Transforming Medical Practice Recruiting Through Personal Connection, with Chris Germond of Nextaff

Intro  

Welcome to another edition of inspired stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity, and explore current challenges they’re facing.

Anthony Codispoti
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Chris Germond, owner, healthcare recruiter, staffing Swami and guy who cleans the office at Next Staff of Sarasota. Building on a 25 year leadership career, he brings considerable variety and depth of experience to the Next Staff brand.

As his father was an executive search consultant for over 40 years, Chris literally grew up in the world of recruiting and made his first professional executive assignment when he was 17 years old. Now he uses his experience to help medical practices throughout Southwest Florida to expand their hiring by assisting them with sourcing, recruiting, and screening high quality clinical and non-clinical healthcare talent. They specialize in filling critical roles in nursing, allied health,

medical administrative and practice leadership. They offer temporary contract to hire and direct to hire services. And they do all of this through their proprietary process called X-Factor. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Adback Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cashflow.

by implementing one of our proprietary programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at adbackbenefitsagency.com. Now back to our guest today, the owner of Next Staffs, Arizona, Chris Germond. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Chris Germond (11:59.345)
Yeah, thanks, Anthony. Appreciate it.

Anthony Codispoti (12:01.452)
So Chris, tell us a little bit about the path that led you into the staffing industry. It sounds like you grew up in that world. Did you know this is always what you wanted to do?

Chris Germond (12:11.175)
I’m not sure if it’s what I wanted to do. What I really want to do is be a race car driver. That didn’t work out. But my dad was actually a headhunter for 40 plus years, had his own company. So I think I may have gotten the entrepreneurial bug from him a little bit. And I started working with him when I was even before I was a teenager. I helped around the office, helped clean their office, helped do research.

through. This was before they had computers. I’m dating myself. So we had to do research through industry manuals and journals and things like that for the recruiters in his office. And when my voice changed, he got me on the phone and that’s where I learned to be a recruiter. And I literally did make my first placement when I was 17. It may have been 16 just before I turned 17, but it was pretty darn early.

Anthony Codispoti (12:58.579)
You

Chris Germond (13:09.479)
So that’s how I got into recruiting. Working for your dad is hard, as many people have done that will know, and working with family is tough. I went off after that and started my own career in operations leadership in retail and spent years doing that. So I was always a hiring manager or recruiter during my entire career.

When the retail company I worked for went bankrupt, I had to figure out what to do again and got connected back into recruiting and started working with an executive search office here in Sarasota, Florida, doing what they call a 360 desk. So I was doing the sourcing, the recruiting, but also had to find my own clients too.

and started to kind of get the itch that maybe I wanted to do something myself again. Spent a little bit of time with a home care agency here in Florida doing recruiting and helping them revamp their ATS, their applicant tracking system, and sort of bring that into the 21st century. And that’s when I first got approached by Nextaf.

Anthony Codispoti (14:33.42)
or they came to you.

Chris Germond (14:34.949)
Yeah, I was approached by them to gauge my interest in joining a partnership group that owns the franchise rights here in Southwest Florida. They wanted to open up a health care staffing office. Well, I had the obviously the recruiting background. I had the operational background, everything from, you know, site selection for an office to running a business to running a PNL. And it seemed to click.

So I got involved with that partnership group and we opened the office in October 2021, kind of at the height of the COVID pandemic.

Anthony Codispoti (15:16.912)
And what were you focusing on at that time? Any particular industries?

Chris Germond (15:21.765)
Yeah, when you say healthcare, it’s a wide umbrella, right? There’s a lot of things you can do in healthcare. We were pretty narrowly focused when we opened the business doing what we call PRN staffing or filling shifts with clients in the long-term care and assisted living industry. And they had such a need during COVID that it was…

It wasn’t hard to come out of the box really strong.

Anthony Codispoti (15:55.178)
If you could find people to fill those open positions, then you certainly had clients for it. Yeah.

Chris Germond (16:00.761)
Absolutely. They didn’t care how much, they didn’t care how many, they just needed people. So from a business development standpoint, was pretty easy to go out and get clients at that time.

Anthony Codispoti (16:20.014)
And so if you continue to focus on those same niches within healthcare.

Chris Germond (16:27.387)
You know, about 16 months ago, we noticed as we came out of COVID that that business, at least here in Florida, was changing quite a bit. They were really starting to pare back not only outside staffing, which we were part of, but even internal staffing, they were starting to call a little bit their internal teams and you know, because it’s simply not sustainable.

to bring in outside staffing in that business for a long period of time. And we knew that. So as we started to see that business drop, I started to look around and say, hey, what else can we do in health care? It’s such a wide playing field. actually, we came across a client that was a medical practice. They were a

rather large one with about 13 plus offices in the area, both primary care and specialty. And they were really struggling with a lot of their offices hiring. And I was comparing and contrasting working with them with working in the long-term care and assisted living field where outside staffing is thought of a taboo. Those administrators of those facilities

Anthony Codispoti (17:48.46)
Yeah.

Chris Germond (17:52.055)
actually get sanctioned by their parent companies if they have to use outside staffing or too much of it. And we get treated like that. And the employees they bring in from us don’t get treated great either. So I found it to be very transactional working with them. And I never opened a business to want to do that. I don’t like doing business in a transactional way. It’s not fun for me. And quite honestly, I’m at the point in my career where I want to have fun in what I do.

Anthony Codispoti (17:57.89)
Really?

Chris Germond (18:21.687)
And I want to enjoy the clients I work with. And I want to bring some value to them and help them do something that they may be struggling with. So it got to the point where, yeah, I just didn’t want to do business in that vertical any longer. So that’s how I got hooked up with into the medical practices. And what I found is that they saw more value in what I was bringing to them by helping them to expand their recruiting bandwidth.

