Vet Clinic Employer of Choice: VetsOne - Hawke's Bay NZ - Amanda - Operations Manager | ep.1008

Episode 1008 - VetsOne: 34 Years of Evolution - Amanda

Julie South [00:00:03]: Welcome to Veterinary Voices: Employer brand conversations that help veterinary clinics hire great people. I'm Julie South and this is episode 1008. Veterinary Voices is brought to you by VetClinicJobs. Build your employer brand. Do your own recruitment better.

Continuing our VetsOne Employer of Choice series, today we meet Amanda, the operations manager who's been with VetsOne for 34 years. Amanda has witnessed the practice evolve from a small team to what it is today—a team working in a modern multi-storey clinic on a main road.

In this conversation you'll hear what generosity of thought and generosity of time actually mean in daily practice, how the Lincoln Institute training transformed team communication and accountability, what happened during the 2023 cyclone when communications systems went down, and why Amanda describes VetsOne as a place where people genuinely care about each other's wellbeing.

You'll also discover how a clinic moves from leaning out the door to yell down the hallway to implementing comprehensive protocols across multiple floors, what it means when a workplace celebrates diverse working styles and life stages, and why VetsOne's approach to team support goes far beyond HR policies.

Julie South [00:02:04]: VetsOne in Hastings in New Zealand's Hawke's Bay is currently looking for their next small animal veterinarian. Specifically someone with leadership potential or experience who wants to help guide their companion animal team. If you're looking for a clinic where operational systems actually and genuinely support rather than constrain the clinical team, stay tuned. Let's join that chat.

Amanda [00:02:23]: I'm Amanda. I am the operations manager here at VetsOne. I also deal with HR and I'm also the payroll manager as well.

Julie South [00:02:34]: You've been with VetsOne for a very long time. Have you expanded your role, changed your roles since you started?

Amanda [00:02:41]: Yes, I have. I started here back in 1990. I was first employed as a veterinary nurse, which I—because I loved animals. This is why we are all here. Our initial pull to the industry. And I was the last trained on the job nurse. All the veterinary nurses are certificate and diploma now.

And I moved through multiple different jobs within the clinic to be where I am today as the operations manager, which I've been for the last two years.

Julie South [00:03:11]: We at VetClinicJobs—Tanya is also an on the job trained vet nurse. What changes have you seen in the time since you started as a vet nurse through to the evolution of where you are now?

Amanda [00:03:26]: There's been a lot of changes. The original owners of the business are no longer with the business. The three directors we have now—two came in to own the business in the early 2000s, and then the other one in 2010. We've been really fortunate to have them leading our ship. Been a lot of changes in the industry itself as well, which we all know. It's been an interesting journey.

Julie South [00:03:49]: No one stays in a job for 34 years unless they like it. What do you really like?

Amanda [00:03:58]: Probably be multiple factors that have kept me here, but flexibility. Through the years that I had children, the people actually that I work with—I mean, we all—it's a given. We all love animals and we want to do the best for animals and we want to see the best pet health outcomes. But it's actually the people I work with every day which is what has kept me connected to this business.

I really do love the team. They're a great team, the entire team. And we're all very different too, so it's an interesting mix.

Amanda [00:04:27]: You know, we learn to connect even with those differences. So the team is what really keeps me here at VetsOne in particular.

Julie South [00:04:35]: You would have seen it transition through different phases. Let's just go back a few years to where most of our listeners can probably relate to. You've gone through the COVID pandemic lockdown phase and how that impacted and required people to change systems real fast. And then more recently, you've gone through the floods of a few years ago, which also would have required people to step up and work way outside their comfort zones. How was that for you in your leadership role?

Amanda [00:05:16]: The floods, obviously, because that all happened so suddenly. Jason was calling me in the morning saying that there was a state of emergency. He couldn't get here. He lived across the bridges. The bridges were gone. It was kind of up to—the other two directors, one was in Australia, one was in Auckland. So it was up to me to kind of man the ship, which I had to do for like a whole week before we could get them back here in the business.

