Describe your responsibilities as Contracting Consultant.
My role has many functions but mainly we process and execute national, regional, and local contracts, all while supporting our customers with day to day issues that may arise. We support other internal customers as well including PDC and Real Estate.
How did you arrive in this role?
I began my career working in a long-term care facility as an Executive Administrator. I supported 29 Managers and kept track of the supplies and purchases in this role. At that point, I fell in love with all things supply chain! I started at the Ascension MSC in 2011 as a Purchasing Supervisor. In 2015, I moved to a position with the supply chain team at TRIMEDX and Medxcel was part of the same organization at that time. I always loved the culture because associates actually lived it instead of just talking about it. In 2018, I came to Medxcel and have continued to love the culture and the wonderful senior leadership. I really had no idea what facilities maintenance was, but it sounded interesting and knowing how great everyone said Medxcel was to work for, I decided to take the leap!
Describe your team.
I am part of the Sourcing and Contracting team within Supply Chain. My team is made up of seven associates including my manager. We support the entire company at all levels, but we are mainly responsible for ensuring that any contract or agreement Medxcel enters into is in our best interest. We also lead vendor management, working with the contracted partners to review opportunities and challenges within the business.
What types of Medxcel training have you taken part in?
Medxcel provides us with many types of training and development opportunities but the training that has been most valuable to me is the hands-on training I’ve experienced out in the field with our associates in the hospitals. I really appreciate the training we have available through myLearning and that I can go out and take a course whenever I want, but I’m a visual learner and going out in the field has been a game-changer for me. Working alongside our field associates in a hospital setting and actually seeing what I’m supporting makes it all click for me. It puts my work into context, and I gain perspective on how my work with contracts supports what is happening in the field. I have also greatly benefitted from a 10-hour time management course I recently took. That course helped me to prioritize my workload better so I can support internal customers more efficiently.
Talk about what you experience when you train alongside field associates.
Site visits are really valuable to my team. When we visit sites, it’s mostly to engage with our field personnel around all things supply chain, from purchasing to contracting. On the other hand, I also get to learn what they do. This in turn helps me do my job better. As an example, I recently visited a small hospital and participated in a walk through on a fire alarm test and inspection. I learned that a fire alarm test and inspection can sometimes take up to two-weeks. I’ve processed the contracts for this type of work many times but never knew what the service entailed nor how long it took to complete. Prior to my visit I thought it was a one-day thing, a quick in and out when in reality it’s much more detailed than I ever imagined. It was so interesting to see the process in person. I’m grateful that Medxcel provides us with the opportunity to travel into the field to work with our associates. We receive feedback from our field associates on how our work impacts their work and what we can do to support them better. It’s beneficial to both parties.
What is the best part of your job?
The best part of my job is definitely serving others. I love helping people and making a difference. My team supports all of Medxcel. I enjoy working with people at so many levels of the organization; it’s gratifying to know that at the end of the day I’ve had an impact on the much larger picture of what Medxcel does to serve our customers and their patients. The culture of Medxcel is also one of the best things about my work. I love the fact that every Friday Medxcel provides me the opportunity to attend a Prayer Gathering and connect with my peers in a meaningful way, that’s the most refreshing part of my week!
Which of Medxcel’s Core Values are most important to you?
Two of the Core Values speak to me are Service of the Poor and Integrity. Even though I work out of our Corporate Office, I know the work I do has a hand in the bigger picture of serving our customers. I feel the reality of serving others when I attend Medxcel town halls and our leaders talk about the work Medxcel does. I also greatly value Integrity; I strive every day to have a moral compass that doesn’t waiver. Sometimes that can seem challenging, but I hope to achieve that goal every single day, because I want to always do what is best for Medxcel and our customers.
What is the most interesting thing that’s happened to you during the course of your work at Medxcel?
In 2019 I was visiting a customer site in Texas. During our visit our team participated in the hospital’s active shooter training conducted by Medxcel; it was very interesting and also a real eye-opening experience! I sit here every day and do my job, but I had never thought about what an active shooter scenario at a hospital would look like to the patients and staff. Since we were on site we were asked to participate; I role played someone who was in a room assisting a patient while an active shooter was in the building. The hospital marked off an entire floor that wasn’t in use for us to use for training and the local police department assisted. We worked alongside the hospital staff and Medxcel employees on the training and it blew me away. It made me realize that these types of situations do happen and it’s something we all need to be prepared for, especially those working in hospitals. I have a new respect for those who care for patients and the situations they need to be prepared to face. I got a certificate showing I’d participated in the training; how many people in a job like mine can say they’ve been through active shooter training in a hospital?
Is there something you’ve learned during your time at Medxcel that you didn’t expect?
Before I joined Medxcel I had no idea what facilities management was all about. As many times as I have been in a hospital, I had never thought about what it actually takes to keep a hospital facility up and running. I never knew there was a company dedicated to doing what Medxcel does. I have a newfound respect for our associates in the field and their day-to-day work keeping the hospital safe and functioning efficiently; they are superstars! When you’re in a hospital or doctor’s office you really don’t think about what it takes to keep things going and that’s really the point isn’t it? Having the opportunity to go into the field and see what our field associates do every day is just mind bogglingly impressive. It can be something as insignificant as fixing a sign on the wall, or something as critical as repairing a generator or conducting power plant repairs. After three years here I still learn something new every day about what it takes to keep a hospital going. Even with my job being more “behind the scenes”, it’s a good feeling to know while my team is not out there front and center, we’re making a difference with what we do.
What would you tell someone considering a career with Medxcel?
Medxcel is a great place to work! The employees genuinely care about their work and each other and our leadership is the best. Most businesses talk about their values and culture but sometimes it’s just lip service. At Medxcel we actually live out our values and revisit them daily. The leadership team here is like no other. I have never worked for a company where the CEO and other c-suite leaders come by and talk to me on a daily basis. They are always visible and they know our names. That is huge to me! In an organization as big as we are and growing at the rate we are, it’s amazing to me that the CEO knows my name. I feel like the leadership really believes in us and that makes me want to come to work and give my best every day.
Is there a project you’ve worked on that you’re particularly proud of?
In December of 2019, Medxcel brought on a large client, and it quickly became clear to me that there was no way I was going to be able to handle all the work by myself. At that time I was the only Consultant on our team and I worked with one other person who was a Contracting Specialist. She and I were talking about how to manage the increased workload. She had come from the purchasing team where she used a tool called Smartsheet. I had no idea what it was. She explained that it is a powerful tool that can be used for intake of work as well as producing reports. As we quickly grew to a team of seven, we needed a better intake process for our team; because our original process was a shared mailbox which no longer worked for the quantity of work coming in and the number of team members we had. We took it upon ourselves to learn more about Smartsheet and before you know it, my coworker and I, along with the rest of the team, were training the entire company on how to submit requests to us using the new Smartsheet tool. After we implemented it not only was our intake process more efficient, but we were able to report out to leadership on the spend within actual sectors. The tool provides lots of information and reporting that can help us make better informed decisions for the business. We’ve had nothing but positive feedback on the tool from those that we support.