Tanika Williams on Transitioning Healthcare Deserts Through Strategic Physician Placement

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 Codispoti and today’s guest is Tanika Williams, head of industry relations at Jackson Cocher. They are a leading healthcare staffing firm that connects healthcare organizations with physicians and advanced practitioners who share a commitment to improving patient lives. The company was founded over 40 years ago and has earned multiple honors including clearly rated best of staffing for client and talent satisfaction and recognition as a top workplace by the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Now Tanika has been part of Jackson Cocher for eight years during which she has held roles in sales, marketing and leadership. She now leads strategic marketing initiatives and collaborative efforts that build the company’s industry presence.

In her time at Jackson Cocher she helped the organization develop innovative solutions designed to simplify and enhance low-combe tenant services for healthcare providers. Now before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, ADBAC 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. Imagine being able to give your employees free access to doctors, therapists and prescription medications. And here’s the fun part, the program actually puts more money in your employees pockets and the companies too. As an example, one recent client with 450 employees boosted net profits over $412,000 a year. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at ADBACBenefits.com. Alright, back to our guest today, head of industry relations at Jackson Cocher, Tanika Williams. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Tanika Williams : Absolutely, thanks for having me, Anthony.

Anthony Codispoti : Okay, so prior to joining Jackson Cocher, you didn’t have a background in staffing of any kind, let alone medical staff. What did your career look like prior to that?

Tanika Williams : Yes, I did not have a background in staffing. Did not have a background in medical staffing, so it was all a new world. But my journey to Jackson and Cocher did include a robust journey through health care. So my time prior to Jackson and Cocher was spent in the pharmaceutical and medical device areas of health care, working with both large names like Pfizer pharmaceuticals and Zoll Medical. I also did some work in the orthodontic and pharmacy space, working with independent pharmacists to grow their businesses and developing market and perspectives. When you think about the independent pharmacists, you think about family homegrown businesses that are now trying to compete with big box retailers. So that was a great place to get a different perspective on marketing and engaging with the customer.

And then after that was my introduction to Jackson and Cocher. How did that happen? Wow.

All I can say is divine intervention. Prior to Jackson and Cocher, I was 95% travel. So I was the epitome of a road warrior, everything from planes, trains and automobiles.

I covered territories all over the US. So once I decided to have a family that completely changed. It sounds good in theory through the journey of pregnancy that, oh, I can’t wait to get back out there and, you know, be a road warrior and connect with clients face to face.

But the priorities definitely change. So that’s what landed me at Jackson and Cocher, looking for something that was more stable, something that would allow me to transition into a mother and being local and being present and available for my family. That was really important to me at that time. So Jackson and Cocher allowed me to go from 95% travel to 20% travel at the time. It allowed me the stability of a very structured work format where I was working a nine to five. Obviously, when you’re on the road and traveling, your days are long. So it allowed me to have very structured and specific timeframes to work in order to be able to pour into my family.

So I was referred to Jackson and Cocher from a friend from the pharmaceutical industry who had transitioned here and love the work, love the impact and just thought I would be a good fit. And that was eight years ago.

Anthony Codispoti : Wow. You know, it’s interesting because that is a difficult sort of life family balance. Um, and it sounds like you were really enjoying what you were doing before. And so it can be like a kind of an unstable kind of thing to go from I’m on the road. I’m doing this. I’m moving. I’m moving. I’m moving to now like I’ve got different priorities, like shifting into a different phase of life. What was the thing that kind of surprised you the most about making that transition? Well, we all.

Tanika Williams : I can do. Um, I went to college in Florida and then moved to New York. So I have my home base was New York for 15 years, um, working in healthcare.

So a couple of years prior to the Jackson and cooker change and having my daughter, I moved to the Atlanta area where Jackson and cooker is headquartered. So, um, that in itself was a transition and then to be going into motherhood. Um, and then to be going into a new job. But what surprised me is that wow, I’m adaptable and I can do something different.

I can sit at a desk and I can still thrive and be successful. Um, and I can learn something new. If you think about the police is that I told you, I worked prior to Jackson and cocker, what pharmaceutical sales, um, in sales in the medical device industry are slightly different.

They’re still very much the same. You know, it’s very much an exchange of goods. So I’m actually selling a product that is tangible.

People can touch and they’re going to use immediately work with Jackson and cocker is very different. You’re selling a service, but you’re selling a people service. So there has to be connection and camaraderie in order for that sale to be successful.

Um, but there also has to be a different level of engagement. You know, it was very transactional in my previous work. This is very relational. Um, and the people who do well in staffing, whether it’s medical or IT or whatever, it’s because they understand the power of relationships and not transactional interactions. They also understand who and what their end user is and what they need to be successful. So it becomes more about that individual or customer you’re partnering with. Then let’s say those sales quotas, which in traditional sales, it’s really about, did I get enough product out the door?

Anthony Codispoti : We still have quotas to me, right? Yeah. So maybe for somebody listening, who is going through a similar transition themselves from something that’s more transactional to more relational, what’s something that you kind of learned in that you could share with others?

Tanika Williams : Yeah, that’s a great question. Um, I think one of the things I learned is looking at what quota looks like differently. Right. And I talked about the end user. So I never really thought the quota for myself as an individual contributor or for my team, necessarily about how many doctors we put to work or necessarily how many hospital or health systems we work, but how many people did we help get access to care? So the why has to become different in those two scenarios and really understanding that why. And I know why can be loaded, right? People think about the why, what gets me up in the morning and allows my feet to hit the ground. But it’s really the why that once you walk in the building allows you to sit down and approach the day with a different perspective every day. Because no matter what job you’re doing, it can be challenging. And especially when you sell a service, because you don’t always get the direct interaction with the person that the service meets or is intended to help. So really making the connection with the why is important.

