Staffing with a Direct Impact on Patient Care with Holly Bass

For staffing professionals in healthcare, the job is more than just making the right hires; it’s about doing so quickly and efficiently but also carefully to ensure patients ultimately receive the best care possible. Today we are joined by Holly Bass, a healthcare staffing industry advocate and expert, and Executive Director at the National Association of Travel Healthcare Organizations (NATHO).

Holly details her career in staffing, then unpacks NATHO’s company structure evolution since its inception and the ins and outs of its Annual Conference for Healthcare Staffing Executives. After explaining what NATHO has up its sleeves for the future, Holly walks us through the lessons she’s learned after 24 years in the staffing game, current market trends worth noting, the submission-to-placement dilemma, and the role of new technology in staffing. To end, our guest reiterates the importance of prioritizing people and relationships above all else, current cost structures in healthcare staffing, the books that keep her inspired and motivated, and her advice for newbies following a similar career path.    

[0:01:14] DAVID FOLWELL: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us for another episode of The Staffing Show. Today, I am super excited to be joined by Holly Bass, who is the Executive Director at NATHO and a longtime friend in the industry, somebody I’ve known for many years and very excited to have you on the podcast today. Thanks for joining.

[0:01:31] HOLLY BASS: Thank you, David. I appreciate you having me. Thank you for the invite.

[0:01:34] DAVID FOLWELL: Yes, absolutely. Well, today we’re going to be talking a little bit about NATHO, what’s going on in travel healthcare, and that segment. To kick things off, Holly, could you go ahead and give a little bit of a background on kind of how you got into staffing. Then we’ll talk about NATHO right after that.

[0:01:50] HOLLY BASS: Sure. Yes. I kind of got into staffing by accident. I mean, nobody goes to college and says, “I think I want to be a healthcare staffing recruiter when I grow up.” Luckily, a friend of mine referred me back in 2001, so I’ve been in the industry for about 24 years. Basically, at this point in my career, my background is healthcare staffing. I started off in 2001 as a travel nurse recruiter and really just had an amazing opportunity and was blessed. I’ve been blessed with a truly fulfilling career and have the opportunity to go from recruiter to team lead to manager. I mean, literally followed the track to eventually in 2015, 2016 to become president. At that time, it was with PPR Travel Nursing. I started at the bottom and worked my way up. I really love our industry. It’s nice to still be in it but in a different way today.

[0:02:42] DAVID FOLWELL: Yes. You’ve had an incredible career, and I think we crossed paths. It was like maybe 2011 or 2012. You were at PPR. I think that you’re one of the first people, first case studies that I had ever done in the industry when I was working for Travelers Haven. It’s one of the early conversations I had in the industry. You were so kind and thoughtful and helpful on that front and had a really amazing career with PPR and then MedSol. Before we jump into the background on your career side of things, let’s talk about NATHO. What is NATHO, and why are staffing agencies getting involved with it?

[0:03:15] HOLLY BASS: Yes. NATHO has actually been around since 2008. It was founded by some executives in the industry that got together and said, “I think we could do this a little bit better if we actually work together.” From there, I think it’s really just exploded and changed over the years. I think we do a lot of new and different things based on where it started in 2008 to where we are today. But essentially, NATHO stands for the National Association of Travel Healthcare Organizations. That’s a mouthful, so that’s why we say NATHO.

Essentially, what we want to do is we’re a trade organization, and we want to provide value and ROI back to our members. Essentially, we’re an industry leading in networking. We provide webinars, committees, education opportunities, roundtables. We’re getting ready to launch some focus groups. We’re also really known for our annual partnership with SIA and NATHO’s Annual Benchmarking Survey and industry update. Then also we have an annual conference. We’re just very active. You’ll probably hear me say this a couple of times today, but we’re not just an organization. We’re really a community, and we’re in the healthcare staffing community.

