Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Welcome to the Victory Show.
Hey victors. Welcome to this episode of the Victory Show. If this is your first time joining us, I'm Travis Cody, best selling author of 16 books and the creator of bestseller By Design.
I've had the privilege of helping hundreds of businesses, consultants, founders and entrepreneurs write and publish their own best selling books as well. And along that journey, I've discovered a really fascinating pattern. A lot of businesses hit a revenue plateau or even an employee plateau and they struggle to break through that. So on this show I sit down with some of the world's most successful founders, CEOs, leaders and business owners to uncover the strategies that they use to overcome those plateaus and scale their businesses to new heights so you can do the same. Now get ready for some deep insights and actionable takeaways that you can implement in your life and business. Starting now. My guest today, Fantastic. We've got a. This is going to be a remarkable interview. He's a mission driven leader who has spent his career elevating care for some of the most vulnerable members of our communities. David Brog is the Chief Executive Officer of Syringa Chalet, a specialized facility within the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare that's dedicated to serving geriatric residents with severe mental health needs. Radiation. With a deep insight into the post acute care sector, David has not only overseen day to day operations, but also driven transformational growth. Under his leadership, Seringa Shale has hit milestone after milestone, eliminating the use of outside agency staff, maintaining a coveted five star quality ranking for more than two years and earning the best survey results in the facility's history. Dave's journey is a testament to grit and passion. Starting in environmental sciences, he rose to the ranks to become a nationally respected leader and healthcare operations. And along the way he's managed and consulted across multiple states. Always focused on leadership development, quality care and strategic growth. Now what makes Dave's story even more inspiring is his personal resilience. Having faced severe and serious health challenges himself, David brings empathy, determination and purpose to every role he plays. When he's not leading and mentoring, David enjoys the outdoors and creating memories with his family. David, thank you so much for being here today.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you. I look forward to speaking with you more. This is a fantastic opportunity.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: Well, it's a good thing you like the outdoors living in Idaho.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: That is true. It's a beautiful place and I'm lucky to call it home.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: So let's, let's talk a little bit about your, your background here because it's so fascinating because it's such a remarkable blending of not just the business world, but also healthcare, but in a very specific niche and sector. I mean, geriatric mental health disorder, that's about as, you know, niched down there as you can get. And I, you know, I think it's something that most people, myself included, don't really think a lot about, so we'll get into that. But where did you start your journey? You started your journey into healthcare. What did that look like? What, first and foremost, like what took you into that field?
[00:02:59] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. So it kind of just happenstance that I landed in healthcare. I always knew I wanted to help people.
I started into EMT school, wanted to do that, then got into there and realized that I couldn't handle blood.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: I got out a couple of car wrecks was enough.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So one big wreck and it was, I was done. Nope, not wasn't doing that. So I kind of fumbled around in deciding what I wanted to do. Physical therapy, all this stuff. And I was in the middle of college and I got a job as a housekeeper for a nursing home in town. And so I started there and just fell in love with the patients and talking with people there and hearing their stories and their personal struggles and what's going on that brought them to that place. At that time. I remember the biggest impact I had where I had a 19 year old who got admitted into the nursing home just from some serious life challenges and things like that. But she was able to make the best of it and that really hit home with me. And so from, from that point, I really knew that, you know, I wanted to be in the nursing home setting for the rest of my career. I really just. It hit a heartstring is all I can say with that.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: So what were you studying in school at that point in time?
[00:04:13] Speaker A: Yeah, so I, I was in the middle of doing my bachelor's in psychology when I was starting that. And then I realized, hey, this is some passion I really have. So I got a mentor by the name of Steve Bateman. Fantastic guy, used to run AHCA Hospital out of around Salt Lake, Utah and got in touch with him. He got me, he helped me get into his master's degree program. So I was working on my master's in healthcare administration and from there branched out into the nursing home sector and helped me really drive my career. So I was lucky enough to connect with the right people that knew the industry inside. Now to really help me, I'm gonna.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Say it's also from the conversation I've had It's rare that you were doing something in school and found a job that was already kind of light. And usually it's like, I was doing this thing. I got this job and was like, wait a minute, that's not what I want to do. And they switch majors and do it, so. But yours was just like, I am on the right path. I just need to get a little more schooling. So. All right, so it sounds like originally you had planned to get into more of the administrative side. So when you got out of school, is that where you started? And were you in the, like, for profit sector?
