List resulted from independent surveys of 50,000 Americans, including 30,000 women
Sarasota Memorial Health Care System has been named among America’s best employers for women, “a designation given to less than 1% of large companies nationwide,” the hospital has announced.
Forbes, in partnership with the research company Statista, “developed a list of the 300 Best Employers for Women after independent surveys of 50,000 Americans, including 30,000 women, working for businesses with at least 1,000 employees,” a news release explains. “The surveyed employees representing 31 industries across the United States were asked to share opinions about their respective employer’s culture, image, opportunities for career development, working conditions, salary and wages and diversity,” the release adds.
Sarasota Memorial Hospital (SMH) ranked in the top 12% of 300 multinational companies, and in the top 10% in the “Healthcare & Social” category, the release points out.
David Verinder, president and CEO of Sarasota Memorial Health Care System, credits the health system’s longstanding mission and vision, and its “forward-thinking leaders, including the health system’s two female presidents” — Lorrie Liang, president of the SMH-Sarasota campus, and Sharon Roush, president of the soon-to-open SMH-Venice campus — “for helping to build a diverse team dedicated to supporting each other and caring for the community Sarasota Memorial serves,” the release notes.
“Our longstanding vision has been to be the best place to be a patient, the best place to work and the best place to practice medicine, and we are honored to be recognized for achieving that level of excellence on several fronts,” Verinder said in the release. “I am extremely proud to work with such a caring, compassionate team. Our extraordinary leaders and staff truly set us apart,” he added in the release.
Founded in 1925, Sarasota Memorial Health Care System is Sarasota County’s largest employer, with more than 7,000 employees supporting the care of the more than 1 million patients each year who visit the flagship 839-bed hospital in Sarasota and “the expansive network of outpatient and urgent care centers and medical practices spanning the Suncoast,” the release adds.
Liang said in the release that the hospital has a commitment to creating an inclusive workplace through strong hiring/retention practices, family-friendly policies, diversity training and leadership development. “More than 70% of Sarasota Memorial’s leaders are female, including half of its directors and executive team,” the release points out.
“It’s important to have a diverse team,” Liang added in the release. “When it comes to gender, women bring a valuable and unique set of communication and leadership skills to the table. We tend to be more holistic and focused on strategies that encourage collaboration, creativity and mutual respect, which, in turn, results in increased job satisfaction, engagement, productivity and organizational outcomes,” she said in the release.
SMH-Venice campus President Roush, who is recruiting hundreds of healthcare workers to help open the new Venice hospital this fall, said diversity is especially important in healthcare, “where people from every race, gender, age and belief system count on care providers to help them overcome myriad medical and life challenges,” the release notes.
For more information about careers at SMH, visit smh.com/careers.