How HR earns its seat at the table: Empowering talent for organizational success.

Welcome to the Built by People podcast, where we share the stories and insights of the world's top HR leaders. Join us as we dive deep into the minds of HR executives, uncovering their strategies, challenges, and triumphs in shaping today's workforce.

I'm excited to welcome Rae to the Built by People podcast. Rae, thank you so much for joining us. And as a starting question, I always love to ask if you could share a little bit more about your career journey.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the invitation. I've been in HR for about 20 years. I started off in the recruiting space, doing corporate headhunting, and have made my way up through the ranks to SVP of HR. It's been a rollercoaster ride, but it's been a lot of fun. I've been able to impact a number of companies in a positive way, and I've really just enjoyed my time. The best part about my job is just being able to connect with people on a very personal level. And, and just making sure that everybody feels like they have a voice and is seen within the organization.

Ray, how did you develop the red carpet experience strategy for talent acquisition? And can you share a specific story of how it impacted your recruitment success?

Absolutely. So I was working for a company recruiting primarily physical therapists, some occupational therapists and speech therapists. And at the time, we were really struggling to fill positions. I had, if I'm remembering correctly, because it was a while ago, but if I remember correctly, I think I had 7 states total, and we were trying to broaden into a couple more states. And we, there are a ton of outpatient physical therapy companies out there. And so we were looking for something that kind of helped us to stand apart. And really show people why they should come to our organization. And so in talking with one of my leaders at the time, she had some questions as to why positions weren't getting filled, especially clinic director roles and things like that. And so we talked through it. She said, was there anything that she could do to be supportive? And with her kind of opening that door and not dictating what I should do, it really allowed me to be creative. And so I pitched an idea to her. And she said it sounded like an interesting idea. And she did say, I think it might take you some time, more time than the normal recruitment process, but if you think it'll work, go ahead and try it. And so with that, that's where the red carpet experience was developed. I would pick up any PTs that we were interviewing, and if they were coming from out of town, I would pick them up at the hotel. I would treat them to a breakfast. Then we would tour a number of the facilities that we had open positions. I would arrange for a lunch with typically another clinic director within the organization so that they could bond over some things. And then usually one of the area vice presidents would meet us for dinner and we'd have dinner pretty much the whole day with me and just got some insight on a very ground level of all of the things that made— that set us apart from other physical therapy companies. A lot of it was the talent that we had within the organizations. And in doing that, we had about a 95% fill rate when that happened, and we were able to close positions a lot quicker. Allowing my boss, allowing me the space to be able to do that and to hold myself accountable for those numbers was a game changer for us.

Ray, when was a time you faced challenges with filling positions and attracting diverse candidates, and how did you overcome these challenges to improve your candidate pool?

I think that the time with Physio was a key one. In addition to the red carpet experience, what I also did with that was created kind of a promo reel that allowed us to really focus on what made us stand apart at the time. There were a number of outpatient clinics that were opening up and they had some more bells and whistles than some of our facilities, and they definitely gave more expensive swag than most of our facilities at job fairs. And so I was trying to think of a way that we could compete in a different way and really impact people. And so in tying what I knew our members needed to be and looking at the time to fill and trying to get a more diverse pool of candidates into all of our facilities, I created a promo reel in conjunction with, at the time, I think he was the regional vice president. And so I pitched the idea to him, and he loved it and said that he would be completely on board. I pitched it to my boss, who had already had success with the red carpet experience, and she was like, hey, if you can figure out a way to do it, you know, go ahead and do it. And so I worked with a local videographer that I worked with before. I had a friend who did music production and had him make a soundtrack for it. We created this pretty— at the time, it was a pretty innovative reel before TikTok and all of those others, even before Vine, if you remember Vine at all. It was a longer promotional video than would probably fly now, but at the time it was really innovative. And we connected it to QR codes.. And so with that, we'll go to job fairs, people can scan the QR code, get an insight into all of the different leaders within our organization and actually see our facilities, which is really what made it stand apart. And we tied that also to all of the signature lines for every clinic director within the South region that became a national campaign as well. And so It really helped us, especially in the South, to fill those positions a lot quicker than we'd filled them before. And we really were able to get just a diverse pool of candidates. So it's a pretty exciting experience overall.

Ray, can you share a story about building relationships with operational folks and how those relationships played a crucial role in the success of your HR initiatives?

Well, 100%. So I think one of the reasons I was able to build relationships, and I've always been able to build relationships, is because I do ask for a seat at the table. So I want to know what's going on within the organization more than just, oh, what positions do you need? I'd like to be proactive in whatever is being done. So having a seat at the table is huge. And so when you have that seat at the table, you also have to take the time to to give some insight into what's going on and suggest ideas and then be able to prove whatever concepts you come up with. And so for Rule, the first experience that we had with the red carpet experience being so successful, the reason I was able to get that over the threshold was because of the fact that they'd been used to seeing me at the table in all these meetings and having these conversations. And so they were more likely to go ahead and take a gamble on it. And when that was approved, when I was able to prove that track record, it made it a lot easier to go in and do other things as well. And that led to other initiatives. Once I moved out of recruitment into HR, that led to other initiatives that I was trying to get passed through. And because of the track record I'd had before, people are much more likely to go ahead and let you try. Other things that are kind of out of the box as well, especially when you can equate it to numbers and all of those kind of things. So, that's one of the reasons that building those relationships are key and one of the reasons I've been really successful in building those relationships.

Ray, what parting advice would you like to share with our community?

The parting advice that I would give is, number one would be create an environment of accountability overall, right? And so in doing that, it's looking at a person as a person, not just dictating whatever you think they should do. They're more likely to own something if you let them come up with the concept, give them the problem, let them come up with the concept, and support them in getting things over the threshold. And so that's one of the things that I would do that I would impart to people is just creating that culture of accountability. And then not being scared to take chances. In the HR world, sometimes we can be scared because it's not the norm, right? But those people who take those chances are the ones who are remembered and oftentimes are referred to other companies because of the fact that they've taken these chances and those have been successful. Everything's not going to be successful for sure. I've tried things that aren't successful, but that doesn't mean you stop trying and you just make tweaks here and there. So don't be afraid to fail sometimes and just be happy with the successes that you do get.

Ray, thank you so much for joining us today on the Built by People podcast. It was a pleasure to have you involved.

Thank you. I appreciate it.