[00:05:17] Speaker A: Yeah, so after I got out of school, I went through my. What they call it, administrator and training program through a company called Ensign. I was out in Iowa, so I was a Midwest boy for a couple years and enjoyed that. And then I got my first building and operated my first private sector building out in Iowa in a little town called Cherokee, which was super exciting. I had no idea what I was doing, just fresh into it. And I had really fantastic people that helped me grow and through that organization and teach me all sorts of different things, from culture to finance to leadership to communication and beyond. And so I was lucky enough to glean as much information as I could and applied that and had success in applying it in a manner of different ways. I was lucky enough to work with Ensign, like I said, and they've got really cool, interesting, powerful culture within their organization that has a lot of values into it that really play into my leadership style and how I've been able to have the success that I have had.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: So how big was that first home you took over in Cherokee?
[00:06:21] Speaker A: So, ironically, it's the same size as the first. The home I operate now, just a little less.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Boy. So talk about kind of just like tossing you into the deep end of the pool.
[00:06:31] Speaker A: Yeah, so I got tossed into a building that. And it was. It was pretty hard. The first building I took over was at a net loss for the year. I mean, they weren't making any money. They were bleeding in the red. My first month there, we lost 54,000 revenue.
That was kind of a rough month, but we were able to pull it out after a couple months of figuring out where the problems were, pulling the right levers, and we were in green by the end of that year. So it was fantastic. But I made plenty of mistakes along the way.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: So how many. How many. How many beds and patients were you looking at? And then how many staff did you have to manage?
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Yeah, so in that building, we had a smaller staff and we had a kind of a small patient. So when I took it over, there was 27 patients for the 42 bed facility. When I left, we were at 41. So we increased our patient volume by quite a lot, which is really nice. We increased our skilled mix so our revenue was looking better. We decreased our days since outstanding. So we were doing way better at collecting quicker.
As far as employees go, you're picking my brain now. I want to say it's around 120 employees, 130 employees that we had operating in that building. When I operated that building, the lowest we got was 90. As soon as I came in, people left, left and right. They were kind of worried that, oh, the new guy's here, he's going to fire us all. And so there's kind of a mass exodus. And then we were able to kind of get on track, have some meetings, get everybody behind the mission and behind the values. And we drove from there and were able to increase our staffing by about 30% in a couple months. We were able to get rid of all of our agency staff, which saved us easily 15, 20,000amonth, which was fantastic.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: Wow. All right, so two questions based on that. First is, so let's talk about that with agency staff versus regular staff. Why is that more expensive?
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Yeah. So agency staff, you're paying not only the wage, but you're also paying the company. So typically an agency worker is going to cost you about double what a CNA or RN will. So like I pay if I pay a RN, you know, 42 bucks an hour normally that I'd hire in house, you're typically paying somebody about 100 bucks an hour to staff your building with an RN for that individual is, you know, you typically pay 12 to 18 bucks an hour. They're costing you 30 to 40.
They, that's how they give them the door. So they pay them a lot of money and they travel in.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: And there's pros and cons because usually it's companies can't find the hiring themselves and they're desperate. Right. So they just got to plug holes for now.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: Yeah. And it comes down to patient care. So I get why they do it. It's all about safety. It's all about providing the care for that population that we serve. But there's better ways to do it.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: Sure. All right, so what were the kind of the realities you faced that first year? Because obviously you're going, you get your, your master's degree. But what was the academic versus the reality? And like what was Kind of the most shocking to you in that first, maybe few months when you came out and were like, I'm ready to go. And then you're like, wait a minute. This is not what they talked about in class.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: Yeah, the. The one thing that I learned really, really quickly is just because you have a title doesn't mean people are gonna get behind you and get behind your ideas right in school. It's like, hey, here's this great idea. All you have to do is tell people, then they'll do it. And it's really this. Know, this is in a perfect world, how the workforce should be, right? You tell them to jump, they say, how high? You know, it works like that. But you get there. And, you know, I was fairly young in my first operation. I took over my first building at 26, not knowing what I was doing. And so you've got people that have been there 20, 30 years that are like, okay, this is just a, you know, green kid that has no idea what he's doing. Why should we listen to him and take his ideas and go from there? So that was the biggest hurdle I had, was trying to convince a bunch of people that have been in the industry a lot longer than I that there is improvement to be had and a way to get it.