I think why it’s important and one of the purposes that we serve is that we, in the industry, we’re responsible, I think, as healthcare staffing companies and vendors and suppliers and also in the industry that we have operated a high level of ethics and standards. The healthcare staffing companies are really pivotal to the whole system because we’re responsible for moving all the labor pool around to fill those critical orders. So we’re really at the heart of healthcare, and I think when you think about NATHO, our ethics, our standards and things like that, we really do want to create a better overall experience in the industry, so a better experience with the traveling clinicians, the clients. Ultimately, we have a direct impact on patient care. I think that’s really important. Sometimes, people forget that, but that’s also the heart of what NATHO wants to do and promote.

[0:05:19] DAVID FOLWELL: You guys have grown quite a bit over the years. I mean, I remember when it was just early stages. But how many members do you guys have?

[0:05:25] HOLLY BASS: Yes. I think we’re over like 130 members now.

[0:05:28] DAVID FOLWELL: That’s amazing.

[0:05:29] HOLLY BASS: We’ve seen a lot of growth, which is great. We have a lot of new brands and names in our roster, which is exciting, and then also a lot of new partners, our vendors and suppliers. There’s a lot of new and exciting resources, technologies, platforms, and things like that that are coming out that are also part of our industry and provide really great services and options, too. It’s a great – it’s an exciting time.

[0:05:50] DAVID FOLWELL: Yes. No, it definitely is. Could you just explain a little bit about, you’ve had different levels of involvement with NATHO now as the Executive Director? But could you tell me why you decided to get involved originally in NATHO and a little bit of your background there?

[0:06:03] HOLLY BASS: Yes. Back when I was with Medical Solutions, I was the representative at MedSol at NATHO. So I was on the board of directors for about five or six years, and I also served as a past president. I always really believed in what NATHO did and the value that we bring to the industry and the community. Over time, the board seat ends, and then they bring in somebody new, which is great because you always have your fresh perspective.

Then last year, I was trying to figure out like, “What do I want to do now?” The executive director position became open, and I always thought to myself, I think the NATHO position would be so cool because it’s a great way to be in the industry, be involved. I already knew everybody because I’ve been doing this for so long. It was just a great, I don’t know, transition, I think, in my career to do something a little bit different. But also give back, but stay in the industry. It really ended up being a great fit for me, and I’m grateful for the opportunity.

[0:06:56] DAVID FOLWELL: That’s awesome. In terms of like why agencies are joining today, any trends in terms of like challenges that NATHO’s helping people solve or helping organizations solve this year?

[0:07:06] HOLLY BASS: Yes. That’s a great question. I think, ultimately, the resources and education and just access to information that we’re able to bridge that gap on for them is super important. We actually have something really exciting coming out this year. Actually, this month, excuse me. It’s called The State Regulatory Guide, and we’re partnering with the Ackermann Law Firm and team on this.

When I look at value, when I look at ROI and trying to provide that back, that’s what the members want, right? They want education, information, stats, KPIs, white papers. You name it, that’s what they want from us, and that’s what we should be giving them in return. An example, I think, of a great value ad is the state regulatory guide. After COVID, many of the states implemented new compliance and reporting requirements for healthcare staffing companies. You’ve got 50 states that do it 50 different ways. They require no reporting, and some states require you to send everything in the kitchen sink. Then the cadence of the reporting is also different. Sometimes, it’s quarterly. Sometimes, it’s annually. It’s very cumbersome, and so all the result –

[0:08:13] DAVID FOLWELL: That’s crazy.

[0:08:14] HOLLY BASS: Yes, it’s crazy. We don’t offer legal advice. We can’t offer legal advice. But what we can do is provide them some type of guide that shows them what each state requires because many of these small and medium-sized companies don’t have a person just for compliance. Or they don’t have an in-house attorney or a team that customarily has handled issues like this. Being able to provide, I think, something like that to them is going to be a huge value-add. Those are the types of the things that we look at like, “Do we want to provide this? Should we provide this?” We really do try to evaluate that value and ROI back. This was one of those areas that I think that our members are really going to be excited about as soon as they get their hands on it, so we’re excited to launch that in April.

[0:08:58] DAVID FOLWELL: That is amazing, and the levels of bureaucracy can be challenging. That’s great. That’s great.

[0:09:03] HOLLY BASS: I often wonder what do they even do with this information? But anyway, that’s above my pay grade.

