LM Ep 90
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Have you ever been tapped on the shoulder for a new opportunity? Have you tapped someone else on the shoulder? We don't always see ourselves the way others do, and we can all benefit from people seeing potential in us that we don't see ourselves. Today's guest has benefited from being tapped throughout her career, and this experience informs how she now leads the people function.
My guest is Anna Hida Cameron. She's Chief People Officer for Thrive Pet Healthcare, and has previous senior leadership experience at Aspen Dental Health Partners Target and Banfield Pet Hospitals. I know you'll enjoy this conversation around [00:03:00] shaping culture. There are even bonus insights into the world of veterinary professionals and how Anna Hida and her team are supporting the people who take care of your furry friends. Hello and welcome back to Talent Management Truth. I'm your host, Lisa Mitchell, and today I'm joined by my guest, Anna HDA Cameron. Anna HDA is the Chief People Officer at Thrive Pet Healthcare. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Lisa. It's great to be here with you. My pleasure. Well, let's begin by having you share with the audience who you are in terms of your role at, at Thrive and what you do.
Sure. So as you mentioned, chief People Officer here at Thrive Pet Healthcare, we have roughly 400 hospitals across the country. All ho hospital network that provides veterinary services to pet families across the continuum of care. So everything from general practice [00:04:00] to urgent care emergency as well as specialty care.
Got it. Okay. And as I was sharing with you in the, in the so-called Green Room before we started recording Yeah. We just adopted a, a second rescue dog, Logan. That's fantastic. Be the brother to Jesse. So we've got this 14 year old border collie black lab mix that we rescued when, when she was about 10 months old and now, We have Logan, who's Border Collie with apparently some Shelty in there.
So I love that you are in the business of, of pet healthcare because they're really, really important to me and Absolutely. It's an extension of the family. Yeah. Yeah. It's beautiful. Alright, so, so your team, tell us a little bit about your team and your portfolio. Yeah. So, on the people operations side, which is generally hr know, fairly, fairly typical team in terms of we have the Centers of Excellence, so total rewards, talent learning the generalist space as well as talent [00:05:00] acquisition are the primary COEs.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. So let's maybe go back in time a little bit. You have a really impressive career. I know you've been in HR for a long time and maybe take us back to, to the beginning just just to get a sense of your career journey. 'cause I think, listeners will really enjoy hearing about some of the different experiences that you've had.
I think you're trying to say I'm old, but as old as me. It's all good. No thanks for that. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's fascinating kind of how I ended up where I did because I, when I was in college, I don't think I even knew what HR was. Right. So, but I studied like liberal arts and, you know, sociology, anthropology, and thought I was gonna go to law school and that was kind of my path. But I, for whatever reason, I always kept putting law school off. So I first did Teach For America right out of college for a couple years. Then I went abroad to Israel and worked for another [00:06:00] nonprofit organization in Israel. Then came back and was about to go to, had already applied and was accepted to law school and I happened to run into an alum from, from my college that worked at Target in hr.
And so that's where and how I was introduced to hr and before I knew it, I. He said, Hey, how about you meet with some other folks you know at headquarters and maybe do an interview? And one thing led to another and within, you know, a week I had a job offer at Target for HR business partner. And I think given that I kept putting law school offer whatever reason, this was another reason for me to put law school off.
So I did and started my HR career over 23 years ago. And so the majority of it was at Target. And as you might be familiar, target is a really great company in terms of growing talent. So even when I didn't know what I was doing or what I wanted to do, every, you know, [00:07:00] 18 months or so, I'd get tapped on the shoulder with a new opportunity.
I. So I had the ability to not only experience different parts of hr, so from a generalist to talent acquisition to at one point I led the talent management. C o e for the entire company. But I also had the opportunity to go through different parts of the organization, meaning from distribution and supply chain, to headquarters, to stores, organizations.
So I had the breadth of experience in that way and even got to go to India as an expat for a couple of years. Wow, what a fabulous experience. You've been in Israel and in India and that and us a really global, global background. And Target is such a fascinating company to me. 'cause it that you're right, I've, I've heard that it has a, , you know, that it is a great culture in terms of growing talent and so on.