[00:10:21] Speaker B: Wow. All right, so how long were you at that building before you transferred? And was it like a transfer up or so?
[00:10:27] Speaker A: I was at the first building I was at. I was there for seven, eight months, and then another building came open, so I transferred there and was there for about another year and a half.
[00:10:37] Speaker B: Well, was it a similar situation as a building that was losing money? And they were like, you did such a good job with this one. Can you do that over here?
[00:10:43] Speaker A: Yeah, pretty much.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: It was.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: They. They had an administrator that got canned for some issues there that I won't per se mention. But so they said, hey, you've done a great job with this one. We want you to, you know, step in short term and fill this one. So I stepped in short term, filled that one, which happened to be a lot longer than I anticipated, until they found somebody that could per se, take the reins.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: So let's talk about then. You're dealing with some unique challenges. I mean, you're very young CEO. You know, you. Some of the guys on the staff are, you know, been in the field longer than. Been alive. So how do you, as a. As a leader go about, you know, I guess, gaining the trust and respect of those people so that they see you as the CEO and not Just a young kid.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: Yeah. The one thing that I took in my first 90 days is the biggest thing. I sat back and I just watched and listened to see how things went. If you come in hot, changing things left and right, it's never going to be, you know, you don't get trust that way. So I sat back, asked questions and really learned how to do some active listening and build rapport with people. And so I spent way more time out of my office than I did in my office. And so what I would do is I'd take my laptop and my computer and I'd forward my office phone to my cell phone and I'd be walking around the halls with my cart, talking to everybody I could, trying to do two things at once. Just helping out and building rapport and just being a decent human being. Asking, you know, coworkers, asking the staff, you know, why do you come to work every day? What things do you hate about work? And just getting to know them on a personal level and seeing where their struggles lie and really working on that human capital piece. Once you know their drives, their wants, the things they really hate, things they love, you start pulling those low hanging fruit and you can really go a long way. I remember I had one CNA who came into my office and at the end of one night and she's like, I really hate our gloves. We have vinyl gloves, they tear, they get water in them, they're awful. They make my job so much harder. And she was just ramping on and I sat her down and I was like, look, I am, I understand where you're coming from. You know, I've done your job, I've been there. What can we do differently to make it better? And she's like, well, there's these gloves, but they're a little bit more expensive, but they're better. And so, you know, in the long run, I made the switch, it cost me a little bit more up front, but in the long run, staff were happier, which means they called their friends and said, hey, you should come work here. And that was a big trust builder. So getting the small wins, getting people to know, hey, this guy's going to fix things, he's going to take accountability for things. And so just getting that flywheel spinning per se and building that into the bigger changes and bigger changes as you get going. I think a lot of people try to hit the big thing first and then they don't have that buy in and trust. And that's where they fail.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: You know, it's interesting though, Right. Because you think, oh, we're saving. The company's going. We're saving money on these gloves. But if they're breaking at a higher rate, you're going through more. So are you, Are you actually really saving money or, you know, at the end of the day, does it get a nicer one? And you're. Even though it's more expensive, you end up spending the same. Yeah. I worked, I worked in Hollywood for a while, and I used to work at Universal Studios, and they had a.