Anthony Codispoti : So when you say that now you’re sort of counting like how many people did I get to help today? Does that like help me understand what that metric looks like? Because when you said that what I heard was, oh, rather than I placed 10 doctors today, I know that those 10 doctors can help 20 people a day. So now I’ve helped 200 people, you know, sick people get help today. Is that kind of how you think about it now?

Tanika Williams : You know, they all did. Place 10 doctors each doctor on average, depending on specialty and location is going to see 12 to 15 patients. We’ve now given access to care to 150 people.

Right. I’m also thinking about what our world looks like. You know, I’m in the Atlanta area and obviously here physician shortage is a thing, but it’s not as prevalent as one would think. You can look at any street corner and you’re going to find a private practice, a hospital, a care center. But if I’m in Montana, you know, there are health care deserts there. People don’t have that same access to care. So what we do here at Jackson and Cocher is really expand access to care through a low-competence physician being able to go to rural Montana, even if it’s just for two months out of the year and provide care to patients who otherwise would be quote unquote, wait listed for health care.

Anthony Codispoti : So the underlying metric is still there. Like you still need to place more doctors, right? This is a business model. But when you sort of layer in this heart driven metric on top of it, number of people I get to help, it just helps.

I think you get out of bed in the morning, get you more excited. You’re not just, you know, pushing another widget. It’s like there’s more of a driving force there.

Tanika Williams : Yeah, I would agree. That I think has helped shape my journey through leadership is as you grow your personal level of maturity. Right. When I worked for Pfizer started, I was 22 years old, two days after college graduation. So my why was different, right? I wanted to jump into the workforce. I wanted to make lots of money and I wanted to travel and go to Broadway shows because I was in New York and I was adult now, you know, as a more mature adult with a family that perspective changes and what I want my impact to be and what I want to be doing and what’s important to me. So I think with that, it also helps you craft how you look at your quotas and the work that you do.

Anthony Codispoti : So we’ve been using this Latin phrase several times, locom tenants.

Tanika Williams : Explain what that means. Yes. Yes. So locom tenants is a Latin phrase for temporary replacement. So essentially think about the physician that you go to for OBGYN care. You’ve got a baby coming in the next nine months, but your doctor’s also pregnant. So she’s going to be going on leave during the same time that you’re giving birth for any woman and family. That would be a panic situation because you want the person you’ve been working with to deliver your doctor.

You’re not in a position where you can wait for her to get back. So a locom tenant’s provider would come into that organization and they would work for the three months that that provider is on maternity leave, seeing their patients and providing a continuity of care so that health care business can continue to function. Patients continue to have access to care.

So it’s really that gap in between when a physician isn’t in place for some reason. It can also be used as a growth strategy. If you think about large metropolitan areas as they’re growing in particular specialties and they want to let’s say expand a cardiology department, but they want to ensure that they have the senses or the patient population to sustain it before they hire a ton of doctors or expand a hospital wing. They can bring in locom tenants providers as a temporary placement while they figure those things out. So these doctors would work for two to three months and see if that patient senses is consistent for them to actually do the expansion project that they think is necessary.

Anthony Codispoti : Got it. So Jackson and Cocher is placing physicians in all kinds of environments. Right. Maybe there’s maternity leave. Maybe somebody has another family issue. They need to be out or an injury or a hospital is growing. And rather than sort of take on the complexities of hiring people in full time, they want to, okay, let’s dip our toe in the water. Let’s get some temporary folks in here. Let’s see if the growth is sustainable. And then down the road, we can make the decision to hire full time or Montana, like the healthcare desert. They just don’t have enough physicians out there. And so you’re helping to place people there. So I get where the need is. Why would some physicians want to work in this model rather than saying, hey, I am just going to go find a steady full time position somewhere.

Tanika Williams : Yeah, it’s, you know, like most things, it’s the individual pull or tug and your connection to the work. So many physicians, like most Americans, you start at a hospital or healthcare system and you’re there until retirement. What’s interesting about as medicine evolves and changes. So does the way that we practice the instruments that we use, the type of procedures we do in protocols. Ideally, if I stay with the same hospital and healthcare system, I only know our way of practice. Some physicians choose to do locums because it allows them a bird’s eye view into how others are using the same processes and protocols.

Right. You think about all physicians have taken an oath. Ultimately, what they want to do is serve and provide care. And when you live in a place where care, like I mentioned, like Atlanta is robust, they want to go somewhere and help other communities that don’t have access to this. You often hear about physicians doing mission medical missions and things like that.

Locums kind of scratches that itch in a way because it’s an opportunity for them to get back. It’s also a great financial boost when you think about people in the early stages of their career right out of residency fellowship. They have an enormous amount of bills. So locums as a supplement to their income allows them, again, they’re still doing clinical work. They’re not going and just doing charting somewhere and sitting behind a desk. They’re still staying very much entrenched in the clinical work that they do, but they’re also making additional income.

Anthony Codispoti : That makes a lot of sense. And so Jackson and Cochrane has been around for more than four decades and it continues to get recognized for innovation and client satisfaction. What do you think sets the company apart from other similar staffing organizations?

Tanika Williams : That’s a great question. I think what really sets us apart and if you boost 100 people, here at Jackson and Cochrane, they probably all answer in one of two ways, our culture and our people. And I know in some perspectives, people say, oh, that’s the same thing. Well, it’s kind of. But you’ve got to have great people in order to have a great culture because a great culture can be easily diluted with the wrong people. So I think it’s really those two things because again, we have people here who understand their why and the impact of the work that they do. And they’re really tied to that. With that, I’d also say the people that we serve externally are amazing. It’s one of the few companies where the culture permeates externally for me that I’ve worked at. And I really feel like our customers and clients, our partners, our friends, you always hear that phrase, oh, I work in a family friendly environment. No, no, it’s not the drink the Kool-Aid. It really is a family friendly environment.