A lot of medical practices are smaller. Maybe they only have one office or they have maybe a multiple, but they don’t have their own town acquisition department for the most part. Or if they do, it also doubles as their HR department and also doubles as their business office. So when they have a big hiring need, I was finding that their lives were thrown into an uproar, their professional lives.

Anthony Codispoti (19:17.315)
Yeah.

Chris Germond (19:18.747)
The office manager not only had to manage the office, help their providers, the doctors, deal with the patients, but now they had to go hire people. That’s a full-time job in and of itself. I think we’ve carved out a niche working with medical practices throughout the area. And that’s the road I’ve taken to that where I want to expand the business and focus on is, you know, try to bring something to their practices that is tough for them to do.

under normal circumstances. They don’t have the time, the expertise or the platforms that we have to help them out. So I’ve enjoyed that a lot more and I think they’ve definitely seen more value in it as well. It’s not just, hey, send me a warm body.

Anthony Codispoti (20:05.658)
Have you seen your peers, the other franchisees in Next Staff make a similar transition?

Chris Germond (20:13.253)
Yeah, we’ve seen them start. Yeah, we’ve definitely seen them start. So they’re opening kind of their eyes and seeing what else is out there. I have a colleague up in the Orlando area where he’s really working on getting into the behavioral health area, kind of for the same reason that they seem to be much more welcoming and see the value in what we can bring to them. And it just turns out to be more fun for both parties.

Anthony Codispoti (20:35.342)
you

Anthony Codispoti (20:40.975)
So let’s talk a little bit about NextTap. Obviously, they approached you, they saw something in you that they saw a lot of value in. But let me turn that around. And so from your viewpoint, that had to be flattering. But what did NextTap bring to the table that you couldn’t just go and do on your own with all the years of experience that you have?

Chris Germond (21:02.513)
Sure. So when I first got into it within a partnership group at the time, the ability to and capital, you know, they came with capital and tools to get the business started. While I’d been doing some healthcare recruiting, I was by no means what I consider an expert in it as of yet. I think over the past few years, I’ve definitely developed that. But

Anthony Codispoti (21:11.47)
Yeah.

Chris Germond (21:29.447)
You need to know and understand a vertical in order to be that kind of effective recruiter in it. What they did bring besides the capital is they brought some really good systems. Everything from their ATS and HCM system, which kind of doubles as that. They brought expertise in kind of setting up that staffing business that I thought was valuable.

Anthony Codispoti (21:41.4)
Yeah.

Chris Germond (21:59.427)
And also the ability to do contract to hire or that to actually have that workforce. Okay, so they actually fund that and, you know, and actually pay that. then so they’re acting as your bank basically while you’re doing it. And another thing that I really liked was the founders of the company, I thought were very authentic.

Anthony Codispoti (22:18.552)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Germond (22:29.097)
Carrie and James, that, it was still a small enough organization and growing where you could contribute to operations. And if you had an idea, you’d get listened to. I think there’s lots of great franchises out there that are very large and they have that replicatable system, but they just say, Hey, you do this. Don’t question anything where I did have a lot of operational and recruiting backgrounds. So.

Anthony Codispoti (22:53.934)
Yeah.

Chris Germond (22:59.136)
I could bring a lot to that table. So that was kind of interesting to me as well.

Anthony Codispoti (23:03.838)
How would you describe the size of Nextaf now? I don’t know either how many recruiters they have or how many locations that they’re in across the country.

Chris Germond (23:11.757)
Yeah, overall, think they’re over, I think they’re over 50 locations now throughout the country and they do other types of staffing besides healthcare. They do commercial, they do IT. So they’re pretty broad. So, you know, if someone’s looking at that type of opportunity, depends on whatever your passion is for. And sometimes it’s what area you’re in as well. Like for example, I wouldn’t, I probably wouldn’t do commercial staffing in the area I’m in.

It’s not a huge warehousing area, right? Or it’s not a huge light industrial area, but healthcare in Southwest Florida, we’re not going to run out of doctors’ offices here anytime soon. So there’s a lot of opportunity for potential clients as well as potential employees.

Anthony Codispoti (23:49.72)
pretty big.

Anthony Codispoti (23:59.051)
Do you ever consider moving outside of the healthcare space to support other industries? get light industrial warehousing is not really a thing there, but would there be others that would be interesting to you?

Chris Germond (24:12.581)
Yeah, it’s always possible. We have had discussions of actually not so much different types of industries, but in healthcare, there are different types of staffing. And the idea of what they call locum staffing is attractive. And that’s where you’re filling temporary roles for normally 13 week contracts all over the country and very specific types of healthcare providers.

whether that be allied health, like physical therapy, this occupational, et cetera. So they’ve had discussions around that. I don’t think we’re quite there yet, but it’s something exploratory. I think one of the cool things about recruiting in general is that you can become an expert in a vertical that you don’t really know a lot about. And I’ve done it three times now. When I was young, I did it with my dad’s company.

And he was an expert in recruiting in microwave technology. I’m not talking about microwave ovens. I’m talking about microwave communications technology, where many of his clients were defense contractors or subcontractors, which that’s a pretty cool thing to be in. When I

Anthony Codispoti (25:16.108)
Hmm. Yeah, that’s a very specific niche. Yeah.

