The glass ceiling at Intermountain is actually a concrete ceiling. In a glass ceiling, a woman would be able to see how to move to upper management, but be unable to do so. As the following will demonstrate, the promotional doors to upper leadership are not offered to women. Intermountain has very few female leaders in its top levels (VP, SVP, and C Suite.) The few female leaders who are at that level have been leaving the organization (Previous Chief Operating Officer, the departing Chief Nursing Officer...)
The information in this review draws from senior leaders public teleconferences and general announcements to employees, so nothing here has been labelled confidential. I removed peoples names and just use their titles because this isn't directed at an individual, but the overall machismo culture that has taken over at Intermountain Healthcare executive levels.
The organization stated publicy where it builds its new executive leaders from, the Enterprise Initiatives Office, which is under the Chief Strategy Officer (male) and Chief Operating Officer (male). In a recent public teleconference for the Scottsdale Institute, he explained explained that this office is the incubator for future Intermountain executive team members. It's the door through the glass ceiling, so if you get in, you get access to the highest paying opportunities. (highly recommend listening to this just do a web search for it)
How does one apply to be a part of this incubator? One doesn't. The leadership 'appointments' of this group are apparently only given to men. This is demonstrated to employees over numerous emails. Take for example the statements to employees regarding the series of high level promotion opportunities for which there is no opportunity for women to apply:
In an August 8 email, the CEO stated simply described the process as this man "will become" the Chief Strategy Officer and Vice President. No invitation to apply, no announcement of opportunity, no attempt to find qualified candidates. No opportunity for the majority female candidates in the company to apply. In a September 24 email, the Chief Strategy Officer who was suddenly now promoted to Senior Vice President instead of just being the vice president he was the month before (it pays to be on the insid), announced more lucrative leadership opportunities were being given to additional men.
"[a male] has been appointed Vice President of the Enterprise Initiative Office..."
"[another male] has been appointed Vice President of the Market Intelligence and Planning Office..."
(As pointed out in the teleconference, which you really should listen to for yourself, the only woman to 'advance' out of the incubator was a woman who was promoted "out of the company". The Chief Strategy Officers email to employees about it he said he "was sad to see her leave Intermountain". We were too. Intermountain needed female leaders. )
Compare this appointing process in contrast to the process many female leaders go through:
A September 12 announcement for an Executive Nurse Director states she went through a "selection". Or when the announcement regarding the departure of the chief nursing officer (one of the few remaining female executives), in a position which is typically female the CEO stated the process for getting this position will involve "A national search is underway to fill [the] role" It is frustrating to see the incubator for executive opportunities so closed here, wouldnt it be nice if women could be just appointed to positions like the men in the executive incubator.
Unfortunately it continues. A few months ago my area was moved under a Decision Support analytics team. The new leadership opportunity for the combined groups was never announced to the women and we were never given the opportunity to apply despite several on the team having much more experience than the man to whom we were told to report. All the leadership positions in this team are filled by men already, so there is no opportunity for women to advance. Women who left that team earlier said that the men on the team were similary promoted into their roles with no real opportunity for women to apply. One woman who spoke up about the situation are no longer with the company. Now the leader of this combined group has been telling the male leaders that he will be the new Vice President of Analytics. We dont have one of those. So it appears that yet another executive position has been minted and promised to a male with no opportunity for more experienced females to apply or be given access to the developmental leadership opportunities given to less experienced men.
That's why I titled this women need not apply. It sure looks like there is a door through the glass ceiling into executive leadership at Intermountain, because they are constantly announcing men who have been appointed through it. But the lock onthe door apparently requires an XY chromosome pair. XX doesn't even get you an opportunity to apply.
Before this post gets buried by suspiciously brief rosy posts to bury it, I invite Intermountain's communication team to let us know how many many females applied for each of the leadership promotional opportunities mentioned here. I could very well be wrong. I hope we followed our policies and there were lots of women candidates and that somehow I am just missing every announcement about all the executive promotion opportunities.