Anthony Codispoti : Give us an example. Give us an example of how it’s family friendly. This literally just happened this morning. I’m going to a convention and received a list of some of the attendees and reached out to one of those attendees about his attendance. Hey, I’m going to be there too. And he said, oh, great, my wife’s coming. This is the CEO of a hospital or health system that I’ve now known for four or five years. And his next reply was, I can’t wait to let her know that you’re going to be there too. When are we doing dinner? It’s amazing. You have that kind of personal connection that he can’t wait to introduce you to his family.

Tanika Williams : Yes, we are excited to see and meet and collaborate. And I think what’s really great about building strong relationships is the ask from a business perspective. Actually comes easier, right? Because you’ve built that level of trust. They know who you are. And it just makes business to me run smoother, right? Some people say it’s harder to ask people that they know for something.

I think it’s easier, right? Because they know my intent. They understand my heart. So it’s a lot easier than me trying to convince a stranger of what I want or what I need or about the service that I provide.

Anthony Codispoti : So we’re talking about people and culture. What have you tried and found success with in terms of identifying, recruiting, and then retaining good folks?

Tanika Williams : The hardest part, I think, is the retaining part. But I think attracting is how we message what your culture looks like. And I think where most organizations struggle is the idea or concept of a good culture is usually somewhere on a plaque and not actually lived and felt. And again, I think that’s what enamored me immediately about Jackson and Cocher. When you walked in the door, you felt it in the room. And that’s often feedback that we get from clients and customers is they say when they do a visit here that, wow, your people are so great. Like I felt so welcomed. Whether I remembered every name in every face, it felt like home. It felt like family. So I think it’s really important when you’re attracting people that they can feel that.

You think about the world that we live in now. It’s not often that people are coming into a business to do an interview and get that face-to-face connection. So how do you still make that resonate over the phone and be a video and then really feeling and understanding culture?

I think it’s also people’s ability to see themselves in the organization. I want to see people who look like me. I want to see people who move like me.

I want to see people who are motivated by some of the same things that I’m motivated for. I have to see myself in the business thereby creating the connection. And I think when we talk about retaining people, it’s really about people understanding the business why why the business does what it does, how the organization thrives, and then a fostering of their personal development and growth. Often there’s these catalogs you can go to in an organization if you want to take training, but really having leaders that are identifying things and people that they may not identify in themselves and connecting them or giving them the ability to foster those things. It’s one thing to say, hey, I think you might be a great future leader.

It’s another thing to say. I think you might be a great future leader. And here’s two podcasts for you to listen to. Here’s a book I’m reading. Would you like to read it to? I’ll grab you a copy. Right? I think it’s really about the investing in people and understanding and meeting them where they are.

Anthony Codispoti : And so I think, you know, a big part of your answer probably applies a lot to sort of the what I’m going to call the internal staff at Jackson and Cocher. How do you sort of translate that or expand that into physicians that you don’t get to have sort of that day-to-day contact with? How do you get them to sort of drink the proverbial Kool-Aid and, you know, buy into the system and say, hey, we want to stay here for a while?

Tanika Williams : Yeah, I think part of it is the relationship we talk to when we’re being personal. It’s important for people to talk about their accountant or their financial planner and how they know so much about each other. It always, in my younger years, seems so odd to me. Like, why would your banker know that much about you? Right?

It’s the same thing here. How would your talent acquisition person or why does your recruiter, right, or your temp agent theist some people like to call us? Why do they know so much about you? You’re sharing that with that person. But again, it’s that connectivity.

I think that happens there. I think it’s also understanding the Jackson and Cocher differentiators. We do things within the industry. Our people are involved in things within the industry and externally that impact our providers directly. So when we talk about what partnership looks like and what others first looks like, we partner with the Dr. Lorna Brain Heroes Foundation. And we are really advocating for physician well-being, for their mindset to eliminate the woes of administrative burden, to make sure that they have a voice when it comes to their mental health. We advocate for taking care of the people who take care of us. So creating partnerships that aren’t just checks in the box or additions to our website, but things that are important to the people that are end users, to those providers.

Things that are important to patients. We do a lot of philanthropic work. So actually when we’re going to different cities and states across the country, we’re trying to do work that impacts their immediate community. It’s great to say, hey, we partner with the United Way or Habitat for Humanity. We have a group of people going to Asheville, North Carolina at the end of September. And we’re actually working with their local charity for what they need to continue to help rebuild that community.

After disaster. I think those are the things people want to know that you’re connected and tied to the same things that are important to them. That’s the organization I want to partner with. That’s the partner that I want to work with to provide care.

Anthony Codispoti : I like that. Tanika, how have you seen the locum tenant model kind of evolve over the years?

Tanika Williams : It’s evolved greatly. As you mentioned, Jackson and Cochors, one of the oldest and most reputable agencies in the industry. We’ve been around for almost 40 plus years. So you can imagine back then, locums was kind of that thing that people didn’t want to talk about or do.

Anthony Codispoti : Right? You thought that it was a stigma. And a lot of the stigma was why do you want to bounce around and do this type of work? So I think, again, understanding the story, a lack of understanding for the impact that locums physicians can have. That model has changed greatly.

Kind of as we’ve talked about, locums has gone from being a temporary fix so much, even though that’s what it is by definition, to actually a part of the strategic plan for growing hospitals and health systems. Right? As we mentioned in that example that I talked about, if they’re trying to develop or expand a wing.