Amanda [00:05:39]: But this team is very, very easy to manage because they all just said, what can I do? What do we need to do? And let's do it. And that's what we did. So, as hard and heartbreaking as that time was with what happened with the floods, the team here were just—they were just amazing and they helped me and I didn't just have to stand there on my own making decisions, so it was great.

Julie South [00:06:01]: What I'm hearing from you is a fully engaged, committed team that looks after everyone.

Amanda [00:06:10]: Yes, definitely. We all do think about each other. We do training, like soft skills training and how to think about when somebody's struggling—the first thing you say is, are you okay? How can I help? And that's kind of a little bit of a motto that we have, is generosity of thought and generosity of your time and thinking about how you can help somebody else.

Julie South [00:06:34]: Great sayings. You mentioned just now that the leadership team is open to input from everyone. And there have been examples where somebody has inputted, come forward with an idea, and that has been implemented. Can you think of any of those situations?

Amanda [00:06:56]: Actually, it probably works in a way that we will have an idea and we'll have a goal, and then we will ask the team, what is the how? How do we do this? What is the best way for us to reach that goal? I think we're very intuitive with the team in the sense that we kind of have an idea, we know what they're gonna be kind of on board with. And we do lead them into understanding why some things are being done.

But we really want the how from them because the how is really, really important. And it's really important—they're there on the floor in the work every day. So they're the ones to tell us how things are going to work. Because we could come up with things—and I'm in my office—so it's really important to get that input from them.

Amanda [00:07:39]: Rather than a specific instance, it's actually a lot. Every protocol change that we have or review that we have, we get them to review the old protocol, what's happening now. We take the input, then we bring out the new protocol, and then they have time to give feedback. They go, that's not practical. That's actually not what happens. That bit's not quite right. Or they'll say, I can see a better way. We're always open to listening to that, and often we will change that and we will go with it.

Julie South [00:08:15]: Your clinic is very much into Lincoln Institute leadership training. Can you share with me, please, a before and after example, perhaps? Like, what was the clinic like before the directors invested? Because it is a significant investment, not only in dollars, but in the resources and the time that it takes to put the Lincoln systems into place.

Amanda [00:08:44]: I personally have two different things that I'm involved in. One is Lincoln Chrysalis Masters, which is leadership tailored specifically at the leadership. And the other is Emerging Leaders. That one is tailored for the entire team. So I lead it, I run it, but the whole team are involved in that.

Around me, in the room that I'm sitting now, are all the butcher's paper with the different topics that we've done. Again, what I talked about—the diversity in the team and starting to understand—how the team have learned to connect with each other. We've talked about social styles, what motivates people, what are their intricacies within their personalities.

Amanda [00:09:23]: We talk about analyticals, we talk about drivers, we talk about expressives, we talk about amiables. And it's very interesting, specifically after that particular module, that it was interesting to hear some of the team go, now I know what motivates that person. Now I know why they're blunt because they're a driver. They just get to the point. Now I know why they find it hard to make a decision because they're trying to seek what everyone else thinks, which is an amiable.

So that was a really interesting point. And that was one module and we've so far done 12. There are 24.

Amanda [00:09:55]: So that one, I probably—even though I've done the individual stuff myself, which I've really enjoyed, which helps me how to have coaching, how to do mentoring and things like that. This one actually is for everybody. I think it's the one I'm the most passionate about because I think everybody gets the benefit. And a lot of staff have commented that they've actually implemented it into their personal lives as well. So it goes across, not just the workplace, it can be put back to your home life.

Julie South [00:10:22]: In your role, I'm presuming that you would have some kind of client interaction as well. Describe your clients, please. What are they like? What's somebody coming into your clinic? What are they going to experience?

Amanda [00:10:38]: Our clients—we have a great base of clients here. I've been here for coming up 35 years and we do have some clients that have been with the clinic longer than me. So we've had obviously that loyalty throughout the years and it's really important for us to keep that.

Pet ownership in the modern day has changed from what it was when I first started. Pets are part of a family. They are fur babies. And we definitely tailor to that because we feel that way about our own pets and we want our clients coming through the doors to feel that from us—that their pets matter. And actually their pets matter, but they matter because they're part of that as well.

