Worcester Business Journal

12 Worcester Business Journal | April 18, 2022 | wbjournal.com H E A LT H C A R E FOCUS Source: Annual surveys by UMass Chan Medical School for WBJ Research Department Employees at UMass Chan Medical School '11 Number of employees (In thousands) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 '12 '13 '21 '20 '14 '19 '18 '17 '16 '15 BY KATHERINE HAMILTON WBJ Staff Writer U Mass Chan Medical School is bursting at the seams. Fueled in part by trans- formative grants since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the Worcester medical school is expanding its research, varying depart- ments, and physical campus. To maintain this level of growth, however, there is one key ingredient: people. "ere's a need throughout the system for talent," said Barbara Guertin, execu- tive recruiter at UMass Chan. "e main reason is all growth." e medical school currently has 600 open positions, three times the amount that were open in January 2020. UMass was unable to provide a breakdown of Creating the perfect structure Amid transformational growth, UMass Chan is aggressively hiring new workers to shape the school for its emerging initiatives which jobs were new and which were open due to someone leaving. e increased job openings matches a surge in funding. UMass doubled its funding over the two years of the coronavirus pandemic, Guertin said, yet the number of employees at the school hasn't seen the same uptick. As of Febru- ary, the school employs about 6,200 people, which is roughly the same as it's been for the last decade, according to WBJ research. Yet, in the last two years, the school has received more than $500 million from the National Institutes of Health, as well as a $175-million grant from billionaire investor Gerald Chan and his family's Morningside Foundation. "e funding channels have really opened up for us," Guertin said. "It's allowing us to add positions that were sort of dream jobs that we hoped we could add at some point … We have been given a kind of carte blanche to create the perfect structure in all of our departments." The demands of growth While many of the openings are for these new dream roles, the school is looking to fill a large number of back- bone jobs like building maintenance workers and technicians to care for the laboratory animals. "UMass is expanding, but, at the same time, they're having challenges filling positions that already exist," said Andrea Caceres, an organizer at SHARE, UMass Chan's second-largest union, which encompasses a wide array of workers. In jobs where workers never got to work from home during the pandemic, UMass is seeing some significant short- ages, Caceres said. In particular, animal technicians and counselors at residential mental health facilities, both of which require around-the-clock work, are in highest demand right now. Another area of great need is data analysts, project managers, and business systems analysts for the medical school's Commonwealth Medicine program. Alex Guardiola, vice president, Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce To recruit for its 600 open positions, UMass Chan Medical School hosted a career fair in March, which was attended by 230 individuals. PHOTOS | COURTESY OF UMASS CHAN MEDICAL SCHOOL

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