How to hire for success ft. Tina Buchanan

This episode of the CareCraft podcast welcomes Tina Buchanan, founder of Visionary Care Consultants. Tina discusses her journey from skilled nursing and home health to establishing her care management company, now serving San Diego and Riverside with a team of 12 associates. She shares insights on expanding her business, hiring the right people, and maintaining quality care.

Five Key Takeaways for Business Owners:

1. Always Be Hiring and Staffing: It's crucial to continuously think about your future staffing needs and always be on the lookout for potential hires. This proactive approach ensures that you are prepared for growth and can maintain a balanced workload for your team.

2. Establish a Multi-Step Hiring Process: Implement a thorough and multi-step hiring process that includes several interviews and interactions with different team members. This allows for multiple perspectives on the candidate and helps ensure they are a good fit for the company culture and team dynamics.

3. Look for Longevity and Lifelong Learners: When vetting candidates, prioritize those with a history of long-term employment, which indicates stability and commitment. Additionally, seek individuals who engage in continuous learning and personal development, as this aligns with a value of lifelong learning and adaptability.

4. Develop a Comprehensive Onboarding and Training Program: Create a detailed orientation and training program that covers company policies, procedures, and systems. New hires should shadow experienced team members and gradually take on responsibilities to ensure they are well-prepared and supported.

5. Hire for Culture Fit and Core Values Alignment: Clearly define your company's core values and use them as a guide in the hiring process. Ensure that potential hires align with these values, which helps maintain a cohesive and positive work environment. This alignment can be assessed through interview questions and observations during the hiring process.

Episode Link: Spotify

Full Transcript

[00:00:04] Ariadne: Welcome to the CareCraft podcast today. We're really excited to be joined by Tina Buchanan. Tina is an Aging Life Care Manager and founder of Visionary Care Consultants. She founded Visionary Care Consultants in 2017 after having vast experience in skilled nursing and home health.

[00:00:22] She's a licensed social worker who initially wanted to work with children, but then found her passion working with the aging population through her internships. And Visionary Caring Consultants has grown to support San Diego and Riverside and is 12 associates. So thank you so much for joining us, Tina.

[00:00:39] Tina: Thank you for having me and for this opportunity,

[00:00:43] Ariadne: It's always nice to start with a little bit more about people's backgrounds and what it is exactly that led them into this work, but then also more specifically led them into opening up their own business. So what did that look like for you? And what influenced your decisions there?

[00:01:03] Tina: Yeah, it's a good question because as you know, everyone has their own journey of what led them to, you know, take a step, especially in starting my own business. So like you mentioned, I have experience in working with the aging population. I worked for skilled nursing and home health care. And you know, also at that time, I was navigating my own family's journey through the aging process, supporting my mom and you know, my aunts and uncles and my whole family through an end of life experience.

[00:01:35] That really just solidified that I could do more if I stepped out on my own because there are gaps that need to be filled which is what an aging life care manager does is we fill those gaps. So you know, I had, I had several years of experience in corporate, but then again, navigating that own journey, it really led me to where I am today and I'm super grateful I did so.

[00:02:00] Ariadne: That's awesome. And one thing that I think is really interesting in the space is there's so many different titles, you know, aging life care manager, care coordinator case manager, et cetera. I, we were both recently at the ALCA conference and I feel like this was a hot topic of debate there as well. But I am curious, you know, do you distinguish between the titles and, and I guess, how do you describe yourself in the work that you do?

[00:02:28] Tina: Yeah, it is, it is available in our world the aging life care professional world. So I use aging life care professional and aging life care manager interchangeably. I think for me, you know, why I say manager versus coordinator versus professional is there's many levels of different professionals, but an aging life care professional is a quarterback.

[00:02:52] We are a manager of large teams and people, and so for me. People identify with, okay, you're the manager of the team. So, you know, there's people that can do care coordination but the aging life care professionals and the aging life care managers what's really important about that distinguishment.

[00:03:14] Is that we are all a part of a larger organization who abide by a code of ethics, which is really important to me. So that's why we talk about aging life care professionals, aging life care managers. We are part of the aging life care association that has that ethical competencies that we live by every day.

[00:03:39] Ariadne: Thank you for that. So you like you were saying, you're influenced by your family experiences. You obviously had vast experience already and working with this population and more corporate settings. I guess what did day zero look like for you? Were you completely out on your own? Were you still doing some part time work while you started taking on personal clients?