The theme park has its own healthcare center for just the performers. And I remember when I was there, they, they tried a, a pilot study where they brought in a couple of massage therapists. And if you were a performer in the park, you could go and get a massage a couple of times a month. And I think it cost them $45,000 for the massage program with the therapists. And that first year, they lowered their workman comp claims by like three and a half million dollars. And the reason I bring that up is what was interesting is Universal eventually got bought out by NBC. And the first thing NBC was like, why do we have this massage? And they cancel it. And then I, my friend ran the. That was the head nurse there. And the next year they were like, NBC was blowing gaskets because they're like, why is our workman comp claims like two and a half million dollars more than it was last year?
And they were like, you saved $40,000? But it's so interesting to see how that kind of works. Okay, so let's talk about. I know I'm going to say I wrote it right here. Is it Syringa Chalet? Did I say that right? Where does that name come from?
[00:14:43] Speaker A: In Idaho, Syringa is actually the state flower. So.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: All right, I just learned something new.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: When I am Jeopardy, I can. I'm gonna. That's going to be the final question. I'm going to win it. They're going to be like, what in the world is Syringa?
[00:14:55] Speaker A: So it's named after the state flower. And it's a beautiful building. I mean, it's gorgeous. They built it in 2020 with top end stuff. I mean, it is, it is beautiful. We all call it the Aspen Ski Resort. It's beautiful. You'll have to listen pictures of it sometime.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Well, that's awesome. Now. But the unique thing about the resort is it was founded in what, 1940, 41, something like that.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: So you're almost like already in the facility. It's 100 years old.
How did that come about for you to come in there? Because you're kind of. You're private, but you're also inside of the Idaho health system. Right? Is that. Am I understanding that right?
[00:15:31] Speaker A: So we serve the community and the population. So we serve, you know, the. Anybody in Idaho with mental health disorders that's in that geriatric psych population of 65 and older. We specifically do Medicaid as our primary insurance payer. And so all of our patients are really in need of the service and have nowhere else to get it. And so a lot of our patients come through us into a variety of different ways. Typically what happens is, you know, they've had mental health struggles majority of their lives, whether that be from adolescence on, from, you know, trauma in their lives, from anything from, you know, rape, physical abuse, those things, a lot of schizophrenia, stuff like that. So we take the really, the sickest patients that usually end up in the ERs, that usually have been kicked out of every other nursing home, and they kind of come to us through that way, or they come through us through a court process, so they find themselves in some legal trouble. And in Idaho, they don't have an insanity plea. And so you have to be found competent to go through that process. And so they'll say, hey, you are now a ward of the Department of Health and Welfare till you can get found competent. And so a lot of times our elderly population isn't ever going to be found competent, so we kind of take them and fill that need as well.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: So this is remarkable to me, like, that you're running a chalet, but it's take.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: You're.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: You're literally taking all the people where everyone else is like, these guys are too unruly for us to handle. And you're like, we'll take them. Yeah, like that. That in and of itself is that mindset and that culture right there is. Is remarkable to me.
So now, when you took over, it was very similar to the other ones, right? Running in the red, what weren't close to capacity. You're having staffing issues. Just talk a little bit about. So when you got hired there, I think you said earlier, they, they. They had about 200 staff, and they should have around 350 to 400. Yeah.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: So we were running really low. It was right in the middle of kind of that Covid timeframe where everybody was like, I'm getting out of healthcare. Like, I, yeah, I'm retiring early. I don't want to deal with this. And so when I came on it was desperate measures. I mean, my director of nursing was working a hundred hour weeks just to make sure patients were taken care of. Like, it was brutal. I worked many late nights just helping with cnas just because we didn't have people to work.
It was brutal. I mean, it was my first year there was really tough just for staffing and we could not get out of it for the longest time. And I had to take a couple looks at it and go, you know, why is staffing so bad? What have we done?