Chris Germond (25:36.069)
got back into recruiting and worked for an executive search firm in town here. They kind of gave me free reign to develop my own vertical. They said, you know, we’d like to do something retail related. You’ve got a deep retail background. Tell us what you think it should be. And the more research I did, the more I found that supply chain technology specifically as it relates to e-commerce, basically the big distribution centers that feed us all our stuff now, whether it be from Amazon or

Walmart, whatever, the technologies that run those buildings, the software and the hardware was really interesting to me. So I developed a desk focusing in that area and I got to be an expert in specifically supply chain software and the implementation of it and people who do that. I didn’t know a thing about it before I started researching it, but it’s

Anthony Codispoti (26:34.402)
but you get to know the lingo, you get to know what kind of skills are needed to run this software to set it up.

Chris Germond (26:37.635)
Yeah, once I learned the verbiage and the buzzwords and the players in the industry, which is all pretty easy to research, it really starts to come together. So I was able to build a pretty successful desk doing that. So I think the same thing is possible in health care or any other vertical, which

I credit that, I credit to knowing that to my willingness to look outside what I was doing when we started this office. You know, we were pretty narrowly focused in the assisted living and long-term care space. And as that business changed and I discovered that I’m not a real fan of working in that vertical, find another one and develop it. So that’s, I think that’s a really cool thing about recruiting is that you can choose different verticals and become experts in it. So.

Could I do something else? Sure. Am I ready to? I’m probably more focused on expanding this vertical and my geography.

Anthony Codispoti (27:42.414)
still lots of opportunity where you are in this particular vertical.

Chris Germond (27:45.455)
Absolutely. Absolutely. Just on the west coast of Florida here from Tampa, St. Petersburg south, there’s so much opportunity. So I’m probably more focusing my energy in that respect right now.

Anthony Codispoti (28:00.63)
And how do you continue to grow? Like what are the mechanisms for you finding new clients or new clients finding you?

Chris Germond (28:08.165)
Yeah, so I use, we do a couple different things. My main vehicle is just a lead generation system that I partner with a company on. And they help me target the types of medical practices that would be kind of in my niche, both the size and the location. And we introduce ourselves to them through email, through phone calls, through visits.

That’s the main growth vehicle I’m doing. The other side of that is when we do have a new client, we’ve got to be able to find people for them. So being kind of innovative when it comes to recruiting, and that’s one of the nice things about Next Staff is they bring some pretty cool platforms that I think are a part of our value statement to a potential client that our normal client either doesn’t have the

time or resources to use.

Anthony Codispoti (29:11.906)
So yeah, tell me a little bit more about that system, the processes, the platforms that set you guys apart.

Chris Germond (29:18.375)
So the first thing that we talk to them about is our X-factor process. And that’s really kind of the soup we use to not only identify but screen potential candidates. that’s doing everything from behavioral type interviews with them to utilizing some assessments that we have available to us that, again, one of our clients could go use, but they’re going to have to pay a lot more for them than we do.

We’ve also got some proprietary technological platforms that are pretty neat. We have our own mobile app where when we have a, let’s say we have a temporary assignment, I need a medical assistant who can work a 13 week contract here in Sarasota. Well, it’s easy for me to basically send that out to all our medical assistants in our database who’ve worked with us prior and it will get a notification on their app. Okay. So.

Anthony Codispoti (30:14.776)
Mm.

Chris Germond (30:17.327)
And then we’ve also got our own referral platform, our talent referral platform that we can, we have ambassadors. They don’t have to work for us. They can be anyone. You could be an ambassador for us and you refer someone to us and say, you refer a nurse to us and it’s all electronic through your own dashboard. You refer the nurse to us. You know who you referred to us. You can track their progress if they get hired by us and go to work. Not only

not only them, but you’re going to get a referral fee. So we’ve got one person that has made hundreds of dollars through us, getting gift cards just by referring people to us. So we have our own database of potential talent people that we grow using our referral platform. We also have our own job posting platform where everyone knows

probably the most popular job board out there is Indeed. It’s one of the most used one, but believe it or not, Indeed, I think only has about 25 or 30 % of the market share when you factor in LinkedIn and all the other, even like Monster, they’re still around. We knew they were still around. So there’s lots of specialty job boards out there. So we’ve got a platform that we can utilize to

Anthony Codispoti (31:20.013)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (31:28.505)
I wouldn’t have guessed that.

Chris Germond (31:44.059)
get our jobs in front of people, not only on Indeed, but on other platforms. And we’re sponsoring the job. So it’s not just being picked up by an aggregator, but we’re actually able to get prime position on that platform. And the candidate comes in directly through our ATS system. So they come directly to us. They’re not necessarily having to apply through Indeed, for example. These are all things that

One of our clients who is, we have a dermatology practice, very busy, as you might imagine in Florida, lots of sun and sun related issues. They don’t have the time or the wherewithal to invest in that stuff. Or should they? They don’t hire enough to do that. But when they need people a few times a year, they come to us because we can tap all these things. So these are those systems that I think NextApp brings that are, they’re pretty cool and they give us things that you don’t find everywhere.

Anthony Codispoti (32:20.685)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (32:43.744)
Yeah, you know, with the type of work that you do, you have an interesting, I’ll call it challenge is that you’re not just trying to get the client, which, you know, call like the medical facility, but you also have to make sure that you’ve got the staff to match with them. And it’s, how do you think about that chicken and egg equation? Are you trying to find the client first and then like, okay, pause, let me see if I can find somebody to fit your needs.

Chris Germond (33:14.247)
Yes, both ways. So when we started the business, we really went out and just recruited everybody we could to come on board. And they understood we were new, we would have clients soon, and it wasn’t long before we had clients. But I’ve noticed that it’s always a chicken, it’s always a chicken or the egg thing. There’s never a right answer to that or one to the other.