[0:09:11] DAVID FOLWELL: When it comes to the types of organizations that are partnering with NATHO, is it typically small, medium, large? Does it go across the – run the gamut?

[0:09:19] HOLLY BASS: We see everybody. I mean, you’re always welcome to jump on our site, NATHO.org, and view our members and also learn a little bit more about NATHO and what we do. But, yes, we’ve got some companies that are 5 and 10 million-dollar annual revenue. Then we’ve got some that are billions and billions of dollars and then everything in between. I think it’s great, though, to have representation across all revenue levels because there’s different opportunities, struggles, issues, et cetera, depending on where you are. I think that we do a good job of trying to bring everybody together.

[0:09:54] DAVID FOLWELL: That’s great. Last question I’ve got. Well, two questions on NATHO and then we’ll jump to the next topic. But you mentioned the conference. Can you tell us a little bit about when, what, why, for?

[0:10:04] HOLLY BASS: Yes. No, I love it. Yes.

[0:10:07] DAVID FOLWELL: I’m excited that it’s here in Denver, so I’ll be seeing this.

[0:10:09] HOLLY BASS: Yes. It’s our big event of the year. What’s really exciting this year, it’s in Denver on April 29th and 30th. If you’re a member of NATHO, registration and attendance to the conference is free. It’s something that we give back to our members, and we think that’s really important to give back. If you’re not a member and you’d like to attend, then we would just encourage you to join. But some of the feedback we’ve got from our conference from previous years is we’ve been doing one-day conferences, and the feedback was we’d love for you to do two days. We’re like, “You want more content? You want more information? You want to be away from home longer? Okay.”

This year, we expanded it to two days, and we really have a stacked list of speakers and presenters this year. We have Barry Asin from SIA. We’ve got Amy Chang, who is just an industry and subject matter expert. She used to work for AMN. She used to work for SIA. We’ve got Sarah Kroll-Rosenbaum from the Ackermann team coming to talk some of the state compliance stuff. Then we also have an inspirational speaker, Shawn Ellis, this year, which we’re excited about. It’s always really important for us to have a little bit of everything for everybody because in the room, you’ve got directors, to CEOs, CMOs. You’ve got everybody in the room, so you want to make sure we’ve got topics that are important to everybody across all business units.

Then we’ve got some kind of heavy hitters in the industry. We’ve got Kelly Duggan, Liz Cunningham, and Janette Marx also coming. We’ve got a panel discussion. We’ve got roundtables. We’re really excited. If anybody has any questions, I’m always happy – please reach out to me, but yes.

[0:11:39] DAVID FOLWELL: That’s a killer lineup. That is a heavy-hitting lineup for –

[0:11:42] HOLLY BASS: Yes. It’s going to be great. It’s going to be great. We’re really excited to put it on this year, and we also have a great line of sponsors helping us because we can’t do without them, so yes.

[0:11:51] DAVID FOLWELL: Well, I’m excited to see you there. Actually, last question on NATHO, what is your vision for the future of NATHO? Where is NATHO going, and are there any – you’ve already mentioned one of the new initiatives in terms of the regulatory guide. Is there anything else that the listeners should know about?

[0:12:05] HOLLY BASS: Yes. We’re working on lots. I mean, I’ve only been in this executive director role for about six months, so I’m still learning the ropes per se. But I also think I have good experience because I’ve sat on the board, and then I’ve also been an end user and a member of NATHO. I think what people want are additional extending and expanding the sense of community and partnership, ramping up and beating up our content information and data, and try to figure out the best ways to do that. We’ve expanded our newsletter. We’re continuing to work on that all the time. You’ve gotten me doing a podcast today, so a lot is definitely new and different.

[0:12:42] DAVID FOLWELL: Thank you for that.

[0:12:44] HOLLY BASS: Yes. Just expanding our – I think doing the conference a little bit differently. Also, I encourage the members to always reach out to me. Give me feedback. Tell me what we’re doing well. Tell me where we need to improve. It’s our organization, so we’re all in it together. But, yes, I think just continuing to expand that sense of community and member engagement is really the most important thing that we can do.

