Hiring For Good Ep 29 – Janel Rieder, Owner of Assisting Hands Home Care
Hiring for Good is a podcast exploring the transformative power of leadership and what happens when the right person takes the job. Thank you for tuning in to this episode with our guest Janel Rieder, Owner of Assisting Hands Home Care.
About Assisting Hands Home Care: As a leading home care service provider, we take pride in offering more than just the medical help, but assistance with companionship and daily chores. With professional caregiving license at hand, we are dedicated to providing skilled care services including RN oversight, medication administration, and wound care – all under the supervision of experienced nursing staff. Unlike conventional home care service providers, we follow a comprehensive approach – delivering a variety of assistance services to make sure your loved ones receive the best care
Janel Rieder Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janel-rieder-bsn-rn-8a635ba5/
Assisting Hands Home Care: https://assistinghandsgreaterportland.com/
Hiring For Good Website: https://www.hiringforgood.net/
Podcast on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast…
Tanis Morris: Director of Business Development at Acumen Executive Search: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanis-morris-75a113266/ Email: tanis@acumenexecutivesearch.com
Suzanne Hanifin: President at Acumen Executive Search: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzannehanifin/ Email: suzanne@acumenexecutivesearch.com
Acumen Executive Search Website: https://www.acumenexecutivesearch.com/
Acumen Executive Search is the leading certified woman-owned Executive Search and advisory Firm on the West Coast. Acumen sources, attracts, and qualifies world-class executive and management talent for organizations to support them in achieving their organizational goals. Due to their focus and local network, which is both broad and deep, we are able to leverage best practices across a broad range of industries. We employ an equity lens throughout the recruitment process.
Hiring for Good Transcript
0:00 well good morning I am Suzanne Hanifin
0:02 with Acumen Executive Search and I’m
0:05 with my lovely co-host Tanis Morris and
0:08 we are excited to have another
0:10 phenomenal guest Janel Reider with
0:14 Assisted Hands Home Care for our Hiring
0:17 for Good podcast as you know Hiring for
0:20 Good podcast is a podcast on leadership
0:23 and we’re going to learn a lot from
0:25 Janel today she has been the owner of
0:27 Assisted Hands for eight years prior she
0:30 was an RN at Legacy Mount Hood Medical
0:33 Center it takes a lot to have one career
0:37 and then to change become an owner and a
0:40 manager and so it’s the passion you have
0:44 for people. The bravery to take this I’m
0:47 excited to have you here so welcome
0:49 Janel oh thank you so much uh yes
0:52 Janel reader and uh we own my husband
0:55 and I Randy own Assisting Hands Home
0:58 Care in Happy Valley yeah so we would love to kind of get
1:03 into the journey of here you started one
1:06 career path and what you know K how did
1:10 you get to where you are today gosh I if
1:13 someone would have told me that I’m here
1:15 today I would have not believed them
1:18 honestly so my uh I grew up in a great
1:21 family in the gresham area I’m a twin a
1:24 twin yes I always wanted to be a twin
1:27 well we did some stuff it was fun identical I’m assuming yes
1:33 okay okay yeah great family and I um
1:39 graduated from Portland State University
1:42 in 1991 with—Bachelor’s of Science in
1:46 Business—with—with a new—business school
1:52 um path called Human Resources and those were in the days of
1:57 American Disability Act and that’s what
2:00 I was planning on doing and that’s
2:03 that’s what I did uh my first job out of
2:06 school was in the business office at uh
2:09 Union Gospel Mission so I did that uh I got married
2:15 uh pretty young uh I uh you know and it
2:19 it didn’t turn out well it was um it was
2:23 a it was a nonfunctional marriage uh abusive I
2:28 would definitely see it was yeah uh lots
2:32 of financial abuse um lots of threatening
2:36 abuse so but I do have two lovely kids
2:39 from that and uh I was in that for 18
2:42 years and I decided to end that which
2:45 was an excellent thing to I chose the
2:48 right word of bravery I you know to be