So we’re trying to juggle both at all times. I focus most of my energies on finding new clients and also doing some higher level direct hire searches that I have experienced doing. My staffing coordinators will focus more on the contract to hire roles, the temp roles, and the administrative parts of the business like running payroll, things like that.

Anthony Codispoti (34:09.388)
Because ultimately as a franchisee, you are responsible for both sides of that equation in your geography. You’re the employer of record for any temp folks that you may place. And so you’ve got to handle all the payroll and the insurance and all that stuff on the backend. so, yeah, you’ve got, it is your own business. It’s your own ecosphere that you’ve got to maintain all sides of.

Chris Germond (34:16.206)
Absolutely. Yep.

Chris Germond (34:36.014)
It is, and that gets back to what you asked about, what did we see in next staff? That’s one of the things they bring is the expertise to show us how to do that and the ability to do that. So a nice thing that we can offer our talent that comes on board with us and they’re working temp assignments or even shifts, because we still do do some PRN staffing, not a lot anymore, but some. We have a couple of choice clients that still come to us and we’ve got a good relationship with them.

is we actually have health benefits for our employees in the field. That’s not frequent in a temp staffing agency. In fact, a lot of temp staffing agencies still use the 1099 contractor model. That’s something unique about us. We do not. All of our town are W-2 employees. So we handle doing the payroll withholding.

They can get benefits through us. They work under our workers comp, our liability insurance. And that’s a competitive advantage too when it comes to temp staffing. Because there’s definitely, hearing more more pitfalls about, particularly in healthcare and nursing staffing, about temporary contractors, the 1099 model, that they really don’t fit that model from a legal standpoint.

Anthony Codispoti (35:39.98)
That’s great.

Chris Germond (36:01.236)
and many states are starting to crack down upon that. So we’ve always been the W-2 model.

Anthony Codispoti (36:07.298)
Well, I think it’s better for both the employee as well as your client, right? With them being a W2 employee, again, you’re taking care of all the payroll, all the withholdings, all the stuff that, you know, the average person doesn’t know how to and doesn’t want to deal with. And at the same time for your client, it’s a nice value add because you’re making sure that this person has the right certifications. You’ve got the insurance, like you said, the worker’s comp, like all that stuff is taken care of buttoned up.

Nobody has to worry. Nobody else has to worry because you do the worrying.

Chris Germond (36:41.687)
Right, right. falls on us. But I’ll tell you, it’s so, you felt bad for some of the people that came to work for us. And most of the staffing in this area did follow the 1099 route. And they all had very sad stories that there’s no better introduction to the IRS than realizing you haven’t paid your taxes. And I say that in jest.

Anthony Codispoti (37:02.954)
Hmm.

Chris Germond (37:06.937)
And that’s what a lot of these people were exposed to. They weren’t having withholding taxes taken out. And then they get to, no, they get to…

Anthony Codispoti (37:14.402)
They didn’t know. They didn’t know what the rules were. They didn’t understand that they needed to report that income on their own.

Chris Germond (37:19.653)
and they owe $1,000 in taxes and it’s a shock. that’s one of the things we always make sure to tell people that come to work with us, that, you we take care that for you.

Anthony Codispoti (37:28.524)
Yeah, that’s good. And I’m curious, you you’ve had such extensive experience with hiring folks and then, you know, either on your side trying to retain them or trying to coach your clients on how to retain those direct hires or those contract hires. I’m curious what you’ve seen, because it continues to be a pretty tight labor market. What are some good ways to both recruit and then once you find the good people to retain them?

What are some suggestions that you can give in those areas?

Chris Germond (38:01.543)
Sure.

I think the biggest thing in my experience, and you’re right, we’re still in a competitive job market, though I would say it has shifted towards a more employer-driven market again. Not much, but it’s definitely there. I think sharing that vision, and I do this whether I’m recruiting, because I think that helps you find the right candidates, or

Anthony Codispoti (38:19.768)
somewhat, okay?

Chris Germond (38:34.309)
the employees sharing the vision of what you’re trying to do and making sure they understand how it affects them, how they benefit from it, whether it’s how they monetarily benefit from it, how their career can benefit from it. I find so, so few clients doing that. And it was rampant in the long-term care and assisted living world. It was just a lot of dissatisfied people working in that world.

The scary thing is that those people are taking care of our grandparents and our moms and dads. It was enough to keep me up at night. So really making sure they understand how they can grow from it. And I think knowing the employee’s goals and how you can help them reach it. Whether that be a certified nurse assistant who wants to be a nurse. How can you help them get?

Anthony Codispoti (39:08.302)
Yeah.

Chris Germond (39:32.153)
into school? How can you write them a letter recommendation? Whatever that takes. I really think it’s just people taking interest in their employees or their candidates when they’re recruiting. And I think we get so caught up in technology and all the new things that are coming out, how AI is going to affect recruiting. I think we forget that at the end of the day that it’s still about talking to people.

And no matter how fancy the technology is or the search engines are and whatever, you still have to connect with people. And I think we’re losing a little bit of that in recruiting.

Anthony Codispoti (40:12.942)
and that’s a big part of what you guys are still able to offer.

Chris Germond (40:16.775)
Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s one of the things that differentiates us. Yes, we have platforms that are easy to use, that are kind of cutting edge, but you still have to connect with people on a human level. And what’s the most common complaint you hear from people who have applied for jobs today? They never heard back. Right? They never got.

You go into the internet black hole and you never hear anything back. And that continues to be a problem and it continues to be a make for hunting for a job, a really rough experience.

Anthony Codispoti (40:57.634)
So let’s talk about AI. How do you see it impacting so far? How do you guys use it or how do you stay away from it? How is it affecting your ability to find candidates? People are using AI tools to blast their resumes to 1,000 places at once. I’m just kind of curious to hear what it’s like on your side.

