Aspire for More with Erin
Aspire for More with Erin
Choose Your Hard a Leadership Conversation with Kasey Devine
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In this episode of the Aspire For More with Erin' podcast, host Erin welcomes Kasey Devine, Vice President of Strategic Growth for Pro Care HR. They discuss the importance of focusing on people within the business, trends in HR, leadership challenges, and the effectiveness of breaking down silos in senior living communities. The conversation highlights the critical aspect of addressing workforce shortages, implementing positive change management, and the need for accountability and growth-oriented mindsets. Kasey also introduces listeners to Pro Care HR and their innovative approaches to supporting senior living operators nationwide. The episode is rich with actionable insights for leaders looking to improve their organizations.
00:00 Welcome and Introduction
01:03 Current HR Trends and Challenges
03:21 Breaking Down Silos in Leadership
08:04 The Importance of Accountability and Overcoming Fear
17:13 Choosing Your Hard: Embracing Change
35:24 ProCare HR: Our Mission and Services
40:24 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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Hi again. And welcome back to the aspire for more with Aaron podcast, where I have a very distinguished guest today. I'm excited to share a conversation with Mr. Casey divine, who is the vice president of strategic growth for pro care HR. Welcome Casey. Thank you for being here today.
Kasey:It's my pleasure and my honor. Thanks for having me and excited to dive into this topic with you and your listeners today.
Erin:Absolutely. I love to have conversations with like minded people who believe that, people are the mission that yes, we have to make money. That is the point of why we're all in business. but we may be missing the mark a little bit because we're not really focusing on the people who are actually doing the service work. So this is going to be a great conversation and people are frontline associates and managers, executive directors, all that. So with your HR experience. And everything that you've got going on and, all the work that you're doing. I want you to start us off with trends and topics that really are hot button issues that you're seeing.
Kasey:Yeah, absolutely. and I feel like that could probably fill up a semester worth of episodes for us right now. I think what our group is finding and really speaking You know, one on behalf of my experience within advising small businesses and medium sized businesses in HR. And then also, speaking on behalf of our organization in a sense where we have several dozen employees that have, representing tens of, dozens of years of experience in the industry. What we're really seeing is that the projections that we were talking about back in the conferences, even pre COVID are coming true. the ship didn't turn. And so there's a couple of different things. Number one, still not a surprise that workforce levels, even if we do catch up when it comes to supply it with buildings, workforce levels are still not on track to meet the demand. As, folks continue to come in from the baby boomer generation. So that's number one. And I don't know of anybody who does not at least have that top of mind somewhere in the top five priorities outside of that, I think that it really starts coming down to, what you can control. And what I mean by that is leadership and how you treat your people coming from a little bit of an outsider's perspective prior to this past year, I really see some parallels between senior living senior care and the outside world. And what I mean by that is that there are commonalities in business, whether you are for profit or non for profit, because really, whether it's, a CCRC or AL or whatever it is, or a manufacturing company. You have, a product or service that people will exchange money for. You have some sort of cash flow and liquidity that makes that possible. And you also have people. And so the second main trend, which I think is more of the controllable trend is folks are really starting to look at how they're addressing this people thing, both at the leadership level and at the front line level.