Amanda [00:11:22]: So the little unit that comes in is the pet, the vet and the client. And we do—we have a really, really good base of clients. And some have been with us for long—we know them by their first name, they know us by our first names. You know, we already know what food they're coming in to buy. We're really interested in what's going on, particularly with the health journey. I do think our clients really appreciate that more personal service that they get from us.

Amanda [00:11:49]: You know, we try to let them go away—even if there's something we can't particularly say with a retail item, we give them ideas of where they could get that retail item. So the Fear Free—obviously again this is something that just as the years go by, you become more aware, in particular with cats. Cats are not—that dogs don't, but cats feel things differently to dogs.

It was actually Sharon and particularly Nadine. So Nadine's a nurse and Sharon's obviously one of the directors that were very, very passionate about it at the beginning and some other past nurses that we have that have moved on. When we came into this building in 2019, it was part of what we implemented at that time so that we could have a separate cat waiting area, a cat only consult room, a cat only hospital.

Amanda [00:12:38]: And obviously we have a cattery as well. Having the Fear Free handling techniques that come through that as well. No scruffing, trying to find ways to make cats least stressed, I guess—definitely less stressed.

Julie South [00:12:53]: And your pet parents, your cat pet parents will obviously appreciate it as well.

Amanda [00:12:59]: I definitely think they do. All our cat parents, they already know there's a cat only waiting room. They don't bother to try and sit in the big waiting room with the dogs. They go into—it's a smaller waiting room, it's a bit more compact, it's right near the consult room door. They definitely appreciate that, that their cats don't have to be stressed while they're sitting there waiting with dogs sitting next to them or across from them.

Julie South [00:13:21]: Tell me please, what sort of person do you think would fit best into your team? You're looking for somebody with experience who is ready to either step up into leadership and be supported by you with leadership or already has that experience.

Amanda [00:13:41]: We focus greatly on who the person is rather than what they are as such. Because you know, some skills can be taught. Obviously they would need an ability to be interested in leadership in some way, shape or form. But we're really looking at how they connect with the team.

Our team—we always kind of, we make a little bit of a joke that laughter is a great point of the day. There is a lot of banter. It's a very serious job at times. So we do goof around a little bit and I think it's somebody also that can, you know, get into that spirit of things. But also somebody who—the diversity of the team as well, just knowing, you know, we range from the youngest being 21, but we can all connect on some level—that ability to be able to do that.

Julie South [00:14:35]: You're not all Kiwis either, are you?

Amanda [00:14:38]: No, we're not. We have an Irish vet, we have a Malaysian vet, and we also have a Malaysian nurse. And we do have some people that have come from other parts of the country as well.

Julie South [00:14:50]: Talking about other parts of the country, I'm going to make an assumption here and presume that you are Hastings or Napier, born and bred.

Amanda [00:15:01]: I'm from Hastings. I grew up in Clive and then when I was 19, moved to Hastings. But so Hastings base is where I have basically—in the immediate surrounding areas—brought up my family.

Julie South [00:15:13]: It's possible, probable, that your next new hire, this person that you're looking for with leadership potential or experience is going to be from outside the region. So how would you describe the Hawke's Bay region?

Amanda [00:15:29]: There's a few pockets around New Zealand where you think of nice weather. The mountains are right there. I mean, we're called Sunny Hawke's Bay for a reason, apart from the year of the cyclone. But yeah. So, you know, Bay of Plenty, Nelson—we've got the vineyards, we've got cycling tracks. You know, obviously a lot of this has come along in the last couple of decades. Not the vineyards, but the cycling tracks. There's a lot more tailored to outdoor things for families. I've taken my children along those cycle tracks and I still do it.

Amanda [00:16:03]: Me and my daughter just walk some of them just on Sunday. She's an adult now, but having the beach, you've got Waimarama, you've got Ocean Beach, you've got Waipatiki Beach. Even though Napier itself may not be a golden beach, it has its own positives as well. You've got those other beaches just so close. And that again, that's been a huge part of mine and my family going out to the beach and spending, you know, summer days out there. And my own actual childhood as well. A huge amount of it was spent at the beach.