[0:13:05] DAVID FOLWELL: That’s great. Jumping back to your career because you’ve had – I mean, you’ve been President of PPR. You’ve worked at MedSol. You’ve gone through an acquisition. You have some experience that a lot of people would want to have that path and have that journey. What are some of the lessons learned that you have learned as a staffing leader?

[0:13:24] HOLLY BASS: We probably could do a whole podcast on –

[0:13:25] DAVID FOLWELL: I think so. I think so.

[0:13:27] HOLLY BASS: Even for 24 years in the healthcare staffing. I just say keep it simple, right? We all tend to overcomplicate everything. I think for me early on, I learned that having a great and positive mindset is really the key to everything. Having a positive outlook, positive intentions, positive outcomes. Waking up every day with that mindset is really important because things tend to get harder. Things don’t tend to get easier. You’ve got to have your mind right to be able to deal with adversity, change, market conditions, COVID. I mean, you name it. We go through some years where things are pretty steady, and then we get hit with something, and you have to be to react. It’s like that the old saying. It’s always important about how you react to something. I think that’s really important. There’s so much data around having a positive attitude, engaging with your people, your employees, your team, whatever that looks like for you, and having great culture and positivity. It’s contagious. I just think that that’s really, really important.

Another thing that comes to mind over the years is we all end up knowing we’re working together again in some way, shape, or form. You’re a great example, right? We introduced in one area of the industry, and then here we are 10 years later doing something else. How often do you end up working with somebody you went to high school with or somebody you went to college with? The other day, I referred my friend’s daughter to a trauma nurse recruiter job. Life is full circle.

To me, no matter what industry you’re in or, I don’t know, even what position, like if you’re a teacher or you’re a coach or you’re a recruiter or whatever your role is, we’re all in the people business. How you treat people is really, really important. The relationships you build, the communication. People will remember how you treated them. I wish we could just pull those kids into class early on and teach them this because it is really important. I just think that if you always look at everything to the lens of like, “I’m not in this industry or this business. I’m in the people business.” You take that approach time and time again.

An example, David, was the other day, I was in a NATHO committee meeting. It was the sales and recruitment leadership meeting. There’s 30 people in the committee. There were 10 people on the call that I had worked with before.

[0:15:54] DAVID FOLWELL: That’s right.

[0:15:55] HOLLY BASS: Everybody’s moved to a different brand or a different company or different roles. But you sit there and you’re like, “This is so cool that we all had such great relationships, and we knew each other, and now we’re working together but in a different way.” I think that that’s really, really cool. Always remember you’re in the people business, no matter what you do. I think it’s important.

[0:16:15] DAVID FOLWELL: Absolutely. You went through a couple of examples there in terms of challenges that you faced. There’s been COVID and different ups and downturns throughout the market. Are there any specific ones that have been especially hard? If so, do you have any examples of how you overcame that?

[0:16:32] HOLLY BASS: Yes, a couple of things come to mind. I mean, the recession back in 2008, which continued in 2009 and 2010, never seemed to end. That was by far probably, I think, the most toughest time of my career because all the companies had massive layoffs. Job orders were down. I remember one time we had one job, and 300 clinicians were sitting in the waiting room. You couldn’t make a placement. It was challenging.

But I also think that was also, for me, a great lesson learned time. I learned outsourcing. That’s what came out. There’s the Travelers Haven, For example. That’s when we started outsourcing and offshoring positions. That’s when we started really running the business differently. Because we had to let go of so many people, we were all wearing a lot of different hats. Although I have a sales background or recruitment background, I loved account management, I’ve got really good at ops fast. I think it helped develop me as a leader better because I understood the back office operations and how to tie all that together to build a better business and get our people all merging to the same drum. It was a tough time, but I’m also grateful for it because I did learn. I learned quite a bit from the recession time.

[0:17:43] DAVID FOLWELL: I mean, I can only – I haven’t had that. I wasn’t in the industry in 2008, but I do feel like the last year and a half for a lot of people in healthcare staffing are experiencing some challenging times. I know my own perspective. It’s been quite fortifying in terms of like, all right, how are we going to approach this? How are we going to adjust what we’re doing? Then that’s really great insights there.