Chris Germond (41:17.415)
Sure. you know, AI is starting to show up in some of the platforms we use to make them a little bit more efficient. I think from like, for example, I can reach everyone on our referral platform. If I have an immediate need or an immediate opening, we need to fill fast. Great example. I’ve got a short term temp position for a licensed practical nurse or an RN.

coming up at the beginning of November. And I need to reach those people fast. So I used to have to choose all the people to send that to. Now the AI is doing that for me. So it saves me time on that end. So I think AI is going to help a lot when it comes to sourcing and identifying candidates. I think it’s going to make it easier to do that. I have a fear that it’s going to continue to take away

the human side of it. Maybe it’ll get better, right? Maybe it’ll learn to say things better, but a chat bot’s still a chat bot. And we can usually tell when we’re talking to a chat bot, right? It’s pretty evident. But I definitely think it’s going to affect the sourcing side quite a bit.

Anthony Codispoti (42:27.651)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (42:34.786)
Do you see this as, yay, another helpful tool or, my gosh, I’m really nervous about this replacing me and my team.

Chris Germond (42:46.929)
I don’t have any nervousness yet about it replacing the need for us.

Chris Germond (42:56.483)
I have a nervousness about it being relied upon too much as I think we tend to swing back and forth with new technology, we go too far one way, right? So I’ve got a nervousness about that. On the sourcing side, anything that can help me identify and reach candidates more efficiently and…

So they’ll see us, I think so positive. The problem is when you get hundreds upon hundreds and hundreds of recruiters, okay, reaching out to you and anyone who’s on LinkedIn knows this, how many emails do you get a week from recruiters about jobs?

I get several a week and I’m a business owner. They don’t care. That just tells me they didn’t read my profile. But there’s a danger of saturation too. So maybe AI will help filter that out. I’m not smart enough to know that yet, but I’m smart enough to know that I think it’s gonna make the sourcing part of this easier eventually, but I’m nervous about the other side.

Anthony Codispoti (44:07.074)
Well, here’s something I know that you’re smart enough to answer, and that is what would you consider to be the number one mistake that companies make when hired?

Chris Germond (44:23.409)
They hire reactively.

Chris Germond (44:32.614)
And I’ll give you an example.

They don’t think about what they’re going to need next week or next month or several months down the road, or they don’t play the what if game. One of my mentors was a, if he heard me calling him a mentor, he probably slapped me upside the head, but he was a peer of mine. We worked together for years and he always said that you gotta play what if.

And organizations don’t play what if, especially the larger the organization, the less they do. What happens if Joey leaves tomorrow? What’s the plan to replace him? What’s the plan to get the work done when he’s not there? What happens if Sally leaves next week and gives her notice? What do we do? So I think companies hire very reactively. don’t

Leaders don’t put thought process into succession planning and playing what if. That’s a pretty high level problem. Because obviously you can’t go build a bench of people if you don’t have spots for them. But it goes back to what I said about how do you keep employees knowing what they want to do? What are their goals? Your plan to replace Sally may be right next to you and you don’t even know it.

Anthony Codispoti (45:42.466)
Yeah.

Chris Germond (46:03.887)
I think good managers and leaders do that. think they, and if they don’t do it, they do it to their own peril.

Anthony Codispoti (46:12.002)
How would you describe for where your firm is right now, how would you describe the ideal client fit? Obviously geography is Southwest Florida. Industry, let’s hit the specific healthcare verticals and then maybe size.

Chris Germond (46:23.441)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Germond (46:31.207)
Sure, so yeah, definitely I’d say Southwest Florida, Tampa, and Naples in that area. Industry wise would be medical practice slash physicians group, or a, and that could be any type of medical practice. It could be a primary care practice, right? Where you go to your get your yearly physical.

It could be an MRI or imaging center, right? Where you think that’s where they send you to get your CAT scans or your MRIs. It could be a dialysis center. It could be an ambulatory surgical center, outpatient surgical center. I think any facility or practice like that would be ideal. It’s kind of my sweet spot. Size, and I’m gonna…

a qualif, a qualif, size by number of providers. So the number of physicians or healthcare providers, I’d say a minimum of two, maybe three. I think if you get smaller than that, if you get, you know, Dr. Smith just doing his thing and, you know, the, his, his spouse runs the office and they’ve got a nurse or one medical assistant, they’re probably not.

Anthony Codispoti (47:55.32)
Not a lot of opportunities for you to be helpful there.

Chris Germond (47:57.767)
Well, A, there’s not lot of opportunities and they probably can’t afford it, right? Because it’s just a very small practice. But I think if you get to that mid-size practice, that’s probably the niche with at least three providers that could have multiple offices. think when you get to some of the larger groups or practices maybe that are corporately owned, that may or may not.

be a good client. And I say may or may not because one of my top clients right now is a large practice that’s owned by a very large healthcare company that owns hospitals and practices throughout the country. But their physicians group here is very independent, right? They have their own internal talent team, talent acquisition team, so they have internal recruiters. But those internal recruiters are also

covering the parent company’s hospital business and lots of other businesses. So the local practice gets a little bit, not ignored, their internal recruits just don’t have the bandwidth. They’re handling.

Anthony Codispoti (49:00.142)
Mm.

Anthony Codispoti (49:11.278)
What was going to be one of my questions for you, Chris, is some of the organizations you work with are sizable enough that they have their own internal teams. Why do they pay money to use an outside firm like yours? And one of the reasons I’m hearing you say is lack of bandwidth. Are there others?

