Executive Update with Margaret Haynes | President, CEO

Duration: 28m 35s

When Right at Home began franchising out its model of home care 25 years ago, the mission was relatively simple. It still is. During a recent Tuesday Talk with VP of Franchise Development Jen Cheney, Right at Home CEO Margaret Haynes explains that “At the end of the day,” Margaret says, “our mission is to improve the quality of life for those that we serve.”

While that mission is unchanged after all these years, fulfilling this mission is anything but simple. Today, the Right at Home franchise system is making excellent home care available to more than 700 communities in the U.S. and beyond. “And,” adds Margaret, “we are just touching so many lives on a regular basis. In any given week, we may be supporting 23,000 clients across just the U.S. alone.”

Even with an amazing model and incredible support, handling this type of growth requires a strategic vision. Margaret gives us a closer look at all the work, planning, and collaboration that go into realizing this vision.

The Planning Process

“It’s a great time to be in home care,” Margaret tells us. “When I look at the different kinds of metrics that we monitor broadly across the network, everything’s moving in the right direction.”

Margaret highlights metrics like: 

• Hours of care being provided;
• The number of caregivers working across the network; and
• The number of clients being served.

Still, even with everything moving in the right direction, it’s important to take a step back and recalibrate every few years. As we speak, Right at Home is in the beginning states of a brand new Three Year Plan. 

“When I stepped into the role [of CEO] in 2022,” Margaret recalls, “we did our first Three Year Plan, and we’ve been executing that along the way.”

But, she points out, the path to execution is rarely ever a straight line. “It’s zig-zaggy because things change,” explains Margaret. “For example, in 2022, AI wasn’t even part of our three year strategic plan, and boom, AI is everywhere.”

Today, she points out, Right at Home has staff, internal expertise, and strategic initiatives around AI. This, Margaret notes, is just one demonstration of how important it is to remain nimble and adaptable even as you execute on your strategic vision. 

It’s reasonable to assume that the challenges and innovations we’re likely to experience in the next three years will also require agility. That’s why, says Margaret, “we’re listening all the time throughout the year, through all these different channels to what is important, what is top of mind, what’s keeping our franchisees up at night, and where they are seeing opportunities in their local market.”

Keeping Every Channel Open

So what are all these different channels? Well, at their core, they are all different pathways for engagement between franchisees and corporate. 

Margaret highlights, for example, Right at Home’s Strategic Leadership Council (SLC). The SLC is composed of elected representatives from each of our eight U.S. regions – all franchise owners, of course. These elected representatives will appoint an additional four council members to ensure a full complement of skills and areas of expertise. 

“We’re trying to always make sure we have a good representation across the network,” Margaret notes, “because this council helps us at the corporate office think more strategically.”

Margaret calls the relationship between corporate and the 12-member Council a collaborative one. 

“We’re bringing ideas of what we’re seeing, how we’re reading the tea leaves, and about what’s changing across health care and home care at an industry level,” says Margaret. “The SLC is bringing in feedback about what’s happening in each region or challenges that may be happening in individual states.”

Building a Healthy Feedback Loop

This collaborative relationship is just one of the channels corporate uses to bring franchisers into the feedback loop. Margaret also points to experiences like our annual franchise meetings, our ongoing surveys throughout the year, and our weekly Takeoff Tuesdays–interactive learning sessions powered by questions submitted directly by franchisees. And of course, franchisees and their business coaches are often in constant contact. 

Task forces are another great way for franchisees to get involved and provide strategic input. Margaret notes that this is an especially good opportunity “for people that aren’t sitting on that council to say, ‘Hey, I’m really interested in this topic,’ and to be part of a working group that’s helping us either pilot something or enhance existing capabilities.”

We use all of these channels to remain in direct and ongoing conversation with our franchisees. Margaret explains that these listening mechanisms give us a chance to check in and ask important questions like:

• What is your feedback? 
• Where are you seeing opportunities? 
• How can we get better? 

Ultimately, Margaret says, “All of that input comes together to then help us create a really well-rounded strategic plan.”

Bringing The Strategic Vision to Life

One of the reasons it’s so important to draw input from all of these different channels is because it helps us to really hone in on some of our biggest challenges and it helps us devise strategies for how we can take these challenges on together. 

For instance, notes Margaret, “we talk about this boom of clients that are going to need our support. We know there’s not an equal boom of caregivers…and we’ve known that for quite some time, so we’ve been very dialed into programs and innovations and new ways in which we can help that franchisee think about best practices and become that employer of choice in their local market.”

This really underscores how dynamic the process of strategic planning is, and how many people are involved in the process. 

Reaffirming Our Mission

Even as we embark on a new Three Year Plan for managing this ever-growing network of franchisees, caregivers, and clients, our mission is unchanged. We work to improve the quality of life for those that we serve. This includes clients and their families but also caregivers. 

It truly is an honor, Margaret says, to be able to serve the people that we do, and to be able to continually expand our reach into new homes, communities, and territories. 

“That’s why,” Margaret says “at the corporate office, we get up every day and think about how we can help our franchisees build sustainable, profitable businesses, and what best practices and support we can bring around in order to help them do that.”