Senior Care Academy
Senior Care Academy is a podcast dedicated to providing valuable information and expert advice on navigating the world of senior care for both senior care providers, and families with aging parents. Hosted by industry professionals, each episode covers a wide range of topics including healthcare options, legal considerations, financial planning, and emotional support for caregivers. If you are a healthcare provider, have aging parents, or are a senior adult, this podcast is for you! Tune in to gain valuable insights and resources to help you make informed decisions and provide the best care for your loved ones.
Senior Care Academy
From Zookeeping to HR Mastery: Katie Tanner's Insights on Empathy and Growth
Experience the journey of Katie Tanner, our guest whose path led her from zookeeping to head of HR at multiple firms.
Through her unique perspective, Katie uncovers the essential role empathy plays in effective HR management and shares her commitment to being an approachable ally for employees. Her insightful concept of "coaching up or coaching out" provides a fresh take on aligning individual growth with organizational culture.
Discover the intricacies of scaling a company from 11,000 to 35,000 employees in just two years without compromising staff morale or patient care. Katie shares her experiences with creative employee appreciation strategies that bypass bureaucratic hurdles, offering a playbook for those navigating rapid organizational growth. Our conversation delves into the high-stakes world of mergers and acquisitions, particularly in healthcare, where aligning cultures and maintaining transparent communication are crucial for success.
Join us as we unpack the critical role HR plays during organizational transitions, focusing on early involvement and proactive strategies to ensure workforce stability and satisfaction. Katie's firsthand experiences in the post-acute care sector shed light on the challenges and opportunities of moving between organizations of different sizes. This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking to gain valuable insights into the complexities of healthcare and HR leadership, as well as practical advice on navigating similar challenges in their own professional journeys.
Our guest today is Katie Tanner, senior Professional in Human Resources, sphr and Senior Human Resources Manager at Helperly. Before Helperly, she worked in the post-acute care space as a VP of HR at PAX, taking them from 50 buildings to over 200 and pre-IPO. With over a decade of experience across HR functions, such as mergers and acquisitions, policy development, employee engagement, katie brings a wealth of knowledge and passion for putting the human back in human resources. She's here to share her insights on leading with empathy, developing people-first policies and fostering cultures that drive business success. We're excited to dive into Katie's wealth of knowledge and learn more about her approach to HR leadership. Thanks for coming on, katie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Yes, of course, so kind of jumping into it. What originally got you started in HR? We talked a little bit before about how you were a zookeeper and doing all this fun stuff, and then you got into HR and then I had to get a real job right so I had.
Speaker 2:It's kind of funny like no one really goes to school thinking I want to be in human resources for the rest of my life and deal with all these issues.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So I had just graduated and I just needed a job. My very first job after I graduated college was at a nursing home and I was sitting at their front desk just answering phones and that's about it. And so I was there for about a month and their payroll person went out on maternity leave. So they asked me if I would just do it while she was gone. I'm like, yeah, sure, whatever. So I started doing that. Well, then their HR person moved out of state, so they asked me if I would take on that too. And I'm like sure, it can't be that that that hard, and I just absolutely kind of love, loved it and I just kind of rolled with it. I I taught myself most most everything with it. I I taught myself most most everything, and then I just absolutely loved it at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what. What did you love about it and what's kept you?
Speaker 2:going throughout the years and staying in HR. Yeah, so I have a background in behavioral science and so I like the kind of aspect of like, of, of like helping people react, um, helping people under, uh, understand things that they might not understand, and just like helping people um with with. With that first job, I had a corporate HR person who was the scariest person that I had ever met. The very first time that I met her she was just very short and very rude and it was very hard to actually ask questions because she would get really mad very fast.
Speaker 2:And so from that point, on. I just kind of decided that I would never be that person, right, and so, um, and so I just kind of made it my like personal mission that if I was going to stick with an HR, that that that I wanted to be the HR person that people wanted to talk to, not that they had had had to talk to, and so that's just has, that's just how, how I have, like, personally, grown.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a great ideal to aspire to it's. I could see how it's difficult, though, trying to balance that. So how, over the years, have you been able to be the HR person that's approachable, but also, when the time comes, being able to kind of not lay down, lay down the law when you need to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like.
