FEATURE
individual, and the system has to work to
reduce the likelihood of mistakes being
made,” said Salerno.
Thus, new employees are less likely to be
handed “the stuff nobody else wants to
do,” less likely to be blamed when things
go awry and, hopefully, more likely to
stick around and immerse themselves in
an enriching, laboratory-wide culture of
quality.
“This issue of turnover is going to
become increasingly problematic for the
community, and we need to think about
how to engage these younger employees
in a way that keeps them interested in the
PHL,” Salerno said.
At this past year’s APHL annual meeting,
APHL Executive Director Scott Becker,
MS, echoed this thought. He said, “We
can’t be afraid to experiment with new
approaches” to retain younger scientists.
Among the ideas Becker proffered are:
• Encouraging Millennials and
Generation X to investigate and
“champion” new technologies and to
help long-time staff transition to the
newer platforms.
• Inviting outspoken individuals to be
“community ambassadors for public
health” and to write for the agency’s
blog.
Matthew D. Bradke, laboratory
supervisor, Chemical Terrorism,
Arkansas Public Health Laboratory.
Photo: AR PHL
This issue of turnover is going
to become increasingly problematic
for the community, and we need to
think about how to engage these
younger employees in a way that
keeps them interested in the PHL.”
Ren Salerno, PhD
10
LAB MATTERS Fall 2018
To this end, Salerno advocates a
revamped, more inclusive approach
to laboratory quality and safety
management. He said, “It is less about
following a checklist and more about the
entirety of the operation, understanding
and endorsing the rationale for quality
and for safety, and understanding
that quality is not just a checklist that
accompanies the science, it’s actually
fundamental to the science.”
Instead of delegating quality and
safety—and the sometimes mundane
administrative tasks that accompany
them—to the “lowest level of the
laboratory,” this reimagined approach
elevates their importance and puts
the onus on laboratory systems. “When
mistakes happen—and they will—the
system is responsible for that, not the
• Showing interest in staff. For example,
at BPHL-Tampa, Director Andy
Cannons, PhD, periodically spends the
day working alongside individual staff
members, learning what they do. His
younger employees love this.
• Being generous with recognition
and rewards. The DC Public Health
Laboratory, under the direction of
Anthony Tran, DrPH, has frequent staff
events including a family day, a yearly
awards program and an agency-wide
summer crab feast at a riverside park.
After the simultaneous loss of two
chemists, Arkansas’s Bradke helped his
agency revive an internal, lateral transfer
policy. He successfully hired an internal
candidate for one of the positions—a
process that took under three weeks—
and hired an outside candidate for
the other—a process that took three
PublicHealthLabs
@APHL
APHL.org