In this episode of Learning Matters, Doug Wooldridge sits down with Dr. Sherri Brooks, Chief Learning Officer at Baptist Memorial Health Care, to explore how her team is creating a “hire to retire” employee experience through innovative learning strategies.

With over 22,000 employees across three states, Dr. Brooks shares how Baptist is:

✅ Making L&D more flexible and accessible for frontline healthcare workers

✅ Revamping leadership development across all levels

✅ Leveraging Skillsoft’s Percipio platform to support upskilling and retention

✅ Partnering with local colleges to reskill Patient Care Assistants into higher-impact roles

✅ Using AI for scenario-based coaching and course development

Whether you're in healthcare or just looking to improve employee engagement and retention, this episode is packed with practical, people-first strategies that scale.

📚 Learn more about Dr. Brooks’ book, The Echo: A Call to Greatness: https://drsherribrooks.com📱 Connect with Dr. Brooks on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drsherribrooks

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Welcome back to Learning Matters. I'm Doug Wooldridge, your host. And today I'm very excited to talk with our next guest. She's a Maxwell Certified Leadership Speaker, Coach, and Trainer, and an ICF Credential Professional Coach. She's responsible for leadership and direction of her organization's career and professional development needs for over 22,000 team members across three different states.

She was honored as one of the top 50 women leaders in Tennessee. She's the author of The Echo, A Call to Greatness, and she's CLO of Baptist Memorial Healthcare. Dr. Sherri Brooks, welcome to the show.

Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here and have conversation with you.

All right, well, I'd like to start with this. What strategy do you think matters most in learning and development today?

You know, Doug, I think it's really this idea of flexibility. Yeah. know, and just being flexible, being responsible for, you know, over 22,000 team members across the three states, you know, our footprint is pretty large. so that requires us to be flexible. You know, when you consider health care in general, frontline team members really

that they don't have a lot of time to be off the clinical floor. And so we have to be flexible and adaptable to make learning and development and education accessible.

Do you find accessibility for them to get to like a laptop and some headphones or whatever when they're on the floor?

Yeah, you know, well, couple of different things. know, we do have when we are new to reverse start, we give them headphones, so earphones, earbuds, I guess you would call them because on the clinical floor, you know, there's not a lot of privacy. And so we have little alcoves where there are computer kiosks where they can go and sit. So if you consider

a hallway in a hospital. And so, you know, they have these little alcove cutouts. And so there's a place there where the computer is where they can sit and do notes for patients. And then that's where they can do their learning and development using their ear buds.

So how does that change kind of the way that you teach them? it faster pace or is it just kind of a different type of pacing?

So, you know, it's a different pacing. So, you know, that really works for our mandatory education, the things that we have to do on an annual basis for the compliance. It works for some other small learning and development components, which we offer monthly, some skill build workshops, we call them. that works for that. But we also have a computer room.

Each hospital has a computer room with several computers where they can go to and do their training and education. A little bit more private than just being sitting there as always.

How do you, for the most part, folks that are in healthcare have had lots of years of training and they're not necessarily... I feel like they need a little bit more of a diversified training setup than just like standard point and click on the next slide type of things.

Exactly, you know, and I think the key for us is offering a variety of things, but you know, the computer based learning is usually most accessible. One of the things that we've done to try to make that a little bit more engaging. We recently hired an instructional designer to help us with, you know, the death by PowerPoint. to, you know, really.

do some engagement. So instead of having just a general read the screen, answer the questions, click to the next one, it gives different opportunities to go into rooms and click on this and some scenario based questions. So those are really great for our team members because it's something new, it's something exciting. It's not what they've expected in a traditional training and development module.

But in addition, you know, offering micro learnings and also offering, we have a professional development platform that has over 10,000 courses that has content that goes anywhere from a 10 minute video to a podcast or a snippet of an audio book. So just giving them a variety of learning and training modules and different development.

that they can take part of.

How do you demonstrate some ROI to the stakeholders, not just like the C-level folks, but also the learners?

So, you know, for us, it's really been good. We do a lot of feedback surveys when people come over and talk with us. And so the return on investment really for the team members is having a variety of options that they can choose from, having a variety of courses, learning content, different modalities that they can choose from has really been great. And even just having the opportunity

to have virtual classes where they can participate in, that they can do over their lunch break, or they can do in a quick 10 minute microburst of learning, has really been great. We have seen our numbers go up in terms of usage, because we track number of learners in addition to the number of hours that they spend on the platform.

which has really been great. But then also for our senior level executives, because that particular learning platform costs quite a bit of money. But for them seeing the team members take advantage of that, and not only team members, but our leaders are taking advantage of it also. And what has really been nice is that

We have leaders that are coming to us to say, how can I have an audience with my team members? So for instance, we can take, if you had a team of 15 or 20 individuals and you want it to create an audience and you say, okay, we want you to take this customer service development module. And so we can put them all in a group together that can be managed by that particular leader.

and he or she can go in and see how the team member has done on the module, who's in there, who's doing it. And so it's really been nice for us to see that it has been money well spent.