Speaker 1:Hey, policies are policies and I need to. So how did you balance that and how have you? How would you suggest other people be able to balance that where they can lean in? Maybe they're way overly charismatic and they never lean in and put their foot down when they need to, or they're just a dictator and they don't have a heart. How do you meet in the middle?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it is this very fine balance right Of like. We are working with humans. Humans, naturally, are going to make mistakes and they are going to do something wrong, and so you can either choose to coach people up and then help them work out things, or you can choose to coach them out right, and so you just have to find that fine line of everybody can be taught something and maybe it's not on this team and so I'm going to help you learn something else on another team, right? But you just have to have that kind of mindset that people are going to make mistakes and you have to have that empathy side, like no matter what, because if you don't have like, if, if you don't care about your people, then they are not going to care about your business, and if you don't have people helping you run, then you don't have a business eventually Right.
Speaker 2:And so you just have to find ways to keep your people happy. However that is and it's not necessarily always with money, and so that's what I have just kind of ran with, and that's how I just like running HR stuff is that if you take care of your people first, then all of your processes will just naturally happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and starting with the people, all the way back to kind of a culture like coach them up or coach them out, like it's a charismatic thing to coach them up into it, cause if you are coaching them up to fit into the culture of the place that you're working, they're going to thrive and they're going to be happy. Um, and so I think it does. Culture is a very like like buzzword kind of, but it's kind of a dirty word.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, what's?
Speaker 1:culture. It's a tech company that has a ping pong table in the break room, right. But yeah, like coaching and caring about them to the point where, for the charismatic people, coaching is showing that you care about them and for the dictator people like, how about you reward them for when they do like those small things? It doesn't have to be financial, but that helps them stay in the line. Let's jump a little bit about into your journey in post acute care. You were there for a few years crazy growth, yeah. Talk about how that was versus other roles that you had in HR, because post-acute or really any industry that works with seniors, I feel like the turnover rate, especially in direct care staff, can be really high. So kind of just walk through that.
Speaker 2:So healthcare is just its own kind of like beast right. And especially post COVID. There was so many things that happened, naturally, right. So most of your businesses, when COVID happened, pivoted and people are working from home and their processes are still happening Well within the 24-hour health care world. That did not happen, right. We actually started being all of our patients' direct family at that point.
Speaker 2:That's interesting, because that's who they saw every single day, right, and so instead, instead of their family coming and their family visiting them, we, we, we started being their actual family every single day, right, um, or their family was, was um visiting through through a FaceTime call or something kind of kind of like that, for a for a good like year, kind of like that for a good like year.
Speaker 2:That is how things kind of like were right. But again, if you take care of your people, then they're gonna take care of your clients and your patients and that type of stuff. In order to work within the healthcare field like it takes a very special person right.
Speaker 2:Like they have to actually care about what they're doing and they want to come to work not that they have to come to work, and so you just have to make them feel appreciated every single day, and it could be something super simple or it could be something huge, right, but you have to make that happen. It doesn't just naturally happen and that happens with really good leaders, it happens with very, very good processes and just literally making your staff feel like you honestly care about them every single day. Yeah, um, especially within the post acute care world, because patients are there because they can't be home.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um or or because it's not safe in order for them to be home. And so you're helping them get to that point, and so that's where help really kind of takes over.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So so, um so, it's this kind of just like takes over, Right, so so so, it's this kind of just like natural growth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, it is really interesting thing that I feel like isn't I mean, people know that it happened, but it isn't like talked about like everybody else? Covid shut down. Okay, I guess we're meeting on zoom today? It's like no, I still have to show up every single day, especially in the early days when you, like before we knew the extent or more about it, it felt like every day your life was at risk, right Like in a very intense way.
Speaker 2:And there were rules changing every single day. There were laws changing every single day. Ahr was like flying unblind for like 18 months.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Because you could have this like new uh state, uh law, and then tomorrow it's different, and then it's different in this state, or it's different in this state or or like maybe you are um testing every single day in one state, but but you're not testing in in in in another state. And maybe you're wearing masks here, but you're not testing in another state. And maybe you're wearing masks here, but you're not wearing masks there.
