This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

How have you been able to use PHIG funding?

One thing I’m really excited to share is the Arizona onboarding app that we’re developing right now. We’re actually doing UAT (User Acceptance Testing), which is going to help us track and successfully onboard more people who have interest in having a career in public health. But right now, it can be a pretty cumbersome process. So our onboarding app is focused on: how do we simplify that process while also speeding us up, making us more efficient? And thanks to the Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG) and that significant investment, we’re able to get this project off the ground and keep it sustained, keep it running for years to come.

What do you hope to accomplish with this app?

Yeah, it’s really twofold. First is the speed: we want to be able to increase our speed and reduce our time to fill. Meaning we want to make it where if we have a job opening approved, this is something we want to get filled. How quickly can we get someone in that seat to hit the ground running and actually start doing the work to drive positive change and increase our positive health outcomes for citizens of Arizona?

But in order to do that, we really need to recognize where our strengths are and where some blind spots might be. And our time to fill, our speed, is an area that we can control. There are many factors we can’t control, like pay, our benefits – that’s pretty set in the market. But how fast we act? That’s within our realm, within our span of control.

So how can we do that? Well, using things like the onboarding app, hiring managers and other stakeholders are going to be able to see at a glance where their candidates are in the process. That frees up our recruiters to spend more time in the community, to engage directly with people who are interested in public service, who want to work in public health. And also spending time sourcing, spending more time online proactively looking for those candidates that could be a real difference maker for our agency. We want to spend less time just focusing on “post and pray,” right? Whoever comes in, whoever applies, we want to be more in the mindset of hunters going out there and finding the people that are going to be successful in driving the change that we need.

The second component is the scope of the audience that we’re trying to reach, the community that we’re trying to engage with by recruiters having the ability to spend less time just communicating with hiring managers about, “where are we at with this recruitment or that recruitment?” Instead, they’re going to be able to be out in the community more. So we’ve seen our participation in job fairs go up. We’re spending more time meeting people where they are. And that’s going to, in fact, broaden our audience of getting people interested in working in public health that otherwise may not have ever considered it or thought they were qualified because our recruiters are going to be able to meet them at job fairs, career fairs, at schools where they are, and educate them on: “here’s an opportunity for you and here’s why we need you.”

Why is this work so important?

Well, I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that lives are on the line. Public health does save lives. In Arizona, it very much positively impacts the health and wellbeing of Arizonans. So it’s important to us that if we have a vacancy and it’s a position we need to fill, that we fill it quickly because that work is vital. We need it filled. We need that work being done. So if we aren’t doing that, I do think that real harm could be coming to our populations that we serve and we need to fill it quickly.

What would you say to decision-makers behind this?

Well, the first thing I would say is, thank you. You did not have to do this. I know that, but I’m really glad you did. And I promise that in Arizona, we’re being very good stewards of your investment and we’re really putting that money to work in ways that are going pay dividends for years to come for our citizens. And so, first of all, I’m really appreciative of everything that you’ve done for that.

Secondly, I want to make sure that you know that the investment that you’ve made has not gone unnoticed. We’re able to upgrade and modernize our workforce initiatives, our workforce development, and really make it more efficient, too. We’re going to, in the future, be able to be a much more nimble, agile organization thanks to your investment. So I hope you’re happy with the results that Arizona is putting out for you, and I’m very appreciative of the investment that you made.