Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | January 9. 2017 | Worcester Business Journal 33 Make minimum wage increases regional The Worcester Business Journal welcomes letters to the editor and commentary submissions. Please send submissions to Brad Kane, editor, at bkane@wbjournal.com. T he limited number of females in positions of healthcare administration leadership attests to the challenges that exist for women. The top 100 hospitals in the United States have only 21-percent females in leadership positions and 18 percent of hospital CEOs in the U.S. are women, despite women comprising more than half of the health- care workforce. For women, these challenges span professionally, personally and societally. Women are often social- ized to be caretakers. This is even more common in women who have chosen the healthcare profession. Working in behavioral health care further emphasizes the need to be empathetic, understanding and supportive, further reinforcing the role of women as caretakers. It is in these circumstances that women can be over- looked as leaders and business innovators. Finding the balance in the workplace and at home to hold roles as wife, mother, friend, employee, peer, boss and leader is a lifelong journey that requires hard work, constant growth, luck and support. Challenging the view of women as solely caretaker and even challenging internal and external struggles regard- ing accepted female characteristics can hinder women in the workplace. I was fortunate enough to have been raised by parents who believed that males and females should learn every task that is needed to form indepen- dence. As my brothers were taught to do laundry, iron and cook beside me, I too joined my father on the roof with them repairing shingles. The talk at our dinner table was about everything from our interests and school day to the business decisions that my father had made at his company that day. There were no boundaries set for women in my home then, neither are there any in my home now as we raised our children with the same philosophy. Spectrum Health Systems possesses a strong history of delivering quality services to a population with high needs. The mission is consistent with the values that are so important to me. Spectrum's commitment to leader- ship development for staff at all levels will benefit women throughout the organization and continue to solidify Spectrum Health System's place as an employer of choice. Being offered the opportunity to utilize my expertise and training to partner with a strong team in delivering high quality behavioral health and addictions treatment to those in need provides me with the ability to feel suc- cessful as both a caretaker and a leader. I look forward to learning from the team at Spectrum Health Systems and to contributing to the mission. Sherry Ellis in December was hired as the chief operat- ing officer at Spectrum Health Systems, Inc., a Worcester nonprofit organization dedicated to providing a compre- hensive continuum of evidenced-based treatment to help people overcome substance and opioid addiction. Health care needs more women leaders C ompared to the rest of the country, Massachusetts is a high-cost state, and it always will be. Nearly everything from housing to winter heating to owning a car, and certainly health care, is more expensive than other regions. Because of this, it stands to rea- son that Massachusetts should be a high-wage state. Today, the unemployment rate is 2.9 percent, and businesses need to focus on talent attraction and retention, with upward pressure on wages an inevi- tability. Rumblings in the State House by groups like Raise Up Massachusetts supporting another bill to stage the minimum wage up to $15 an hour do not make sense. Massachusetts minimum wage is now $11 per hour – the highest in the nation – and it makes sense to leave it right there, at least in the central and western parts of the state. While we're a high-cost state, not every region of Massachusetts has the same cost of living. Greater Worcester already touts itself as the affordable urban destination compared to Boston and the sub- urbs to the east. Areas further west of Worcester offer even lower-cost options. The state can't set a minimum wage for the highest-cost areas without materially damaging employers in lower-cost areas. The $11 minimum wage that went into effect on Jan. 1 is 10-percent higher than the second highest state minimum wage (California) and is 52-percent higher than the federal minimum wage ($7.25). While California plans on reaching the $15 thresh- old by 2023 through a multi-year approach, Massachusetts legislators will have to convince Gov. Charlie Baker now is the time for such a move, as he wisely favors waiting to see how this last three- year plan that raised minimum wage from $8 to $11 impacts businesses. As Baker's waiting period begins and before any momentum might build in the State House for a new minimum wage plan, we would like to offer an alternative regional approach. New York already has a model to follow where New York City employers have one minimum wage ($11), Long Island and Westchester have another ($10), and the rest of the state has something different ($9.70). Massachusetts could follow this model, give indi- vidual communities the right to set their own mini- mum wage, or set up a complex formula where the minimum wage is based upon a cost of living index in a particular region or community. Cost of living and the types of businesses that flourish based on the cost of labor is different in Worcester, Boston, Fitchburg, Springfield, Marlborough and New Braintree. The business implications of hiking the minimum wage to $15 for a Boston fast food restaurant will be more easily absorbed because its customers can better afford the subsequent price increases (due to the higher average wages earned in Eastern Massachusetts) vs. a Leominster manufacturer who relies on a pool of minimum wage workers because that business model is based on having lower-cost, higher-quality products than competitors in a global marketplace. Offering employees the best wages possible based on their talent and experience is just good business. Setting a minimum wage floor that all employers must adhere to is a necessity, but it has a breaking point. For the more affordable regions of the state, the breaking point is just beyond $11 per hour. V I E W P O I N T E D I T O R I A L BY SHERRY ELLIS Special to the Worcester Business Journal Sherry Ellis W W WO R D F R O M T H E W E B Comment of the issue "Sorry to see this trending in the wrong direction, just another indication of too many people in government afraid and/or unwilling to make the hard choice to trim the fat in government programs, services and entitlements." - Douglas Curving, Dec. 23, on the Worcester City Council increasing the gap between the higher tax rate business property owners pay vs. the lower rate for residential property Tweets of the week "WOOteria provides an opportunity to build on, deepen #creativity blossoming in Worcester" - Barr Foundation (@BarrFdn), Dec. 23, on the new artistic space on Franklin Street WBJ Facebook feedback "Cliff, congratulations on being selected as one of the Worcester Business Journal's Central Massachusetts Power Players for 2016!" - Sullivan Group, Dec. 15, on Worcester Railers Owner Cliff Rucker

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