Welcoming New Colleagues and a New Leader

Every other Monday morning I spend an hour welcoming new employees and introducing them to our organization during their orientation. This week, I was really pleased to meet nearly 70 new colleagues. There was so much positive energy in the room.

My job at orientation is to begin to enroll my new colleagues in our vision and engage them in a conversation about our transformation towards being the healthcare system that treats everyone, every time the way we want our own loved ones treated. Our ongoing metamorphosis from an outstanding hospital into an outstanding system of care, requires people who understand and embrace our vision and their role in helping us achieve it.

This orientation was a bit different because preceding me in the program was our new Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, Anna-Maria Gonzalez Palmer. Anna-Maria exudes positive energy! She is an accomplished leader who has served in the human resources field with a number of organizations including McCormick and Company and Textron.

Anna-Maria will have responsibility and oversight for planning, organizing and providing leadership and direction for the organization’s human resources functions including policy development, interpretation and administration; recruitment, orientation and retention of employees; compensation and benefits programs; performance management and competency assessment; employee relations and labor relations; and training and development programs.

Prior to joining GBMC, she was the senior vice president and chief human resources officer of Compass Pointe Healthcare System. Anna-Maria earned her Bachelor of Science degree from West Virginia University and her Master’s degree in Administrative Science, Human Resources Development from The Johns Hopkins University. She is a ‘can-do’ person who hit the ground running at GBMC with our successful negotiation of a new union contract and a very successful employee barbecue. She is redesigning our Human Resources Department to be even better than it is today. I am really enjoying working with Anna-Maria as a senior team colleague and as our leader in increasing joy at work.

Please join me in welcoming Anna-Maria to the GBMC Family!