Erin:Yeah. It's. The people are important and my experience for being a community level leader is there's a lot of emphasis on processes within the organization. and move in, move outs, right? NOI, like those are processes, It's not even a lot. It wasn't a lot even about state regs unless I was in my troubled community, but I never had any formal leadership training In the 20 years that I was in, in the community level leadership forum. In fact, it almost felt like I was in silos, there's just silos. And I hear even in community level leaders now, like the different departments are not working as one big wheel moving. So there's a lot of siloed experiences and stepping out of the industry. And learning how to be an entrepreneur and a podcast host and all that kind of stuff. I found a group coaching program that actually brought like minded people together and worked together through the issues And it forever changed my life and I thought wow, this is really simple It's just a bunch of people on the same goal going for the same goal And talking about what's holding them back and it was It's amazing. And I feel like we have an opportunity to do that. We have an opportunity to break the silos and work together. lifestyles, your activities program and your sales and marketing director should be hand in hand doing things just like the director of nursing, we don't have to be so siloed in what we do because it feels alone. And when you're an executive director, you're being crunched. By all these different people who want a piece of you. And how do we train people to do that? Because it's easy to exclude certain groups because they're too difficult to work with,
Kasey:Absolutely. What you said is so rich and so on point. Just. Just a few thoughts on it. Hopefully it doesn't come as a surprise that the guy who showed up in a cowboy shirt, it's going to quote, remember the Titans, but there's, there, there is a great quote that hits on what you're talking about, and I think can kick off the, this part of the discussion, which is attitude reflects leadership and, You know how you get to a silo. It didn't happen overnight. And it is because leadership allowed that to happen or incentivized to happen. It's either active or permissive will. And so it starts at the top. If you're going to fix the silos, that. Actually can't be understated because that has to be part of the culture. understanding that each department isn't their own boat trying to race toward a finish line. We're all actually in the same boat, but, and that. I think comes usually with a negative context and actually there could be more positive context there too, because there's the idea that, Hey, if. If it's somebody's problem, it's everybody's problem. That also needs to go both ways and say that if there's somebody's success, it's all of our success because no person, no department was, an island and it influenced everything there. So I think that's really the first step. And then from there, I was. Incredibly fortunate, especially now looking back coming up in my business career and big corporations that invested heavily in, leadership development, even if folks didn't think they weren't necessarily going into management early and often. And part of why is I don't think even still folks really understand that. Leaders aren't managers. Sometimes managers aren't leaders, but that leadership actually doesn't require a title in that. leading is truly integrating your values. With your actions and doing that all of the time, regardless of if folks are looking and that then comes back to senior leadership, because that has to come from the top and otherwise, even if it's said early off and all the time, there's always going to be some sort of, organizational cognitive dissonance. That's going to keep the silos. But maybe more invisible, which is just pushing them further underground and making them harder to root out.
Erin:Yeah. Every, I like, like how you said that every person on the team has a role. You could have a Tom Brady of a quarterback. Or whoever. but if you don't have an offensive line that can protect him, he is nothing. You can have a great salesperson, but if you don't have frontline associates who are going to deliver on the promises that we promise when moving in, then they're not going to stay long. So it is, genuinely a team effort for success. And I believe that the point of difference coming up, because, you The market's going to be saturated. Like you said, there's not going to be enough demand, enough inventory for the demand that's coming and the staffing is going to pose a greater threat that the point of difference for every community is going to be the relationship with the entire team with the residents and how the leader manages stress.
Kasey:Yeah, you're dead on. I think I, I represent our organization's culture. When I say that, like our perspective is one of realistic optimism. and so I think it's really important, to break those two things down, to talk through realism versus idealism. And so idealism is wishing something was different. And refusing to accept reality. And as I understand it, real realism isn't necessarily not saying it isn't saying that you don't want something to be different. It's just really acknowledging where you're at. Then the optimism, why that was the second word is saying that with effort, this can change for the better. and so I see all of these things and it's Hey, is there a leadership problem within our industry? Yes, and it's palpable. You can see each community when they have good leaders and the folks that don't, and the sites that don't. That, it's not hard to find. That being said, you don't need to spend tens of thousands of dollars to show that Leadership is important to your organization and you don't even necessarily need to dive in head first to go into a week or two week seminar or whatever it is. we can start with reading Brene Brown or listening to a podcast. the optimistic positive thing here is that there's never been better access on demand access to top notch resources that can help. It's just a matter of prioritizing it.
Erin:Yeah, it's true and showing and talking about it, And implementing it. I think that people can listen, but if there's no followup or, conversation afterwards or implementation walkthrough, then it can get lost. And I think that's one of the things, we in the industry, most communities, most companies only get their communities together to talk about move in move outs. that's it. So that's when we're all together and we're either really celebrated or we're silently shamed because we didn't hit the numbers. We didn't hit the mark. But I think that there's a really good lesson in these books and podcasts where when you shame people, you create fear. And if we don't know how to work through the fear, if we don't even know how to, To identify it, right? Like you can listen to something really good. You can try to do it. Something stops you immediately and you don't know how to walk through it. You know what I mean? So really it becomes. What is working and what are we learning, right? And that's what that group coaching program did for me. It's I realized what was holding you back was really just fear, thoughts, judgments, all these things that I struggled with forever, but I didn't realize exactly what they were. it's like naming the emotion and realizing, oh, I'm still going to live. I'm not going to die. You know what I mean? And teaching leaders how to do that. So yeah, podcasts have changed my life.