Right? If they’re in a case where there’s financial or budget constraints, you know, they can use locums in different ways in those instances as well. We have a lot of hospitals and health systems that are transitioning to a model of telehealth and providing remote care. Remote care doesn’t mean you got to hire a whole bunch of people in your local city or state.

You can use locums for a lot of that work. So I think the model has changed and it doesn’t look so one dimensional. Anymore, there’s more facets to it. I think there’s a greater level of respect for what a locums physician can do within a hospital or health system.

And we’ve also expanded the number of specialties that these physicians are working in. You know, I say when locums first came on the scene, they were kind of working in the big ones. Right? The things you think about, we need more cardiologists. We’ve got an aging population, but we need more pediatricians because we’re having more babies. But now you have locums physicians that are doing dermatology work. They’re doing gastro and urology work. You have locums physicians that are advanced practitioners.

So there’s PAs and MPs. So it really has just expanded to be available in all areas of health care. Which I think is just helping to just grow the market. Again, we keep talking about access to care. It’s just growing what that looks like and our reach. So our tentacles can go a lot farther. So do your physicians typically have downtime in between placements?

Tanika Williams : Yes, some of them do. It really depends on the provider. A locums assignment can be anywhere from one day a month to a one-time stent where you go while someone’s on vacation for two weeks. So for a full-time locums provider, typically they’re going to a location for a longer period of time. So in between those long stents, they likely want to take a break because there is travel involved. So I’d say probably about 65% of our locums physicians are traveling to their assignments from their home base. In some cases, they’re traveling from home to an assignment to another assignment and then back home. Okay.

Anthony Codispoti : So is it kind of up to the physician if they want a little bit of downtime or if they just want to go from one job right to the next?

Tanika Williams : Yeah, it really is up to them and their capacity. It’s really specialty specific. When you think about a hospitalist, which is that physician that you might see that’s kind of taking care of the whole totality of the patient before they get referred to specialists within a hospital system, those physicians typically work a seven-on-seven off schedule. So for many of them, they’re doing locums on those off weeks. So they might just take that break in between instead of working full four weeks straight.

They might say, hey, I need a break in between here. But again, with the work we do with the Dr. Lorna Brain Heroes Foundation, our people are trained in their relationship to understand the physician as well. If I know that you have a family at home, I love your commitment to the work that you do, but I’m likely going to suggest, hey, Dr. Williams, you’ve been on three assignments back to back. What if we take a little break and you go home and you just stay for a month and we’ll be working on your next assignment to start immediately 30 days after that? You know, a part of that work and caring for those who care for us is us understanding what their life looks like. You know, some physicians are going from a hospital where they’re seeing 20-25 patients a day. We may need to give them a little break and send them to an assignment that’s not as busy. You know, a lower tiered or level hospital in a more remote area where they can kind of get back to basics.

They can level set. They can see seven to 10 patients a day before they just continue on this kind of the hamster wheel, right? And then we have physicians that are burnt out. We have physicians that are retiring and exiting the market area. Are we having physicians where we have a decline in the quality of care they can provide because they are just tired?

Anthony Codispoti : And you mentioned this foundation to work with at least a couple of times now. This foundation is sort of training your internal team on the mental health aspects of these physicians being in these high pressure situations and being moved around and being away from their homes and their families for a while.

Tanika Williams : Yes, exactly. They do a lot of work from a legislative perspective and changing what state regulations look like as it relates to the mental health and wellness of physicians. What many people don’t know is obviously like any job your application process can be intense for a physician.

But sometimes the language that are in those applications is a little intrusive. So when I came to work at Jackson and Cochrane, no one asked me if I suffered from depression or I had other mental barriers within my health history. But for many physicians, they’re getting asked these questions. And then there’s stigma and judgment that comes along with those as they report that they may have them. Just because I have these things in my medical history doesn’t mean I’m inadequate to do my job.

Doesn’t mean I can’t perform with excellence. So it really becomes that fine line between what is important and what is necessary and what is just intrusive and information we’re asking for. So the Dr. Lornebring Hero’s Foundation really advocates on the physician’s behalf to eliminate that intrusive language. To allow them a space where if they are suffering with a well-being issue, they can report it knowing that they’re going to get compassion and care. So it’s really the work that we do to help with advocacy for them. And then the work that they do and that kind of two-way street and helping to train our associates so that they can better serve the providers that they’re placing on assignments.

Anthony Codispoti : Tnika, what are some major trends that you’re seeing in healthcare and healthcare staffing that might surprise people who are outside that inner circle?

Tanika Williams : Yeah, I think generally speaking in healthcare, you know, we talked about especially like in a matriarchal and sage, there’s a doctor’s office. But I think the general public might be surprised to know that there’s actually a physician shortage.

Right? And what we mean by that is while there’s hundreds of thousands of individuals in medical school in residency, that number pales in comparison to the number of people that we need to provide care for. And then the deployment of those resources is also lacking. You know, people are graduating from residence fellowship and going mostly to larger metropolitan areas or back to their homes. So that’s why we have these huge healthcare deserts. I think that would be surprising for most people as well. We tend to just think there’s hospitals and health systems and doctors everywhere. We don’t think about rural Montana, whereas if I live in one city or state, I may have to get flown hours to get the care that I want. We may not have an orthopedic surgeon, right?

When something happens or my child gets hurt on the baseball field. I don’t think as a society, we’re looking at healthcare and its demand in the supply of physicians in that way. So I think that would be surprising. Again, I think what would be surprising about locum tenants in particular is that the veil of the stigma has been lifted quite a bit.

So that strategic placement is happening more often than not. And that there’s a greater number of physicians with astonishing credentials that are now doing locum’s work. Previously, again, they thought these were the people who couldn’t find a full-time job. Maybe they didn’t do well in residency or fellowship. Now you’re seeing some of the industry’s biggest thought leaders saying, no, I’m a locum tenants physician as well.