In Canada, where I am, it's got a bit of a different story because yes. Then they failed badly and pulled back out again. And so [00:08:00] we still have the red balls in front of some of the malls, right. That were never taken away. It's so funny, those are starting to get removed as the places get replaced, but it's years later. but it is interesting 'cause to be. In, in a place where you, you know, you're tapped, as you say, right? Like, what a beautiful opportunity, because often we don't, we don't see ourselves, right? We don't see something in ourselves, right? So I've been, I've had that experience of being tapped as well, and, and it, it's like, Hey, what, what if you tried over here?
And it's been really important in my career, and I think I've tried to do a lot of tapping myself throughout the years with different people. Interestingly, I, I did a podcast with somebody yesterday. We were doing a recording and she was sharing that she, she had a lack of sort of being tapped or people sort of okay.
Like just whatever it was. She was in very male dominated man manufacturing kind of environments was a little bit of a, a different, you know, Culture, I think. And so it was through perseverance that she had to kind of push and just keep asking, asking for more opportunities. Right. So I [00:09:00] think sometimes it's a blend.
Have you experienced needing to kind of make your career happen as on top of having that, that culture that where you were for so long, Yeah, I think there came a point. So I, as I said, like I grew up, so to speak, at Target. Yeah. And there came a point where I had to make a really conscious decision of whether I was gonna stay and probably end my career at Target or, or go try something else.
And part of me felt like I needed to test myself to see if I could be success successful elsewhere. So about 13 years into my career at Target an opportunity presented itself for me to actually go to Mars Corporation. At the time I thought of Mars just as Candy and Chocolates, didn't realize that they had a pet healthcare. Arm and division, which was actually growing really rapidly. So I ended up going to Banfield Pet Hospitals as a vice president of hr over all the generalist and employee relations over to Banfield. [00:10:00] That was a very conscious decision to kind of navigate my own career. The last role that I had at Target, as I said previously, was the leader of talent management for the enterprise. So this was an opportunity to go to a private company so, you know, public to private very decentralized, very entrepreneurial in nature, and, you know, try something totally different.
So that was a leap of faith and I'm so grateful and happy I did it. Because it really allowed me to tap into something that I wasn't necessarily doing at Target. 'cause Target, you know, bigger companies, you kind of have the processes and the systems and the tools and other places, you have to be a little bit more scrappy.
Yeah. So I'd love to, to to know a little bit more about what it allowed you to sort of, to, to learn, like what was the main takeaway? Because what went through my mind there was I had an experience too where I'd been in larger organizations, more established [00:11:00] financial services, wealth management, and then a former boss of mine had.
Tapped me, basically called and, and begged me to come over and, and lead talent management in a, in a huge, in the contact center division of Sears Canada. Oh, wow. It's interesting because, you know, 'cause I know people that were at Target to come to Sears and vice versa and all this kind of stuff. It was kind of neat. And I went there for, I think it was there for 11 months and it, it was a ride. It was, it was a tough, tough place. This was about two years before they, they went downhill and folded permanently. I. What it gave me was this, I think, new faith in what I was actually capable of doing because I was leading three major teams across multiple locations.
I. And building from scratch. So it's, it kind of, it was stressful. I didn't love it overall, and I'm very, very grateful for the experience and the people that I met there. So what about you? Like what did that, that time at, at Mars? Well, I think you said it was [00:12:00] Banfield PET Hospitals Do for you. Hmm. Yeah, I mean, I actually did love Mars quite a bit. And what I really appreciate about them as an organization, it's, it's the one organization that I have seen truly, truly live their values day in and day out. So all organizations have mission, vision, values, and you try to like put them in action, right? But more, it's, it's the one constant across all their divisions, across all their countries that they operate in.
And it's very actionable, so to speak, in that, you know, you could be in the boardroom and things would stop and they would fill out the valleys and say, Based on our values and our principles, what should the decision be? Right? So that was a really great learning. But in everything else was kind of, especially on the, on the veterinary side, which was newer to Mars, it was, you know, figure it out.