Kasey:said. I get to talk
Erin:to you today.
Kasey:That's a great thing. And I get to talk to you. so on that note, I think, shame. It and poor leadership are why the word accountability has a negative context. Even though I think accountability as a leader is the best gift you can give to the folks that you lead. It is, if you want to show that you care about somebody love, willing their good is one side of it. The other side of it, if you will, somebody is good, is caring about them enough to do everything you can within reason. To help them realize the version of themselves that they want to be like, Like that is accountability at its pure form. Shame has tainted accountability. And so I think from a leadership perspective, that's a takeaway for everybody listening right now. Like those actually can be separated. case in point, there's two different points I want to make here. Number one, we don't actually learn. Except through failure. And sometimes we have the ability to learn through other people's failure, if we're smart enough, but oftentimes I don't know about you and maybe I'm just bullheaded, but I typically learn best by actually touching the hot stove. and I don't think I'm that different from a lot of folks. Again, failure is not necessarily a horrible thing if it is in a safe place without shame, and it can be learned from and learned from quickly and not replicated, I don't think there's such a thing as a stupid question, for example, I think there's a stupid repeated question, if you're putting forth the effort and you have a good attitude, you're going to try to execute, then failure is just how you learn. so then it comes into this idea you hit on it and I wanted to make sure to emphasize it because there's a really smart point that part of how we actually all can learn is. Addressing fear and what a beautiful thing is that we share in this thing called human experience is that we can let our limiting beliefs and our bad ideas die instead of us, And so that is the fear that you're going through is there is a part of you when you grow that does die off because. It doesn't serve you anymore. And you replaced it with something that's better for you and for the folks that you work with. And so Hey, that's totally normal. the uncomfortability that you feel when you're going through growth is the sign that it's working. And again, as long as shame is removed from that, and you can be honest and open with your beers, like there's nothing wrong with that at all. so even just culturally, if you want to go back into your community and you want to see a positive change. Do some of that.
Erin:Yeah. and give them context, give them the reason why, but also say this is really going to suck and it's gonna, we tell, I tell residents all the time, or I told residents all the time and family members, like everything is uncomfortable until it gets comfortable. And I would use that. In my own life, but I really started using that line heavily when I started doing this podcast, right? it took me four hours to edit a two minute intro because I didn't know how to do it. And I wanted to quit and I just was internally bullying myself. But I said, no, everything is uncomfortable until it's comfortable. And now I can get through things pretty quickly. But I wanted to quit because Here's what my limiting beliefs were. Nobody's going to listen to this because it took me four hours to edit a two minute clip. like I assume everybody knew all the drama behind the scenes, which is a lie. And so it's I got to identify everything that really held me back in my life, very intimately when I started to do something that was outside of my comfort zone. And the only reason I was able to work through it is because I was told expect these thoughts. And I was like, there they are, Oh, I can identify them now. You know what I mean?
Kasey:on track.