Anthony Codispoti : Well, I think one of the cool things that you mentioned earlier was that a lot of physicians enjoy doing this work for a period of time because it’s a way for them to see how other systems are practicing care. What can they, it’s sort of twofold. Like what can they contribute from their own experiences to that environment? And also what can they learn that maybe they hadn’t been exposed to before?

Tanika Williams : Yeah, absolutely. It’s really about the collaboration and connection to what good looks like. And we always think where we’re at and what we’re doing is good and it looks great, but that perspective can vary differently.

I think also with anything when you’re doing the same thing all the time, that’s the way you do it, right? We could all deserve to have it shaken up a little bit.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, you know, I’m a big proponent. It’s been helpful for me personally. I talked with a lot of guests who, you know, they have peer groups, they have masterminds, they have business coaches. And it occurs to me that Locum Tenens work is kind of a variation of that where you get to go and be around these other environments and see how things are done. And, you know, there’s a lot of that cross-pollination of ideas. So it’s something I’d never thought about. And I think it’s a really attractive component of the kind of work that you guys are doing.

Tanika Williams : Yeah, I love that perspective. It’s like throwing yourself into a mini focus group, right? Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti : Now, you’ve got a certification in something called Total SDI. What is that?

Tanika Williams : So Total SDI, I have a couple of different little things. They’re really about how you manage your different functions within your role to the activity that you’re doing. So think about Total SDI and a lot of these different certifications are about personality type, your readiness for the work, how work is given to you. So that and some of the others I did as I was branching into leadership to really be able to understand placement of my people. So when we talked about that kind of attracting good people, we attract them, but then we also have to make sure that they’re in the right roles and that we understand the most effective way to coach them. So SDI is telling me that, but it’s also helping me understand how they learn, how they retain information and what’s the best way to communicate with them.

Anthony Codispoti : And you’ve also got a certification in persuasive speaking. How has that helped in your role?

Tanika Williams : I’ll tell people I am a salesperson through and through. So everything I do is about persuasion and I would say that’s probably my superpower now. But I think it really helps you understanding how to paint and tell the story. You know, every organization goes through challenging times, every organization goes through change. And the hardest part I think for associates is being able to adapt to that and wondering where they fit and how it’s going to impact them. The persuasive speaking courses have helped me understand how to tell the story and manage expectations in a different way through that story that I’m telling about why we’re making a change, how it’s going to impact them.

I think it’s been very helpful with customers and clients and being able to adapt to even their different learning styles or the level in which they’re at. You know, my conversation with a C-suite executive of a hospital is very different than my conversation with a physician who owns his own private practice. He’s a different type of business model. So understanding how to tailor the same message in two different ways for those audience is one of the key things that I learned in persuasive speaking.

Anthony Codispoti : So would it be accurate to say that from a very young age you were sort of well equipped with these sales skills and then these courses and the other the experiences that you’ve had along the way have helped you greatly refine them or were you a young child or you know a young adult and this was very uncomfortable to you early on and you kind of had to be pushed into these kinds of sales roles.

Tanika Williams : It is very much the first. So as a teen and a young adult and even through college I participated in a ton of oratorical contest and went around my local and city and state and speaking. I held some leadership roles within my church which had me on a platform and talking to people. So I think I had a great baseline of skills and these courses have helped me kind of push them over into greatness.

Anthony Codispoti : What growth strategy do you think has been most effective for Jackson and Coker?

Tanika Williams : Oh that’s a great question. The growth strategy that I think has been most effective for Jackson and Coker is not moving too fast. I think in any industry as things morph and change you see opportunity and you want to quickly pounce on that opportunity.

Jackson and Coker has taken a slow but steady approach to growth. We align our strategy and revisit it often to make sure it’s adequate and that it’s the right time frame for what we’re doing. And I think about how staffing has changed and you have four or five agencies new that will enter the market.

They’re not always still there in two or three years later. I think another growth strategy is we’re not necessarily going after the new and shiny thing. So we think about specialties that are areas of opportunity. We’re really trying to understand the patient and physician dynamics there and how it impacts the hospital and healthcare system and what a locums provider could really provide there. And in some cases we say hey that’s not the best place for us to play. So I think another key component to our growth strategy is knowing where we need to be and where we don’t need to be. Interesting.

Anthony Codispoti : So a shiny object in your industry would be like a particular medical specialty?

Tanika Williams : Yeah. I think about as you know I think people say oh it’s not a whole lot of new specialties coming out. Very true but there are lots of specialties that don’t use locumtenin physicians. So just thinking oh there’s a gap. Let’s fill the gap right.

But there’s a level of understanding to why that has why they have a gap there. Is this just something that’s happened randomly? Is this going to be a consistent problem?

Is it kind of cyclical? And how do we impact that in the best way? And locums may not always be the best answer but I think it is an option.

So just understanding that perspective. Not to just say hey they need some pathologists. We should just go fill pathologists and we’ve never once talked to a pathology physician so we don’t even understand their world. We can’t speak their language right. We don’t know what’s important to them. We don’t know what the patients need. We’re just doing a thing. Gotcha.

Anthony Codispoti : What advice Tanika would you have for others working to achieve their own success?

Tanika Williams : That’s a great question. The first piece of advice I would say is never stop learning. It is very easy when you get into leadership to spend so much of your time pouring into others that you forget to pour into yourself. So really taking that downtime to make sure you’re working on your growth and development. Always keep a development plan for yourself. Whether you’re trying to add another layer to your leadership repertoire or you want to stay where you are just always be in a place of continuing to learn and grow and pour into yourself. The other thing is I would say don’t be afraid of the word no. Boundaries are important so as a leader you want to always do all the things and be available for all of the people but you can’t pour from an empty cup. I can’t give what I don’t have and often as leaders in an effort to help everyone and do those things we’re saying yes to a lot of stuff.

