For me – there is no better motivation than imagining how things will be different after a year of driving this freshly paved road – developing a business plan, actioning out our goals and celebrating crushing them – these are a few of my favourite things! 

Each Business New Year provides us with more opportunities to grow and expand our organization, strengthen corporate culture, invest in the future of others, develop our employees, and continue to make an impact and change the lives of thousands of Canadians. I enter each September with new goals and a plan to execute them. In order to plan and move ahead, it’s important to reflect on what’s happened in the past year, to celebrate the wins and to gain experience from the losses. 

This past year has been a record year for Plan A!  In July, we celebrated our 8th birthday and we could have never gotten here without the help of my own dedicated team, the commitment of the 1300 health care professionals that make up the A Team and our A-mazing owners! We have expanded to 24 Plan A locations across Ontario and we now have two Plan A locations in British Columbia – and we’re continuing to grow!  With the help of all of these people, we have been able to help our Long Term Care partners cover 18,801 shifts since January 2019 alone!

​The biggest lessons I learned this year stemmed from effective communication, good contracts and owning our truth. As always, for me, relationships are huge and the foundation of any successful business. What I learned this year is that while you don’t always get what you put in don’t let that change what you put out. I learned that a bad decision with good intentions is still a bad decision, and most importantly – that being a leader requires the ability to change your mind for the betterment of your business and to always be prepared to deal with any repercussions that come. Being a leader means to instill a positive feeling of togetherness in an organization and to motivate employees to work hard, help others, and strive to reach personal and organizational growth and goals. Leadership takes practice and while I am a work in progress, I am getting there and will continue to work on it on a daily basis.

Moving into the 2020 Business year, Plan A’s focus is on strategizing for greater shift coverage and support for our LTC partners. This requires us to set Marketing, Operational,Human Resources, Growth and Financial goals that will allow us to focus on the things that are most important to us: taking care of the people who take care of our most vulnerable people, developing a culture of inclusiveness, innovation, growing an exceptional team across the country, and deepening the relationships we already have with our existing partners.  More than ever I understand that we can’t be the expert at everything and we will be searching to meet the people who can help reach our goals in the next year.  

Cheers to a New Year!