I connected with Felicia Johnson, a digital seller at Perficient with experience selling across channels and industries, to discuss what’s happening in the healthcare industry around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I). We also discussed how she promotes these values through volunteer work. I loved hearing about how Perficient is supporting DE&I in the technology industry and in healthcare through our end-to-end capabilities and our vision for a DE&I centered company culture.

Thank you for joining me today to discuss the important topic of DE&I in healthcare. I’d love to kick off with hearing about your role at Perficient and how you keep up with the trends affecting our clients’ growth and transformation.

I am a digital seller. I sell across the digital experience and across all channels from end-to-end, including:

Felicia Johnson, digital seller

Experience design
Digital marketing services
All DXP/CMS platforms (Adobe, Sitecore, Acquia, Optimizely)
Data solutions
Commerce and management consulting
Anything that meets our clients’ web/mobile needs

I am accountable for speaking with the customer to determine where we can help them grow their business, achieve their goals, and exceed their business needs. I focus on how we communicate the value that Perficient can bring across all our customer’s digital channels. Working with our clients, I show them how our partnership is critical for their business growth, transformation, and success. Communicating our value to our customer’s organization can have a large scope. My focus is on conversations to build immediate and future long-term relationships. Meeting the client where they are is what I do each day in my conversations.

I am doing things daily to accomplish these responsibilities. For example, I work with our account directors on existing growth planning for targeted customers. I create messaging to present additional areas that Perficient can help our current customers grow. Then, I’ll talk with our customers to solidify how we will collaborate to accomplish their goals. I also work on account planning with the intention of bringing in more areas of Perficient’s expertise.

For new customers, I work on connecting (and reconnecting) to share with them how Perficient can be a valued partner in the long-term digital strategy they may be focusing on.

Each day results in the growth of our ability to provide more value to our clients.

In your work as a digital seller, what trends are you seeing around DE&I in the healthcare industry? 

DE&I in healthcare, specifically as it relates to experience design, has had an interesting affect on the industry. It has created a wave of reaction from our healthcare customers. Most of these customers are looking for a partner to ensure they are showing empathy across their digital channels and reaching every area that they serve. Experience design is one part of this puzzle, but our journey science framework is also critical to success.

Healthcare organizations are beginning to understand the need to account for socio-economic factors, in addition to representing all types of nationalities.

Regional/local hospitals or clinics are looking to ensure that all of their digital channels take into account inclusion for surrounding areas. Many of the healthcare institutions with a local presence have a sense of commitment to the people they serve, which they have shared widely in their local media. The goals and mission of regions are based on the voters they serve. As a result, I am seeing more hospitals looking for companies to partner with that can understand this need and help show empathy on their web platforms and mobile apps (even in the visual design and navigation).

EXPLORE NOW: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) in Healthcare: Our End-to-End Capabilities 

Can you tell me more about your community involvement through Black Girls Code and College Now? What drew you to these organizations/causes, and what are some of your responsibilities?

This is my favorite thing to talk about! I have been a native Clevelander all my life. After college, I came right back. My community means so much to me. As a Brown girl who was always the “only Black woman” in the room when I was earning my degrees in computer science, I knew that it was important for me to be seen and to help other young Black women know they can be seen. That is what motivated me to start the Black Girls Code – Cleveland chapter. These young women are spectacular. We do mobile projects based on real world needs. Partnering with interested schools, we received donations and help from neighboring organizations to provide the technology needed for the work.

I joined each of the organizations in which I serve for the purpose of giving back.

College Now is especially near and dear to my heart. I joined their Board in order to ensure that there was a pulse on how we are representing the children that we serve. Our mission is to increase post-secondary school achievement through mentoring, college and career advising, financial aid needs, and scholarship services. I work as chair of the mentoring committee to ensure that our students are matched to a mentor who will support them through their eighth through twelfth grade years and work with them to solidify the next steps in their lives.

I also lead and prepare the students for intention and manifestation workshops, monthly activities to meet as a group and support one another. This provides to them a safe place to uncover the next steps in their educational process. I love these kids and all that comes with my position on the Board at College Now. I am blessed and humbled to be in a position to help at this level.

LEARN MORE: Perficient Giving, Employee Resource Group 

How does your volunteerism and the values of the organizations you serve apply to the work you do for Perficient?

These organizations’ values are exactly what we champion at Perficient: integrity, authenticity, and hard work. What you put into the communities and people that you serve results in something beautiful.

We are creating the future mobile developers, visual designers, content writers, web developers, data architects, etc. with empathetic values. These are people that you want to work beside. They know their stuff and they are good people.

The work I do with the organizations in which I serve lead the next generation of the technology industry. We would only be so lucky to have any one of the kids I work with join the Perficient team.

How do you see diversity and inclusion prioritized in these organizations and at Perficient?

DE&I is a natural inhabitant of each of the organizations I work with if you consider why they had to be created in the first place. They were created out of the need to be included, and they are all children of a minority group. So the prioritization of DE&I was out of a necessity to be at the forefront. And for that, gratitude is at the helm.

Perficient has a pulse on the need for a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture. As a global company, we already work to ensure we are being conscious of how we are presenting ourselves to everyone in the Perficient family. My personal goal for our organization is having women and women of color represented in all of our business-unit-wide calls, company-wide calls, internal conferences, and messages from our C-suite.

As Perficient works toward growth, our leadership is open to these conversations and is very receptive to feedback. I know that we are focused on supporting DE&I, and changing a culture is not overnight.

Changing perception – which is necessary for changing culture – is a long-term initiative.

Healthcare Leaders Turn to Us

Perficient is dedicated to enabling healthcare and life sciences organizations to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion within their companies. Our healthcare practice is comprised of experts who understand the unique challenges facing the industry. The 10 largest health systems and 10 largest health insurers in the U.S. have counted on us to support their end-to-end digital success. Modern Healthcare has also recognized us as the fourth largest healthcare IT consulting firm. With more than 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry, Perficient is a trusted, end-to-end, global digital consultancy.

We bring pragmatic, strategically-grounded know-how to our clients’ initiatives. And our work gets attention – not only by industry groups that recognize and award our work but also by top technology partners that know our teams will reliably deliver complex, game-changing implementations. Most importantly, our clients demonstrate their trust in us by partnering with us again and again. We are incredibly proud of our 90% repeat business rate because it represents the trust and collaborative culture that we work so hard to build every day within our teams and with every client.

Contact us to learn how we can help you plan and implement a successful DE&I initiative for your organization.