Right. So it’s really understanding what are the most important things and putting those first and valuing those things. And my last one that’s probably the most important is don’t be afraid to say I don’t know. You know we want to be experts in our fields. We want to be right.

We want to be admired but sometimes the people that I admire most are the ones who said I have no clue how to do that. Let’s figure it out together or let me phone a friend. Yeah. No. But we can’t view. Yeah.

Use a life lie but we just can’t be afraid to say I don’t know. Right. And I think those are the people that people want to follow. Right. Because you don’t know everything and you’re willing to learn.

Anthony Codispoti : I was at an event recently when a lot of really smart people in the room people working on kind of next level projects and having a great conversation with somebody and he had fantastic answers to all the questions I was asking until we hit one and he didn’t know the answer and he says just very flatly I don’t know.

And my respect for him was already here. It went up to here because especially when like you’re in a position of power you’re seen as you know very bright and in control of your situation like you feel like you need to have some kind of an answer for everything but I agree 100% that sometimes the best answer is I do not know. And the other thing I want to call out here Tanika is there is this thread of self care that’s coming out of our conversation. You know it’s a big part of what you kind of started with there. It’s a big part of the work that you’re doing with the foundation to be able to help the physicians that you’re placing you know maybe identify before they’re recognizing that there are some you know things that they need to do to kind of care for themselves and put themselves and their families first. And so I want to call that out because I think that’s great.

Tanika Williams : Thank you. We’ve got to take care of ourselves right. If you’re not taking care of you who else will. And I was going to say I love that example you gave like because sometimes our egos get the best of us right and you also think I know it all and then you get that question and it’s that gut check like oh wait a minute let’s go back.

Anthony Codispoti : If you were going to recommend a resource to our listeners maybe it’s a book it’s a podcast it’s one of the courses or the certifications that you’ve obtained but what would you what would you suggest for folks?

Tanika Williams : Yes um I actually do it every few years um there’s a book called boundaries. I think it’s Cloud and Townsend I want to say is who it’s by but there is a book and there’s also a workbook and it’s really about you know I talked about no and the power of no but creating those boundaries in your life. In boundaries it’s a red and white but it’s the first in the series but then they have others boundaries and relationship boundaries in the workplace. So it really gives you that kind of pull through of how to set the boundaries how to work on it and then just identifying your blind spots in that area.

I think that is a really great one. Another resource that I would recommend to people is probably a non-traditional one but in my older age I’m finding a lot of value in meditation and just quiet time and sitting with my own thoughts and I’m finding the more that I do that I don’t have what I call leadership limbo while I’m trying to go to sleep. Um so leadership limbo for me is when it’s bedtime and I lay down in the bed all those things that were in limbo during my day that I didn’t get to they all flood over me right meditation has really helped me just get to a place where I can drown out the noise and I think let’s be clear people think meditation is sitting quietly with no thoughts are happening where human or brain is going you’re still gonna have thoughts but it’s being able to control what those thoughts are so it helps me not be in this place of again I call it leadership limbo where all the things that were floating in the air now that I’ve laid down fall on me and I’m like okay how do I solve all the world’s problems in 22 minutes before I fall asleep

Anthony Codispoti : and have you ever gotten to that point

Tanika Williams : that I saw the problems oh no that’s why I know it takes me 22 minutes to fall asleep because I did an app and it you know when you doze off and I was like wow I’m trying to do all the things in a very short period of time I couldn’t do them in an eight hour work day and now I’m going to do them in 22 minutes. Poof talk about a super power.

Anthony Codispoti : I think like you said it’s more about just bringing calm and peace to your mind just it’s kind of like as a reset point.

Tanika Williams : It is and you know I we one thing we didn’t talk about with Jackson and Coker um if you’re ever in the Alpharetta area again we’re about 20 30 minutes north of Atlanta but we have an amazing campus and I don’t know if it was the founder’s intent but it allows for a very tranquil work environment. We have a koi pond. We have things where you can just sit. We have a game room if you need to go and decompress right often in work you take care of the woes and the challenges of your customers right. If my customer is they’re doing layoffs or you know they’re having a riff and they call me with that frustration that kind of weighs heavy on me so just having these outlets even in our work environment to decompress is super helpful.

Anthony Codispoti : Wow what’s your philosophy um on success like how do you approach things in terms of we want this project to work I want to move forward in my career what kind of framework do you use there?

Tanika Williams : Oh that’s great um I think I am insatiably curious so I ask a lot of questions um so my philosophy is around understanding um it is around knowing right I want to know all the things I want to dig deep because that’s how I make good decisions right I have to be well informed um and I like the kind of collaboration and connection right um the questions show that I care about what’s happening and I want to understand all aspects of it so I can connect to it better um to create something good um or to solve a problem well so it’s really the homework for me that’s the most important part of my philosophy um everything affects everything is something that I always say and that’s why when we we miss something it’s because we likely didn’t ask the right questions right we have gaps in our process I’m a very process driven person we don’t have a procedure for that right where’s the blueprint um how do we learn from what already happened before we go and reinvent the wheel

Anthony Codispoti : are you utilizing AI at all to help in developing processes or refining them I am did Lee reluctantly okay say more about that