[00:04:03] Like how did you balance that initial starting process?

[00:04:09] Tina: It was really interesting because I'm the type of person in my work with the nursing homes and the home health care. People were always asking me to do more and I couldn't because I was stuck in a box, I felt like. So one day I just, you know, people were calling me out of the blue.

[00:04:27] Can you help me with this? Can you help me with that? You know, and I just started thinking there has to be a name for this. There has to be people that are doing this and what is it called? And so I started looking and I found out that there were aging life care professionals and this was actually a profession that people went into.

[00:04:47] So I decided to start my own business. I was still working part time through home healthcare, seeing clients in the home until the end of 2017. And then in 2018 is when I quit my job and went all in.

[00:05:03] Ariadne: And was it just you in those early days or what did your team look like? If you had a team?

[00:05:09] Tina: Yeah, it was just me in the early days and I always thought I wanted to be a solopreneur, a solo practitioner.

[00:05:15] And I learned throughout that first year being by myself. It was one thing to build a business, but it was another thing to build a business and also serve people. And what I was finding is I didn't have enough bandwidth to do both. I couldn't help as many people as I wanted to. So that's what led me to really think, Hmm, maybe I want to hire and you know, have a bigger presence so I can help more people. So that was my thinking in that. So in 2019, I brought on one of my first care managers. And from there, it's just grown to, like you said, 12 associates in two locations.

[00:05:51] Ariadne: That's awesome. What was that process like for you when you decided you did want to expand the business and bring someone on?

[00:05:59] Like, how did you how did you find that person and make sure it was a good fit?

[00:06:06] Tina: I have always been super connected in the aging space here in San Diego County, where our prime location is our first location anyways and I had had a colleague of mine who had reached out to me and we tried to work together in 2018, but she wasn't quite ready and I wasn't quite ready.

[00:06:24] So I just took it upon myself to start connecting with people. I already knew. I went back to the source, the person that I was talking with, you know, the prior year and timing was everything. And you know, we already had a trust and a rapport. And so it was an easy decision for me to make that first hire.

[00:06:42] Ariadne: That's awesome. Now you're 12 people. So I'm curious, is it always been people that you've kind of had previous experience working with and that's how you've expanded the team or were there others that you brought on that you didn't have that experience with and what did you look for in those situations?

[00:07:01] Tina: A little bit of both through my connections, you know, people came to me saying, Hey, we love your brand. We know what you do. We love your work. I want to work for you. I mean, that's how I got a lot of these people which goes to brand recognition, right? And the work that you do, they're finding me and I'm not having to go find them.

[00:07:19] But you know, I've also done some hiring through, you know indeed through some other sources. So I've done a little bit of both.

[00:07:28] Ariadne: That's incredible that people you know, came out to you and said, Hey, I want to join your organization. I feel like that's such a vote of confidence and not just your work, but also like in you as a leader.

[00:07:40] Tina: Yeah. And I think it also speaks to, you know, how important relationships are not only in this space, but in any business, right. If you have people around you and they know about the work that you do and you keep those relationships Forming, you never know who's going to reach out to you.

[00:08:00] Ariadne: Yeah. That's so true.

[00:08:01] And at, I guess at what stages have you really considered bringing someone else on? Like, do you try to hire, but before you would have like a full caseload, or is it kind of like when, once you notice people are like, you know, running like a little too thin that, and then you're like, okay, let's try to expand the team or how do you think about that?

[00:08:24] Tina: So one of my mentors always told me I hired a mentor from the very beginning. And, and one of the things that they instilled in me is always be hiring, always be staffing, always, always be projecting for what you may need in the future. So you know, I've kind of always had that mindset. And in a business like this, you can see the ebbs and flows.

[00:08:48] You kind of get to know, you know, when people are starting to burn out when, when might be the right opportunity. So you know, I've always been hiring and always thinking about that. There's a couple of hires I've made where I was like, Oh, I didn't even know I needed that yet, but the opportunity presented itself.

[00:09:06] And, you know, I brought somebody on board and they've helped me grow the company. So I'm always open to different ways of, of looking at things

[00:09:18] Ariadne: What does your work life look like now as a manager of a 12 person organization than it did, you know, when you were a solopreneur, like, are there elements that you miss from when you're alone or what, just what has that shift been like for you?

