This article was written by Laura Clemons, Director of Strategic Operations, at Greystone.Net. 

As we have so keenly become aware during these past six weeks or so, health systems periodically have to reorganize their marketing and web teams and shuffle responsibilities. Whether it is to meet new organizational goals and priorities or to rise up to a crisis, marketing must be nimble and flexible.

As healthcare marketers, we have been known to use a band-aid approach to staffing, such as patch-working together in-house, external and temporary resources. But too often, it’s just a temporary - and less than ideal - fix. Over time and as we travel the path of least resistance, we realize that our teams may have shifted their focus to functions that no longer fully support the overall organization’s strategies while our processes have become antiquated.

Common themes we hear from our hospital and health system engagements deal with the interplay of Marketing and Information Technology (IT), and Marketing and Executive Leadership. Marketing and IT typically struggle with communicating needs for marketing technology (i.e., the MarTech stack) and balancing priorities. And, Leadership can struggle to value the importance of the digital brand, the digital brand experience and the critical role that contemporary digital tools play to help efficiently achieve marketing goals.

To build the best hospital marketing and web teams to help with those real struggles, it’s important to think strategically. For us, that means:

• Analyzing the current roles and structure to identify gaps, missing skill-sets and/or roles that can be modified to meet new needs
• Interviewing current staff members to determine strengths and weaknesses of the team and structure and their thoughts on missed opportunities and challenges
• Identifying any new roles that are needed to support the organization paired with tweaking any existing ones that need adjustment
• Retooling existing job descriptions and developing new ones to meet the new scope
• Creating a set of guiding principles for the marketing/web teams
• Modifying the existing organizational structure to ensure it spans the new goals and roles
• Persuading Leadership on the need for updated strategies, roles and structure
• Communicating with others in the organization about the changes and why they are important.

Our best advice if you are contemplating an organizational structure change: Build, mold and nurture a team that is agile and adaptable. A team that pivots quickly and willingly is a blessing and will serve you well. Your job is to infuse an agile attitude that has the appetite and aptitude to evolve.

If you are struggling with being the best digital team you can be, let us know how we can help. Reach out! We are happy to chat.