And I had to go through and figure out, you know, where's the piece? Because I talked to the staff and they're like, yeah, things are great. Things are fine. And I'm like, then why are you all leaving? And so it's. We had to build that trust and rapport. And finally it was like, hey, we love it here. We just can't stand this individual's management style. So we had to go through redo some of the management team. Wow.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Finally getting honest. And you're like one or two people are kind of causing all the problems.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: Yep, pretty much. So what happened is we had one person who kind of had a dictator leadership style.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: No, that never happens in management.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: No, never. Right. They didn't want to do, you know, they were, they were there in spirit and told everyone what to do, but would. Would never really be a team player. And it just burnt people's bridges the way they had done things. And so we had to do a lot of work rebuilding trust. And we're still not where I want to be yet, if I'm being honest. But we've made great strides.
[00:18:56] Speaker B: So going from a company that has a remarkable, amazing culture to this, like, how do you like, mentally kind of deal with that first year where you're. There's just so many things going on. How do you as a leader hold on to that? Like, I guess the team spirit, right. How you keep people's morale high enough that they, they're like, they see a light at the end of the tunnel.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: Yeah. For, for me, it starts with just getting to know the people, like having an individual relationship with every staff, knowing them by name, and even the residents too, that you talk to and you see them and you know something personal about them and you do what, what's coined quick connects. Right. So you're walking down the hall and you say, hey, Stacy, you know, how's your kids? I know you had a soccer game yesterday. So that makes them feel valued and it makes you feel like they care. I got hired in the fall. And the first thing I did was write every single employee a handwritten thank you letter and a Christmas card and sent those out in the mail and then gave little sticky notes and would hand those out to people that, hey, great job. I really noticed you doing this and just building that confidence. A lot of times in management, we like to hit on the negatives. You know, hey, we got to do this better. This is what we're not doing. If we did this, we could make more money, be more efficient. But really, building that positive base really helps people want to grow. And you show them a path forward. I had people that had no idea what they were going to do in life or where they wanted to be. Like, well, I'm just here for a paycheck. Like, okay, let's reframe that. There's easier jobs you can do. Like, you don't have to get yelled.
[00:20:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I was going to say, in terms of a paycheck, I could think something a little easier than adult mental health clinic.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: It's really getting them to realize what is your why. And once they figure out what that why is and you're there to show them the path forward, like, here's your why. This is where you can be if you buckle down, work hard. You know, I am a huge believer with promotion within, but you just have to spend the time developing and training and getting those people to where you want them to be. And that makes one my job a lot easier because I already know how I'm going to hire if somebody ever leaves.
And you get better quality people. Right. You're spending the time, you're using that human capital, and they. When they believe that you believe in them, they'll walk through walls for you.
[00:21:11] Speaker B: You know, you said something really interesting. And it's so important, especially in today's culture, in that even just seeing the small things go on, I noticed this, and you did a great job. Because there is, you know, there's an. There's a. I think it's safe to say that especially in people under 35, there's an epidemic of loneliness. So we're more connected than any, but everybody feels lonely. And part of. And the people that I've worked with that have been on my team so that we've had these conversations and they've talked about it. When you say, what does it mean to be lonely? Most of what comes up is they say they feel invisible. And so I just find it interesting. Part of your leadership style is to actually notice someone and go, I Saw this thing, you did it because what does that do now? You're like, it's shattering this thing of like I'm invisible. It's like, oh my God, somebody saw me. I mean, you know. Right. Like from a common sense standpoint you will go up, but of course. And we live in the business world where it is depending the corporation you're with, it is all about the profits. And so there is all about like everything's always wrong. Right. So I think that's what a remarkable sort of insight and capacity. So let's talk about the, the, the staffing issues. How did you go about, you know that after you've been there for a year and you're like, okay, what's going on? How did you start to rebuild the staff to the point because you're now at 3:73, 85.
