Let's Talk Solutions: Overcoming Staffing and Recruiting Challenges with Chris Burciaga and Jonathan Beveridge

Kicking off season two, Amy and Jon chat with Chris Burciaga, President of Environmental Services Capital Division at HHS, and Jonathan Beveridge, President of Environmental Services Coastal Division at HHS, and discuss staffing and recruiting challenges in healthcare and how to create a good work culture.

Intro...

Amy Fritzer

Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of Let's Talk Solutions: Candid Conversations with Healthcare Leaders. I'm Amy Fritzer and introducing our new co-host, Jon Amos.

Jon Amos

Thanks, Amy. I'm super happy to be here and be a part of the podcast, and to get a chance to be on the inside of all the candid conversations. This week, we're discussing some of the various staffing and recruiting challenges that hospitals are facing across the country.

While obviously there is no silver bullet, we are going to dive in today into some of the ways hospitals and healthcare leaders can actually overcome some of these challenges, create a work culture that doesn't just attract team members, but also makes them want to stay, and then how outsourcing can offer creative solutions when it comes to this issue.

Amy Fritzer

And we're joined by Chris Burciaga and Jonathan Beveridge, who are both presidents of EVS for HHS. And together they have a combined 36 years of experience managing all aspects of operations for a variety of healthcare facilities. So, welcome Chris and JB, thank you for joining us today, we appreciate it, and let's get started. 

On Chris and Jonathan’s background...

Amy Fritzer

So, you both have a combined 36 years of experience managing all aspects of operations at a variety of healthcare facilities. Just real quick, would you mind just telling us a little bit about your backgrounds and how you both came into healthcare support services operations?

Chris Burciaga

Yeah, absolutely. So my background, Amy, I started off as a medical officer in medical service ops from the U.S. Army, where support services were under my umbrella over the course of 13 years, and I got to manage health care operations from Iraq to combat ground operations to military treatment facilities, small clinics, and things like that. 

Upon transition from the U.S. Army, I came into corporate healthcare, where I came in as a wound care director, managing a sector of wound care here in Northeast Texas. From there, my career took into hospital operations. I became a COO and then got command support services more in detail there. From that point, I had jumped here to HHS, and that's what brought me to you all.

Amy Fritzer

So what about you, JB?

Jonathan Beveridge

For me, I actually worked my way through school as a restaurant manager and graduated college and kept my restaurant career for about another six months until I applied for HHS and started with HHS almost six years ago as an assistant director and have just progressively worked my way up since.

On staffing and recruiting challenges…

Jon Amos

So you guys obviously both have quite a bit of experience in healthcare and then in EVS and support services too. In terms of right now, we're going to be talking about staffing and recruiting and the challenges that the industry is facing as a whole.

I'm curious what your takes are on what challenges are kind of across the board and then what you're seeing as ways to manage that as best you can out in the field, what you're kind of seeing that works and doesn't work, and what your thoughts are on that?

Jonathan Beveridge

I think the biggest thing for us right now with recruitment and retention is it's different for every market. So what works in Nashville, Tennessee, is not going to work in Houston, it's not going to work in Orlando, Florida.

I would say that the tools that we have though, between recruiting resources, active recruiting with our leadership out in the community, and the tools we arm them with from a financial incentive standpoint with retention, bonuses, recruitment bonuses, etc. help us to be able to identify candidates and get them in. Then again, the best recruitment strategy is retention.

Chris Burciaga

Yeah, absolutely. I agree with JB 100%, but it's a tough market. What we see in the larger cities is that fierce competition. You know, we're competing with not just the healthcare industry, but hospitality services, Amazon delivery services like that. For us, it's about being creative. Jonathan and I were part of this Southwest University rollout to help our team members with further education, to be more competitive like the Amazons, the HCA, the hospital partners where we lose employees too.