Chris Germond (49:26.725)
Right. Absolutely. And in fact, you could apply that question to any executive search or external recruiter anywhere, not just me or healthcare, because when I was doing executive search, every client I used had their own internal talent acquisition teams and they were very good. However, either they didn’t have the bandwidth or they didn’t have the specialty knowledge or access to candidates that we could provide. I’d like to…

Anthony Codispoti (49:41.795)
Mmm.

Chris Germond (49:55.525)
I like to say we’re more of a scalpel than a sledgehammer. Their internal talent teams will be the sledgehammer. They’ve got a lot of stuff they’re playing whack-a-mole with. They have a few critical needs that they’ll come to us for. We can focus on those a lot more than their internal team can. So when there’s a…

Anthony Codispoti (50:16.194)
You’re way more efficient at it because you know the lingo, you know where these people are hanging out for these specialty roles.

Chris Germond (50:21.595)
We have our own database that we go right to right away. And that’s what we do every day. There’s a reason I’m not a doctor. There’s a reason I don’t do surgery, don’t really know what I’m doing, even if I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. So, but I do recruit every day. I do know the talent market in Southwest Florida in healthcare pretty intimately, as do my coordinators. So that’s something we can offer our client.

when they have periodic needs, so they don’t take their eye off the ball of their patients and their practice.

Anthony Codispoti (50:56.91)
That’s great. Shifting gears a little bit, Chris, I’m curious to hear about maybe a particular challenge, either personally or professionally, that you have gone through, what it was like to get through it, and then maybe some of the lessons that you learned coming through the other side.

Chris Germond (51:11.943)
Sure, I can give you one with this business and it actually led to me owning the business outright. Just about a year ago, in fact, it’s almost a year to the week, I was in a partnership group. I was managing partner of the business, 49 % of the business and my other partners who were out in Colorado owned 51%. Well, one of my partners passed away unexpectedly.

and threw everyone for a loop. And there wasn’t a lot of planning in place to, hey, what would happen if that happened? Well, one day, I’m running an operating business with an ownership interest. The next day, I have a choice to make. Either I walk away from the business and what I’ve invested in it, or I buy it out.

And I had not been thinking about that. I hadn’t been playing what if. I didn’t follow my own advice. So after some conversations with my wife, and thank God she’s smarter than I am, we made the decision to, hey, we bet on ourselves before. Not the first time I’ve owned my own business. Why don’t we do it again? And made the decision to go ahead and buy the business outright.

Anthony Codispoti (52:16.675)
Mm.

Chris Germond (52:40.223)
and so far been a good decision. you know, what did I learn from it? the value of planning and for the things that you never think will happen and you don’t talk about happening, but they happen and the vast and the value of making sure that plan is in place. learned a very hard lesson with that.

know, cause you, you go one day from being in an or part of an organization and you’re able to make a living from that to a phone call saying, yeah, that all ends today. and by the way, you can either buy the business or walk away from it. It was a shock. so I, I think planning for eventualities and thinking about things that better not thought about have value.

Anthony Codispoti (53:23.64)
Hmm.

Chris Germond (53:40.607)
so I think that, I think that was, that was a tough, that was definitely a tough situation. and it’s actually turned out, I think more positive than it would have been staying in it because I’d already made the decision to switch the type of clients I was, I was going to seek out, just because of what I was finding and what we were doing. It, it, it was, it was definitely drying up.

I didn’t like playing in that space. And I had an idea that this, targeting physicians groups and practices could work. You know, so.

Anthony Codispoti (54:10.776)
Mm.

Anthony Codispoti (54:18.775)
Were you, had you presented that to your partner who had previously to them passing away and there was some resistance or were you still just kind of formulating the idea?

Chris Germond (54:25.511)
Really just formulating it. I had sort of tripped into having the client in the first place. was a, I got referred to them by a former or a person who had been a former client and she went to work there and put me in touch with the people and it turned in from one opening to many. And we’re still working with them today. And even doing some, you know, some different things with them like

assisting them with their own hiring and onboarding by helping them get people to work quicker. So even with their own internal hires, we’re assisting them, getting them onboard and working through us until they can get their much more, I’d say cumbersome and long-term orientation done. It took weeks, took three to six weeks for them to get someone started working for them.

But with me, I can do it in five days. So basically, just get them doing their screening, doing their payroll, and helping them short term. So that’s grown into a revenue stream I didn’t even anticipate. So I actually think that it’s worked out for the best.

Anthony Codispoti (55:47.338)
Those first hours and days though, after you first got the news about your partner passing, I have to imagine those were among the most stressful because there’s all of this uncertainty about, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know what the best decision here is. Am I right? Is that how you found it to be?

Chris Germond (56:07.647)
Yeah, I got some more gray hair from that for sure. Didn’t know where the next paycheck was coming from. You know, I didn’t know, geez, am I going to be able to pay the rent on the office? You know, it just wasn’t expected. Wasn’t the reason I didn’t get into the partnership in the business with the idea that, I’m going to own it outright in a year.

It was a good organization and I think team who had a good plan to be able to build something with and maybe open more offices down the road. I didn’t expect it to all come on my shoulders. But as I mentioned, you know, my wife said, hey, we’ve done this before. It worked out. We can do it again.

Anthony Codispoti (57:01.932)
You bet on yourself before bet on yourself again.

Chris Germond (57:04.903)
Yeah, and then so yeah, doing it again and I’m probably getting to the age where I probably can’t work for anyone anymore. Yeah, you know, I’m just I sometimes I get I get to to cynical or to set my ways a little bit. But overall, it’s been a positive.

Anthony Codispoti (57:20.908)
Yeah, I hear that about a lot of entrepreneurs. They’re unhireable.