Erin:And yes. And we don't have enough of that. expect your frontline associates to resist change. Expect them to put up a front to not want it. And here's how you can work through it, right? we don't give that kind of feedback and warning to people. We just say, go create the change. I don't know if you've ever tried to create change inside of a community that have done things a certain way for a very long time. It feels It's impossible. But if we can say expect this, expect that, expect this and how to work around it. Now all of a sudden we've given them a roadmap to succeed because people want to do the right thing. They just have to be told and inspired that, the right thing is done. Something different than they're used to,
Kasey:I might get that in a print behind me, cause I love that quote. so anecdotally, and this is a little bit of a joke going through some of the leadership development classes that I've been fortunate enough to be part of that. The joke is. If you don't know an answer, to something in leadership, the answer is expectations to your point. Like you didn't set expectations clearly enough and typically folks are more willing because they know what it is. It like expectations are the business leadership growth version. Of turning on the light when you're scared that there's a monster under the bed, like expectations are what makes that monster go away. so that's crucial. And I do actually want to give another actionable take that you can maybe bring back and steal it from me. Cause I stole it from somebody else, as a leader in my career, I've always. Had to deal with change management. Like that is a reality. If you're not growing, you're dying, especially in the fact that even on the for profit or non for profit side, we still do operate within a capitalist, capitalistic society. So that is just a reality of the no money, no mission. And I make a deal with everybody and I think it's worked really well and it sounds simplistic, but it goes along with the wisdom that you just shared Aaron, which is I expect three things and there are only three things from you. And I'm going to give you a deal in return of what happens if you give me those three things. I expect attitude. effort and execution and attitude is not necessarily saying that you're going to show up positive all the time, but it's an expectation that, you know, Hey, I don't think it really requires a lot of talent to identify problems. I think it requires talent to overcome them. And I know we're going to encounter hard things because that's what's going to make this worth doing. And Hey, I want you to come to me. Not saying you can never vent to me, but you need to come with the expectation that we're going to have a problem solving attitude all of the time. And that's where we're going to end up. Effort is. I don't want to ever question whether or not whatever it is we're working on, you're giving a hundred percent of your effort, like you can't self sabotage yourself because really only you know that whether you're doing it or not, and you can do it very secretly. And so I want to make sure you know that's just not something we're going to ever talk about. And then execution and it's this idea that whether it's as a team or one on one through performance management or whatever it is when we come up with a plan. And it could be very directive because you're early on in your skill building in a certain place, or it could be very collaborative. I just expect that when we come together and we agree on a plan that you go execute on it to the best of your ability, and you try to problem solve here's here in return is the gift I give in return. If you clearly do those three things and you fail, I promise you as your leader. It is my fault. And I will admit that publicly, because I didn't give you proper expectations. I didn't equip you the right way. You didn't get enough training. Like I didn't foresee something around it. And what that does is creates like a place where they can grow. And also they understand that this isn't just some sort of like leadership is not a top down dictatorship. it is too. Peers, honestly, I think that are just trying to go accomplish a mission and all the leaders trying to do is just peek up through the trees so that we don't run into things like that's it's really not much more complicated than that.
Erin:Yeah. It's true. we're all just humans trying to make something work, I've recently had a lot of work in the tech side of things, which is really funny in my life. that would even be something that I'm involved in, but I am. And in finding, resistance, I used to be a bit of a resistor. And so I can understand resistance on a very intimate level. And I believe if I look at it from my perspective, that resistance from communities to change, because you mentioned change management from leaders is just honestly, like for me. Everything I was walking a tight rope, and I had all these nuances. I had them under control. I could feel the flow when the community was tilting one way or the other. And like when a new software comes in or when something else comes in, it's I have to start all over again, and that requires so much effort for a very nuanced community or for, a struggling community or whatever, that instead of actually talking about it. And in, in understanding where that was coming from, it was just, it comes off as being defensive and resistance, but really it was just like, I don't know how to, I don't know, I don't know how if I can handle it. I don't know if I can handle it. And I see that a lot in communities now, and I think that we're missing the mark on how to support the leaders through the change. Right in, in giving them the talking points and understanding like, Hey, this is going to really hurt, but we're here to support you throughout the change. Just like you said, the X, the three things, that's a really good conversation to have. Especially since tech is coming at senior living hard.