I think in our rural community hospitals where jobs are less available, where they're more scarce, we have a lot of success right now. I think our wages and the things in that market are holding us together. But then in cities like Atlanta, Nashville, Houston, the major Florida cities where we're in a big metro. I mean, that's where I think we see our challenges today.

Amy Fritzer

So to follow up on that, Chris, I mean, you just said that actually, both of you mentioned that it is a major issue across all lines and services, right? So what are some of the things when you mentioned getting kind of creative? 

Or I mean, how do you go about creating a candidate pool?

Chris Burciaga

Yeah, absolutely. You know, for me, for my group, it's about creativity. You’ve got to create a culture of awareness where people know it's positive. People know there's an incentive outside of just dollars to want to work here and stay here.

You know, that's been the big push that I think what we've been working together as a group is developing that culture, that one HHS culture that we've been, over the last year, pushing and emphasizing. 

A lot of our employees come from word of mouth. You know, someone refers someone who refers someone who refers someone and so on and so on. You know, we have a lot of employees that are in our markets that came to work for us because they were referred by their neighbor, friend, or someone from church.

When you develop that type of culture, that kind of esprit de corps where people want to come work for you based on what they hear from others in the community, that's how you build your pool, and I think that's how you build your pipeline.

Let's be frank, you know, this world and this service line, people will go work for other people for a dollar, two, three dollars an hour. But when you have a great culture, you have opportunities, you have education, you have an environment that's fun to work at, you're going to have better retention.

Jonathan Beveridge

Yeah, and to further that, Chris really hit the nail home about the culture and driving that saw for existing business. You know, when we develop new partnerships, when we don't have that culture quite yet established, there are other tools like social media blasts that we do. We have recruiters that we can deploy that help us this and that, and then ensure that we are actively recruiting in the community. 

So when I say that, you know, just as an example, when I'm out at a restaurant eating as I travel, I'm leaving my business card behind for folks even running into hotel housekeepers in the hallways when I'm checking out, handing them business cards and the expectation is that our managers are doing the same in their communities, going to churches and again community outreach programs, etc.

On creating a positive culture…

Jon Amos

Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense. I was actually going to ask about that active recruiting approach. I'm glad you touched on that because I think that's a huge, huge part of recruiting as kind of an effort for all of us across the company that it's on us to take part in that and to be active with that, and I think that's a huge part of it.

As far as if you're talking to, you know, just a hospital administrator who's dealing with whether it be high turnover or competing like you said, Chris, in the major cities with other job opportunities, and they're dealing with these pressures.

I know we just ran through a bunch of solutions, but what are you saying to them in terms of consulting them on how to address that?

Chris Burciaga

Yeah, I like to do a root cause analysis with both of my administrators that are having these problems. You gotta get down to the core. What is happening? Why is it happening? Are they leaving you for travel work, two dollars more an hour, culture?

I mean, these are things that as a management company, we provide those solutions. You know, we go in there and say, ‘hey, you're an in-house program and you're only 60% staffed, why is that?’ Or, ‘hey, your current vendor isn’t meeting these expectations, or what's going on on that side?’ 

And you know, for Jonathan and I, that's what we do a lot of. We go to markets, we do root cause analysis of problems, we provide solutions. They want a partner that provides not just hypothetical answers, but solutions to these challenges. And when they have that type of relationship, it's a better life for them, and it's good for us. And I think that's what we do very well.

Jonathan Beveridge

I think Chris hit it on the head. I mean, it's truly about being a solution-based partner. And that's a lot of what we do every day.

Amy Fritzer

So, just to follow up on that real quick. When you go in and you say you talk with the administrator and you try to find the root cause, do you interview team members? Do you go around to different departments in the facility and kind of, you know, talk with the department heads? Or, how do you guys go about that?

Jonathan Beveridge

Well, it's a combination of both. I mean, we have team member town hall meetings. You know, when we're rounding, we actively engage team members. When we round on the floor, we’re speaking to frontline nursing staff to ensure that we're partnering with them. 