Like I would ask like, what's the best practice for this? Or how do we do this, that Mars and that say, there isn't one, figure [00:13:00] it out. So it was a lot of creation from scratch, which again was tapping into something I hadn't done for a long time. Yeah. And I bet that experience is coming in handy now where you are at Thrive.
Absolutely, absolutely. Again, you know, I think organizations that grow really, you know, kind of a startup mentality and they grow really rapidly. When organizations grow so quickly, you. You, you're just going and going and you are not taking the time necessarily to put in all the foundational pieces.
It's almost like we'll get back to that at a later point. Right? And at then at a certain point you realize, okay, we're, if we wanna continue to scale, we're gonna have to go back and make sure we have X, Y, and z. Yes, because you, you've shared with me that I think there's around 10,000 employees across the US and, and the 400 vet hospitals.
And then it's also grown primarily through mergers and acquisitions. So you've got a real range of [00:14:00] processes and policies out there. I would think that you're trying to blend. Definitely. Yes. And, and, and you know, there's a fine balance because you want to maintain the individuality and the uniqueness of each of these hospitals and their unique communities.
But at the same time, in order to be able to be really efficient and scale and grow, there's certain things that need to be standardized across the board. so tell us a little bit about since you've been at Thrive, you know, what, what has your focus been you, for you and your team? Where did you start?
Yeah, I mean, I think on a couple different notes. So, on, on the one hand, I. Not unlike most healthcare, whether that's human healthcare or vet care, you know, your focus is hiring and retaining great talent, and more specifically clinicians and doctors and the support staff for those [00:15:00] doctors, because without that, you don't have a business and you can't serve the clients and the patients, right?
So that is a num number one focus and will continue to be because there's a finite number. Veterinarians, right, that are going, that are graduating, that are getting, and the demand is continuing to grow at a very, very rapid pace. So I think, you know, very generically just. Attracting and retaining talent has been a top priority.
But alongside that, in a, in a way to enable us to be able to do that, we've had to go back and say, okay, what is our team member value proposition? Why should someone choose Thrive versus our competitors? And what differentiates us? So in doing that, we have really started to. Go back to the team members, the 10,000 team members, and hear from them what's most important to 'em, what attracted them to thrive in the first place, and then [00:16:00] what makes them stay. And even more than that, Segmenting those voices by different populations because what a doctor might value or might need might be very different than a veterinary technician or someone at headquarters in finance, right? So making sure that we're really meeting people where they are and based on what's most important to them, which is no small feat because that's, Not at all than done.
Yeah. Yeah. That's always the trick, right? When you have many different types of, of groups and I think listeners would really, would really relate to that very well. So, so with this, you know, going back to the 10,000 team members and, and, and trying to understand better what attracted you in the first place?
What's keeping you here? What, what tools did you use practically speaking to, to do some of that gathering? So, I mean, aside from the annual engagement survey, which we're now into our third [00:17:00] year of doing the Gallup Annual Engagement Survey, and certainly there's a lot that we can draw from that, we felt like we needed to go a little bit deeper, deeper into understanding what different populations valued.
So we partnered with Willis Towers Watson and did what we called a total reward survey, but it went beyond total rewards. It went into also career pathing and development and kind of. Anything and everything that somebody might value in their career and in their job. So that was one piece and that resulted in, you know, a, a ton of data by different populations.
And then on top of that, we did some focus groups specific to our doctors and our technicians to even prod further and better understand where, where things were really important to 'em. Whatcha finding, just generally speaking, you know, where where are people putting, you know, the ENT emphasis in terms of what they really value.
Yeah, I mean, I think, [00:18:00] you know, there's certain things that are table stakes, right? So comp and benefits are table stakes, and you have to have, you have to be on par with, you know, your competitors at the very least even if you're not leading. But above and beyond that, so for our doctors, flexibility is.