[00:22:26] Speaker A: Yeah. So you're, we're getting up there. I think last time I looked we were even at 4, 10. So.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: So you've almost doubled your staff in a couple of years. And so how did you, how did you go. Let's talk a little bit about how you did that.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: Yeah, so the first thing we did was get rid of the management problems that we were having. Right. Fix the things that people hate that are low hanging fruit. Get that out of the way. So they create a place where they feel safe at work. Right.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: They want get rid of two managers. Everybody comes in like, oh my God, thank you. Well, and they're talking, they're talking to the water cooler being like, I would have never said anything, but I'm so much happier they're not here now.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Right. It's, and you know, it's, it's hard to send people off the bus per se, but it's, you know, for, for me personally, it's keeping them there is more damage. If you really care and love somebody enough, help them move on to something that one they're more happier at and better at and more fitted to. Right. It's, it's not because you've got anything out for that individual or something, it's just that, you know, you've, you need something done and it's that accountability that really matters and getting the right person, the, the right culture fit.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: Yeah. So how do you as a CEO then, how do you go about nurturing the leaders within your company? Do you have like education programs? Are you doing leadership trainings? Or is there some other way that you go about.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: Yeah, so we, we do a lot of different things. There's a lot of Smarter people out there than I. We do a. We pick a book every year as a leadership team to read and take insights from, whether that be like Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Good to Great Extreme Ownership. I mean, there' There's a bunch of fantastic books. Leadership from Self Deception. I mean, you name it. So we pick a new book every year and talk about it in leadership and how we can apply that leadership style and the things we learned there into what we do. One of the first books we ever did was Multipliers, and it talks about, you know, how do you take individuals and compound them. It's the idea of, you know, one person can do so much work, two people can do double the work, but no two people can really do triple the work. Kind of that synergy idea. And so it's how do we make that what we do more synergistic and be able to push farther that way? And so we dove into that book, and a lot of things that we found that we were doing were really diminishing people and making them feel less valued and having less motivation. So as we were using those tools and resources, they felt more motivated, they worked harder, their quality of work improved, and we spent time really focusing on that human capital aspect, just taking care of the people. For the first year, it was all about, you know, we cared about our residents and our population, but it was, how do we take care of the staff? They haven't been taken care of in a long time. So let's put them first and we'll put our customers second and really help them so they can do their job with their fullest and help our clients to the fullest.
[00:25:14] Speaker B: And I would think just that shift in focus was probably kind of shocking to the people that were there. What were some of the ways that you did that? Yeah, to kind of retune that part.
[00:25:22] Speaker A: Of it, we started by just doing what we called manager rounds. We could never come up with a better name with it. So every. Every hour, on the top of the hour, we'd get out of our offices for at least 15 minutes, just chat with people, see how they're going. We'd go out at meal times and pass trays. We just made ourselves more available to everybody that was there. We really got to spend time with the staff while they were working and get to know what their struggles were, and we're able to just build that first level of rapport. Once we had that first level rapport, we started doing more education, more trainings with not only our managers and leaders, On K, this is what you need to look for. This is how to educate. So we do a lot of teaching the teachers how to teach and lead. And so it's all about how do you coach someone to success?
So we, the first thing we did was stop write ups. We were like, we're not doing write ups right now. Not to say we don't do them, but we added another layer, had a.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: Moratorium on there for a while.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: Yeah. So we're like, hey, before we do this, we want to make sure we're coaching this person to success. Have a meeting, make sure one, they're aware of what the issues are that they're having and how we can help and better help them and give them the skills and tools they need to further develop. And so we coached people to success. So a lot of people that were like, oh, I hate this person. It's just a problem spent. You can't write that person up. You have to coach them and work with them to get them to where you want them to be. And that instilled a lot of value in our staff. And our managers learned that, you know, they weren't stuck with a bad employee. They were able to really work and mentor and change not only their view of somebody, but be able to help them succeed as well when they weren't before.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: What was the culture like when you got there and how, how do you feel the culture is now?