It's kind of a collaboration to ensure not only that our culture is aligned with HHS, but also that we're aligned with the hospital culture because we want to blend seamlessly with that organization as well. That's super important that we do that in that partnership.

Chris Burciaga

JB is absolutely correct. When I was an administrator, Amy, I would tell you that I got to work with a lot of vendors, people that would service my hospitals. And the one thing that really stood out about HHS and why I decided to come work for you all is, we are a people company. You know, when JB and I and the leadership go into hospitals, we look for opportunities to engage leaders, team members, hourly team members to build our program, to build our culture.

I’ve worked for others where it's financially driven. They're going to look at what the impact is on them and their bottom line. We don't do that. And I think that's what sets us apart. I think that's what helps us build that kind of culture is that we really focus on people in the operation. And, you know, to JB's point, that's kind of what we do well.

Jonathan Beveridge

You know, when you have leaders like Christy McConnell, I mean, she does a great job establishing a culture at her facility. She does a ‘Rockstar of the Week’ in her weekly spotlight report that goes to the customer, actually.

You know, she has an ‘Employee of the Month’ that she does on her own. She celebrates birthdays and she's a servant leader. She gets in and works with the team. And having that servant leader attitude and just simply saying thank you on a daily basis, she's been able to establish a great culture in her facility.

On wage challenges…

Jon Amos

That's great. I think that a lot of the conversation around this too probably comes down to wages and wages are a huge part of recruiting and retention and staffing. That's just a common challenge that I know is being faced, obviously across the industry.

If you're in a situation or there's an administrator in a situation where their wage rates are maybe below market average and there's an inability to meet that for whatever reason, what are ways that an administrator or a hospital can address that issue and still find ways to either get creative and fund those dollars or lean into something of other things you guys have talked about? 

Chris Burciaga

I’ll let JB take that one because he's done quite a bit of that.

Jonathan Beveridge

So, you know, with wages, you can't hide from wages, you know, I reference that it's not always one silver bullet, but we do market wage analysis. We provide those, you know, a beautiful layout that force ranks where we stand among our competition in the market for that specific hospital or partnership.

And the conversation does have to be tackled. We do provide a significant amount of data to back that up once we provided the wage analysis to them. We come to the table with solutions. And that again, it doesn't have to be us asking our partner for money. It can be cost neutral or a portion of funding from them and a cost-neutral approach through finding efficiencies within the job that might be there or offsetting things. Maybe we bring another solution to the table, like linen utilization management that picks up finances for them. And then we use those dollars to help find wage increases. Got to be solution-based and think outside the box.

Amy Fritzer

Yeah, that's a good point. And it kind of leads into what we've been talking about is, like you said, about being a people-based company, a solutions-based company, kind of shows benefits of having a strong partner that a facility could utilize, right? 

Or outsourcing, for example, because we are able to find that, we are able to get creative, find ways to help offset costs, or maybe spread an FTE here or there or things like that. 

And Chris, you were a former COO and administrator. So when you looked at, you know, exploring an outsourced model versus doing in-house, for example, what are some ways that an outsourced model could help it? Could it just be as simple as offering more solutions? Or is there more to it than just that?

Chris Burciaga

Oh, there's a lot more to it, there's a lot of liability in healthcare administration for the operation of running a hospital. And you know, when I went through my MBA program, you're not taught the liabilities of support services. You know, the objective with a lot of these curricula that are out there is to teach the business piece, the legal piece and a lot of those things that go into running a hospital.

I think I might have covered maybe two or three weeks in my couple of years of studies at the postgraduate level in support services. So for a lot of administrators, you know, they're worried about the day-to-day operation of the clinical staff, the actual patient care of patients, physicians making sure they have nursing, making sure they have ancillary support to help with running the O.R., running imaging. These are the big challenges CEOs, CNOs face on a daily basis. If you can outsource the liability of support services, that's one less thing to worry about, that's one less thing on your mind because quite frankly, you know, we do a lot as an organization to prepare a hospital for CMS inspections, Joint Commission, just monthly education for all team members, leadership. That all takes resources, that all takes money, that all takes time. And those senior C-suite folks, they're worried about taking care of people and having the resources, the clinical resources to take care of people.