[00:09:35] Tina: The shift has been interesting because I never thought I wanted to manage people or lead people. I would say I think of myself as a leader, not a manager, but I really enjoy mentoring people that want to be in this profession. Some of them are very experienced. Some of them are experienced in the aging or the mental health space, but they've never done aging life care management per se.

[00:09:59] And I enjoyed mentoring and, and rising up other leaders in this industry. So it's been very fun in some ways. But it's also been different. You know, I was a clinician for many years and not, not meeting the clients every day and working behind the scenes on the business instead of in the business.

[00:10:18] You know, it takes some getting used to because. At heart, I'm a social worker and I want to help people. So I try to keep a balance of, you know, a few cases so that I am like myself up, filling up my cup with what I truly love. While I continue to grow the business and mentor my professionals.

[00:10:41] Ariadne: That's super interesting. So you still choose to maintain a caseload just to, to be able to like, have that exposure to the work that you love even as your team is growing and expanding.

[00:10:53] Tina: Yeah, and you know, it ebbs and flows. So sometimes I'll have, you know, three or four clients. Sometimes I'll have one.

[00:11:00] You know, I can kind of, as the leader, understand where my value is most on a case and, and also delegate to my team members if I feel like, okay, they've got it handled, which they can handle almost about everything. But sometimes I like to get in there and start a case and do the nitty gritty, you know, I love crisis intervention.

[00:11:19] I thrive on the messier the better. I like to jump into those situations and make sure things are calming down and then pass it off sometimes, because that keeps me fulfilled. I don't get bored.

[00:11:36] Ariadne: So can you walk me through what that process looks like for your team? As you think about maybe transitioning clients from one care manager to another, sometimes they can have a really close relationship, the family and I don't know if you've ever had like resistance to that sort of like transition. I would be curious to, to know more about what that's look like for your organization and how you guys work in parallel.

[00:11:59] Tina: It's a great question and I ask myself that a lot. But what I find is in the beginning, like I was having a lot of resistance doing that. And so I would hold, hold, hold everything.

[00:12:10] And what I learned is like, that that's doing a disservice to the client and the family because I'm so, you know, overworked. Right. And so naturally it's just come where, you know, if I take on a case and then I pass the baton to someone else while I'm doing that, it's not a. Here, you know, take this.

[00:12:30] It's I'm integrating them into the care plan, making sure that I'm delegating some tasks to them so that they can build the rapport with the family, build the rapport with the client, you know, know who the care team is. And so when I do step back. And I do it little by little. They don't even realize sometimes that it's happened because they now have such a good rapport with the team that I've set up that yes, and I tell them I'm always here.

[00:13:00] But they've built confidence that we are a team and that no matter what happens, we're going to have the right person. You know, delegated to do this or that. So it, it actually hasn't been that big of a deal for some of those family members because they, they see it as, wow, I get Tina and so and so and so and so.

[00:13:22] They don't see me as removed. I'm still supervising, I'm still leading the team behind the scenes, I'm still there, but I'm not doing the day to day, and they've now built a relationship with that person.

[00:13:38] Ariadne: That makes a lot of sense. So really, it's a process, even maybe from day one, when you're like putting together the care plan, like you are involving other people from your team, so it's not like a, Yeah.

[00:13:49] And about face where all of a sudden, like that, the person they're interacting with in your organization is totally different. Is that accurate?

[00:13:58] Tina: Yes, exactly. So if I personally take on a case, I always say, Hey, so and so I want you to work this case with me. Right. So from the get go, there's two faces you know, and, and some of that is they, they may ask to work with me directly and say, I only want to work with Tina and I say, that's fine.

[00:14:16] And we're going to bring in, you know. Other members of the team and they're like, that sounds great. More and the more people, the better, right? So it's just creating that comfort level for them to, to understand that they're going to be taken care of no matter what. The other thing I will speak to about that is, you know, as a business owner and as being the lead and doing it on my own for so long, you know, we think we can do everything, but there's other members of my team that have strengths that I don't.

[00:14:44] So we all, bring something to the table that actually creates a more cohesive care plan for that individual. If it was just me, I may, you know, overlook something that, that one of my team members says, Hey, how about this?

[00:14:58] Ariadne: I can definitely see the value in that. Is that like a general policy just for your organization that every client coming in is like having 2 people on the case, just in case something happens, maybe someone's out for the week or or whatever it is.

