On the heels of several awards across the Federal Civilian sector, to include at CMS, CDC, EPA, AHRQ, and HUD, we caught up with Christen Smith, Senior Vice President, U.S. Domestic at Abt Associates to find out how this engine for social impact, fueled by curiosity and cutting-edge research, is walking the walk, how it fulfills its small business commitment, and how it is doubling down for clients and partners.
Founded in Mission Impact
Since its founding in 1965, Abt has been committed to operating and measuring itself by the social benefit it generates. “Decades before we were talking about things like the triple bottom line and ESG frameworks for socially responsible business, Abt was pioneering the concept of a social audit for business, an impact measurement methodology and programming that was arguably the first of its kind in this space.”
Noting that was one of the draws when she was contemplating a career move nearly a year ago, Abt’s impact on a wide range of social and environmental policy issues is measured through an Annual Impact Report focusing on the company’s work, its people and operations, and contributions to the communities in which they live and work in the U.S. and over 50 countries.
The Future for (Post-Pandemic) Mission-Driven Work
As the public health emergency comes to an end, from an official policy view, many agencies will be affected. “The sunsetting of some pandemic related relief programs that provided extended access to the social safety net will have a ripple effect for many of our clients, our community partners and beneficiaries.”
One example is Medicaid unwinding, the rolling back of the provision that increased federal funding to Medicaid for States that extended continuous Medicaid coverage to enrollees until the end of the month in which the public health emergency comes to an end. “We’ve seen with that provision in place that Medicaid coverage has expanded, that the uninsured rate has dropped. The end of that provision is going to have a dramatic impact to current Medicaid recipients, the States, and CMS.”
It will be up to industry partners to help agencies understand and anticipate the impacts that are coming. “We can help agencies target support to those impacted, whether through outreach and enrollment support to people who remain eligible for Medicaid but might be disenrolled, or support to identify and connect to other sources of care, to include supportive services for social determinants of health.”
As the pandemic exposed many weaknesses to healthcare and other support systems, it also created a higher bar for user engagement and experience. “As contractors, we have to understand and acknowledge that agencies are also asking themselves how they can maintain that engagement, how they continue to improve collaboration and communication with and in communities. We need to be flexible, to meet our customers where they are on their digital journey, to bring innovation that will continue to move them forward.”
Success in innovation may be through new technology or new tools, but it must also bring an understanding of who is most able to use that tool, the impact of introducing a new way of interacting. “Any new solution should be viewed from an equity lens, addressing the inequities and disparities that lead to differential outcomes in any measure of effectiveness. The right solution, the best solution to reach the American public, is an equitable solution that recognizes and addresses the barriers and disparities getting in the way.”
Small Business Commitment
With well over 50 subcontracting plans for hundreds of projects with 24 different federal agencies, Abt is working to build diverse connections in the federal, state and local marketplaces, selecting vendors that align with its corporate values and prioritizing minority-owned and women-owned small businesses. “We’re happy to facilitate the government and other clients’ reach into those great capabilities that are provided by diverse firms, including small, minority-owned and disadvantaged businesses. When we’re partnering, we’re seeking to identify those capabilities that are important to our clients, those who can help us extend our reach into diverse local communities, and those who bring lived experience and the voice of the end user to the process.”
Providing small business with a focused opportunity to engage with senior leaders, to present capabilities, Abt regularly hosts small business events. “I would recommend interested partners keep an eye out for those opportunities to come and engage with me, with other senior leaders of our accounts and portfolios and capabilities as a meaningful way to engage and connect directly.”
A Partner Registry through which companies create profiles and showcase their best work, also allows Abt project directors to search the registry for companies with specific skills, expertise or location to fit an existing or future bid.
Work/Life Balance
Evaluating how it will engage with employees in a post public health emergency stance and a hybrid stance, Abt has doubled down on its efforts to ensure work/life balance, strengthening its efforts to ensure people feel they can, and do, take time. “We took a look at leveraging policy to achieve better work life balance and ensuring people could gracefully navigate time off with all of their different project teams.”