Kasey:It is it. It this is where I genuinely think, and I've seen it even within our organization at pro carry jar, Senior living, senior care is special. It's not unique, like every industry goes through change management. Every industry is being disrupted by technology sincerely. so we can learn. One of the things I think can be very helpful because I've been there and I'm with you both on the receiver of change and the driver of change, it's a lot, identifying why that fear is there is because even if what's The process is today is subpar. It's at least familiar. And you are subconsciously when that fear comes up, recognizing that there is a potential, it could be better. And we do want that when we zoom out, but there is also a potential that it could be worse. And there is to your point on this is going to suck. there's a likelihood that it will be worse than it is. Currently on the bad process before it gets better. And I really don't want to go through that because I'm looking up the mountain. One place. I think that this sounds very simple, but I've learned it and I did not practice this early in my career. And when I learned about it, it helped assuming positive intent. Like throughout the entire process, whether you're receiving or giving change, we are doing this because we think it could help and it could be a burning dumpster fire at the end. Like it could have been the wrong thing, but that also doesn't mean that the folks that were trying to implement that new software or whatever it is, are just crazy demons. Like they, at some point were trying to help the people it impacts and ultimately the residents and the community. and maybe they were wrong, but also then you could flip that coin really quickly and been like, everybody else who has been wrong about something in the past, and it wasn't like they were trying to be wrong and trying to cause pain and whatever it is. So that's where I think we, on either side of it need to just lower the temperature and give each other a little bit of grace because we're just, we're trying something new and it's inherently uncomfortable.
Erin:I didn't always assume positive intent.
Kasey:You know what I
Erin:mean? And it, now I assume in positive intent. And you know why I do that? Because it serves me. Because my goal is peace, and growth. And it goes back to one of my most important points and why I do what I do. And when I think about all the error in my ways, I was very successful inside of the community. I have the numbers to prove it, but I was also not successful inside my mind in a lot of different things. So we go from goal oriented to growth oriented. If we can make that shift, which I have clearly done in my life, everything is easier. Like I choose to have positive intent, right? Because it's better on me because I want to grow through it and maybe it doesn't work, and all the things like, and the accountability piece, like you talked about accountability is the biggest gift you can give yourself. Like it's changed my life. You own your story. Everywhere you go, you are, there are patterns in your life. You should look at you, right? what are they? there are reasons here and if you're the leader and you can give yourself accountability and people can see it, they will take accountability from you. so God, this is really, I feel like I'm like writing in my diary, talking to you,
Kasey:I love it. I'll give another like actionable thing that you can bring into your life. On any side of whoever's listening, it's a quote from an entrepreneur I really respect in St. Louis, Andy Frisella, which is choose your heart. And that is actually a choice that we get to make. And so let's talk about going back to, hey, this technology thing. Do we do it or do we not implement XYZ software or hire this such and such consultant or whatever it is? Hard difficult. I'm going to like transition to saying that difficulty is a reality of life. And so what I mean by that is current state is difficult. There is difficulty there. It. You might be used to it, but it's difficult. Change is difficult. And if we can choose that change curve sometimes in that difficulty, because it's going to lead to it being less difficult over time. Yeah, but that doesn't mean the difficulty goes away because now you're learning something new. You have to stay up on top of that. And I think that's maybe one of the lines that we need to address, which is that there is an easy path. There really isn't because even if you take the quote unquote easy path, you actually are just ignoring the difficult, you're shoving it aside. But if you really looked at it, not to get too businessy, but hard costs, soft costs, opportunity costs, and even potentially return on an investment there. If you want to differentiate it a little bit, all you're doing is shuffling Between all of that, maybe, it's Oh, we can't afford that right now, which was really, you're talking about a hard cost. That's difficult. I can't, I don't want to go through the difficulty of figuring out our budget. So we're not going to do that there. But the ignorant thing is that there are soft costs opportunity cost impacts, so it's not like. You just didn't do anything. You actually might've damaged yourself more. So choose your heart.
Erin:Yeah, no, it's true. it's being growth oriented versus goal oriented. If all we're focusing on is the goal, we're not going to grow through the process. We're not going to look at different things. We're not going to think positively about any of the change. We're just going to stick with the hard that we know because it's comfortable. And it's, I learned the hard way that choosing your hard and growing through it is the way that benefits you the most, even though it's not comfortable. But I was never in an environment that made me believe that I could do that. like that perfectionistic. I have to be a certain way in order to even get the respect that I feel like I deserve. Like it's, it's just that pecking order, that hierarchical structural, that's very toxic inside senior living. And I, I only knew one way, so it was certainly hard. I had to get out in order to understand the error of my ways,
Kasey:the distance can help.
Erin:Yes. And I feel like we can do better for our leaders inside the community.