Critically important. You know, they are on the front lines serving patients and it's a high burnout type of situation in all healthcare. And so, They don't have the flexibility that those of us that sit in an office or, you know, they don't get to work from home and all of those things. So flexibility in scheduling was and work-life balance, but top the list for our doctors. I think for our, you know, veterinary technicians, they're looking for career development and career pathing so that they can continue to grow once they join the organization. And then, you know, whether you're salaried, you're hourly, there's gonna be some of those differences as well. So I think for the hourly [00:19:00] population, pay is going to always be front and center as well.
Okay. But we were trying to look at things beyond. The table spa stakes, so to speak. Yes. I, I appreciate that insight because I think, been teaching retention strategies and software for many, many years, right. Leading teams of my own and, you know, it's, it's going back, I would say probably 15 years at least, where there was data coming out showing that comp and Ben.
The, those were table stakes that yes, they're important, but they're not number one most of the time they, they, they, they, they're sort of one of those things where you have to have that, right? It has to be on par or better. The other things, the development, having a, a leader who gets you the flexibility, all of that.
And that's become even more essential from what I'm seeing with my clients and the people I talk to for the show post Covid. Yeah, and actually, you just reminded me, leadership was. You know, one of the [00:20:00] top indicators as well, leader leadership matters regardless of where you are, at what stage in your career, all of that.
But in, in those cases, in the four walls, leadership is so, so critical because it really shapes the culture even beyond company values and you know, other things that come through at from the, from the top. I agree. I agree. It's, it's about investing in your leaders at all levels to ensure that they are nurturing, cultivating an employee experience that drives the, the customer experience.
You know, it's all, all very much linked. I'd like to go back just briefly if we could to, to the doctors, to the vets, because I just wanna give a shout out to, to friend and. A colleague of mine, Leanne Benedetti, who, who owns the veterinary coach? So Leanne is a former vet herself who's retired from private practice and owned her own clinic and so on, so on.
And she had gone to the same coaching school as me, came through just, just a year or two after. And she now serves the veterinary [00:21:00] community. That's because she shared with me, I was my, I was gobsmacked that they, this, this community has the highest rate of suicide. I That is unfortunately very true.
Yeah. Yeah. And so as a result, one of the other things that we are very much focused on is mental health and wellbeing for our entire population. So not only do we contract externally to ensure that our team members have access to therapy and you know, when they need it, but we also have in-house training on suicide prevention, suicide you know, identifying.
Cases where something might be leading to that. So it's very much top of mind for us. Yeah, I mean that's a, not to take us to a dark place, but I just, I just think it underscores the importance the, you know, how critical it is the work that you and your team are doing to support this. You know, there, there, it's a vulnerable population and in many ways, and, and [00:22:00] for listeners, the, the insight that I, , gained from my discussions with Leanne is.
It's because, and I think about this as, as a pet owner myself, many people in Canada, we have healthcare. That's, that's, we have public healthcare, right? So you're not, you're going to the doctor, you're not pulling out your credit card, you're pulling out your, your OHIP card or your health card. And and so people are so used to that here in particular, that when they go to the vet, they're that it's.
It, they get sticker shock 'cause it's so expensive and sometimes for the same stuff, like some of the drugs that we give our, our allergic dog are human drugs. Right. Just a different dosage. And so it's like, holy cow, because we're not used to paying for it. I don't know how that shows up in the us but, so there's a lot of pressure.
Not only are you dealing with sick. Dying animals, you know, sometimes neglected some terrible situations, but also with the pet parents and owners who may be saying, I can't afford this. How can you let my dog suffer? You've gotta, you've gotta fix 'em for free. And so there's this. This [00:23:00] perfect storm of, of, of pressures and guilt and all this stuff that, that happens.
There's beautiful moments too. Not taking away from that. You totally get it, Lisa. No, that's summed up really well. It is. It's, you know, the pets can't speak for themselves, but then you're dealing with, you know, the pet parents and the clients who. Might have a hard time either, you know, accepting the diagnosis and or paying for it.
And, and the veterinarians who by nature are very much, you know, empathetic human beings and they wanna do right by the pets, like, get caught up in this dilemma. And so it's not all puppies and, kittens there, there's definitely a much more challenging part of the role. Yeah, it's interesting.