Creating space for everyone to be free of work, to know that the missions and clients and projects they care about will continue to be supported has been a really important conversation, “not just the policy, but about the culture and the practice that enables us to use our good policies to actually achieve what we’re trying to achieve – balanced individuals in the workplace.”
Doubling Down on the Client and Partners
Abt is focused on redoubling its commitment to client centricity, to partnering with clients early, engaging with them often. “We don’t achieve our mission without enabling the missions of the clients we support. That means looking not only at where they are today, but where they’re going and helping them connect the dots between different social determinants of health, different sectors, different disciplines.”
At the same time, Abt is doubling-down on technical excellence, recently adding a Chief Solutions Officer to ensure that everything Abt offers is effective, cutting edge, that it pulls in a diversity of skillsets in research, monitoring and evaluation; implementation and technical assistance; digital and data; and equity.
“You’ll see from Abt a deliberateness to advance the state of the science, the state-of-the-art in these capabilities, to make deliberate investments in our technical capabilities, in our expertise, in the integrated solutions that we offer to our clients, pulling from those capabilities in research, implementation, equity and digital and putting them together to create something meaningful for clients.”
Walking the Walk
Aligning corporately with its clients’ missions, among the programs Abt commits to are a global sustainability program, a company-wide framework for integrating sustainability into operations. “Our supply chains adhere to the UN Global Compact, which reflects our commitment to human rights, the environment, health and safety, business ethics and the development of a diverse and sustainable supply chain.”
Abt was also among a small cohort of US government contractors to earn EDGE Certification, the leading global assessment and business certification for gender equity in the workplace. “We apply our mission internally to our culture and our operations. This is also the lens through which we view and deliver our work. It shapes the types of engagements that we choose to invest in and take on and it shapes the investments that we make in the solutions that we provide to our clients, really focusing on that mission of human economic well-being and health.”
Employee Ownership as a Lens
As an employee-owned company (ESOP short for employee stock ownership plan), Abt is able to directly align employees with what it invests in, the work it pursues. “Employee ownership creates a really tight and strong linkage between the work we deliver externally and how we operationalize it internally for us. Free of some of the pressures of the quarterly shareholder report emphasizing quick return and quick profit quarter by quarter, we really can take the value set of that Abt employee who comes to work here because of our mission and the impact that they want to make in the world, and have a direct way of applying it to our operations.”
All of this combines to draw employees who are compelled by the work being done, creating a strong linkage between the intent and passion of both. “As an organization we take on pro bono work annually as part of our commitment, and our employee networking groups offer volunteer opportunities for people to come together and support the communities in which they work and live.”
About Christen Smith, Senior Vice President, U.S. Domestic
Christen Smith leads Abt Associates’ U.S. domestic business, comprising its work with government and philanthropic partners nationwide to improve people’s well-being. Named a Top Healthcare Exec to Watch 2021 and 2022, she oversees a cross-disciplinary team of more than 500 professionals working in health, housing, education, workforce and economic development, children and families, nutrition, justice, climate and environment, and other social determinants of health. A certified Project Management Professional, she has worked with clients ranging from community groups to federal agencies, including the Departments of Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, and State and the Military Health System; the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Food and Drug Administration, and National Institutes of Health; and the United States Agency for International Development. Before joining Abt, Smith was an executive leader at LMI, a mission-driven consulting group focused on the federal government. She led LMI’s federal health and civilian market and was the inaugural leader of its management consulting line of business, including more than 600 professionals in organizational management, policy and operations, science and technology, and national security. Smith holds a B.A. in public health from Clemson University and an MPA from Princeton University. She serves on the Board Directors of Girls on the Run of Northern Virginia.
About Abt
Abt Associates is an employee-owned, mission-driven, for-profit global research, consulting and technical assistance firm working in areas of health, climate and energy, and inclusive economic growth. Abt bridges disciplines and borders to improve the quality of life and economic well-being of people in the U.S. and more than 50 countries worldwide. We partner with clients and communities to advance equity and innovation—from creating scalable digital solutions and combatting infectious disease, to mitigating climate change and evaluating programs for measurable social impact—and more. http://www.abtassociates.com
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