Tanika Williams : so you know I talked a little bit about the ego right so the ego in me is like I call her Coco but co-pilot who are you to tell me that the way I wrote the process isn’t great but it’s perspective right so when you think about what AI does in terms of formulating thoughts and pulling from so many different places it’s like that locums work right it’s giving me perspective on what we’re doing um so I think it’s very valuable I think we all as a society just have to be careful of where and what we use it for but still understanding that we have a great knowledge base so I think they have to be used in tandem um it’s been helpful especially in revisiting and revising processes and procedures that have been in place for a long period of time right because unfortunately in our fast pace society while you need to make a change in something you may not have the time to do what works best for me and that’s ask the questions or ping the people you know I think about um when I left Pfizer there was a transition right even with me exiting and someone else coming in that was built into that exit plan or that exit strategy a transition of knowledge that doesn’t happen often anymore right so AI is a great way to fill the gaps from a knowledge perspective

Anthony Codispoti : you know the way that I’ve found it to be most useful and I’ve tried sort of lots of different approaches is as a very powerful brainstorming partner I have something I want to improve how can I make the guest experience better on podcasts how can I deliver more value how can I find you know and reach out to more guests think you know and hey let’s brainstorm some ideas together and maybe it gives me eight ideas and six of them are terrible in my opinion two are interesting and one’s really got promised so let’s dive into that one more and where I think I’ve seen some people maybe get tripped up is sort of taking whatever they get from AI and plugging it in verbatim right like I’ve heard some people be like I’ve got this co-worker that just sends these messages that are so clearly AI generated and it’s frustrating everybody because we don’t feel like we’re talking to a human being anymore and so I think those are probably some of the the I don’t know the obstacles or the the ways that it shouldn’t be used that you’re kind of referencing

Tanika Williams : yes yes I would agree I think for us from a marketing perspective it’s really helped to make sure that our marketing is hitting the right target audience I think that’s a great area or place to use it you know we’re crafting a lot of content in different things and we may think the content is most impactful for one area of the business or one set of our customers and clients and then looking at AI and it kind of giving you all these other options or places of use that’s been extremely helpful I think for our sales teams it’s been helpful and it’s funny enough I mean it’s a person right it feels like a real person and helping us understand personalities and you know a lot of our work because physicians are busy people is we’re doing things over email so we’re trying to break down and explain application processes and different things in that way so I think for someone who has very a one very specific communication style I think AI can help them adapt their communication to other people as well. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti : Tanika growth oftentimes comes from our biggest challenges I’d love to hear about a serious challenge that you’ve been through what was it how did you get through it what did you learn?

Tanika Williams : Yeah I think the biggest challenge or the one that jumps out to me first is being a single mom really personal but you don’t realize the strain of having two jobs one that you get to keep for a lifetime right so I talked about kind of that transition from that 95% travel that I was doing before to taking an in-office job with 20% travel prior that my office was in my home always and forever you know during the pandemic when everyone was trying to adapt to video calls and all of this my team was amazed to know that I had a fax machine at home and all of the things so when I think about like that challenge that for me was an easy transition the transition of single working person to now single mom working was difficult how do I balance the things how do I show up for my as my best self for this little person is that little person and the work that I need to do in that capacity of life gonna force me to compromise things in my career it was really tough um what I learned about myself is I can do hard things um I learned that I had a great support system I think often when you are working and you’re climbing the corporate ladder there’s this fear of asking for help for feeling inadequate and as a mother all of us are learning there is no rulebook to this thing there is no action guide you’ve got to ask people and you’ve got to ask for help um I learned to give myself grace um again it was during that phase that I learned that power of no and I did the boundaries books um that was kind of when I found it back in 2016 um because I said I’m just not going to be able to take on the weight of the world as much as it fills my cup and I like it I just can’t do it so um it’s a lot of things giving grace being okay with not being okay those things were hard for me but I think I’m not only a better employee and associate for it I’m a better leader because I have more compassion and care for my people as a result of that um anyone would tell you I’d always say oh I’m old school no we’re gonna grind this thing out and we’re gonna hustle hard but I had to adapt to what hustle hard and grind in and out looked like for every individual and not paint with a broad brush being a mom taught me that that’s interesting

Anthony Codispoti : when you gotta deal with you don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes for that person yeah

Tanika Williams : you don’t and just like a little person especially when they’re two and under and they can’t really articulate what they’re thinking and they’re feeling you’re really drawing on what you see in their face or how they’re moving it it had just I mean I think motherhood has just taught me so much but it’s also probably one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had to do and I think anyone who’s a parent would probably say that that you know whether you got one kid or five it’s still hard

Anthony Codispoti : you know uh my wife and I we’re great partners we’ve got two boys that we’re raising and there are times where we feel like we’re barely keeping our heads above water keeping up with everything and so we made the comment to each other before like how do single parents do it you know like at least for us there’s like hey I can’t step in here can you um and I think this goes to your point about asking for help who have you asked for help and and how did you kind of get through the discomfort of kind of raising your hand saying I I can’t do this on my own

Tanika Williams : yeah I think my greatest source of help is my family and then I have an amazing friend village um and I think for family it’s probably a little bit easier right because you think oh grandparents they’re going to kind of do it because they want to and they’re just going to step in and interject so that’s awesome but it’s those people outside of and you know I hate I know we’re talking personal but I’ve got to take it back to Jackson and Coker I talked about how you go to a lot of organizations and they say we have this family friendly environment um well I tell people and it’s still amazing to my personal family and friends at the number of people in my work environment that I call and that are friends and family when I couldn’t do and I’m not gonna cry you’re not gonna make me cry Anthony there were people in this Jackson and Coker building who said I’ve got you I’ve got Harper I’m not gonna wait for you to ask me I’m just gonna go and do and I think it’s that when you can’t and you don’t want to ask for help those people that take it upon themselves to know that my strong friend needs something too and they just jump in and do it for you and it’s just been amazing because once they do it and I see you know what this is okay I kind of am not in this by myself like it’s okay for them to do it now if I’m in a bind I don’t feel like I have to be superwoman I am immediately texted three or four people and whoever replies first that’s the answer right for me I was like oh yep you’re the god sent one you got it pick up set three o’clock