2:51 able to put a stop and to say time out
2:55 yeah let’s reassess right you know right
2:58 it’s brave well it’s particularly
3:00 difficult after so many years you know
3:03 um anyways because you’re really
3:06 downtrodden at that point right and you
3:09 have to find your you know your
3:11 confidence and it’s just that’s the
3:13 hardest part I think it sure was I mean
3:16 I always compare it to the frog and the
3:19 boiling water it the heat turns up and
3:22 up and up and you are not even realizing
3:25 it yeah and you women react differently
3:29 I’ve never counseled women on that
3:33 but I can definitely recognize it yeah
3:36 pretty instantly one of the themes on
3:38 this podcast that we discuss is how
3:41 challenges kind of shape who you are and
3:45 I would imagine that finding the
3:48 strength and resilience to you know move
3:50 out of that probably changed your life
3:52 and your career and really profound way
3:54 so I’m sure we’ll talk about it but it
3:56 did yes absolutely my parents were very
3:59 supportive family some family members
4:01 were not so supportive so there was
4:03 secondary trauma there as well uh but
4:07 yeah so I found myself as a single
4:09 mom uh with uh Junior High kids which is
4:13 not the greatest time oh
4:17 no I’m hopefully moving past that
4:21 snarky hard attitude you will you will
4:26 yes yes yeah and um so as I said uh I
4:31 have two kids uh uh my daughter Isabelle
4:34 she is 30 years old today I know happy
4:38 birthday Isabelle happy birthday oh it’s
4:39 her birthday today today today okay wow
4:42 well happy birthday and happy birthday to you isn’t
4:46 that the truth yes uh and my son Benjamin is uh
4:51 26 and he recently moved to Napa she so
4:56 Isabelle lives with uh her husband and
4:58 three kids yes the sweetest most amazing
5:03 grandkids ever that’s awesome oh my gosh
5:06 yes it’s 10 times better than being a
5:08 mom yeah so when you were in this spot
5:11 like moving back here you are you’re a
5:14 single mom you have um two kids and now
5:17 you have to forge a new path so what did
5:20 you do gosh so stressful so you know I
5:24 mentioned really significant financial
5:26 abuse I had to open my own bank accounts
5:29 and hide money wow mhm uh I uh was able
5:34 uh to keep the house um I negotiated with him I said if you give
5:41 me the house and full custody you don’t
5:44 have to pay spousal support and he went
5:46 for it best decision ever best okay yeah
5:50 so yeah so I had to uh deal with the
5:53 house no financial support whatsoever
5:56 from him there was uh um child support they had he had to be
6:05 garnished in order for me to even get
6:07 that yeah arrests and oh my goodness
6:10 yeah it was pretty bad okay but yeah so
6:12 navigating through all that so I had to
6:14 uh short sale my house mmhm mmhm this was
6:18 it was really stressful and figure out
6:22 how I could support my kids as a single mom
6:27 And and still be there for them and I I had
6:33 so many people come up to me in years
6:36 gone by say you would be an amazing
6:40 nurse and so I started down that path
6:44 and I have that prior bachelor’s degree
6:47 and I had to get a few Pre-reqs like in biology and things like
6:51 that that business people don’t necessarily take yeah so I uh did all
6:56 that and I was able to get into I was
7:01 accepted into two schools actually wow I
7:04 was accepted into OSU and Linfield uh in
7:08 the accelerated program so nursing
7:11 accelerated programs what they do is
7:13 they take your prior degree and they
7:16 apply the just the basics to that second
7:19 bachelor’s degree and so I earned my
7:22 Nursing degree Bachelor Science from
7:24 Linfield I ultimately chose Linfield yes
7:28 uh in 18 months wow wow holy cow holy
7:32 cow yeah yes a lot of uh biology science
7:36 right yeah yes so that was super uh stressful
7:42 but exciting and empowering absolutely absolutely and I
7:49 uh in that time frame I uh met and
7:54 married my current wonderful husband
7:58 Randy and together we have five kids so I have
8:03 three bonus sons uh our kids are um ages
8:07 37 to 26 wow I know fun fun right yes
8:12 and our daughter is the only one that’s
8:14 produced grandchildren what the
8:18 heck exactly yeah and so here you launch
8:23 into being a nurse and you worked at
8:26 some pretty challenging place one
8:28 corrections yes yeah so tell us kind of
8:33 what happened to where you said let’s do
8:37 something totally different again right
8:40 yes for sure so I started my nursing
8:43 career in a civilly committed locked unit
8:48 uh for very very violent um people with
8:52 mental illness holy cow yeah I know and
8:55 charge nurse at night no less cuz why not do that for for your first
8:59 nursing jobs the all downhill from there
9:03 yeah right uh and then I went to work
9:07 for um the Department of Corrections uh
9:10 at Coffee Creek uh um medium security uh
9:15 and maximum or mini minimum security um
9:19 and their segregation there too it’s an
9:21 intake for the State of Oregon for men
9:22 so I had both men patients and women
9:25 patients in in the facility and then from that point my
9:30 manager uh from Legacy Health uh she
9:33 recruited me she was absolutely
9:35 fascinated by prison nurses yeah yeah
9:39 and that was a hard job for sure a fun
9:41 job it was good but I did I spent most
9:44 of my career at Legacy uh at Mount Hood
9:47 Medical Center and mostly just because
9:49 of the location so we live in Sandy
9:52 Oregon and uh going to Gresham was a whole
9:56 lot easier commute than Wilsonville and
9:58 I had to be through security by 5:00
10:00 a.m. wow from Sandy to Wilsonville so I
10:03 left my house about 3:45 in the morning
10:08 so isn’t it amazing what we do just it
10:11 really is right yeah but you know it
10:13 worked in that season because I was able
10:16 to then pick up the kids from school and
10:19 go home and spend the afternoon and do
10:20 all the soccer and after school
10:22 activities and all the things that I
10:24 wanted to do yeah absolutely right so
10:27 yeah I I did uh spend most of my current
10:30 Legacy on a medical telemetry unit so
10:33 it’s an inpatient unit where we monitor
10:35 heart rates hearts we do we treated a
10:38 lot of um post heart attack
10:41 strokes uh lots of flu anything yeah
10:45 right so and then what happened to make
10:49 you leave something safe and secure
10:52 right take a risk again another big risk
10:56 right what was the yeah you know I so I I’ve always kind of
11:04 been a leader I was a relief charge
11:06 nurse on my unit uh doctors and nurses were always
11:11 they always communicated to me oh gosh
11:14 I’m glad you’re in charge today of our
11:15 unit because you’re so calm it can be a
11:19 very busy unit that particular one so
11:22 the calmness and the leadership provided
11:25 made them feel secure in their work so
11:28 when did you see this opportunity to
11:30 start a home healthcare right yeah
11:34 about your business and how you got it
11:35 started right so assisting hands uh is
11:38 uh a we own a it’s a medical and
11:41 non-medical uh in home care service and
11:45 my big why my big reason for opening
11:48 this is that I saw patients come into
11:51 the hospital again and again for the
11:53 same reasons I mean to the point where
11:55 my aids would say Janel so and so’s
11:58 back and then the doctor would come up
12:00 and say so and so’s back is it the same
12:02 care plan as last time yeah it’s the
12:05 same care plan and I realized that uh
12:10 people tend to go back to the old habits
12:12 in their homes and not take their
12:14 medications correctly and they don’t have a lot of
12:19 times family support mmhm and they cycle
12:22 back through again and again I thought
12:24 oh my gosh this is not good for our
12:26 health care system it’s not good for
12:28 them it’s just not a good way to live and if
12:32 we can if I can take my acute care
12:37 experience and transfer that to the home
12:41 and teach my caregiving staff to
12:44 recognize signs and symptoms of uh heart
12:46 failure exacerbation or COPD or any
12:49 chronic condition then maybe I can have
12:51 an impact on their personal health and
12:55 our community that’s wonderful and today
12:58 we talked about this before starting
13:00 this podcast you have about 50 employees
13:03 we do have about 50 employees so think
13:05 of hundreds of people you’re helping H
13:09 right we do and over the years we’ve
13:12 hired hundreds and hundreds and that’s
13:15 the nature of this business and hundreds
13:17 and hundreds of clients and moving people along their
13:22 health and life continuum it’s a it’s a
13:24 journey and so they come into our onto
13:28 our radar we can take care of them for a
13:30 moment and then they move on uh either
13:32 to a higher level of care or um or pass
13:36 away yeah um so yeah and and the same
13:39 with the employees right absolutely so
13:42 absolutely they have journeys too yeah it’s
13:44 interesting I mean it’ll be I we haven’t
13:47 gotten into you know all of the topics
13:49 that we’ll cover yet but I know one of
13:50 the things that we discuss is you know
13:53 as as a leader um it sounds like so much of your own
13:59 journey has been about you know personal
14:01 growth and then seeing opportunities and
14:03 moving forward and you’ve even alluded
14:05 to the fact that the the folks you have
14:08 working for you it it sounds like you’re
14:10 empowering them to move on on their
14:12 journey as well so I’m wondering if
14:14 that’s like a recurring theme in in your life and in your
14:18 company and I guess I won’t I won’t um
14:22 jump ahead too far but I would be
14:24 curious to know you know how you would
14:27 you consider that one of your core
14:29 values to kind of continually grow and
14:31 then how do you operationalize that I I
14:34 love learning I love learning all new
14:37 things um all things nursing nutrition
14:41 just personal growth that’s um really uh
14:45 it it feeds me I I love that and I love
14:48 empowering women uh I love um giving our
14:53 staff a space to create really good uh practic
14:59 of um caregiving mhm I talk to them
15:02 about this is your practice it’s not
15:05 just something um that you do it’s
15:10 important and it’s who you are and I
15:13 want you to think about how your practice looks and how
15:18 you want to impact your patients and and
15:22 if you want to grow let’s let’s grow I
15:25 do have a program where if they want to
15:27 earn uh their CNA license that I will
15:31 pay for that oh wow yeah yeah and I I
15:35 love that uh I have taken uh lots of
15:39 nursing students and shown them things
15:43 they’re always excited to for me to show
15:45 things and then they they go to lab and
15:47 they say oh my gosh Janel already
15:49 showed me this oh that’s great that is
15:51 awesome yes in eight years now being a
15:55 business owner yeah whether it’s from drawing from your
15:59 nursing experience but what are some of
16:02 those real formative experiences whether it’s a
16:06 mentor that you it’s shaped who you are
16:10 right right so uh Randy and I have a
16:14 family motto and we’ve moved it into our
16:18 business uh as a motto and it’s not our
16:22 um core purpose but it’s it’s definitely
16:24 an overarching theme and that is to act
16:28 justly love mercy walk humbly wow that’s
16:31 powerful say that again act justly love
16:35 mercy walk humbly so you know the overarching theme
16:42 of what we want to do with our staff and
16:45 our clients is to empower them as I said
16:49 but also just to love on them they have
16:52 often come from not great working
16:57 environments a lot of times come from
17:00 higher levels of care where it’s very
17:02 Very busy and their um their work is not um
17:08 maybe called out and honored the way it
17:11 Should be oh I think that’s absolutely the
17:16 truth it’s amazing I have a girlfriend
17:18 who did Senior Care during COVID yeah it’s
17:22 exhausting it is not appreciated no and
17:26 it’s critical it’s so critical well and
17:29 in the last year I know both suzan and I
17:32 have in our personal lives had some you
17:34 know quite a bit of crossover into this
17:37 world of um adult care family members
17:40 and failing Health right and um you get
17:44 a front row seat to some of the
17:46 challenges inherent in that system so it
17:49 sounds like you’re empowering your team
17:52 to address you know some of those
17:55 situations with right it is it’s very um
17:59 it’s very challenging it’s very
18:01 emotionally draining especially when you’re with the
18:04 same client day after day uh so the way
18:09 um the business works is we match
18:12 clients to caregivers skill set
18:15 location so it’s not like one of our
18:17 clients calls up and says I need
18:19 somebody today it’s a scheduled um
18:22 process so they see their their their
18:25 clients all the time and with that is
18:28 naturally we’re human beings uh you’re really emotionally
18:32 drawn into their world and that’s that
18:35 is hard to navigate on a day-to-day
18:38 basis so and it’s also fairly isolating
18:43 very isolating so when you look at
18:44 building teams and building a company
18:47 culture yes that’s hard when everybody
18:50 is dispersed right so how do you do that
18:54 is it through these core values yeah how
18:57 do you operationalize them all of that
18:59 gosh that you just hit the nail on the
19:02 head that is the hardest part face to
19:05 face my office leadership team um
19:09 transferring those core values and
19:10 keeping them encouraged that’s the easy
19:13 part when a caregiver goes to their
19:17 home to a client’s home maybe another
19:20 client’s home in their day and then back
19:21 to their home you never see them there’s
19:25 some staff members that if they do their
19:27 job well unless I call call them I don’t
19:30 see them yeah and that is very very
19:34 challenging mmhm so we Implement a lot of
19:38 different things they will call into the
19:41 office all the time I’ve trained my
19:42 office team to really really care for
19:45 them and love on them and and
19:47 communicate hey how you doing we know
19:50 about their personal lives we’re able
19:52 just to kind of speak into um to them as
19:56 people and uh so it starts with that it
20:00 starts with orientation
20:02 really changing their thinking about the
20:05 way we do things they are important that what
20:10 their work matters they are part of a healthcare
20:13 team they’ve never been told that but
20:16 it’s so true it is so true and it’s
20:19 interesting that you take it from
20:21 onboarding right and and studies have
20:24 showed that the first usually it’s the
20:26 first 90 days within that you know
20:30 somebody’s going to stay with you long
20:32 term or not and they say it has so much
20:35 to do with the onboarding right it’s
20:37 setting those expectations right here’s
20:40 this culture laying the groundwork right
20:43 absolutely you know and it’s love but
20:45 it’s also that for us that act justly
20:48 it’s keeping them in the framework of
20:51 Our expectations and it’s truly not love if
20:55 you let that go right yeah uh so yeah
20:59 and you know people do they move on and
21:01 they go to different places but what’s
21:03 interesting is that a lot of them many
21:06 dozens have come back oh wow yep so that
21:09 says a lot for my team that and we are
21:12 constantly hearing oh my goodness it’s
21:15 so wonderful working here I have never
21:18 experienced an organization like this so
21:20 that says a lot to my office staff and
21:23 my leadership team mhm let me ask you
21:26 you know sounds like you’ve undergone
21:28 significant growth having this this
21:30 large of a team um what are your plans
21:33 for the future for your business you
21:35 know did you envision it getting to this
21:37 point now was this part or did it just
21:40 sort of gigantically happen and then
21:43 where you going gosh yeah uh when I
21:46 first started this business I had no
21:50 idea how to do it I knew how to be a
21:53 nurse uh but an acute care nurse in
21:55 structured environments I have created
21:58 my own processes and policies and
22:02 procedures uh and yes I remember waiting
22:05 for that first phone call when we had
22:07 zero clients and one caregiver wow and
22:12 now 50—50 mmhm and we’ve grown year overy
22:15 year yeah and do you want to stay where
22:17 you are or you looking to grow no I
22:19 would like to I do want to grow we have
22:21 grown year over year and that is the
22:23 expectation yeah I want to impact our
22:26 community in very profound way
22:29 we have so many neat referral partners
22:32 and uh when someone has a client has
22:35 outgrown um the service that we can
22:38 provide I’m able to pass them on to a
22:42 trusted referral partner wonderful and I
22:45 love that impacting our community in
22:48 such a powerful way and that’s what I
22:51 really communicate to our caregiving
22:53 team is that gosh you know um
22:59 doing laundry and making meals seems
23:02 very mundane but to the person and the
23:04 family it’s everything I do envision uh a bigger
23:10 company absolutely uh more employees hiring
23:15 carefully hiring yeah and I bet that’s
23:18 been really challenging oh after the co
23:22 it’s through covid oh my gosh that was
23:25 so difficult um writing those um
23:29 infection control policies keeping
23:31 everybody safe none of our clients got COVID
23:36 ladies oh they did such a good job I was
23:39 so proud of them I would like to see on
23:43 my team uh maybe care managers uh that
23:47 specialize in just that our our office
23:50 team does that and we divide that but
23:52 specific maybe some social workers I’ve
23:55 had doctor friends that say Hey can I
23:57 have an office next to your and I can
23:59 just be an independent provider things
24:01 like that I would love to do that again
24:04 you’re changing the way that we’re
24:06 looking at this right and again Tiana
24:10 shared we’re both going through this
24:12 with with our family members and it’s not working and and yes
24:18 if there was easy solution we would have
24:20 figured it out there’s not an easy
24:22 solution and it’s unique to every single
24:25 person and that’s what I love to do is
24:29 get in there assess a a a patient assess
24:33 their living condition look at the
24:34 family dynamics and figure out a path
24:37 that makes sense for them absolutely I
24:40 love doing that lessons learned I bet
24:44 you have a bazillion yes oh gosh you
24:47 know one of the biggest lessons learned
24:49 and I will uh say my business coach was
24:52 really instrumental in this is um well a
24:56 couple things write down your process
24:59 have it in a binder so if you just hand
25:01 the binder over to someone who doesn’t
25:03 know the business they can immediately
25:04 know the business great lesson the
25:07 biggest most um impactful lesson though
25:10 for me is to really create a leadership
25:14 team that knows the business very well
25:17 so that I can step out of those details
25:20 and dream and move the business forward
25:24 you know my job I I feel like I have two
25:26 jobs grow the business love on my
25:28 clients love on my staff that’s
25:31 it and if I’m in the details of the
25:35 things that bring me down and and take
25:40 my energy away then I can’t move that
25:43 needle at all uh when I’m free to do
25:47 that that those are my best moments of
25:49 thinking about new ways of approaching
25:51 care or new new things to do to empower people
25:57 and to care for my clients so that is my
26:00 that is my biggest lesson right there
26:02 beautiful so um another question we ask
26:05 everyone is what advice would you give
26:07 to your 20-year-old self it’s going to
26:10 be okay yeah which is big I still tell
26:15 myself that my internal monologue okay
26:19 this too shall pass isn’t that true yes
26:23 yes as we move through life we
26:26 understand that’s so true and
26:29 uh you know when you’re 20 you’re so
26:30 focused and as now a grandma of three
26:35 I’m just able to look back and and on
26:37 and on my career and just say things
26:39 work out and uh you know when you walk
26:44 with um a purpose and as much Integrity as you can
26:52 possibly to yeah those things just come
26:55 to you and good people surround you you
26:59 and it’s uh you know another thing I
27:02 would say is just have fun yeah it’s really fun I mean it is fun I
27:10 love this business it’s it’s a fun
27:11 business and I love helping people
27:13 that’s awesome well speaking of helping
27:15 people our podcast hiring for good yes
27:19 means different things to different
27:21 people right what does hiring for good
27:23 mean for you gosh oh well for my clients
27:28 if I hire well and hire for good it
27:31 impacts their life in profound ways if I
27:35 hire well it impacts the community in
27:39 profound ways so that is the challenge
27:43 and uh that’s what we do every single
27:46 day is higher higher higher that’s
27:49 beautiful thank you so much for your
27:51 time it was such a pleasure to have you
27:53 with us and just learn a little bit
27:55 about your business and your process and
27:57 your story thank you thanks for joining
27:59 us today at hiring for good if you
28:01 inspired by our conversation don’t
28:03 forget to like follow And subscribe
28:05 wherever you get your podcast and if you
28:07 want to learn more about our Executive
28:09 Search Services check us out at www.hiringforgood.net or our company
28:15 website Acumen executive Search thanks
28:18 so much and don’t forget to join us next
28:20 time for another in-depth conversation
28:22 about transformational leadership until then have fun