[00:15:15] Tina: Yes. In fact that's 1 of the things that makes Visionary Care unique is that you get a team approach. So, from day 1, you get whoever you need. So for example, if it's a highly complex medical, you're going to get the nurse, but you're also going to have, you know, if there's family dynamics, we're going to bring in someone who's really good with family mediation.

[00:15:35] If there's you know, behavior issues, we'll bring in the mental health specialist. So it's a, it's a whole team approach. You just don't get one person to manage everything you get, whoever you need on the team, that that's their area of expertise. So you're always going to have coverage, which is really important.

[00:15:53] You know, people go on vacation for work life balance. That's really helpful. You know, if you have one clinician and you have a caseload and there's two doctor's appointments at the same time, you don't want to have to cancel one. Someone else can go for you because they already are on that case with you.

[00:16:12] So it helps everyone. It helps the families. It helps the team with that balance. And, and we, we talk about all of our cases. We do case conferences where we're constantly talking about what's going on and you know, what's the status. So you get the whole team.

[00:16:31] Ariadne: That's a really smart policy. I feel like that's one thing I've heard from some of the other care managers who've come on the podcast is a lot of difficulty to take any time off, whether it's just feeling guilty in case something comes up or, you know, something truly does come up and they don't have Someone in place to kind of handle that for them.

[00:16:51] So it seems like I understand why people are reaching out to you to come to your organization. If you have created such like a collaborative environment where you also like, you know, service, not just the clients, but your team members.

[00:17:06] Tina: Yes, that's very important to me is that, you know, work life balance this is a very, very stressful job.

[00:17:12] Emergencies happen on the weekends, after hours and I don't want to have to put my team members through having to, you know, answer the call at midnight. So there's always someone answering the phone who they recognize that person's voice. It's not just a machine saying, or, you know, someone on call who's never touched that case or that client or that family member.

[00:17:32] Ariadne: I guess getting into some practical advice for any listeners that are you know, expanding their practices today.

[00:17:41] What is your advice for how you would vet a potential employee?

[00:17:50] Tina: As my mentor, one of my many mentors I've had Is not not just always be hiring, but have a process for your hiring. That was something I worked on very early on. Once I started hiring is how do you do it? What do you look for?

[00:18:06] What is your process and is your process identifying. The right type of individuals, our process includes. You know, it's a, it's a many step there's like five or six steps that we go through you know, three to four interviews where they're touching base with almost every member of the team until they finally get to me.

[00:18:31] So really, I'm vetting them after the whole team has vetted them before me. I think that's really important because I can make a decision and my team could go. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I, you know, I'm seeing red flags out of the gate or you know, they, everybody sees something different. So it's really important that when you're hiring, you're bringing people into your culture.

[00:18:57] So you want to make sure that you're hiring for skillset, but you also want to make sure they're going to fit your culture because culture is really important. If they don't, it may, they could be the best clinician in the world, but they're not going to fit the team. It's going to cause, you know, stress.

[00:19:14] So every person on my team almost touches base with them by phone or zoom before I even. Speak to them.

[00:19:24] Ariadne: That's a great policy, especially with smaller organizations, right? Like when, you know, it is an organization that every team member is going to know everyone else. And are there yellow flags or red flags that you do look for that you you know, advise your team members to look for in that interview process?

[00:19:47] Tina: Yeah, so we look for a few things. We look for longevity. Longevity is really important. It doesn't even have to be in aging in particular or in care management, but we're looking for people that have been at companies for a really long time, and they're not hopping around all the time because that tells us right.

[00:20:08] They're invested. They're invested in their work. They are taking the time to build the relationships to work through maybe communication barriers or things they don't like about an organization. So longevity is really important. We also look for. You know, what kind of other one of the questions I ask is, you know, when it gets to me and the team members asked to is what other professional courses or professional or personal development?

[00:20:39] Have they done what kind of opportunities have they engaged in outside of work? Do they volunteer? Are they on a board? You know, have they taken, you know, licensing for this? And the reason that's important, we're, we're not necessarily looking for a credential in a certain area but that just tells me that they are lifelong learners.

[00:21:00] That's one of our core values is lifelong learning. So when I'm looking for people, I'm looking for people who have taken opportunities to learn. It could be about anything.

[00:21:14] Ariadne: Yeah. Those both make a lot of sense.

[00:21:16] Did you sit down and create, like, a list of values to you guys, and then that feeds into the interview process, or has it just been more organic of this is what you know matters to you?