Julie South [00:16:32]: My husband and I bought a motorhome in June this year. Our first trip away was to Wellington. I'm in Hamilton—was to Wellington for the Vet Association conference this year. We decided we would sort of meander down through the country and then come back up through the country. The weekend leading into the conference, it was foul, like, absolutely foul. We woke up, our first night was in Ohakune. The clouds were like touching the ground. It was awful. And the wind was wild as well.

Julie South [00:17:09]: We decided that we would see whether we could follow the sun. We went over the Gentle Annies and spent the next night at the Evers-Swindell Reserve car park reserve. It was amazing. The sun was out. We could start taking off the layers that we had been wearing in Hamilton and Ohakune. The sunrise was spectacular. It was just this amazing, beautiful place to be. The contrast between the weather patterns on the rest of the North Island to the Hawke's Bay was just like black and white.

Amanda [00:17:50]: Yeah, Hawke's Bay is lovely. I have three large dogs, Labrador crosses and I'm a little bit mad. I go out, I get up at 5 in the morning and I take them out pre-dawn to one of the rivers nearby. The way I walk down the river, I'm walking towards the sunrise and the amount of times I've got so many photos on my phone just photographing that sunrise in the different colours. And at the moment with no leaves on the trees and getting the tree in front, I'm just obsessed with the sunrises.

But it is amazing. And even compared to potentially—well, definitely compared to some other parts of the country—even our cold isn't horrendously cold. So in winter I'm still out there. It has to be pouring rain for me not to go because even a little bit of cold you put—like you say, you put an extra layer on and you still can go walk and see those beautiful sunrises in the morning.

Amanda [00:18:42]: You know, having that opportunity to see that sunrise down the river mouth or over the sea is just amazing.

Julie South [00:18:48]: That was the direction I was heading. I walked for a couple of K along one of the cycle trails out towards the coast and yeah, it was frosty, my breath was vaporising in front of me but man, it was just stunning.

Amanda [00:19:05]: It sounds like that's where my daughter and I went because it was from Clive heading down the river towards the river mouth.

Julie South [00:19:11]: Yeah, yeah. Beside a whole bunch of beautiful houses that sort of up over a stop bank.

Amanda [00:19:18]: Yeah. Yep, that's exactly where we were on Sunday. Yeah. And I was telling her—having grown up in Clive, all these ones are new. That's the house where I used to go when I was a kid. That's where my great auntie used to live.

Julie South [00:19:33]: Getting back to how great it is to be at VetsOne and how supportive and collegial working there is for everyone. For you as the operations manager, what does a really good day look like?

Amanda [00:19:52]: Probably everyone having come into the day—we do talk about positivity, just kind of reminding ourselves—it might sound a little bit corny, but this is obviously through Lincoln and we do occasionally will go, come on, let's have some gratitude. Just one thing that you're grateful for, and it could be quite something quite minor, that your alarm went off that morning or something. We do those things.

But I think it's coming in and everyone is just probably actually having a bit of banter, having a really good day. It's interesting, I know that can be dictated by the work that's coming in that day. And even in the sense which I feel really proud of the team, if we do have a really hectic, manic day—about how they pull themselves together as a team. And it's almost like we even work better when there's an emergency or when things—because everyone just gets in and does what needs to be done.

Amanda [00:20:43]: And I'm not saying we don't work well, but it just makes you realise what a great team we have. I think I'm fortunate in the sense that I have been a veterinary nurse, moved to reception, then I went to administration, then I went into the financial side, was the finance manager, accounts manager and then up to operations manager. That I have such a wide experience, I guess, that I've kind of have done—I know things have changed in some areas, but I've done the roles, I understand the roles. I'm prepared to slip into the roles and help in any way I can. Obviously can't so much as a veterinary nurse anymore.

But yeah, I think it's probably that operations side where I think about how I can help and what I can do. And in some senses I'm probably almost like a little bit of a counsellor too.

Amanda [00:21:34]: Because people's personal lives will invariably slip into the professional life and we do take pride in actually supporting them through those things. And we've had multiple staff that have had things go on. And again, instead of thinking, oh, what's this got to do for the business and how's it going to impact it, we think, what can we do to help them?

