In his first six months at Vanderbilt’s Dayani Center, Eric Jarvis maneuvered a car crash, a tornado and a pandemic.
Through it all, his leadership has been a steadying influence for his 60-member team
January 8, 2021
Photo by Susan Urmy
Credo Award winner Eric Jarvis is one of those leaders who would much rather push others into the spotlight than stand in it himself.
It’s not that he’s shy, it’s just that he believes in doing everything he can to create opportunities for his 60-member team at the Vanderbilt Dayani Center for Health and Wellness to excel and achieve their goals. Jarvis is the facility’s operations manager and oversees all aspects of the Dayani Center’s operations as well as Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation clinics at Vanderbilt Health One Hundred Oaks and Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital.
He joined Vanderbilt last December after six years at HCA, and to say his first year has been memorable would be an understatement. Actually, the first six months alone were a literal whirlwind.
First, a vehicle crashed through the Dayani Center’s rear wall, causing significant damage. Then severe storms in March and May did considerable damage to his home, which he and his wife, Linda, had recently finished building. Both times they were without power, first for two weeks and then for another week.
And then, of course, there is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“With the car crash, he ensured staff was safe, patients were accounted for and the structure was sound. With the storms, even though his house was damaged he was texting and calling each staff member to ensure their safety,” said Marilyn Young, administrative assistant.
“Eric has truly gone above and beyond daily during this journey. He has been an example by cleaning our parking lot in the morning and helping clean bathrooms if necessary, as well as wiping down the lobby.”
Mack Howell, MBA, EdD, administrative director for the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, agrees that Jarvis has been a steadying influence.
“Eric has done a great job engaging his staff and creating a collaborative culture. When I talk with staff they rave about his leadership by example and his work to elevate and engage the staff more deeply.”
Part of that engagement was reflected during the early months of the pandemic, when the Dayani Center limited services to only the most critical patients. Staff members were to be temporarily redirected into new roles, such as temperature screening, and Jarvis wanted them to be involved in deciding where and when they worked.
“Eric has done a great job engaging his staff and creating a collaborative culture. When I talk with staff they rave about his leadership by example and his work to elevate and engage the staff more deeply.”
“We gave people choices about locations and times and tried to make it easier on everyone,” Jarvis said. “We wanted to give them some freedom and we didn’t want people to think we were kicking them to the curb but wanted to give them some flexibility to create what best fit their work/life balance. When everything is confused, people can’t be happy or functional. We wanted to ask, not tell.”
Connecting with employees on a personal level and being empathetic are lessons Jarvis learned early on.
“When I was younger, I had some not-so-great managers and I thought, ‘when I get in their shoes, I know what I don’t want to be.’ Everything is so much better if you just show a bit of a human side. Learn your team members, learn and remember their spouses’ names, their kids’ names.
“That above anything else, it’s the human side, putting forth a little effort. It’s not rocket science.”