[00:21:26] Tina: So I created the core values based on you know, my core values. So I did a core value assessment of myself.

[00:21:34] And that really helped me define the core values for the company. And then it helps us hire, right? Because if they don't meet our core values, which for us are integrity, empathy, service to others, lifelong learning, and family, If they don't speak to that, or it doesn't show up through the interview process that really tells us something.

[00:21:59] So you know, it was important for me to define mine first. What do I want my core values? And how do I want the, my core values to show up in the company? And these are the type of people I, I want to work with and build the company.

[00:22:16] Ariadne: And what's your advice for you've gone through the hiring process.

[00:22:20] Maybe you found a great candidate. They've agreed they're coming on board. How do you help support them in that initial onboarding process, or maybe those initial couple of clients to like really set them up for success?

[00:22:36] Tina: I think it's really important to build a orientation and a training process.

[00:22:42] Again, I'll go back to process. That looks at everything that looks at policies and procedures, that looks at systems, that looks at, you know, the bigger holistic view of what is the business. That sets them up for success, but then also have a robust training program. How are you going to integrate them into the field?

[00:23:00] We're not just going to throw them out there and say, have a nice day, go to your first client by yourself. So they are, you know, going alongside our other team members that have been there, who have the relationships, who are already working with Visionary Care. So. So that they can see how our clients are to see what kind of clients we service to see how each clinician does things.

[00:23:22] Cause not everybody does things the same. So they don't just train with, you know, one person they're going out with many members of the team to see how different people operate. And they do that for two or three weeks, you know, until they're comfortable. And even at that point, if we give them a new case.

[00:23:41] They're taking it on with someone else, right? Because we have a robust model of you don't go on a case by yourself. So they always have that support of, hey, I'm stuck here. What should I do? Or what am I overlooking?

[00:23:56] Ariadne: And is there a specific amount of time that you kind of consider them in the onboarding?

[00:24:04] Like, whether it's, you know, You know, a particular number of cases or like six months or what does that look like from your expert expectations on them?

[00:24:14] Tina: We set expectations from the get go that, you know, within 90 days. You, you should be up and running and you should be meeting, you know, certain expectations within a certain number of hours per week or a certain number of clients within 90 days.

[00:24:29] Because we know there's a ramp up time. And so that seems to be really effective. It also eases their anxiety. You know, some people are like, Oh my gosh, I just took this job. And you know, what if, you know, the expectation from day one is to. You know, see this many clients and it's all about the numbers, right?

[00:24:50] We're running a business here, but we realized that in order to get people comfortable, 90 days is the minimum. I mean, it's. You're learning something every day and every client is different and every family member is different. And so it takes a long time, you know, so the 90 days is the ramp up. But I can usually tell, you know, it, it really takes someone about a year in this profession to really have them feel fully comfortable and confident in, in their own value and what they can provide.

[00:25:30] Ariadne: Yeah, that's really insightful about just helping them manage their own expectations as well as like a new employee and how they should be thinking about their ability relative to other members on the team. Is there, or what is 1 piece of advice that you wish you had gotten back when you were starting about, you know, how to best lead and grow a team?

[00:25:55] Tina: I think if you're going to grow a team and manage people and bring on an employee, bring on employees and grow it's one thing to hire people and have, you know culture, but you also have to create, I wish someone would have told me from the get go, like, Have your processes in place, have your policies and procedures in place, know your laws in your state about, you know, employment practices or security breaches, you know, those are things they don't teach.

[00:26:30] You, how to do when you start your own business, unless you, you know, have ran your own business before. So you know, it's one thing to be solo, but when you're managing clinicians, and you know, having to deal with laws in certain states, it becomes very you need to know. About the policies, the laws, how to protect yourself, how to protect your employees from, you know, abusive situations.

[00:27:00] And that's that would be my piece of advice.

[00:27:07] Ariadne: Yeah, thank you for that. I think that is something that is very easy to always put on the back burner. Basically, the processes, right? Like, it is important work, but sometimes it's not always the most urgent work. And. It's really easy when you're just yourself, you know all your processes and not that none of it gets documented.

[00:27:27] And then when you bring someone on, it's a totally different ballgame.

[00:27:31] Tina: Yeah, definitely.

[00:27:33] Ariadne: Well, thank you so much, Tina. It's been awesome having you on and really appreciate all the advice.

[00:27:40] Tina: Thank you so much and thank you for the opportunity.

[00:27:43] I really appreciate it.