Speaker 2:And so yeah, it was this kind of struggle, you know. But I mean patient safety always came first right and then staff also. But yeah, it was super tricky, especially when you're with these very vulnerable patients and again, you are their family during this time, because families not allowed in. Yeah, right Because there were so many rules around it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and not to mention during that time. So in your tenure in post-acute, you 4X'd the amount of people and buildings during all of those policy changes. It was super crazy, yeah for sure. What did you learn? As far as dramatic growth?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think you have a very unique insight where you had dramatic growth in a very dramatic, unprecedented time in human history. So what were the good and then what was the bad? Like not the bad as far as um, we'll cut this out. Not the bad as far as the bad, but the bad, like the difficulties specifically in HR and trying to keep people during that time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. So I'm. I mean, there's um a lot of trial and error growing right, so a lot of. How many support people do I need in order to back up patient growth? Or, you know, beds filled or kind of however you want to look at?
Speaker 1:it right.
Speaker 2:So there was a lot of challenge around how do I make this grow and I keep my staff happy, right, but we also keep our patients taken care of. And so, again, there was a lot of trial and error around ratio hiring and trying to figure out how much back-end support we could give and still grow and still function and make sure that all of our current staff are still being cared for correctly, but knowing that there's X amount of people coming on within an X amount of time, right. So a lot of patience, a lot of grace, as you're like failing, naturally right, but then a lot of just like trial and error, kind of knowing, well, this didn't work and so how can we make it work better.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right. So, and then naturally, within the HR world, like policies grow and then policies change according to whatever state, whatever region, what your head counts are Right, and so it's also a matter of just staying up on all those like ever evolving changes too.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I'm trying to make sure my math is right. So during that time it's like almost an unfathomable amount of growth. It's like 26,000 people. From how many people you had to how many you got, that's like an entire stadium of people. How in the world did you scale? I think those, those small appreciations cause, at a small level. It's really easy to get a $20 gift card or like give a pat on the back. Like how did you scale from nine to 35,000 people to make sure those small appreciations still happened?
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, so I think just so, as leaders, we had autonomy to do what was right for our specific teams. So like, for instance, if my team had to like travel on the weekend, then as soon as we were back, then I would give them a three-day weekend off.
Speaker 1:Oh nice.
Speaker 2:Without having to dip into their time off right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so it's just something kind, kind of kind of like that, or um, let's say that they were traveling to, to, to a new building, um, and then they wanted to stay for the um weekend. They could like piggy um back off of that plane um ticket instead of having to purchase another one.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, because they're already there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so then I would just let them, you know, stay for like a couple extra days and then have you know, a couple other days off.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or just something kind of like that. You just had to let them know that you absolutely cared about all of the extra and hard work that was going into it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I mean an extra bonus never hurts right. But it isn't always doable, and so you just have to do whatever you can to just make them feel and then know that you care about all of the hard work that they are doing. Because it was crazy. I mean, it was like 11,000-ish staff to like 35,000-ish staff within like 24 months.
Speaker 1:I mean, it was psycho. It really is crazy. Yeah, 23,000 people.
Speaker 2:It was super fun, in all honesty, like going all over the whole country meeting all these wonderful people, bringing in a bunch of people. But yeah, I mean it was super busy for a really long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think it sounds like something that needs to happen, especially as organizations get bigger, but kind of create the parameters or give the put lines on the field so people know what's in inbounds.
Speaker 1:And then just like play the game you, you know, like let people know they're appreciated, kind of like how you said, if they took a weekend, you were able to, without any sort of backlash or needing approval or whatever. It's just like you get three days off, like those were parameters. Where you're, you were able to help them feel appreciated without all this back end like paperwork and like headache and approvals and talking to the ct or the cfo or whatever. I don't know right but um, yeah, that's really yeah, cool yeah, um, trying to think, just scrolling through really fast.