Kasey:We can. Yeah, we can, a couple, maybe so if the action items that are rich in our conversation that we've talked about aren't enough, maybe some substantial things that you can do, even that don't cost money, listen to a podcast like this. And or pick up a book and oftentimes I said it doesn't cost money because there are libraries everywhere. We forget about that.
Erin:Yeah.
Kasey:Read something and share it with somebody else. You can do that. You can, if you're going to a local regional or national conference, actually take notes and make it a point to present your findings. At that conference to whoever wants to show up to learn because you are a steward of your organization's time and resources. That's something that's pretty easy that you could do. webinars. There are national, state, local associations that are Like amazing part of our industry and they often host free webinars that are really dang good from really good leaders in our space and the spaces that support it show up to one, take notes and tell somebody else about it or put it into your share file or post something on the wall of a quote about it. Like start somewhere. And I used this example in a different context, but I think that this is a lot of why change and leadership actually doesn't happen is because You listen to a podcast like this and you get fired up. You're like, all right, now I'm going to go, I'm going to be a change management person, even if I'm not a manager or I lead the organization. And in reality, like on a scale of one to 10, from a skills perspective, you or your organization's. Less than a two and like diving in and saying like, all right, we're going to do all these fancy things is the same thing as saying Hey, I want to learn to swim. So I'm going to go to Paris at the Olympics and jump off the high dive. And it's okay, you could, maybe though, do listen to one leadership. Thing a week for 10 minutes, build the habits of it and give yourself some time to grow because you wouldn't decide, I went and rock watched a Rocky movie and I signed up for a marathon next week. It's you will fail. I'm sorry. So recognize that it is a skill that does require development. Yeah. And to your
Erin:point on those webinars, there's something else. That I know that we lack inside the profession of senior living. It's building the bench. Don't just do it for you. Tell your other leaders to do it and start preparing because we are not building the bench inside of our communities for several different reasons. but give your director of nursing, your lifestyles director, all the opportunities to grow and learn too, because when they're better, you're better,
Kasey:you're absolutely right. Going back to that, like three pillar thing of, product service, capital people, I'm speaking on behalf of ProCare HR. When I say this, like we are deeply convicted and we've seen it in operators that, Community by community embody this, the organizations that take the people aspect the most seriously are the ones that have the best impact and the best results like hands down. And I actually don't think there's a logical way of arguing anything else outside of that, because to a certain extent, the service is the service. And then you can think from a product perspective, location can be a little bit different, but There's only so many ways you can administer care. yes, there is innovation there. And I don't want to downplay that, but it's not like a hundred percent deviation or something like that. it's pretty close on that. And capital is capital. obviously there are folks who have more and there are folks who have less and there's different structures there, but within reason, the margins are the margins in this. Industry and it's pretty standard. So I think logically that's where we keep coming back to and going back to the first trend I shared is the organizations that especially coming out of COVID learned the lesson that people made the organization, people were how we got through this in that the stakeholder isn't just. The community or the residents, they're not just whoever's funding it, whether it's an investor or a non profit organization or donors, and it's everybody. It's the community you're around. It's the people who work there. It's their families. It's the folks who are part of the community and the residents. it's everything. And picking one or two, Isn't it? And so if we're not in the people business, like we're not going to go name and names by any means, but I think we can all think of at least a time or an example when you've seen an organization that was very clearly not in the people business. And I can also think of several times where those kinds of operators either aren't as far ahead as the other folks who did the, not so sexy. Really, touchy feely work of prioritizing people. They're either far ahead or those other folks are not in business anymore.
Erin:Yeah, it's true. I think of, there's the Chick fil A and the Publix and there's a totally different feel if I'm going to go to Chick fil A versus Taco Bell, or if I'm going to go to Walmart versus Publix. It's a totally different feel. And there's a reason for that. There is a reason for that. And it is the people and the feeling that when you walk in. Like I will pay a little bit of extra money to have a little bit more peace to go grocery shopping every once in a while. You know what I mean? that's a conscious decision, so it doesn't hurt
Kasey:that I would like an Ivy of sweet tea.
Erin:You're in the wrong place for that.