So you know, when you can sell that liability and take on a company like us that's going to keep you aligned, keep you in compliance. I mean, that's sometimes the best, the best option. You know, they don't have time to worry about ‘Hey, I'm short 20 housekeepers, where do I go to find 20 housekeepers?’. They’re worried about ‘Hey, I'm short 20 nurses and I need these nurses to run the ICU. Now where do I find these clinical licensed professionals?’, and that's what they're dealing with. And when they have companies like us, we're helping to balance out the house so that they don't have to worry about that.

Amy Fritzer

Mm hmm. So when you say liabilities, you're talking about the added stress.

Chris Burciaga

The added stress, the management of the building, you know, there's a lot that goes into a hospital. There's a lot, you know, there's a lot of square footage in there that needs to be addressed. And that liability of making sure some companies do that for you, not just the day-to-day operations of cleaning, but also keeping you in compliance. 

If you're not in compliance, you get fined. So there's that, there's that liability of that, too. So, overall, when you outsource, you reduce that stress, you reduce that impact that allows you to have time to go focus on other things.

Jonathan Beveridge

Not only that, you're picking up expertise, so you're partnering with an expert in the field and bringing additional resources. So if they do have opportunity in the department and then we can bring additional resources from anywhere in the country. When we had a hurricane a couple of years ago, within 24 hours of Hurricane Michael hitting one of our partner facilities, we had 20 people deployed into the hospital working to help get it reopened. So, you pick up that additional bonus and benefits when you outsource with a vendor.

Jon Amos

It seems also like the framing of the solutions outsourcing brings is important because as it relates to staffing and recruiting for hourly positions, especially in EVS, you know, I think it's clear that there's no there's no silver bullet. There's nothing that if you're going to flip a switch you're never going to have this problem again. 

It's a constant challenge that you're having to manage and overcome, and outsourcing isn't something that operates as a silver bullet, but it brings in someone as a partner to help manage that for you. Like you said, Chris, take that option. Am I right in thinking about it that way?

Chris Burciaga

Yeah, there's a lot of resources that go to managing the hospital, and you're right. We're going to talk about HR, the onboarding process. Your internal team now has to manage that as well, and with turnover as high as it is in this industry, you know you're limited on your budgets of an HR department. 

So when you have a team like ours, you know, Jonathan and I, we have an infrastructure of regional support operators, recruiters, a home office that can help to expedite the onboarding. You know, the hiring of a team member. It’s going through our channels, our funnels where we're set up to do that and it's not impacting the hospital to that level where they're having to add either additional resources or find ways to attract the talent that we're finding because we already have that in place.

Amy Fritzer

That makes a lot of sense. It seems like it would be a seamless choice in some regards, especially when things are so challenging, you know?

Chris Burciaga

Absolutely.

On retention…

Jon Amos

JB, you mentioned something earlier that I don't think we dove into, but retention being probably the biggest part of successfully staffing and not dealing with this challenge as much. Can you speak on that a little bit and how do you improve and maintain retention and using that as a strategy to help kind of solve the staffing turnover challenge?

Jonathan Beveridge

Yeah. So, retention is the best recruitment strategy. So, you do that by having a positive culture in the department, and I know that word gets tossed around a lot, but doing the extra things, I referenced Chrissy McConnell and her spotlight report that goes to our partner. She has a ‘Rockstar of the Week’ and an ‘Employee of the Month’. She does birthday celebrations, they have potlucks. Again, building the team and the culture in that department. She's a servant leader. I think that goes a long way and then simply saying thank you to folks when they do a good job.

