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Trisha Cashmere has a non-linear portfolio career. She started as a physiotherapist in various companies. Trisha then trained as a lawyer and worked in multiple businesses. From her legal experience, Trisha joined some board roles in the health space before starting a family business in the health sector.
In her business Trisha focuses on employing graduates. Her diverse background has enriched her career.
Early in Trisha’s career, she wanted to be good at something and battled to find a suitable mentor.
Law is a traditional profession and does not have much flexibility.
The current business gives her flexibility to balance her family and work. She works hard, but flexibility is a valuable component.
Historically, physiotherapy has been about being physical and active. The focus of Trisha’s business is injuries and the emerging wellness sector. The broader remit focus on community: injury management, exercise management, and gym-based work. They also run programs for people with chronic diseases like Parkinson's and diabetes. There are also some seniors’ classes.
It’s a competitive recruitment environment. Therefore Trisha encourages her team to curate programs that complement each professional's passion and skills with the community requirement. The curated role means she can attract great people and retain them.
When hiring great people, it is essential to take into consideration the stage of their career that they are at, the accumulated skills and the passions or drivers. Of course, each professional must have fundamental skills around diagnosis, patient management and injury management. Patient management skill is critical because it gives the best chance the client will stay with the service for the entire term and receive an optimal outcome.
On top of these base skills, aligning with a professional's interests is crucial. E.g. one of Trisha’s staff is an enthusiastic computer gamer. He has decided he wants to engage in the e-sport space. Physiotherapy in the e-sport space means an active social media presence supports client physiotherapy requirements. Ten years ago, there was a requirement for supporting professionals in a data entry role.
Injuries from e-sports are not new. How they are acquired is changing.
Similarly, Trisha has professionals who are triathlon enthusiasts and also dance enthusiasts. The same principles apply.
Trisha’s early difficulties finding a suitable mentor to help her with her career have influenced how she runs her business.
You can't be what you cant see.
The young professionals hired into Trisha’s business are allocated a suitable mentor to be available to give advice and guidance.
In general, the physiotherapy profession has significant attrition. Many physiotherapists graduate and do the role for five years and then go and do something else. Trisha believes that the attrition rate is much lower by upskilling each of the physiotherapists on her team and helping them focus on the key areas that are interesting and passionate for them. Simple things like permanent positions instead of contract roles and handling client throughput to avoid burnout are also important.
Move from a business that is just doing things to doing things well.
Graduates are knowledgeable, but they need an investment of time and a mentor.
The current generation's values lie in being present with their family and balancing their career. The leader needs to understand the individual drivers of each team member.
The physiotherapy industry is diverse in gender and culture.
Trisha’s leadership style is collaborative. She wants to hear the hard things from the team and clients. She has a code. Suppose the team member tells them to get some chamomile tea before the discussion. It’s a lead-by-example scenario.
The result is retention is excellent. Graduates join and stay with her organisation.
In Summary:
Curating your career: patch experiences together; it leads to self-discovery. This can be driven by circumstances and needs. Be open to making changes and trying new things.
Curate roles for staff: carve out a position that matches the employee’s drivers.
You can't be what you cannot see: help employees see a pathway for their careers.
Leadership: collaborative workplace, allow challenging conversations, signals difficult discussions, focus on what needs to be done.