Challenge
The innovative healthtech company enGen offers a health plan administration platform, as well as enterprise health solutions, to work with plans that serve millions of members all over the country.
In the beginning of the engagement, enGen turned to CAI Neurodiverse Solutions to deploy a team of neurodivergent individuals in support of its greater diversity efforts. As the working relationship strengthened, neurodivergent associates were placed on multiple teams, including access management, QA, development, and data support teams. The partnership continued by fulfilling a need for an associate project management team.
The existing project managers recognized they needed support to keep up with reactive and proactive data analysis, cleanup, and maintenance. Because of the trust they had in our years-long partnership, enGen was willing to fill their open associate project manager positions with members of CAI’s Neurodiverse Solutions program.
Solution
The CAI Neurodiverse Solutions associate project management team was instrumental in the creation of an entirely new department called “Project Management (PM) Shared Services,” which has grown to provide project management support for the Highmark organization. These team members process hundreds of work requests a week and support nearly 100 enGen project managers in the Enterprise Technology Office.
The associate project managers perform work for a wide variety of business streams, including customer experience, Highmark Health information technology, data management, and analytics. Some specific offerings include working on Oracle project administration, updating the Oracle staffing resource plans, operating standard reporting suites, and proactively setting up project structure in SharePoint and Microsoft Teams. These dynamic roles help to keep projects on track and enGen teams informed of updates or changes to project timelines.
Results
The PM Shared Services department has produced top-notch, experienced associate project managers, so much so that the CAI Neurodiverse Solutions team at enGen grew by 150% in the first year. Within that time, there have been exceptional productivity and efficiency gains, as well.
In June 2022, enGen hired the first 2 associate project managers from the CAI Neurodiverse Solutions team full-time. Both have already earned numerous accolades for their skills, attitudes, and professionalism. In addition, both associates are already being actively sought out by other departments for eventual promotion.
This team has also become the hub of knowledge for the project management software enGen uses and has been charged with teaching others how to use it as well. The department provides an outlet for the company’s commitment to neurodiversity in the workplace and continues to bring new talent into the system.
"enGen has been very fortunate to work with CAI Neurodiverse Solutions. CAI did an exceptional job bringing very talented individuals to the team...[they] have demonstrated great enthusiasm and engagement and have truly been valuable additions to our organization. We are looking forward to continuing this great program."
enGen is on track to hire at least 2 more CAI associate project managers in the coming months, as well as to back-fill open positions with neurodiverse talent. The team of associate project managers at enGen is being given incredible opportunities to learn project management skills in a real-project world and gain invaluable working experience.