It doesn't always have to be corrective actions or corrective behavior. We do have quality audits and inspections that we do have to do, but thank folks for the hard work that they do. I know when Chris and I round and I've seen Scott do it when he rounds, we're thanking team members for the hard work that they do because it is hard work and they come to work every day to do it. But again, that also has to align with the hospital culture as well, or our partners culture, we need to blend seamlessly in with them.

You don't see us running around with logos or outfits on because we want to blend in with the hospital and their organization as well.

Jon Amos

I actually wanted to follow up, JB with you, because you started as an assistant director with HHS and then worked your way up. You know, one of the benefits of outsourcing is that there is that career advancement, right? There is that opportunity for career growth, for moving growth sideways to another account.

So can you speak on that a little bit? Is that something that you find as effective for recruiting? I guess more in the management realm, but even seeing hourly to salary, you know, promotions, you know, how effective is that and bringing that up and talking about that and using that as a strategy?

Jonathan Beveridge

It's absolutely effective. I mean, everyone wants to grow in their career and advance. You know, they look for that. You'll see hourly, salary, it doesn't matter. I think we pride ourselves on identifying individuals that are in the hourly ranks that can move up and want to move up.

Chris referenced this earlier, we have Southwest University that we partner with now that helps give educational platforms to help them advance. And if it's not with us, it’ll still better their lives for growth, maybe somewhere else.

But to your point, I did come up as an assistant director. We prided ourselves in hiring supervisors from our hourly staff, and I've seen a lot of those individuals move the whole way up to the director roles. Our COO came up as a floor tech, originally. So that is something that as an organization, I think we pride ourselves in the ability to offer that opportunity for our team members, no matter what position they're currently in.

Jon Amos

When you started as an assistant director, did you have that path in mind? Where you are now?

Jonathan Beveridge

I did. When I started as assistant director, I wanted to grow within the organization and I opened up my ability to relocate to speed that process up. So, I moved into a director role within about a year and then I progressed from, you know, a small job site to larger job sites and then eventually into a regional role. But it was always my goal to advance within the organization and hopefully, I'll retire from here.

Chris Burciaga

Jon, here's the thing that we talked to a lot of our junior leaders about, the way our company grows on a year-to-year basis, this is the place to be. I mean, you are going to grow and you're going to continue to build up, but you've got to be flexible and you’ve got to be willing to do it.

On continuing education and training…

Amy Fritzer

Touching on some of the benefits, I would think one of the other ones is in ongoing training and development and things like that. So, is that a big talking point with customers and things like that?

Some of our customers, for example, that are having issues with staffing and retention and whatnot in training and development and moving on to leadership roles. Is that a pretty hot topic right now, too?

Chris Burciaga

Yeah, absolutely. You know, when you're in a house, you know, you're the director of the linen director, you might have the opportunity depending on the size of the hospital to become a VP of support services, if you're well rounded. If you’re not, there's not much advancement after that. You can get stuck in a role that you're going to have to want to be or move out. With us, we have that education background, we have the home office training, we have the one-on-one mentorship between directors, VPs, and all the way up the chain.

The way we structure our training grounds for improvement. You don't find that in-house and for folks that are support service driven or that's, you know, the career field. They're going to stay with working for a company like ours it’s the sweet spot. I mean, that's where you want to be if you want to continue to grow and move into an executive rank down the line and be able to manage the big picture. You know, we have that infrastructure, while some in-house programs don't.

On internal communications and HHS’ culture…

Amy Fritzer

I always thought one of the coolest things that our company does is Chatter [company-wide message board] for all the other directors and VPs. I always thought ‘that is so neat’ and I just love to see how the directors will ask questions. Say somebody in Georgia will post the question, and next thing you know, there's a couple answers from directors from all over the country just to add another resource for them, right? Another help, which if you're in-house, you don't have that.

Chris Burciaga

You don't have that, right.