Kasey:I know, absolutely. Minnesota is not a great place for sweet tea.
Erin:Okay. So tell me as we wrap up, we haven't spent any time really. this is an excellent conversation. I'm fired up. but we haven't talked about the pro care side of things. So give us, talk to us about what you do, how you serve people, how you make people better. Cause I'm interested in how, and I want to know too.
Kasey:Sure. Yeah, absolutely. The great thing is you've heard over half of it already, in our mindset and really what you've heard from me today, I think that you can expect to hear different flavors of, but the same idea from basically any leader at our organization, our organization, we're based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, very proudly. And we are an HR managed services firm that specializes within senior living operators. And so what that means is that we can really be a partner end to end on the entire HR experience, even things like, talent acquisition or scheduling. Going all the way down to actually processing payroll, administering benefits, et cetera. Part of what we're really up to is removing the what if from the people equation like that's really it. 70 percent of our entire company staff were former operators, whether it's within HR operations within senior living. So we've really made a bet on that, organization and that industry. And it's something that we're really driven and passionate about. it's, a lot of the thesis of our leadership team is just that, what we were talking about, that there's a real need for professional help when it comes to HR and workforce stuff and change management. And all of that comes down to people. That's what we do. And so we partner with organizations really nationwide, to really make an excellent. part of their business. And also we do change without getting too into the leads, financial results as a product of that. We are administering those programs, not just at a very high level, but also in a, like a variable cost per employee way that makes it so that operators nimble when things go up and things go down when they. Take on a new community when they are shrinking a little bit strategically, we make it so that the HR functions also completely right. Size at all times.
Erin:That's great. Yeah, that sounds like a lot. Do your HR representatives get yelled at sometimes, or they're the therapist for people who call in, who are a stressful time inside the community? A
Kasey:hundred percent. Yeah. I will say, the folks, internally, people are our service and, they're right there in the trenches. we actually have the ability to sit on some of these organizations, leadership team from an HR perspective. And you're absolutely right. Sometimes it's very raw and it's very real. And I think a lot of this is just meeting folks where they're at and walking with them and on their journey there. but I will say we have a very strong organizational culture. We've got very, tight alignment on our core values. And a lot of the time when we work with someone, it's not just because it mutually makes financial sense. It's because we have strong alignment on what good looks like and how we're going to treat each other.
Erin:I learned through one of Brene Brown's books. And I think it was dare to lead that when you do call somebody and Call it vulnerability, but you just like unload on them, that's really an anxiety attack. I was like, Ooh, that is, like I don't need a bag to breathe in. I just need an HR person on the phone and let me unload, that was my anxiety attack. And so I felt like if. If any of my former HR representatives are listening, I'm sorry, I was having anxiety attacks, but it made me feel so much better when I got to do that.
Kasey:Somewhere in the country, they're being like, I know, and it's okay. But hey, listen. I'm much better
Erin:now.
Kasey:Yeah, it's part of it. what I would say is, our organization is sincerely here to help the industry at large. We're at national and regional events and we're actively trying to expand that. again, not from a selfish perspective, but because we see and we hear the pain coming out of COVID and with the workforce situation being where it is on a serious note, like leadership is a huge part of this, but there's just, We've tried old ways of doing things. And I'm saying that from an industry perspective and at large, it's not working and if it did, we wouldn't be showing up to every single conference and hearing the same stats and they're getting worse. So our idea is, Hey, let's try a new model. Let's try to do this a little bit differently. And what's really great is our case studies results are showing that we're making substantial impact on the bottom line, which is again, no money, no mission on employee experience and ultimately on the quality
Erin:That's excellent. I'm glad more focused on the people because that's the mission. It's people who serve robots can do things and it's amazing, but it is the people. we are what we are and we will always be a people. centered business. That's just the way that it's going to be. So thank you so much for your time, your wisdom, giving us all the nuggets to, do better to be better. So we can do better. which is what we need. So I appreciate you because this is Casey divine with pro care HR. So look him up if you were in the need of those services, I appreciate it greatly.
Kasey:Thank you, Erin.
Erin:And always, for my listeners, aspire for more for you today.