After years of working in finance and even serving as the comptroller for a staffing agency, Deborah Yount felt it was time for a career change.
That would prove daunting in a time before individual development programs were even “a thing,” in her words. But Yount took a novel approach by directly asking the company’s CEO what she could do to provide value to the firm in a different capacity. The response: Formalize the company’s HR and learning and development function.
“To be honest, I didn’t know what that meant,” Yount said. “But I was up to the challenge.”
She began that shift by going back to school to earn a master’s degree in human resources and organizational development. That helped build Yount’s path to her first CHRO role and, ultimately, her current role as senior vice president and CHRO of California-based health system Sutter Health.
Deborah Yount, CHRO at Sutter Health
Permission granted by Sutter Health
Yount is a relative newcomer to Sutter, having been named to its executive team last January. She told HR Dive in an interview that she has spent the last several months focused on preventing burnout among the organization’s healthcare workforce while increasing retention and bolstering managerial support.
Editor’s note: This conversation was edited for clarity and length.
HR DIVE: Burnout is a common concern among healthcare workers. How have you and Sutter Health thought about this issue?
DEBORAH YOUNT: There’s a lot of things that contribute to burnout, from staffing shortages to turnover to low employee engagement.
We strive to make Sutter Heath a place where employees feel like there’s purpose, and even more importantly than that, one where they feel valued and can make a difference every day. When we ground our work in the mission — it’s about patients first and people always — we can rally the workforce around that.
One of the things we’ve been focused on is reducing turnover. We currently have an attrition rate of about 9%, lower than the industry standard of between 15% and 16%. Having consistency in who you’re working with helps reduce burnout where employees have to absorb others’ work.
There’s also been a consistent focus on developing the workforce of tomorrow. Just this year alone, 16,000 employees have accessed our virtual learning programs. We’ve created this “development for all” strategy where opportunities are available for every employee to continue to grow and complement their skills. We’re finding that it increases their engagement and reduces burnout.
We’re close to the end of 2025. How have the year’s HR trends taken shape, in your view? Has anything surprised you?
Speaking from an internal-focused perspective, when we look at our survey of employee experience this year, we see that there’s an opportunity for simplification. There’s an opportunity to ensure employees have the access to the right resources and technology, including artificial intelligence. Improving ease of work in this way can also help reduce burnout.
This wasn’t particularly surprising, but we’ve also latched onto the notion that we need to invest in our people managers. We’re creating a new certification program to build best-in-class people leaders by allowing them to hone their capabilities in that space.
We’re also focused on ensuring that our employees feel safe. There’s psychological safety that we want to create for employees, but we also want to make sure that they’re physically safe in the environments where they’re working.
People managers feel squeezed by the demands of leadership and their employees, and by the state of the talent market. How are you supporting them?
When I joined Sutter, one of the areas I felt we needed to focus on is ensuring we have a very intentional development program. It’s an eight-module program that helps managers understand things like financials, operations, performance management and having crucial conversations. Sometimes, I think we under-index on creating those learning opportunities.
What I’ve also appreciated about Sutter since joining here is creating the “power of one.” What that looks like is creating a platform where your leaders can consistently hear the same information, which drives organizational alignment and clarifies our goals and objectives.
We also look to provide access to the right programs, including sponsorships and mentorships. It’s a multi-pronged approach to give managers the tools to be effective in performing complicated jobs. Another aspect of this is ensuring managers have the right combination of control, team size and expectations.
What advice do you have for newcomers to the HR industry, or for new HR executives?
Be curious. Believe in what’s possible. Be intentional about your focus and what you need to do to be successful in your role. Surround yourself with great mentors or sponsors who can help you as part of that career journey. You’ve got to be passionate about the work and find purpose in your work. If you can do all those things, you can be very successful.