Amy Fritzer

Exactly. Or, they celebrate milestones and victories at each of their facilities. For example, JB, you're mentioning the ‘Employee of the Month’, birthdays, etc. I think it's neat when it's not recognized only in the facility, but when you have the network of other facilities all over, you can share it company-wide. I think that's a huge benefit, too.

Jonathan Beveridge

It's funny you mention that because I think I get tagged almost weekly on a post from a director or an assistant director celebrating something, whether it's, you know, injury free days and hitting a milestone with that or a team birthday. 

I got a lot of them for housekeeping week and I do my best to go in and comment and thank the team for what they're doing each and every time. But yeah, about every week I get tagged in something.

Amy Fritzer

I see you tagged a lot too, Chris.

Chris Burciaga

Yeah. Amy, I'll tell you. You know what you just said a few minutes ago when I had it in-house and my EVS director had no solution, I would go upstairs and pull out my phone book and say, ‘Hey, I remember this guy at HHS and call him, ‘Hey, man, I have a problem, can you help me?’ And when you're in-house, you don't have that. You know, the end of the line is usually an associate administrator or a VP of support. And they're managing the business or managing the program, but they might not always have the specifics to troubleshoot like we do.

Jonathan Beveridge

We pride ourselves on our leadership and our team in totality. I mean, when you hear about HHS in the industry, the first thing you hear about is not only the quality of our programs, but our people.

On COVID-19’s impact on staffing…

Jon Amos

So I kind of think as we kind of come to a close on this, obviously with the pandemic, I'm just curious in terms of its impact on staffing has obviously been huge. And staffing, even before the pandemic was a hot topic, something that was a challenge. But, do you see in the foreseeable future like a swing back to pre-pandemic times?

Or, is this something that's forever different because people's perception of healthcare in the public is just different? What are your thoughts on going forward, how COVID-19 has changed the staffing challenge?

Chris Burciaga

Jon, I think the challenge JB and I face all the time is healthcare changes. It's changing every 90 days to six months. The platform itself for patient delivery is changing. And then for our team members, Jonathan and I, our challenge is that we lose team members every time there's a new challenge in the market. And unfortunately, we're seeing something different every 90 days to six months.

Over the last 18 months, since COVID-19 was declared here in the United States, we've seen a lot of change in the way we have to operate and the way we manage team members, and I don't see it stabilizing, Jon, to your point to pre-COVID-19 in the near future. I know that it's going in waves. It's changing, it's evolving. It evolves so much that, JB and I, that's all we do is have to change our game plans just to just keep up.

Jonathan Beveridge

I think the initial COVID-19 outbreak, you saw a mass exodus of folks because everyone was scared. They were scared to work in healthcare. They were scared of the virus. Every day was evolving on a new platform on ‘how to address this, how to clean this, does it stay alive on the surface for X amount of time.’ Plus, there were supply shortages, PPE shortages and that fear was perpetuated throughout. So not only our industry, but all industries. 

I think we've gotten past that point where we know how to handle this pandemic from a cleaning standpoint or a management standpoint. But, we do have to continually, as Chris mentioned, it's still changing. We're still getting waves. So I think the continual education that we provide, not only through our learning and development team, but also our management team and our partners, we have to keep reinforcing that with our teams to subside any fears that they may or may not have about the ongoing pandemic. I mean, if we’re being candid, the odds of you getting it in the hospital are far less than out in the general public because you are provided with the appropriate protection.

Amy Fritzer

It might be the new normal. I mean, I know every time you hear that cliche, you just roll your eyes. But it's so true. I mean, it could be our new normal.

Chris Burciaga

Amy, I'll tell you, I spent a lot of time overseas while in the U.S. Army and the stressors I think that I had as a leader last year and this year dealing with COVID-19 and the unknowns of what this thing was doing to the people due to our hospital systems, to our employees. I had more stressors in the last 18 months than I did in my multiple tours in Iraq.

