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Creating a culture of caring with Massage Envy's Susie Gordon

Written by Workstream | May 18, 2023 2:05:00 PM

We clock in with Susie Gordon, Director of Human Resources at one of the largest Massage Envy franchise groups in the country.

Susie recently made the jump to HR after starting her career as a registered nurse, and she shares some interesting ways that those positions overlap. We discuss why company culture is so important, little tweaks to her hiring strategy that have made a big difference, how to resolve conflicts among employees, and more.

 

Transcript:

Daniel Blaser (00:07):

Hello and welcome to On the Clock, presented by Workstream. If you care about hiring and retaining hourly employees, you're in the right place. I'm Daniel Blaser, and today I am clocking in with Susie Gordon. Suzy is Director of Human Resources at one of the largest Massage Envy franchise groups in the country. Susie recently made the jump to HR after starting her career as a registered nurse, and she shares some interesting ways that those two positions overlap. We discuss why company culture is so important, little tweaks to our hiring strategy that have made a big difference how to resolve conflicts among employees and more enjoy. To get things started, I'd love to hear just about your role as Director of Human Resources. You know, what it entails and maybe what are some of the biggest challenges that you've been facing in your position?

Susie Gordon (00:57):

I actually am very new to the HR world. I, I actually started as a registered nurse in my career, and my boss has really shaped me to conform really well to his company, specifically. He kind of, he knew about the fact that I didn't have any HR experience and you know, took my, my nursing and was like, we can use that and you can, you, you already know how to be really patient with patients and all of that. He heard a few of my stories and was like, yeah, you'll, you'll do fine in HR world <laugh>. So we went ahead and started with that last year in February. And so far my, my biggest challenges have definitely been just how, how crazy different of a job role this is obviously adding benefits and has been a challenge. A fun one, but we've added a few benefits since I've come on and that's, that's been fun. And recruiting. Recruiting is a huge major challenge that we, we face throughout our company on a daily basis.

Daniel Blaser (02:10):

So how many like locations in total employees are with your company?

Susie Gordon (02:14):

So we have about 58 locations. It's gonna be 59, I actually believe next week. So we're getting one more and we have just under a thousand employees.

Daniel Blaser (02:27):

Wow, that's a lot of locations, a lot of employees. Seems like you definitely have your work cut out for you and a lot of what you're doing.

Susie Gordon (02:34):

For sure. I am the only HR person for our company as well, so it's it's a big job.

Daniel Blaser (02:40):

You mentioned you know, some of the recruiting challenges. Could you kind of just, you know, summarize, like specifically what, what recruiting challenges have, have you been trying to figure out and, and maybe what that has to do with your industry, specifically

Susie Gordon (02:57):

With recruiting? Our, our main problem I would say is, well, there, there's a lack of massage therapists. We have more jobs than massage therapists that are out there, and we have a lot of no shows for our other positions. It's people apply and then, because again, there's the amount of jobs versus the amount of people looking, it's wildly different and people get a job and then they understandably don't show up to an interview and that is a huge problem.

Daniel Blaser (03:36):

Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to hear like, why do you take pride in your work? Why do you enjoy it?

Susie Gordon (03:43):

I really enjoy helping people. I, like I said, I'm a nurse as well. Still am a registered nurse and that's something that I've, I've always enjoyed doing and wanted to do in my career. And HR is a little bit of a different version of helping people than nursing, of course. But you know, like last year I was able to introduce Aflac into our company which many employees have already benefited from. And we introduced new paid time off policies because of me. And that's something that I, I really wanted to give to the employees because they deserve a break. They deserve time off. That's something I, I feel strongly about. So I feel like it's, it's really nice being a voice for the employees in our company.

Daniel Blaser (04:39):

Yeah, that's great. Maybe, you know, thinking back a few months ago even and some of the challenges that you, challenges that you were facing with recruiting employees you know, what, what advice would you give to yourself maybe a few months ago or what advice would you give to someone else who's also struggling with recruiting hourly employees like you were?

Susie Gordon (05:01):

You know, don't, just don't give up 'cause you gotta keep chugging along and don't be afraid to, to make some changes to your job posts. That was something that I really I struggled with understanding for the first few months of my job and I just stuck to whatever the job post was that was initially given to me. And when I made changes, I, I just did a little bit of research and found out, wow, if you shorten the job post a little bit to make it really easy to read and really simple and you lay out all of your benefits right away and you stress everything that you can give to the employee, it really helps. It makes a huge difference. We also adjusted, instead of putting hourly rates, we did yearly salaries instead. And that's made a big difference on, on the job posting, just making a few changes and just trying things out. That's been the most helpful for us.

Daniel Blaser (06:01):

Yeah, those are great tips. So to clarify, so you, you are still paying hourly, but did you just kind of do the math to like certain number of hours per week and then extrapolate that out? Is that kind of how you approach that?

Susie Gordon (06:16):

Yes, correct.

Daniel Blaser (06:17):

Yeah, that's a great tip. You know, kind of talking about how you refined those job descriptions what would you say like, are some good, like additional perks or benefits that you think have really kind of made a difference in attracting employees?