Anthony Codispoti : I love that thank you for opening up and sharing about that and I think great that that right there said volumes about the culture of Jackson and Coker obviously it says a lot about you and the strength and being able to reach out and ask for help and accept help which is really hard for most of us especially people who you know view themselves as being very strong and independent but I think it says just a ton about the the culture of the people there you know it’s one thing to be able you know we put these words on a plaque or you know a sign over the door absolutely um but you know to see your reaction and talking about the way that folks there you know volunteered and stepped up to help you out and continue to do so I think that says it says a lot about Jackson and Coker

Tanika Williams : yeah we say others first but to your point we always tell when I’m interviewing people to join the organization they were like oh I see your values what do you connect with I said we are truly an others first organization it’s not just words on a plaque it’s what we live by it’s ingrained in who we are it’s the fabric of our being yeah

Anthony Codispoti : Tniko what’s the best decision you ever made for your career

Tanika Williams : oh the best decision I ever made for my career was taking a step back from leadership to understand how to do the role of my people when I initially came to Jackson and Coker I know you mentioned in the beginning I was a client consultant but I came from another organization where I was already in a leadership role and and looking at the leadership roles available at the time for Jackson and Coker while they were an option in my head I was like I don’t know a lot about this industry I don’t know a lot about the work that they do so I could have come in the door and gone straight to being a director again and saying I’ll learn on the fly but it was important to me to understand the seat that those I would be leading was sitting in so I took the step back in my career a hard decision but a valuable decision because not only did I learn the business from a different perspective it allowed me to better be able to pour into my people but I think it gave me different leadership perspective because now I want to do that in every role that I have as a leader right I want to take the 30 to 60 days to get to know all the people to sit in their seat to understand their jobs right and not just the 30-minute intro connect that you do but I want to understand the ins and outs what makes you happy when you walk through the door every day what are the things that challenge you and frustrate you and is no better way to do that than as one of my mentor says than to carry the bag and sit in the seat

Anthony Codispoti : what I heard there was sometimes you have to slow down to speed up exactly yeah that’s cool what’s something you wished more people knew about your industry

Tanika Williams : something I knew I wish that people knew about the industry is that we are a strategic plan for healthcare we provide access to care locomtinen’s physicians are an extension of your practice they’re not a hindrance to your practice our partnerships are vast and wide and we are intentional about who and what we serve and your patients are important to us just like they’re important to you

Anthony Codispoti : I like that I’ve just got one more question for you Tineca but before I ask it I want to do two things first of all everyone listening today I’m going to ask you to pause for just a brief second go ahead and hit that follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast app we’ve had a wonderful conversation with Tineca Williams from Jackson and Coker today and I want you to continue to get more great content like this in your feed and if you can take just one extra second and leave a review a little bit of feedback a comment for us that helps other folks find the show too so before I ask the last question Tineca I want people to know the best way either to get in touch with you Jackson and Coker or to continue to follow your story what would that be

Tanika Williams : yes so the best way to get in to get in touch with Jackson and Coker would be to follow us on any of your social platforms linkedin instagram facebook we are on there as Jackson and A &D Coker Locomtinen’s and you can also visit our website if you are physicians or hospitals or health systems that are in need of physicians for Locomtinen placement we are in a quick form there you can fill out and we are happy to connect with you in terms of staying in touch and connecting with me I would encourage anyone to reach me on linkedin I love connecting with new people learning about you sharing my resources and even picking your brains for yours so it’s just Tineca Williams you’ll see me on there and the Jackson and Coker logo under my name

Anthony Codispoti : love it we’ll find links for that and put them in the show notes for everybody so last question for you Tineca as we look to the future what exciting changes do you see coming to your industry

Tanika Williams : why now that’s a loaded one in a crazy year exciting changes that I see is us changing um what early career entry into the Locomtinen’s industry looks like for physicians I think as we continue to do work with academic programs and allowing residents and fellows to understand Locom’s as a pathway and not something that they have to think about once they’ve already hit the marketplace I think that’s going to be really exciting it’s going to expand the work that we can do greatly it’s going to expand the number of patients that can be treated and I think it’s just going to be amazing I think it’s also as Jackson and Coker grows how we innovate technologies that can help physicians do their work better things like electronic time and expense and record keeping how we help them create repositories for their paperwork that can be so daunting to a person who their primary focus is service right so how we continue to expand resources from a technology perspective those are two things that really excite me about the future of Jackson and Coker and our presence in the industry

Anthony Codispoti : and in in that latter one are we talking about some AI components that kind of help reduce the time spent on the paperwork so that doctors can spend more time interacting with the patients directly

Tanika Williams : yeah there’ll be a little bit more um I’ll say AI infused in there um but also just easy stuff I mean people would probably be surprised to hear that in many hospitals and healthcare systems doctors still kind of punch a time card right you see nurses all the time coming in and do that how do we change those things even to make days easier you know locoms providers we talk about them going from assignment to assignment how do they have an electronic database of the work that they do their practice logs and all of those things because you’re traveling so you’re not necessarily tied to one electronical medical record system in one place so just how do we advance technologies to help them do their work better and more efficiently

Anthony Codispoti : I love it Tanika Williams from Jackson and Coker I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today I really appreciate it

Tanika Williams : thank you so much Anthony it’s been a pleasure

Anthony Codispoti : folks that’s a wrap on another episode of the inspired stories podcast thanks for learning with us today