Looking forward in the market, what are some of the trends that you’re seeing that are happening? Anything that you think that if you’re a healthcare staffing agency you should be hyper focused on or making sure that you’re aware of?

[0:18:16] HOLLY BASS: Yes. I mean, I’m probably not going to say too much today that everyone doesn’t know about what this means for themselves. But sometimes just to hear it and know everyone’s going through it kind of validates a little bit for them. We can’t ignore the job orders, the ebb and flow. But jobs do seem to be stable. We do see a continued stabilization and sometimes a slight decline on bill rates. Hopefully, those will bubble out.

Housing costs are really expensive, and I think that’s one of the biggest obstacles right now that is preventing clinicians from getting on the road and traveling because they duplicate expenses, right? They maintain that house back at home, and then they have to go get housing, utilize their per diems, et cetera. With housing costs being high and some of those per diems not following and housing allowances following that, I think that’s made it – it’s difficult for those travelers to get out there on the road again.

There are so many internal flip pools and internal programs that are also all the companies are competing with that now they can actually just go down the road and do it and not formally enter into a contract. The burnout of clinicians, I think, is still real and is a real thing. Some of the other things I’ve seen are some consolidation of brands. The smaller and medium-sized companies band together, and then together they’re a little bigger, a little more relevant, I think, to clients and VMSs and MSPs. I think that’s been neat to see some of them join forces.

Then we’ve seen some brands actually just go away. I think I had a travel nursing. That was kind of interesting to see. Hopefully, we’re turning a corner this year on nursing. I think Allied’s have been pretty stable or up year over year. Those are, I think, some of the trends that I’m seeing and most of us are seeing, and we all get together in top shop. That’s usually also what I’m adhering to.

[0:20:02] DAVID FOLWELL: One of the challenges I hear about all the time is the going through MSPs and the placement, the submission to placement rate decreasing quite a bit. Any silver bullets there?

[0:20:16] HOLLY BASS: Yes, yes. I think the relationships with the VMS and MSPs is being crucial. I mean, that’s where a lot of the orders sit. I think that you can have better results if you understand and know their submission process. You know what’s required. You create a business around knowing what a submission is and what you need to have. You create, whether it’s a template or a submission grid or whatever you want to call it. Instead of fighting it, I would just suggest you embrace it, what they require. Train your recruiters on what they require. Make sure you get all that information on the front end. You automate it as much as you can. Then if you get your submissions right, I think you’ll see you’ll get a better rate of return on your offer.

[0:21:00] DAVID FOLWELL: I didn’t think about that. I mean, just looking at analyzing past submissions, what are the differences between the ones that got accepted and ones that got rejected and doing some deeper analysis. Or you might find some specifics in terms of the nuances that they move it forward. That’s really great.

I know there’s a lot going on. We talk about technology on this podcast all the time. Most recently at Executive Forum, there are all kinds of conversations around the technology, the platforms, how that’s reshaping the industry. There’s also consolidation like Aya buying Cross Country. There’s a lot of things happening in the market that are big major plays and big changes to the industry. What are you seeing from a technology standpoint? Are there any areas that you think are especially useful or that people should be paying attention to?

[0:21:43] HOLLY BASS: I mean, it’s a necessity in today’s day and age. It’s not really what you’re using. It’s how you’re using it. In my role now with NATHO, I get so much more exposure to seeing different demos and different platforms. I think technology, AI, the platforms, the offerings, whether it’s matching or automating, I think that it’s really important just to figure out how to integrate that into what you do because there is still a place for a traditional recruiter-clinician relationship. There’s absolutely still a place, I think, in our industry for account managers to have relationships with clients. I mean, we have to still be able to communicate and talk to each other and have what I would call like that human touch. We have [inaudible 0:22:29].

I think what we need to be using technology for is to find efficiencies, cut down on manual tasks, keep a SG&A costs down, and utilize technology, integrate platforms. The less you have to deal with and get everything consolidated, I think, is better, too. Then you have to figure out how does that reshape your model. I think the companies that have a strategy around this and are utilizing all the platforms and technology in the right way that works for them are the ones that, I think, are going to figure out that perfect formula of what do you automate, what do you not automate, and then what does that look like with your model? I think there’s a place for both. But, yes, I think everything out there right now is really super exciting. I think I could sit here and probably demo products all day long, something new and innovative out there. It’s really incredible.

