order out of chaos
  • Comfortable and satisfied behind the scenes, making things happen or on the front line; thrives on organizational successes and anticipates needs before they are spoken
  • Strong emotional intelligence and professional confidence
  • Tireless work ethic and willingness to both accept and provide strong direction
  • Unquestionable loyalty, personal code of ethics, integrity, and trust

JOB LOCATION: Nashville, Tennessee

HOW TO APPLY: Qualified candidates should send their resumes along with a cover letter by January 1, 2020

STATE CLASSIFICATION: Executive Admin Assistant 2

POSITION STATUS: Executive Service

Pursuant to the State of Tennessee’s Workplace Discrimination and Harassment policy, the State is firmly committed to the principle of fair and equal employment opportunities for its citizens and strives to protect the rights and opportunities of all people to seek, obtain, and hold employment without being subjected to illegal discrimination and harassment in the workplace. It is the State’s policy to provide an environment free of discrimination and harassment of an individual because of that person’s race, color, national origin, age (40 and over), sex, pregnancy, religion, creed, disability, veteran’s status or any other category protected by state and/or federal civil rights laws.

Job Type: Full-time

Experience:

  • workforce development: 1 year (Required)

Education:

  • Bachelor’s (Required)