Chris Germond (57:25.603)
I just, I, you know, you’ve ever heard the joke, there’s the right way, the wrong way and my way. And if my staff, if one of my staff and coordinators were here and I should be throwing something at me in the office, soft, but it’d be coming at my head, you know, but no, it’s, it’s worked out all right overall. I’ve been happy. I’ve been not happy how it came about, but happy in retrospect that, okay, I think I made the right decision, not going to wood so far.

Anthony Codispoti (57:52.438)
Yeah. Is there still a thought to open more offices down the road or are you pretty laser focused on where you are?

Chris Germond (58:02.595)
I want to grow this one more. However, I think the geography could lend to an office both in the Fort Myers area as well as Tampa-St. Pete Clearwater, because that’s such a large metro area. Where we are in the Sarasota-Bradenton area here, we’re kind of sandwiched between two larger areas population-wise.

We’re part of the Tampa Bay Metro market, but a lot of things are separate here. So I think we could definitely look to expand office-wise both north and south.

Anthony Codispoti (58:45.84)
Do you feel like you need to have a physical presence in an area that you’re serving?

Chris Germond (58:50.363)
You know, I used to. I’m not sure anymore because. I think you have to have the physical presence when it comes to meeting clients and. But I’m not a lot of and I think maybe COVID taught us this with the with the push to remote. think a lot of at least internal things can be done remotely. So.

Anthony Codispoti (59:01.336)
Mm.

Chris Germond (59:18.095)
I’m not as convinced that we need large offices anymore. I think we can do with probably smaller offices, more in the field. I like being in the field. Being in the office too long gets me antsy. And I was a field leader for so many years in retail that I liked getting out there. So.

I’m not sure how much anymore that you really need a physical presence, but I do know you need one to develop a relationship with people.

Anthony Codispoti (59:53.1)
You have to be there in front of them in order to win their business in the first place.

Chris Germond (59:57.835)
Absolutely. When we started this, I was down in the Port Charlotte area south of here and I went down to visit a large facility that was both assisted living, independent living, and a long-term care skilled nursing facility. I sat down with the administrator, he gave me a tour and he was very excited about starting to work together. He said, I got to tell you, he actually walked me out to my car, goes, got to tell you, we’ve worked

with several staffing firms. I’ve never met anyone from them. And I looked at them, I was like, I don’t understand. What do mean? They’ve never, they didn’t come to meet you and they’ve never come to meet you? No, he goes, he goes, I gotta tell you, the only reason that’s contracts getting signed right now is because you came here today. I’m like, okay, that just, it goes to prove that there’s still value in making that human connection. And you know,

Anthony Codispoti (01:00:29.346)
No kidding.

Anthony Codispoti (01:00:37.038)
Yeah, that’s why I’m.

Anthony Codispoti (01:00:44.15)
Wow.

Chris Germond (01:00:53.275)
We got to be careful with technology, AI, whatever, that it doesn’t take that away. Because I think people still thrive on that, both employees and clients.

Anthony Codispoti (01:01:04.337)
100%. Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. Chris, I’m curious to hear what’s a fun or interesting fact that most people would know about you.

Chris Germond (01:01:13.911)
well, I’m a big auto racing fan. the reason I’m a big auto racing fan is when it goes back to why I went to work for my dad. I had a real expensive habit when I was 16. I started racing go-karts nationally and that grew into racing open wheel formula cars. I had to help pay for that.

Dad’s pockets only went so far. So he said, well, you’re going to work. So I had to help pay to go racing. and to this day, I, I, you know, the, the days for competitive driving, that window is probably closed though. do like to get in the go-kart track here once in a while to have fun. I remain a pretty rapid race fan to this day and I follow Indy car, Formula one sports cars pretty closely and several times a year, always going to races. I have a good friend of mine.

We always go to races together.

Anthony Codispoti (01:02:13.743)
That sounds like what used to be a fun hobby. Well, it’s still a hobby. Just a little less active in the more dangerous parts of it.

Chris Germond (01:02:19.482)
It’s still hobby.

I still have my driver’s suit. Can’t fit into it anymore, but I still have it. But I said at the beginning of this, you said, do I always want to do this? No, I really did want to be a race car driver. I wasn’t a liar. That’s what I wanted to do, but didn’t quite work out. but it did.

Anthony Codispoti (01:02:38.222)
Well, not only did you want it, because I’m sure at some point when I was a little kid, I wanted to be a race car driver, right? But I didn’t take the steps that you did. Like you were actively engaged in the pursuit of it.

Chris Germond (01:02:49.275)
Yeah, we actually got involved in it and had a lot of fun and I guess that’s still enjoy it to this day and people are the elephant asking hey, what would you do if you won the lottery? I what I do going to buy a race car. You know, but yeah, so I’m still I love to be involved with this thing.

Anthony Codispoti (01:03:08.718)
Chris, any specific books or mentors or masterminds, other experiences that you want to give credit to for kind of helping you in your path?

Chris Germond (01:03:18.897)
Sure, yeah. Books, there’s a few definitely that I still read to this day every once in a while. I think one of the better ones I’ve ever read, I still love leadership, I still do. But it’s a book titled, It’s Your Ship, Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy. And it’s written by Captain Mike Avershaw. And it tells his story of

becoming the CEO of literally the worst ship in the United States Navy. And how he turned it around to be, and it became the best ship. And it’s his story of how he did that. And I learned a lot about leadership and how you lead people and empower them. And it’s just a great story. I actually had the good fortune to meet him on several occasions.