There's just so many unknowns, so many articles, so many publications, then just hearing the comments, the concerns, seeing the faces of our team members in COVID-19 units, day in and day out, the stressors of that and having to be in there. It by far outweighed a lot of the things I got to see overseas.

On finding a ‘why’…

Jon Amos

Wow. You know, I talked to some directors and a lot of them, just as with any service job, will tell you having your own personal ‘why’ is so important to having longevity and this career. 

Has there been any positive in terms of there's more meaning, there's more purpose behind what we do? There have obviously been more challenges and fear which has led to an exodus, but in terms of people maybe rallying around and finding more purpose, has that been something that's been experienced at all?

Jonathan Beveridge

I would say yes. Part of what we do is instill the ‘why’ in our team. I mean, ultimately, we're all in,it doesn't matter who you are in that hospital, you're there for that one person that's laying on the bed that's our sole purpose.

It doesn't matter if you're a foodservice worker, if you're a trash tech, if you're a manager, if you're the CEO of the hospital, your purpose is to ensure that the patient is taken care of and they make it home safely.

So, yeah, we do. And instill the ‘why’ in everyone. I think COVID-19 probably would reinforce that with folks that did stay. And I can think of a team member in our Capital Region. She was the first one to volunteer to clean the COVIDrooms, and she set the standard and the example for the rest of the team as the population surged well above 50% of the hospital. So, you know, you have those team members that demonstrate the ‘why’ and the purpose and that feeds and gets the other team on board as well.

It is infectious. I would even say even as leaders when COVID-19 first happened, we were doing our best to get out into the hospitals ourselves to be there with our teams. You know, as an executive leader with our organization, it was never our expectation that we stayed at home and managed from the house, we all got out in the hospitals to ensure that our teams were being seen and feeling supported and our partners were feeling supported.

On being a part of a team…

Amy Fritzer

That's a great point, JB. I just want to backtrack a little bit, when you're talking about the culture and how important that is and instilling support in the teams and the cohesiveness of the team. How does a leader say, an EVS director or food service director, how do they go about making a housekeeper, which is not the most glamorous but an extremely important role, make them feel included and such a big part of our operations of the program?

Chris Burciaga

Yeah, I'll tell you by acknowledging, when Jonathan I round in hospitals, we acknowledge the team member. It's not a ‘hey, how are you doing?’, you address a team member by their first name, you bump fists, and then you ask them about what they're doing and how they're impacting patient care. 

And then, you know what? What our boss, Scott, likes to do is he’ll ask nurses in the area, ‘do you know your housekeeper?’ And when they turn around and say, ‘hey, yeah, I know Maria really well, you know, she's here, she's a part of our team, she goes to team huddles.’ That solidifies that the people we have fighting the front lines are tied to their units and are tied to their nurses.

When you hear stuff like that, that's when you know, you know that they're being included. But, then when we go and we do those rounds and we acknowledge that, we praise them, we chat with them, it makes them feel special. It makes them feel a part of our company, our team. It's when you have the COO or the CEO of HHS overall thanking them for the service personally by their first name, I think it's very impactful in the way we do business.

Jonathan Beveridge

For me, we're a family owned organization and I've always treated my team as part of my family when I was an assistant director, when I was a director. When I was a director, I had several assistant directors and they've carried that message down to their teams now. So, just being a part of a family again, being run as a family-owned organization, I think goes a long way demonstrating that culture inclusivity for everyone.

I think that goes a long way and people feel it when you're genuine. People will quickly understand if you're being disingenuous and they will read that very quickly.

Amy Fritzer

Yeah, I would agree.

Jon Amos

Well, we’ve really appreciated having you on and your leadership at our company has been outstanding and it's been awesome to get your guys’ insight just on what's going on out in the field. Just the challenges that different people are experiencing and how you guys are working to address that and overcome it as best you can. So, we appreciate your time and everything you're doing.