Speaker 1:um, I do have an interesting question. I know a lot of the people that listen to this. They come from the space, so helperly. You know home health, uh, hospice personal care. We don't have buildings that we're acquiring and I mean you might acquire a smaller competitor. Um, but something that's really unique that I would love your insight on is mergers and acquisitions in this space, cause we do have a lot of assisted livings or skilled nursings that listen to this. Unique that I would love your insight on is mergers and acquisitions in the space, cause we do have a lot of assisted livings or skilled nursings that listen to this. How do you successfully navigate the HR challenges in the transitions? You know one culture absorbing another, people absorbing, like practices, all of that. How do you go through that on the HR side?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think um bringing in HR early helps um A lot of times during the M&A practice. It is operations only, right, like, how much money is this going to cost? Do we need new like equipment, I a T structures and all of that type of stuff? Right, and so that's. That's all just like natural stuff dealing with like money and finance and that type of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The um. The the earliest that you bring HR in, the better, because they will ask, ask um questions like what are your paid a days off?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because people don't ever think to like ask any of those questions. Right, or like what is your current time off policy? Are they going to keep theirs? Are they going to merge with ours? Do we want separate ones? Do they have a state specific policy or a company one? What are we going to take Right? Yeah, take. Or are there any promises around their jobs? Or are there bonus structures?
Speaker 1:Are we?
Speaker 2:going to keep them? Do they have commission structures? And so it's just a matter of having that right people person to ask all of those questions and to figure out what is going to happen post-merger right. Because that's everyone's very first question Do I still have a job? Do I get to keep all of my benefits? Am I going to have worse benefits? Are you going to keep my seniority date or do I have to start over?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of those, just like simple things, that if you're on the business side, you aren't thinking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because you're dealing with money and operations and that type of stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so HR is that people, person and they and they have to worry about what everybody else worries about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Right. So yeah, it's a good train of thought, like having HR in there earlier, kind of thinking about. I feel like in a merger you probably lose the most people less. This is my assumption, Less about actual logistics of it and more about not knowing the logistics of it.
Speaker 2:Like you said, am I going to lose my?
Speaker 1:job. So the three months leading or the six months leading up to the acquisition, they're looking for other jobs and applying and like they start getting the grasses greener on the other side feeling, and so then they're leaving before versus having HR in there, kind of trying to curb these things and tell them the plan from the get-go, where if you don't have that, you can't tell them the plan.
Speaker 2:Right, Plus, I mean as much as we want to think that people come to work because they love us and they want to work here. People come because they get a check or they have medical benefits or they have paid time off or they have a 401k, and so those are their first questions as soon as this stuff starts to like happen and so if you can ease some of their worry, then it stops them from all quitting prior to the acquisition happening. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which makes it kind of a dumpster fire when you buy the film, Right?
Speaker 2:right, and so you want to be as transparent as possible, as soon as you can.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Granted, there is times where you can't talk about it until a certain time, because mergers and acquisitions are tough. Yeah, right, certain time. Because mergers and acquisitions are tough.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, but as soon as you're available, then have that conversation. We went in in in a person every single time and we answered everybody's questions every single time directly in front of of of of them, so that they knew that we honestly cared about them and that we weren't this just like mean person coming in and just taking over.
Speaker 1:Oh, I just bought my yeah, yeah, exactly. Boss sold out and now I have this terrible Right.
Speaker 2:And so you were just trying to ease their mind like as soon as possible, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah trying to ease their mind, like as soon as possible, right, and so as soon as you could do that, then it kind of helps them, kind of like breathe breathe easy, like, okay, I'm still going to get a check, I can still pay all of my bills, Right and so yeah, no matter how much somebody loves a mission or culture it really like, if it gets down to it where my benefits are dramatically worse or my pays dramatically cut back right because of real life stuff, like you can in the perfect world everybody just blame them for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, exactly yeah, and so whatever you can do to kind of ease their thought process amongst that, that's what hr is there for yeah right is to is to keep all of the like people happy, and then everyone else can deal with all the money and all the operational sides right I will have those one-on-one chats and kind of yeah, ease everyone's mind, yeah I love that.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, that's really what it comes down to is because, even if it's like minorly worse benefits, if they love where they're working and they love all the other things coming in, they'll stick around Like it's like, yeah, it's a whole addition thing. Last few questions. So 35,000 people, a few months off or run, you still have your own company where you're able to provide some HR on the side, and then you come to help early where we have the amount of staff of one building. Yeah, totally different. What has your experience been like here? What's been fun about it? What differences have you seen in the post-acute versus, like you said, right after that, when they get back home?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean, this was kind of a like natural step right. Kind of a like natural step right Of. Like that is the post acute care, where they might need like 24 hour help and so now they're healthy and they can go back home and so this is like the next step, right. So kind of that like natural push Coming in here where it's a like startup and nothing is like set. Then I get to kind of like start from a scratch on the HR side and it's super fun, right.