[0:23:20] DAVID FOLWELL: Yes. Well, and it is interesting as you still see. Actually, I have a lot of conversations on this podcast about the importance of the relationship. But then there’s also the impact of some of these platform plays that’s happening, and so it’s an interesting balance. Any stories or insights that you’re hearing from the industry in terms of how to balance that?

[0:23:41] HOLLY BASS: Yes. I do have a little. My niece was a travel nurse. She traveled for the last two years. That was an interesting perspective to gain from her, from her eyes and her experience. But when it comes uploading a time card, that should be automated. She should go online, upload a time card. We don’t need to talk to anybody about that. She gets a new BLS, right? She gets a new credentialing item. She can upload that herself, send it in. I don’t think we need to talk to somebody about that.

I think there’s also a lot of – with the AI and matching candidates and tracking data and information, tracking referrals, all the stuff that’s going on behind the scenes where, again, you can take the manual tasks away, that’s what we work on automating. When my niece was ready to look for a new assignment, and she had questions about the hospital, and she had questions about what EMR they used, and she had questions about is it a traveler-friendly facility? Have you put people there before, and do you know about the city? That’s when she wanted to talk to somebody.

I think when you’ve leveraged the recruiters that way with the clinicians or the account managers that way with the clients, et cetera, et cetera, or, hey, if they had a question about her time card, that’s a time for a human being to call her and say, “Hey, I can’t read this,” or, “Can you explain? This came in different than what the facility submitted. What do you think the difference is?” I think problem solving and customer service. I do still think that human touch is important, but there are a lot of things I think that we can automate, and everybody gets that.

[0:25:11] DAVID FOLWELL: Yes. I think it’s now more than ever having a defined strategy of the touch points that you want to have that are important and the tech that can automate the things that make sense. And I know you and I briefly talked a little bit about – I think you brought this up that this happens sometimes during down turns as well, that people explore different pricing models in terms of like offshoring. Is that a major shift that you’re seeing in the market right now with cost structures the way they’re set up?

[0:25:37] HOLLY BASS: Yes. I’m definitely hearing more and more of companies offshoring, using different platforms and networks to do that. I think it’s just become a necessity to keep costs down, keep SG&A down, but also have a team able to perform the things that need to get done. I have some experience with offshoring. I think as long as you set the team up for success, you train them the right way, you build great systems and processes, I think it works really, really well with a couple of vendors within the NATHO network that do that. I think all in all, it’s just there’s so much margin compression, bill rate compression. Then the clinicians still have expectations that they need to make what they need to make. Hospitals need to keep their costs down. You’ve got all those dynamics going on at the exact same time.

I think it’s a way for the companies to get a little back, just so they can stay up and operating, which is important because they’re also supplying all the benefits to the travelers, all the back office stuff that they have to provide to run payroll, run insurance, professional liability insurance. All that doesn’t stop, right? That also has to happen. I think you’re going to hear and see more and more of that, and then see more and more departments potentially going offshore, too.

[0:26:55] DAVID FOLWELL: Yes. I think that makes sense. I mean, we’re in the middle of a –there’s cost cutting and operational efficiency. With the margin pressure, it’s driving that in a fairly significant way. We’re going to jump into the last two questions I’ve got for you, the speed round. What book or books have you gifted most and why?

[0:27:13] HOLLY BASS: The most gifted book that I’ve ever given is a book called If I Can, You Can. It’s all about living your life in the future and also how you treat yourself and the conversations you have with yourself. I think that’s really important because it creates this better, more positive image of yourself and living in the future and try to treat yourself. That’s probably the most gifted book that I’ve ever given away, and I love it.

I’ve just read a book that had personally and professionally a really great impact on me, and it’s called From Strength To Strength. Last year, I found myself at a crossroads like, “What do I want to do?” I think nobody sits us down when we’re 18, 19, 20 years old thinking about getting into the workforce and says, “All right, here’s what’s going to happen with your career.” We all have the perception that we’re going to start working, and it’s just going to be a linear path, right? You start and you’re trying to climb the corporate ladder. You’re trying to –

[0:28:10] DAVID FOLWELL: Up into the light.

