Chief of Staff to the COO (later President) and CEO, then Director of Operations, at a home care company that grew from one service line to three across seven territories. I turned leadership's decisions into structure, and brought the right decisions back up.
Service lines over my tenure
Territories
Caregiver workforce at close
Staff in my org at close
<aside> 💬
"What I liked the most about Roya is that she knew when to escalate things to me."
"In her three years at Tandem, I do not remember having anything I asked for 'fall through the cracks' or be delivered late."
Frank Carrere, Chief Executive Officer, Tandem Care
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<aside> 👋
Open to Chief of Staff and operations roles, contract or full-time. Remote, or hybrid in the Long Beach area. Reach me at [email protected]
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As Chief of Staff, I led a team of up to 14, IT and HR included. What I inherited: job titles that didn't match the work, no clear boundaries, and the same task handled completely differently person to person.
| What I inherited | What I built |
|---|---|
| Titles that didn't match the work | Defined roles with job descriptions written around the actual work |
| No clear boundaries | Named owners, with a RACI chart linking every process to its procedure |
| Coordinators wearing every hat | Dedicated roles for scheduling, compliance and recruiting: I moved four coordinators onto the function each was strongest at |
| Same task done differently by each person | A written procedure for each process, with scripts and templates attached |
| Stage 1: Inherited | Stage 2: Paired | Stage 3: Specialized, at close |
|---|---|---|
| Coordinators wearing every hat: client services, care coordination, scheduling, staffing and recruiting, each done differently person to person | Functions paired up: client services with care coordination; staffing with recruiting; scheduling handled by one person. First done by reassigning existing staff | 10 people in defined roles: an operations manager, a care manager, a scheduling manager, a staffing coordinator, two recruiting coordinators and four care coordinators, with four more roles being posted |
The result: coordinators focused on doing specific things well instead of everything at once, and coordinator caseload rose from 15 to 60+.
I drafted each iteration of the operations and HR structure myself, and sent each to leadership for review. Three things triggered a redesign: growth, sudden exits, and a new service line.
| Stage | What happened | What I changed |
|---|---|---|
| Launch | Existing coordinators took on the new line on top of the other two | Too much work: they could no longer get their jobs done |
| Restructure 1 | Capacity problem | Created a dedicated continuous care department with its own coordinators and care manager |
| Restructure 2 | That care manager left abruptly | New coordinator roles (scheduling, operations and support) under one care manager overseeing all three lines |
Rebuilt from my own org charts, names removed.
During the continuous care launch: a separate care manager for each service line, and recruiting, after-hours and scheduling under an operations manager.
flowchart LR
DO["Director of Operations"] --> TCM["Targeted Care Manager"]
DO --> CCM["Continuous Care Manager"]
DO --> OM["Operations Manager"]
TCM --> TC1["Care Coordinator, Territories 1-2"]
TCM --> TC2["Care Coordinator, Territory 3"]
CCM --> CC1["Continuous Care Coordinators, by territory (3)"]
OM --> RC["Recruiting Coordinators (2)"]
OM --> AH["After-Hours Coordinator"]
OM --> SM["Scheduling Manager"]
After the continuous care manager left: one care manager over every service line, and scheduling, staffing and operations support as their own roles.
flowchart LR
DO["Director of Operations"] --> CM["Care Manager, all service lines"]
DO --> OM["Operations Manager"]
DO --> SM["Scheduling Manager"]
DO --> OA["Operations Assistant (open)"]
OM --> RC["Recruiting Coordinators (2)"]
SM --> SC["Scheduling Coordinator (open)"]
CM --> TC["Targeted Care Coordinators (2)"]
CM --> CCC["Continuous Care Coordinators (2)"]
CM --> SC2["Staffing Coordinator"]
CM --> EC["Evening Coordinator (open)"]