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Oh my gosh, the culture was terrible. So when I got there, I remember my very first day I got hired. I walked in and everybody, I mean, it was almost like somebody had dropped, you know, a bomb and just, everybody just scattered. And I was standing there at the nursing station looking around, going, where in the heck is everybody? And so that was day one. Everybody was kind of running scared and it was all these rumors, all these sorts of things that was, you know, they're here to clean house, they're here to do this. It's all the gossip he said, she said. It was always, you know, all the stuff that just drama, right? You get it everywhere. It's management, it's leadership, it's. It's kind of part of what we do. And so we started, you know, creating an environment, doing fun things, doing team building. So we did a lot of potlucks. I love food, everybody likes food, did a lot of potlucks. Getting people together just to have conversations and really get to know each other better, not really cut the drama down a lot. So when we use, when we do our manager rounds, which we talked About a little bit earlier, we have a list of questions that we ask that we've kind of developed and guided over the years. I took a lot of them from Ensign when I was working there. They call them the Moneyball questions. And it's making sure your staff is. You know, there's a list of 10 questions, and you want to make sure you're hitting all of them that have the keys to success for your culture. So one of them. We talked about loneliness before is, do you have a best friend at work? Right? Easy answer, right? Yes and no. And so we created a mentorship program. And so, hey, you don't have a friend at work, this person's going to show you the ropes, get to know people with you. They're going to check in with you every month. They're going to text you, making sure that you're good. You don't have any questions. And so they've kind of built them in a friend per se and did that. And so they felt value there and support from not just the managers, but a peer who has nothing, who has no real reason to reach out to them other than just love and support. And so we did that. We took a bunch of volunteers together, and we put together a culture committee of staff from CNAs to dietary people to housekeepers to maintenance, then all got them in a conference room about once a month and said, what's. What do you guys want to see change? Where are we at? How do we make that change? And we gave them the keys. So I took that project and said, this is your guys, baby. Like, I am here to guide and help, but this is a project for you guys to work on and develop. So that group of 10 individuals developed ideas on what they wanted to do to improve culture, and they championed it. So instead of me beating the drum, per se, all the time, I had 10 people plus all my managers beating that same drum. And really, it comes down to the. What we call the CRO, or the Chief Repetition Officer, and just, hey, this is great. This is what we're working on, setting goals that are measurable and realistic, and just hitting those. And it made everybody happy. When we hit the small wins, it was really kind of addicting. The people that were competitive loved it. We got to hit our numbers. We got to do this right. We got to keep working. Push harder, push harder. And then it got kind of everybody on that same cycle, and they just all wanted to help each other improve, which is fantastic.
[00:30:02] Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. So what do you. What's the Next three to five years look like for the Chalet.
[00:30:07] Speaker A: Very true. So we're hoping to expand. When they built the building, it was built to house 59 individuals. Right now, with funding and money, right now, we. We're stuck at that 42. So we're hoping to get a expansion plan put together, get up to 59 so we can serve a larger population that are really in need. With that becomes adding a lot of new positions, flushing out what we want those to look like, and continuing to work on culture and retention. We've had a lot of success. When I started, our turnover rate was about 43%.
We've gotten it down to 28 last time I looked. And so now we're just keeping cranking. And our goal is to be the lowest turnover building in the state of Idaho. So we're. We're getting our way there and we're working on just the little things here and there to make life better for not only our staff, but for our patients and everybody who's there.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: Yeah, fantastic. So somebody's listening to this episode, they're reading this chapter in the book, and they're like, man, I'm in a similar situation that David was. Maybe they're running their own, you know, adult care clinic and they wanted to reach out to you, maybe connect with you. How do they find you?
[00:31:08] Speaker A: Yeah, you can either find me on LinkedIn pretty easy there. Just David Brogue. Super easy. Brog is probably easier way to say it's B R O G. It's weird spelling. Everybody tells me all the time. Or I've got an email address that you're more than welcome to share with people, which is just my name, so it's David L. Broguemail. Best way to get in touch with me. And it's got my cell phone number on LinkedIn, so feel free to call me, shoot me a text. I'm more than happy to help out where I can.
[00:31:32] Speaker B: This is fantastic. And, you know, God bless people like you fighting the fight for the. The people that need it. I mean, I, you know, I. I know it's not an easy one, so what you're achieving to me is, is quite remarkable. So thank you for taking time out of your day. I really appreciate it.
[00:31:46] Speaker A: No, I appreciate it. It's been awesome talking with you and being able to reminisce about all this.
[00:31:51] Speaker B: You're like, hey, I have actually done some stuff.
[00:31:52] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: Take care.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: Thank you.