Speaker 2:Because I am the expert, right, and so naturally I can look at these other things or like growth, as to where we want to be, and I can tell you, like man, that isn't a good choice. I promise, maybe we should do this.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But it's also just like building everything up how, how, how you want it to actually look Right and so we can build, kind of all of these little like stepping stepping stones, instead of coming in and something's already settled and then you try to like change. It is so hard yeah, right because nobody likes change, no matter what yeah but if we can start kind of like small and then build everything up and then we build as we like grow, then it's kind of a lot harder.
Speaker 2:So, coming in was a little tricky because you are brand new. You have never had a HR person who 100% knew what they were doing. So it's a little bit of a learning curve, right? But naturally we are just going to build as we like grow as I said.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah, it's a lot of fun having like an HR focus and, like you said, kind of starting building the foundation and kind of building in the incentives and the rewards and the people first now, rather than being a big old behemoth and trying to. It's a lot like it's easier to move a stone and place it rather than after all the dirt settled and having to dig it back out again right, yeah um, what, um, what has been the most rewarding part of work at helperly so far getting the ground going that that's a good question.
Speaker 2:I would say medical benefits is kind of the big deal right. Like everyone here, was so excited about that because, again, it's something that people want when they start an actual job, right Like. Unfortunately, not everyone comes because they think that Helperly is the greatest thing in the world.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Like people need money and they need to survive. And so coming and not having any like set things is kind of fun to kind of give my own insight into my side of this business. But also so you are super like business focused and revenue and how do we grow? And naturally I am people focused and I am operational focused and so making a strong operational plan to actually grow helps us get to that. Higher revenue helps us, helps us get to that like bigger a client base.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And and so be be being able to kind of like put in all these kind of kind of like missing pieces to um, to, to um, align everything is just super fun yeah, it's way fun being able to that's what I love.
Speaker 1:Even one day, forever down the road, I'm just the chairman at helperly or something right like I'd want to start something else, because it is so fun getting the foundation set and then just like getting things going, you know, building something rather than just plugging in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, plus I am the people person Like. I am the biggest person for like people Right, whereas you are like operations and revenue, and growth and that type of stuff Right. And so we are a nice little team because, we can merge them both together.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly.
Speaker 2:Because if your people are happy, then your clients are taken care of and then processes just work naturally at that point?
Speaker 1:Yeah, um last few questions. What legacy do you hope to leave on the HR industry, just as a whole.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a good one. So, um, hr has had a bad rap for a really long time, right?
Speaker 2:So, um, yeah, you haveby from the office right, I know ever since, ever, since 2013 or whenever the office came out, 2007, whatever it was like hr has has has been the bad guy for a really, and we only do that right, and so I am here to bring the human back into HR right. And so again, if you make your people happy, then they will want to come to work, and so just making that like people focus, so people above profits, yeah, if your people are happy, you will naturally also have really high profits.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so it's just a matter of actually caring about what your people need in order to succeed while they are at work, and so if you are a more like people over profits focused person, then you will see tremendous growth. If you care about your profits first, then naturally people are going to think that you don't care, and then stuff is just going to fail. And so as an HR person, I want to be the reason why people want to come to work. Yeah, and just kind of just leading with that Love that.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's awesome. Who knows Love that? Yes, that's awesome. Who knows, maybe in 10, 15, 20 years your legacy will make it so people will actually go to school and say they'll be in sixth grade saying when I grow up, I want to be the VP of HR. That's right. That's right, exactly. Yes, you're building the dreams of little boys and girls across America to be into HR Awesome. Well, this has been a lot of fun just chatting through everything. Your experience is extremely rich and we're very blessed and lucky to have you at Help Relief. I'm so happy to be here and I think that people listening, especially those that have well, just anybody that works in the healthcare space, like post-acute, is right there in the middle of all of it and it's very valuable insight, so I'm excited to air this episode. Yeah, great Thanks. Thank you.