Jennifer Trahan has been asked to describe workplace culture more times than she can count. Her answer is always the same.
“Culture is how you feel when you experience an organization,” she says.
In this episode of Straight from the Source, she talks openly about what it takes to build a workplace where 20,000 people genuinely choose to stay and why major national honors mean less than what they confirm. Jennifer is FMOL Health’s senior vice president and chief HR officer, and she has spent 26 years learning that lesson from the inside.
Recognition Rooted in Something Real
FMOL Health recently earned Gallup Exceptional Workplace Awards for both engagement and Strengths-based culture and received official Great Place to Work certification. For an organization grounded in the core value of humility, that kind of public recognition doesn’t come naturally. For years, the ministry simply did the work.
Jennifer sees the awards as confirmation, not a finish line.
“It really is less about the awards,” she says. “It’s about the purpose and the work that you’re doing to contribute to the culture of the organization, to create an environment where people can grow and develop and thrive.”
Walk into any FMOL Health hospital, across any market, any team, any shift, and you’ll feel the same thread. The mission. The values. The sense that the work means something.
That consistency across a system this size isn’t accidental. It traces back more than a century, to six determined Sisters who built something that would outlast them by generations.
It Starts With Relationships
At the center of a great workplace is not a mission statement on the wall. It’s the manager your team members see every day. The one who shows up for them on the hard days and the easy ones.
Jennifer is direct: the relationship between a team member and their direct leader is the most meaningful relationship in their work life.
FMOL Health has made significant investments in leadership development, and the results are visible. Turnover is the lowest it has ever been and exceeds national healthcare benchmarks. Engagement is top decile.
A Strengths-based approach, helping team members understand what they do best and bring those gifts to the mission, has given leaders and teams a common language that goes well beyond job descriptions.
“It’s really created a connection between leaders and their teams,” Jennifer says. “And it really is a very positive way to help grow and develop our teams.”
Every Team Member Brings a Story
Jennifer started her career as a social worker, serving patients at the bedside before a pivotal opportunity, one she almost didn’t apply for, moved her into human resources. The transition made more sense than it might seem.
“I always say that I have a degree in people,” she says. “Whether it’s the patient or whether it’s the team member.”
That perspective shapes how FMOL Health approaches well-being. Every person who walks through the door to work brings a life with them, joys, pressures and struggles the organization may never fully see.
The ministry offers a 24/7 Employee Assistance Program, personal time off, two new holidays including a personalized floating holiday and the Healthy Lives program, which connects team members with individualized health coaching. Benefits are shaped through listening sessions and a benefits committee designed to meet the needs of all team members.
Jennifer is candid that there is more to do. Mental health and wellness are priorities on the road ahead.
“That’s why it’s really important to create an environment that supports our team members, so that we can then care for our patients,” she says.
Why People Stay for Decades
At FMOL Health’s service award banquets, team members celebrate 15 years, 25 years, 30 years. Some have celebrated 50 or more.
“I don’t think that comes by chance,” Jennifer says. “That comes with a lot of intentional work.”
It starts with the Sisters who built the mission. It carries through the leaders who live it daily and the colleagues who work shoulder to shoulder across a shared calling. The “boomerang” team members, those who leave for a time and return, come back for the same two reasons every time: the mission and the relationships.
Jennifer’s own 26-year story is proof. She arrived as an intern and grew into the system’s chief HR officer, shaped along the way by mentors who pushed her toward opportunities she wasn’t sure she was ready for.
A Privilege and a Responsibility
Working in Catholic healthcare is different. How the work gets done matters as much as the work itself, whether you’re caring for patients directly or supporting the teams who do.
“If you’re really looking for a place where you can find purpose, where you can grow and develop, where your contributions are recognized and celebrated, where your strengths are developed, it is a little bit different working here,” Jennifer says. “And it’s a privilege and a responsibility.”
Jennifer was asked what is bringing her joy right now. She described a note from a team member who had called HR during a difficult season in her life. The team kept asking questions, kept listening, until they could actually help.
“It has me smiling days later,” she says.
That is joyfulness of spirit, one of FMOL Health’s core values, lived out not in a grand gesture, but in a quiet moment of one person helping another.
It’s what great culture looks like when it’s working.