Anything and other books, anything by John Maxwell, you’re not going to go wrong when it comes to leadership and working with people for sure. Mentors, yeah, I’ve had several. I would say my first real boss who wasn’t my father and who is still a friend to this day. He I became a manager under and his company is just a he owned a chain of video stores.

Anthony Codispoti (01:04:48.16)
sure.

Chris Germond (01:04:48.377)
You remember video stores, right? Blockbuster. So I became a manager at a very young age of one of his stores. Ed told me one time, his name is Ed Gorkus. And Ed told me one time in his office, after he gave me the keys to the store, he said, when you, when you placed in command, take charge and when in doubt, just do the right thing. It’s the only advice he gave me. And it still holds to this day.

Anthony Codispoti (01:04:58.54)
What was his name?

Anthony Codispoti (01:05:16.685)
Mm.

Anthony Codispoti (01:05:20.974)
It’s good.

Chris Germond (01:05:21.416)
Probably another one, Jeff Stubbs, was my supervisor at movie gallery where I worked for, I guess, 15 years. learned a lot from Jeff, but one lesson step kind of stays in my mind. I was a multi-unit manager overseeing, I don’t know.

probably a PNL of about $50 million, multiple locations throughout the US. And I was planning some store visits and I walked into his office. I was a little bit, I didn’t want to spend that much on a plane ticket. I walked into his office and said, Jeff, you okay with me doing this? And he looked at me, closed the door. He said, listen, you run a $50 million PNL, do the right thing. I don’t care what you spend on it.

If you need to get there, get there and accomplish what you need to accomplish. So it’s one of those lessons that just sticks to you, sticks in my head to this day. Yep, you get back to that and doing the right thing. So he was a great leader, great friend. I think those are the two that really had a lot of weight on me other than my seventh grade science teacher who we were scared, we were scared.

Anthony Codispoti (01:06:22.688)
Mm-hmm do the right thing

Anthony Codispoti (01:06:42.518)
Okay.

Chris Germond (01:06:44.817)
God, we’re scared of that guy, Mr. Barbieri. And he was a tough teacher, but boy, did I learn attention to detail and how to work hard from him. I always wanted to see him again and tell him that. And it was the type of class where you literally sat like this and you didn’t And he was very strict, but there was method to the madness that I don’t think you appreciate to be a little bit older.

Anthony Codispoti (01:07:12.437)
Mm, fair enough.

Chris Germond (01:07:14.843)
So I think that, yeah, those are the three that really have had an effect on me.

Anthony Codispoti (01:07:19.959)
Chris, I just have one more question for you, but before I ask it, I want to do two things. For those listening today, if you like today’s content, please hit the like, share or subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. Chris, I also want to let people know the best way to get in touch with you. What would that be?

Chris Germond (01:07:22.363)
Yeah.

Chris Germond (01:07:35.655)
Sure, best way is probably go into our website at nextstaff.com. Easy way to get in touch with us. You can search on locations and find our location here in Sarasota or simply email me at cgermond at nextstaff.com or go to my LinkedIn page. All my contact info is on there as well as phone numbers and everything else.

Anthony Codispoti (01:08:00.066)
And for those listening who aren’t able to see the show notes where we’ll include all of this information, next app is a little bit of an unusual spelling. It’s N-E-X-T-A-F-F. So there’s no S in the middle there, like you might expect. So nextaff.com. It’s a great place to find Chris and the whole Next App team. So last question for you, Chris. I’m curious, what do you see as being the big changes that are coming to your industry in the next few years?

Chris Germond (01:08:20.163)
Absolutely.

Chris Germond (01:08:31.815)
So I was thinking about that and.

Chris Germond (01:08:38.508)
I think something that’s not gonna change is the need for healthcare talent. I don’t think that’s gonna get outsourced necessarily. I think there’s some functions that might definitely via telehealth and things like that, but healthcare is gonna continue to be a huge need and it’s gonna become, the talent is gonna be the…

the battle for the best talent is gonna become even more competitive, because there simply aren’t enough people getting into it, right? There aren’t enough nurses out there. There aren’t physical therapists, whatever, pick your poison. And a lot of that has to do with there simply aren’t enough schools or spots in the schools to produce enough people to catch up with the demand, okay?

forget the growth in the need that’s gonna come from the boomer generation getting older, right? We can’t replace the people that are leaving either due to retirement or even many, you believe I mean nurses left as COVID wound down, they were done with it. They’re just done with the working conditions, et cetera. So just to replace the ones who leave, we don’t have enough, forget about growth. there’s gonna be a need for that. I think the…

I think the big thing with AI as we discussed, identifying and being able to source and reach talent, that’s gonna be the biggest help, I think that’ll come from it. But I think the biggest change may not be a positive one. I think the biggest change might be losing that personal connection in recruiting and hiring that you still have to make with people.

Anthony Codispoti (01:10:22.126)
Hmm.

Chris Germond (01:10:34.707)
because people need to trust you. And I don’t think that happens without that connection. And I would make that argument with clients too, finding new clients. I’ve got a lead generation program I use and I think it’s great, but being able to talk to and meet those clients is still the most important. It got told to me one time, people do business with people they like.

I don’t think that’s going to So I think making that connection and being able to talk about the value you can bring is still going to be important. So I worry about what AI will do to that.

Anthony Codispoti (01:11:05.24)
Korean.

Anthony Codispoti (01:11:19.584)
be interesting to follow for sure.

Chris Germond (01:11:21.581)
it will. I think the Chinese say we live in interesting times. They may be good or bad, but they will be interesting.

Anthony Codispoti (01:11:28.386)
For sure. Well, Chris, I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Chris Germond (01:11:34.627)
I appreciate the chance. Thanks, Anthony.

Anthony Codispoti (01:11:36.93)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.