Now, when, when it comes to you know, vision, mission, values for, for Thrive, how has that played a role in terms of how you and your team serve? Not only the vets, but, but the vet techs and, and everybody else?[00:24:00] You know, our mission vision values were rolled out like company-wide Thrive. Mission, vision values were rolled out just a few years ago, so it's still early, but definitely we go back to our mission vision values for, I.
For the basis of everything that we do, right? We want our decisions and our actions to be rooted in who we are and what we're here to do, and feel that if, again, similar to what I've said about Mars, if you have that, and if everyone is fully aligned on that, then the other things become inconsequential or, you know, you can figure it out as long as we're all driving towards the same things in the same way. But at the same time, you do also through acquisitions, have companies that are, you know, joining the family who had their own deep rooted mission, vision values. Yeah. And that takes time. And you can't just expect, you know, one hospital or, [00:25:00] you know, to, to give that up because now they've joined a new family.
Yeah, that is so hard in my last corporate organization, chart while retirement, it's a really huge seniors living, so, retirement living and long-term care company in Canada and I. So it grew, it's got over 200 homes. So it grew massively by merger and acquisition too. And it was really, really interesting.
You, you make me think of, you know, that whole experience because there were people that were still, you know, five years later in some cases, hanging on to how it used to be. And I think that there's, there's lessons in that for how we need to acknowledge what is before we say what could be and, and try to pull people into the fold.
I. Very true. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. How do you manage onboarding for new, for newly acquired companies into the Thrive community? Yeah, it's a, it's been an evolution. So, when a new. company joins us. [00:26:00] We kind of go in and spend a ton of time with the team. Again, hearing from 'em what's important to them, and then making sure that we cover the basics 'cause Right, right.
Everyone wants to know how, you know, what, how is my pay and benefits and all those table stakes gonna be impacted. So we cover that. And then we get into, you know, who we are, our history, what we stand for, and how to merge these two cultures together, as well as showing them, you know, the basics of how to use the new systems or tools that might be different. But I'm really excited that this year we're kicking off for the first time at Thrive. hire orientation across the company, meaning that if you know, regardless of what your role is, if you're the front desk receptionist, what we call clients service representative in our hospitals, or if you're a vice president starting a headquarters, You're all gonna go through the exact same new hire orientation so that you understand our mission, vision, values, who [00:27:00] we are, our history, what's important, and kind of get a grounding across the board.
So that is just kicked off this year. That's very exciting and was such a big population, employee population, really, really important to creating that, that overarching, you know, sense of we are one. And, and I just think. When you do that, it's, you're set when you're starting with that onboarding piece, right?
You're beginning the process of embedding and threading a common language, a common understanding. It goes a long way as far as people understanding expectations. How do we get stuff done around here? And can smooth, smooth the way down the road, right. For, for further communication. Building on that, and that brings me to something that you and I had talked about when we first got acquainted, which was, you know, you shared this observation that there.
You know, you've, you've worked in larger, smaller, mid-size, private nonprofit, you know, us international situations and, you know, what would you say kind of ties all of [00:28:00] those things together? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I, I sometimes joke that when you start at like, The likes of a target, you, you don't, it doesn't get much bigger, right?
So I've actually gotten smaller and smaller as I've gone forward. But at the end of the day, you know, people are people I. The issues are the same and everyone wants the same thing from their employer. I, I think by and large. So I think what ties all those companies is that, like I've really focused on the team member experience, right?
So from the moment that you sign up, you know, or, or. Respond to an ad or you know, a, a search firm calling you for a position. From that moment throughout your entire team member experience and journey to hopefully retiring with that organization, there are key milestones along that and things that you as an employer, we owe.
Our team members and make sure to make sure that whether it's from onboarding the [00:29:00] training and development to leadership development, to, you know, career pathing and performance reviews, like the whole bit, like it's that cycle and creating that needs to exist regardless of whether you're a small organization or Fortune 100. It really doesn't matter because as an individual team member, you want the same things. I, I couldn't agree more. It's those, you know, those foundational building blocks. I mean, if you look at employee experience and your language team member experience, you know, there are those pillars from the beginning when somebody becomes aware of the organization, right?