Yeah, I would imagine that with 22,000 employees that you're going to have a lot of different groups built into this. How do you make sure that you're covering all the different areas and expertises of your learners?

Yeah, so you know, like I said, we did that that particular platform is called Skillsoft, Percipio. It's by Skillsoft, but the platform is called Percipio. It has, again, over 10,000 courses and content level, different modalities that that's available anywhere from IT to business, general information like communication skills, time management.

you know, AI, supply chain, even it has preparation courses for different certifications. So our IT team has actually taken quite a bit of advantage of it in learning AWS, you know? And so it doesn't actually certify them, but it gives them all of the learning that they need to be able to pass the exam. So that's really, really been nice.

Yeah, very, very cool. Are there any top trends that you're most excited about coming up in the world of L &D?

definitely. think, you know, when I think about where we are, I think what I'm most excited about is the idea that we really need to lean into the strategies for upskilling and re-skilling our team members. You know, for me, this is really important because I'm just, all about career and professional development. Yeah. And when you consider our changing job market and really the employee experience, I believe that businesses

really have to invest in programs where employees are able to learn new skills and then improve their existing skills. And that, you know, helps them to not only enhance their performance, but it helps them to get ready for different roles, particularly if they may want to transition in their career. And so these are really important for career development and employee satisfaction.

Yeah, I think without investing in your employees, they don't have, they don't get the sense that they belong and are meant to be here for a long time. It just seems like filling in a position here and there, as opposed to when you do invest in their future, you're investing not only in theirs, but the future of your company.

Exactly. Exactly. And you know, for us, we really want this idea of hire to retire. And it's, you know, in today's world, you don't hear a lot of that. You know, one thing that I will say about our organization, we're a 113 year old organization. So we've been around, right? Yeah. And there has been a lot of longevity for people, you know, who started 20 years ago, 25 years ago, 30 years ago. So we have people

No you do not.

Actually, we have some that have celebrated their 55th year. Awesome. Yeah, so great. But when you look at this current generation, right, it's not so much. have a lot of people that are turning over. And so having the idea of the ability to upskill, reskill, to see themselves with the organization through career pathing is huge for us.

industry.

And particularly because know, healthcare, when you have a nurse or a person who is well skilled and competent in healthcare, they can go anywhere. And so making them want to stay, having a truly great employee experience is vital for us. And so we have to have a differentiator.

That makes people want to stay with us. And so we believe that the upskilling and rescaling and career pathing is part of that.

Yeah, no better way to build a community than by skilling them for the future or even just finding success on day one. Exactly. Which can be very scary. Is there a project or initiative that you guys are working on that you're most excited for this year?

Well, as it relates to learning and development, we are really looking at revamping our leadership development program because we know the statistics that people often leave jobs because of leadership. And so what we're really trying to do is ensure that we have a really good, robust leadership program.

And that's really at all phases of leadership. So we're looking at our current leader programming. Also, how do we identify those emerging leaders, the people who are next up in creating programming for them? But then also, as I mentioned, we have a lot of seniority and longevity at our organization. And so looking at succession planning. So what does that look like for

you know, the current manager and or director who wants to see themselves in senior leadership. What does that look like? So really it's about revamping our entire leadership model. And so for us, that takes a lot of learning and development, you know, identifying those skills and competencies that are important at the different levels. And so really getting our arms wrapped around that so that we can have leaders that

team members want to work with and for.

Yeah, then you'll get to 213 years. Yeah, exactly. Off the top of your head, is there a challenge that you and your team has had to face recently that you're most proud of overcoming?

Exactly.

Yeah, know, certainly it's not unique to us, but certainly the shortage of healthcare workers, but also just those that are skilled in a number of areas, which is why I mentioned I was so excited about upskilling and reskilling. But, you know, we have been very short on our patient care assistance roles and

That's sort of our very frontline level team member. don't need, you you need a high school diploma and a nursing, I think a nursing assistant credential. But we really wanted our team members to be able to go to that next level because of the nursing shortage. We really wanted to be able to figure out ways.

to help our current PCAs or patient care assistants do some of the higher level things that really nurses do but don't have to do. So things like phlebotomy, drawing blood, right? And so what we did, we looked around the system and we saw, well, we're short of phlebotomists, we're short of nurses, PCAs cannot.

draw blood, right, out of their scope of practice. And so what we did was really look around our community and we created a partnership with one of our local community colleges. And so we were able to work with them to come on site and do a up-skilling PCA to PCT, the technician part, which adds

phlebotomy and some limited x-ray license thing. Yeah.

Yeah, incredibly resourceful.

Yeah, so it was very successful. We are really excited about it. So we did that pilot at one of our larger hospitals. And so what we're looking is to see how we can expand that across our footprint to help with that. So it's been huge.