And a huge part of that is the three directors, Sharon, Jason and Michael. We're very, very fortunate to have them. I would just like to emphasise a little more, again what I just mentioned, how fortunate we are to have the directors that we have—ones that have worked as part of the team before becoming an owner of the business. They've owner-operated it, so they work in the business as well as working on the business. Mike and Jason are both still active large animal vets.

Amanda [00:22:22]: Sharon has only recently moved into a more office role of business strategy, obviously to help steer the ship and have somebody making the big decisions so Mike and Jason can go out, do the work. They really do support the team. When they came into this business, one of the first things they did is they made really significant changes for the staff. They've always wanted to try and make things better and that's as far as remuneration goes, working conditions, culture, everything. Support, support.

When, like I said, when things slip in from your personal life into your working life, I mean, as much as we try not to let that happen, it can. They're very, very supportive of the team and they're very open to feedback.

Amanda [00:23:08]: Personally, you can go up to them face to face and have a chat, say, can I talk to you, I'm concerned about something, or whatever. They are very, very open to that.

Julie South [00:23:17]: Can you think of one of the things that you said just now that when they took ownership they made significant changes?

Amanda [00:23:25]: I think one of the things was it was very well known that if we use the veterinary nurses as an example—wages for veterinary nurses were historically very low and they made a real commitment to acknowledge the certificate or diploma and the ongoing CPD that our nurses were doing. And so we wanted to push ourselves up to be above industry average and it does take time obviously to do that, but that's been a real commitment from their part.

And that's just one example because they just felt that there was not enough remuneration, recognition of the training and the ongoing, you know, CPD training that our nurses were doing. Mental Health Awareness Week is coming up and I think it's the 6th to the 12th. Myself and one of our nurses, Brooke, came to me and she said, can we do something for this?

So her and I have been working—or I have been supporting her in getting her to bring her ideas into the light so that we are going to do something different every day. So that is something—again, we do support certain things because it is a big thing within the veterinary industry and it is really important that we actually acknowledge and support mental health challenges.

Julie South [00:24:44]: Is this the first time you've done it?

Amanda [00:24:46]: This is the first time we've done it to this degree. It is something that's on our mind a lot and we probably have done little snippets at different things over different times, and a lot of that came out through Emerging Leaders as well.

Julie South [00:25:03]: You've just heard Amanda walk you through 34 years of VetsOne's evolution and what generosity of thought and generosity of time actually look like in everyday real life. Amanda showed us the operational backbone, but operations only work when the clinical team embraces them.

In the next episode, we meet Dr Mia, a veterinarian who's worked at VetsOne twice for a total of about five years. You'll hear how VetsOne supported her transition from mixed animal to small animal clinician, why she's known as Witchy Poo for her herbal medicine expertise, and what happened when she left, stayed connected and eventually came back. Most tellingly, you'll discover what it means when a clinic not only accepts but actively celebrates your genuine real self, including running a complementary medicine business under your own banner.

Julie South [00:26:10]: That's coming up in episode 1009.

A quick note about what you're hearing in this series—the depth of employer brand storytelling, multiple team members, genuine stories, cultural specifics beyond job requirements. This is what makes recruitment actually work. When clinics struggle to get suitable applicants despite advertising for months, it's because they're posting roles without showing who they really are. Veterinary professionals can't choose you if they can't see whether they'd actually fit.

VetsOne isn't just posting a job ad hoping the right person sees it. They're showing veterinary professionals what working there genuinely looks like through real voices, sharing real stories. That's employer brand marketing in action, and it's why they attract people who actually want to be there. People who, as you're hearing, are genuinely proud to work at VetsOne.

Julie South [00:27:16]: If you're responsible for recruitment at your clinic and you know you have stories like this but don't know how to capture or share them, then email me directly at julie@vetclinicjobs.com. I'd be happy to talk about how we can help you build this kind of genuine employer brand through our REAL+STORY programme for your clinic as well.

And if you're a veterinary professional considering your next move, your next career move, full position details are at vetclinicjobs.com/VetsOne.

Until next time, this is Julie South inviting you to go out there and be your most fantabulous self because you work at a clinic that's exactly like VetsOne.

Referenced URLs:

• https://vetclinicjobs.com/VetsOne
• https://veterinaryvoices.com
• mailto:julie@vetclinicjobs.com