All the way through their, their journey. That's the way I actually like to create strategy, right? Is to think about it from the perspective. An employee traveling through these different Milestones. And, and I see this being valuable for all sizes of organization as well, so I appreciate you bringing that to bear because, you know, I have some clients that are one person show and others that have 60 people on their team, you know, and, and regardless, you know, looking at it through that [00:30:00] employee lens is, it's kind of magical if you do it right.
That's right. And, and, and again, it's not easy, especially if you know the, the train is already going right. So you have to kind of build things as we're moving along. And in our case, a lot of the pieces that we're going back to is on the onboarding and technical training for different populations. And then I.
Layering onto that career pathing and progression, right? But like even like when someone first starts, you can't just leave it up to their individual leader to hopefully get them onboarded and trained in their specific role. You need some uniform things across the board. Well, it just made, made me think of, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right?
Like it's, it's like, get the basics and then we're building on it because people only have so much capacity if they're hungry or thirsty. Yes. You know, and, and, and that's in the basic sort of survival kind of situation. But, you know, in, in an organization, I think it's interesting to think about, okay, [00:31:00] we, if, if the basics aren't in place, including with, you know, the different sort of moti motivators extrinsic motivators that we can control it.
Comp and Ben for instance. If those aren't okay, then people are distracted and so it's hard for them to be able to, to want to grow and develop and move up that that pyramid, so to speak. Definitely. I mean, another part, you know, another thing that it makes me think of is just, you know, in the, in the world of like reporting and analytics, right? I would love like really deep insights and, you know, predictive analytics, but we're not there. Like, we're just starting to get the basic reporting to know what our, your turnover was by certain populations over certain periods of time before we can draw really insight, you know, great insights from the data.
So it's, it's kind of just crawl, walk, run a little bit. Yeah. Be okay with that pace, you know, and the normalcy of it. 'cause I know for someone like you who's worked in these, you know, big organizations like [00:32:00] Target and so on, where you had a lot more sophisticated data, you could dig into the meta data, right?
The interpretation, what's the story it's telling us? So it can be sort of a little hard, I'm sure to slip down sometimes. Oh my God, just tell me the numbers already, right? Because you've actually gotta, you've gotta create that data first. So, yeah, I think normalizing it though, can, can be a bit of a relief.
For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're nearing the end of our time together. So I have one final question for you, Anna Heda, which is, you know, if you think about all of your varied experience over those 23 years or so that you mentioned, what would you say has been the most valuable lesson or piece of advice, perhaps?
Yeah. I don't know if it's a lesson, but I think certainly the most. Fulfilling thing for me throughout my career has been the times that, you know, I have been able to do what was done for me, which is tapping folks on the shoulder or helping 'em realize the potential that they had that they [00:33:00] didn't recognize, and then watching them grow. You know, I think about one of one team member that I had who was, you know, started out as an, as an intern when I was at Health Partners, and I don't think she had any idea how brilliant she was. She was absolutely amazing. And so, like anything I would give her, she would run with it and, you know, do it a hundred times better than I could have ever imagined.
And I have watched her. Growth throughout her career, over the span of only like five or six years. And now she's a chief HR officer herself at a really, you know, a public company. And I, you know, we stayed, we still stay in touch. She, you know, she calls me and now, you know, we've bounce things off of each other as peers.
Whereas when she started, she was this green dean. And it's just so fulfilling and I think it's, It's those types of experiences where you really have the ability to identify great talent, to coach and develop and then, you know, kind of help [00:34:00] 'em get to where they wanna go. Yes. Well, and by you coming on the show, you're doing this as well, right?
This is, this is about, providing mentorship and story and connection and inspiration. Right for, for listeners. Right, because it can be a little lonely sometimes. So, you know, it's, it's a chance to give back. So I really appreciate you taking the time to do that. Well, I appreciate the opportunity to chat.
It was a lot of fun. Thank you. Thank you.
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