[0:28:12] HOLLY BASS: Yes. You’re trying to get the best job. You’re trying to get the raise. You want to be included on the project. You want the promotion. What the book does is it takes – I’m going to butcher this a little bit and simplify it. It takes your career and puts it into like a football analogy to where it’s like in the first quarter, this happens. In the second quarter, this happened. Then come half time, some things change. You might peak in your career in the third quarter, and that’s okay. But nobody tells you that’s okay. I think people just think they’re going to run hard until they’re 65 and retire. That’s just not how it happens.

What I’ve found is that as I’ve moved into the third and fourth quarter, I’m not the idea girl anymore or the idea guy. I’m not trying to climb the corporate ladder. I have achieved those things, and I have found happiness and fulfillment with those things in the past. What the book teaches you is that it’s actually okay now to move into a different chapter where you’re maybe transferring that knowledge onto a mentor, a mentee. Or you’re teaching others. Or you’re offering different ways to share your experiences with others. Maybe now you’re consulting.

Again, we think it’s a linear line, and it’s not. Things change, your strengths change, and where you can provide influence and experience change. I really didn’t know what to expect in my 24th, 25th, 30th-year working. Now, I know where I want to be, and I know where I can add value back. I also know now in my career where I find happiness. I thought the book really helped put that in perspective for me. That’s something that if you’ve been around for a while, it’s a good read. The funny thing, too, is I had not one but two mentors tell me to read it.

[0:30:04] DAVID FOLWELL: Oh, that’s great.

[0:30:05] HOLLY BASS: And they were spot on. I thought that was a really great way to figure out your career, your career path, and understand it can change, and it’s okay if it changes. There’s not a one-size-fits-all for everybody. Super impactful book. I highly recommend it.

[0:30:20] DAVID FOLWELL: That’s great insights. I’ll check both of those out. I haven’t heard of either. Then the last question I’ve got for you is what advice do you wish someone had given to you before entering the staffing industry? I think we’ve already touched on it a little bit, but I don’t know if there’s any nuances to that?

[0:30:35] HOLLY BASS: I just think it’s really important. I think sometimes we get really caught up in the day to day, and we get really caught up in working in the business. I think the best advice we can all give each other is to take a step back sometimes and work on the business. I think the leaders and the companies that are very disciplined and strategic around creating some type of planning cadence, planning rhythm, strategic planning. Then they stick with it, and they really lift their heads up. They put away their email, and they spend time as a team. I think that’s really, really important to do. If all you’re doing every day is trying to fill orders and get jobs and pay your clinicians, like everybody’s doing that. You’ve got to figure out ways to continue to change and evolve.

I think with the industry, pick areas where you can create differentiation and strategically work on the business. I think I was blessed with great leadership early on that did that, so that was instilled in me. But I often see companies, they just come in and work every day, and they don’t spend any time really working on the business. If you’re not doing that, you need to be doing that on the regular.

[0:31:39] DAVID FOLWELL: I second that, and I’m going to make my team listen to that. That’s right. I’ve been preaching that right now, and I’m on for myself, too. It’s so easy to get caught up in the day to day. It’s like if you’re not building the system to get out of this current day to day, you’re going to be running the same pattern, so that’s great insights. Well, Holly, I really enjoyed having you on. Are there any closing comments for the audience?

[0:32:01] HOLLY BASS: No. I appreciate it, the opportunity. It’s fun to talk shop, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk a little bit about NATHO and our upcoming conference. Again, we’d love to have you. If anybody has any questions, please feel free to reach out to me. I’m sure you’ll share my information in some way, shape, or form. But this has been great, and it’s been fun reuniting with you, so thank you so much.

[0:32:20] DAVID FOLWELL: Yes. Super excited about what you’re doing at NATHO. It’s good to see you, and we’ll see you in person here in Denver soon.

[0:32:26] HOLLY BASS: I’ll see you in a few weeks.