SCA Health is proud to support our mission of inclusion and diversity through our Teammate Resource Groups (TRGs). Our TRGs provide spaces for our teammates to discuss shared experiences impacting their personal lives, both inside and outside of work.
Amanda Golkow, Vice President of Business Development, and Allison McClellan, Vice President of Analytics and Informatics, are SCA Health teammates and Women’s Teammate Resource Group (TRG) co-chairs.
Answers provided by Amanda Golkow are represented as AG. Answers supplied by Allison Mcclellan are represented as AM.
Some answers have been modified slightly for brevity and clarity.
Q: What is the Women’s Network TRG?
AG: In this group, we are trying to build a community of women supporting women in various ways. We aim to support one another through both professional growth and life experiences unique to women from early career through retirement.
AM: The Women’s Network TRG is a place for women to support one another in their career growth within SCA Health and in their personal lives. We provide a safe place to focus on the challenges that women face.
Q: The Women’s Network is heavily involved in SCA Health’s annual Women’s Leadership Network Summit (WLN). What is WLN, and how does that relate to the TRG?
AM: WLN Summit is an event for SCA Health women leaders where we get together and spend a day and a half going through content to assist with personal and professional development. It is a time to celebrate our success and connect to build our networks. We hear from speakers, panelists, and even doctors about content to help support women leaders at our company. This year’s theme was “Rising Redefined” and focused on redefining executive presence to challenge traditional expectations and make the definition more inclusive.
Q: Outside of WLN, what other events is the Women’s Network TRG involved in?
AG: We, as a group, do quite a few things. We have our Women’s Brigade in Honduras. This trip is in collaboration with One World Surgery, which is made up entirely of women, including clinicians, surgeons, anesthesiologists, and general volunteers. Our 2024 trip is planned around International Women’s Day, which is March 8th this year.
We also have a pilot of our Women’s Empowerment Subcommittee going on now, focusing on mentoring newer teammates or teammates earlier in their careers. We match them up with some of our experienced leaders.
On top of those, we also have a subcommittee focused on facility outreach, with the mission of engaging more facility teammates into our TRG.
Q: As leaders in your respective roles, what part does this group play in your professional interactions at SCA Health? Has it opened the door for you to mentor other women in the organization?
AG: Absolutely, but even more importantly, it connects us with leaders across the organization that we probably would not have had the opportunity to interact with otherwise. It helps create this sense of community. We get to work closely with one another in setting up events for the TRG or the mentoring program, and it gives you the opportunity to meet new people, learn other perspectives, and learn so much more about our business.
AM: I have personally mentored a few women across SCA Health. My career has been in data and analytics, which is a male-dominated field. The TRG allows me to connect with women in similar positions and help them think through their paths and career development. It’s helpful to connect with people who have faced similar struggles that can guide you and provide a way to voice your concerns and thoughts.
Q: Why do you believe it’s important that SCA Health continues to create and support TRGs?
AG: I think it’s two-fold. First and foremost, people need to feel a sense of belonging when they are with their people. So, creating a space for people to come together and discuss their shared experiences based on their background, sexual orientation, or any other common factor is essential. On the other side, it’s about education for others who do not have those shared experiences or may not understand a different perspective and context from someone else.
These groups provide everyone with a space for education, discussion, and awareness. They are spaces for those of similar backgrounds and those of different experiences.
Q: What are some goals you have for the future of your TRG?
AM: I’m relatively new to being a co-chair for the Women’s Network, and one of my goals coming into this was to identify ways to make the group more inclusive. Inclusion is one of our values here at SCA Health, so we want to find ways to collaborate with other TRGs in the events we plan and ways to get our facility teammates and male allies more involved.
Our TRG is one of the longest-standing groups, so with all the great things we work on comes a responsibility to focus on supporting these other groups. For example, with our executive presence panel at WLN, we were a pilot, but we also thought, “How do we share this with other TRGs to help redefine our expectations of an executive at SCA Health?”
Click here to see all the teammate resource groups available at SCA Health.
Want to read more? Check out previous entries in our TRG Spotlight series below:
