I recently reunited with my IA family after a 2-year hiatus, and it feels amazing! You know how sometimes when you leave something or someone for a reason, it may only be for a season, and then you find yourself coming back together again? Well, that is what happened to me with IA. However, before I talk about my experience coming back, it is important to talk about why I left in the first place.

In 2020, I did not leave IA because I was not happy. I loved my job and the unique work we did with our clients. It felt great to be part of such a small company that affects companies in such a big way; I was proud to be an IA’er, part of something bigger than myself. But in 2020, the world as we knew it stood still in the face of a pandemic and as a healthcare clinician, I felt compelled to act, something my clinical training taught me to do for over 25 years.

Like many around the world, our local community struggled to provide care for those who needed support in their homes. My husband and I had raised our kids and worked for over a decade in this community, and I needed to do something to help. Although it meant leaving my IA family, I purchased a home care company, moved back to Central Florida, and opened a business at the height of the pandemic. In the beginning, it was crazy; I often felt like we were running into burning buildings while everyone else was running out. However, the lessons I learned while building an essential workers’ company during a pandemic are priceless.

Today, the home care business is flourishing, and I have an incredible team that runs the day-to-day operations. This stability has given me the freedom to return to the work I started with IA back in 2018. I am 100% confident that my business is where it is today because of what I learned from my colleagues and clients at IA.  Starting a small business from the ground up allowed me the opportunity to learn every facet of the business end-to-end because in the beginning I wore all hats and performed all functions. This in-depth familiarity of recruiting, onboarding, retention, employee engagement, billing, payroll, and offboarding allowed me to create sustainable processes that supported a fast-growing business. As we grew, I realized that our inherited technology platforms (we are within a franchise system) did not support our processes. Instead of changing our processes to fit the technology, I chose to purchase a platform to fit our processes. For these reasons and a multitude of others, I feel I have come back to IA wiser and more suited to assisting our clients through their own challenging transformations. 

Returning as a rehire was not as simple as collecting my information for my I-9, direct deposit and reconnecting my computer; there was a lot to learn! With optimization at the core of IA’s DNA, it did not surprise me that things were different when I returned. Tools and resources have changed because they are more efficient, and processes have been streamlined and improved which meant I needed “catch up” and learn the new ways of doing everything.

It has been an exciting first few months back on the team and I am so thankful I had the opportunity to come back; we have reunited, and it feels so good!