That's incredible. I mean, I can't imagine just the amount of pride that folks that are going through that training program have that you guys are putting that together for them to get to that next level. That's so incredible. Before we transition to some you questions, I got to ask about AI. Are you guys leveraging AI at all?

you know, not necessarily in health care. Sure. In our area, yes, in learning and development, we're doing it somewhat. So what we have started doing is assisting us as we're doing career advising and coaching. we're using it to help leaders with having difficult conversations. Yeah. So setting up those scenario based questions where

They're talking with AI so we can put in the scenarios and then they can give their response. The nice thing I like about it is that it allows you to set the programming where it could be a difficult team member. It could be a person who's compliant with you and it's like, okay. So that's really been nice for our leaders to be able to practice, but then also on the flip side.

for team members to practice for their conversations, having coaching conversations with their leader or if they are preparing for an interview. So we have been able to leverage it a little bit like that. with privacy is huge in healthcare. So we're just looking at different ways that we might could utilize that. Certainly we're using it to assist us with course development.

Some of the tools that we have have a built-in AI component that can assist with few things. So we've been using it in that way.

Very cool. Any suggestions for organizations that are just kind of dipping their toe into that AI world?

gosh, verify. You know, verify the content. That's the same thing I can do. You know, it's as good as the person who's fact checking because it certainly will confidently spit out what it thinks is the right answer. So so just fact check everything. Do your due diligence. But yeah, that's what I would say.

Awesome. Well, let's let's change the changes over a little to you. So take me back to young Sherri days. How did you end up as the CLL of Baptist Memorial Health Care? What was your was your journey to get into this position in this incredible world?

It was a circuitous journey, let us say that. It's funny because I was speaking to a group of students just earlier this week and just talking about my journey. I was a person who had no clue of what I wanted to do in school. I truly was...

the epitome of an interdisciplinary studies degree before that was such a thing. I had, I kid you not, Doug, I was in college and I just didn't know what I wanted to do because my parents were not college graduates. And so I really didn't have a clue what was even out there. And so I went to school and I just took classes that interested me.

Right. So I, you know, I took a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And it was not until one day I was taking a public speaking course and the professor said to me, hon, what's your major? I don't have one. I'm just, you know, I'll hear you're taking classes. And she asked me, she said, have you ever thought about speech pathology? I'm like, well, what's that? So, you know, found out more about that. I thought, well, I'll try it. I've tried everything else.

So I got into speech pathology, found out that I loved it. It really made my heart sing. I loved helping people. And so I did that for a few years and I had been out working as a professional for about five years and the chair of the department where I went to school, I had been his graduate assistant and he was my thesis coach and

He called me out of the blue one day and said, hey, come let me buy you a Coke. he said, I want to talk to you about something. And so he talked to me about teaching and they supported me to get my doctorate. And I did that. taught while maintaining clinical practice on the side for about 11 years. And then I transitioned and.

How did you find time to

Yeah, it was a lot, but I kept kind of get promoted up through the ranks in a couple of different areas. I was a regional vice president. was regional operations director in rehabilitation and some other fields. And this job came along and it was a nice mix of this idea of learning and development, you know, what I did as a professor.

a good amalgamation of what I did in helping people in speech pathology and then it put my business skills to practice the operational side of it. So it was just a really nice compilation. But yeah, so I fell into that role. But it was my second time around with Baptist because I had been a PRN speech therapist for them a number of years back.

But yeah, that's sort of how I got here and it's really been great.

That's awesome. Well, if you could go back in time to maybe just right out of college, maybe not quite before that, since you were in the mix of like, I don't know what I'm gonna do here. But if you could give yourself a little bit of advice, what would that be?

Keep saying yes. Yeah. Keep saying yes. I think that a lot of opportunities that I received, I said yes, not knowing how they would turn out, but just went on a, think I can do it sort of thing. But yeah, just keep saying yes.

Well, you gotta take those opportunities when life hands them to you.

Right. Exactly.

Lovely. Well, before I let you out of here, how can people connect with you?

Yeah, so LinkedIn is great. Dr. Sherri Brooks, also same on Facebook or Instagram. My email is info at Dr. Sherri Brooks, Sherri with an I dot com. Certainly love to respond to people, you know, when they shoot me an inbox on.

LinkedIn or in some other way I respond. So yeah, that's great. And then my website is drsharybrooks.com.

Awesome. And can you tell us about your book real quick before you head out?

Certainly. So yeah, it's a book about just hearing the call inside of you to greatness. And I chose the letters E-C-H-O, echo, the echo, because it's this resounding of your purpose that I believe lives in each of us that's calling out to us to be greater and better. And so it stands for excellence.

consistency, hustle, and opportunity. And so the idea is that if you will lean into those things, lean into the idea of being excellent in everything that you do, being consistent in those things that make you better, having a hustle mentality, it's this idea of the grind, and then saying yes to opportunity, know, looking for those opportunities and saying yes and being prepared when opportunity presents itself.

that I believe that everybody has greatness within them. I don't think that you have to have, you know, these certain gifts or talents because if you just function to the highest of your potential and your purpose and your personal calling, then the greatness will come out. And so that's the idea behind the book.

I think that is lovely. We will have a link for that book in our show description. Sherri, thank you so much for coming on the show today. It's been a wonderful conversation.

I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

And thank you listeners. If you learned something, had a laugh today, tell someone about the show. Thanks again, doctor. This has been another episode of learning matters as always like, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and don't hesitate to reach out to us here at TTC innovations to learn more about how we can assist you in all of your training needs. See you next time.

Thank you.