Susie Gordon (06:34):

I do think, I think what a lot of people are looking for right now is number one, flexible scheduling because they wanna have a life outside of work and we are able to offer that and it's super helpful. Paid time off is, is another one that I think employees are really excited about. I know I am. We also have a lot of massage therapists don't actually have access through their jobs 401k and health and dental insurance and we have all of those. So that's something that, that might be more specific to massage therapists, but you know, looking at who you're hiring for and figuring out what do they not usually have access to that we could give them is nice.

Daniel Blaser (07:24):

What about retention? We've talked a lot about hiring and attracting applicants. Are there any other things that you've done or that you've noticed have kind of made a difference with keeping people around?

Susie Gordon (07:37):

Positive culture in the workplace is a huge one. I, again, this is something I didn't fully understand. I I, you know, I've been in workplaces, I've, I've worked as a nurse and I've always had a, a pretty decent culture where I've worked, and it's not something I've ever thought about, but if you have a toxic employee, whether it be any of the positions or a manager, you know, that they really bring down the, the culture of a workplace and having or bad upper management too can bring down a culture. So it's I didn't realize the impact that having a, a positive culture in the workplace would have. And now that I've, I've been to, I've visited a couple of locations and their culture was amazing and their retention rates were fantastic. I mean, we very rarely need to hire for those locations because they have such a good culture. And I know workplaces all the time say, you know, like, we're, we're like family here. And some people are like, whoa, that's a red flag. It's, it's not in the right place. It's it is, it can be true and it can be really good. And I know, you know, we do try to as much as we can to take care of our employees through the company side, but just having that, that really good culture within our locations, it's, it helps a lot.

Daniel Blaser (08:59):

I don't know, maybe painting with a, with a broad brush, I feel like, who is the one saying that we're like family? Like if it's management, like they're the saying we're like a family, then it's kind of like, hmm, I don't know. But if it's like bottom up, like the employees saying that, that is like a good sign, right? It just kind of depends on who's the one that's, that's making that claim. I feel like I'd love to hear you know, you kind of mentioned the, the problems with retention that a toxic employee can cause. Have you had to deal with some of those situations in your role and how did you approach them? How did you try to resolve that?

Susie Gordon (09:38):

So I, I've had, I've had quite a few <laugh>, I've got some stories of toxic employees that, just so you understand too, I am actually located in Ohio. I am not located in any of our location states even, so I'm, I'm at least six hours away from the closest location. So I do all of this via phone or over Zoom or whatever. And a lot of times when we have an employee that is upset, whether it be because of another employee or because of management, when we sit down with that employee and it's me and the employee and the person they've got a problem with like nine out of 10 times we can work it out. And it's usually just a misunderstanding, miscommunication, something along those lines where they just sit there and they have a nice open adult conversation and they, they can work it out. And I've seen it work extremely well and they end up being friends in the end.

Daniel Blaser (10:39):

Great advice. And I, I think I had, I would agree with you. I think most people kind of want to resolve those problems and if you, if you give them the opportunity to. So that's cool. One more question that I'd love to ask. You've already given some great advice. The people that listen to this podcast primarily, you've got a lot of other HR leaders just like yourself, a lot of them that are kind of over the hourly workforce. What final piece of advice or recommendation or anything, you know, thought that you'd like to leave with the people that, listen,

Susie Gordon (11:12):

I really love workstream and everything. It has to offer, it really helps to put it back into the manager's hands and they can really focus on getting really good employees, which I think is really important to that positive workplace culture. Again, just researching and figuring out what's going to work best for, for you and your company, I think goes a long way. Sitting down and talking to people, looking it up on Google. If you have to, <laugh> definitely done my fair share of Googling, you know, don't, don't be afraid to, to reach out to people though and ask questions and, and see what they've done to help their company out too.

Daniel Blaser (11:52):

Yeah, those some great recommendations. And I, I probably, if I had to guess, part of those recommendations come from the fact that you are maybe a little newer to the HR game, but that can bring kind of that learner's mindset, right? Where it's like, you know, maybe if you're established, you're less likely to do the research or have a conversation, but it's always good to do that stuff regardless of how long you've been in the seat. So that, I like that a lot.

Susie Gordon (12:16):

We always said for, for nurses, if you stop asking questions, that's when we get worried about you being a nurse because you think you know it all and you, there's no way that you could possibly know it All. The, the medical world is constantly changing. There's always new things, all of that good jazz. I kind of view HR as the same way. It's, it is constantly changing. The world is constantly changing and I think that, you know, asking those questions and reaching out to other people and seeing what works best for them, that's, that's gonna be the best way that you can improve your company and help your employees.

Daniel Blaser (12:48):

Yeah, I, I agree. Great advice. Well thank you so much, Suzy. It's been a pleasure speaking with you.

Susie Gordon (12:55):

Thank you so much for having me.

Daniel Blaser (13:03):

Thank you for listening to On the Clock. For more info, visit workstream.us/podcast. Until next time, we're clocking out.

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