Case Study
Ask Ashley Carter what the mission of Parkwood Clinic is, and she’ll give you the best answer ever: Help More Kids.
But after founding the clinic, the endless demands of managing HR, payroll, and benefits constantly pulled her away from the work needed to grow her organization.
Turning those tasks over to Xenium’s Complete HR + Payroll service empowers her to stay on mission, focus on growth, and meet the urgent demands of the Portland region for speech and language therapy.
About Parkwood Clinic
When you ask a kid what they want to be when they grow up, you don’t expect to hear “I want to pursue a career in speech language pathology!” But not every kid is Ashley Carter. She was focused on helping other kids when she was still one herself.
Not long after completing her master’s degree, Ashley opened Parkwood Clinic in 2013 as a one-room operation. It didn’t stay that way for long. Parkwood has experienced rapid growth and already supports 24 employees in two locations.
Ashley used a broad set of experiences in private practice, public schools, and hospital settings to assess the best practices for her clinic, and her careful preparation paid off as Parkwood’s growth shows no signs of slowing. Parents drive as long as an hour to appointments for a wide variety of speech and language therapy services.
Manage HR or Help More Kids?
As Parkwood Clinic began to grow, it didn’t take long for Ashley to learn how endless the demands of HR can be. They were pulling her away from her first love and the mission of Parkwood to help as many kids as possible.
When I reached out to Xenium, a lot of my time was being spent supporting our staff in areas that I didn’t personally have a lot of experience in. My skill set was being a clinician and helping families and children, and I had a lot of questions about how to support our team.
I really needed help with payroll. I needed help with HR training, some leadership coaching, and staying on top of all of the little details.
Beyond the day-to-day, Parkwood faced several distinct challenges in terms of HR.
Rapid Growth
Ashley quickly began to see that her struggle to keep up with HR, payroll, and benefits represented a critical infrastructure issue. She didn’t have the resources to truly support her growing team in doing their work.
Fractured Support
Before Xenium, Parkwood’s payroll system was fractured across two different vendors, neither of which seemed interested in keeping up with the frequent changes in Oregon law. Ashley’s vendors added more work to her plate than they relieved.
Rapid Change
Rules and regulations change quickly in the medical industry. Ashley wanted to keep her team well-informed and compliant, and she needed help to respond fast to the constant changes taking place.
Xenium’s Complete HR + Payroll Service
The Complete HR + Payroll program was developed by Xenium to relieve small to mid-sized businesses of the burdens of HR. It provides a complete management solution for HR, payroll, and, if optioned, benefits administration.
Parkwood Clinic now has an outsourced, dedicated team of specialists in their corner. They have a dedicated HR Business Partner to manage their overall program, and they also have a Payroll Specialist and Benefits Manager leading the charge for those areas. Whenever tough questions or urgent tasks come up, these three leaders are supported by Xenium’s full team of more than 80 specialists and experts.
HR Business Partner
HR
Xenium took over critical infrastructure like the employee handbook and keeps it updated so the clinic remains compliant with changes in regulations. Our team also developed a hiring and onboarding process to support Parkwood’s growth.
When urgent issues come up with personnel, Parkwood’s HR Business Partner is just a phone call away and responds quickly to the need. We get to know our clients’ employees and culture in person and know how to step in when needed.
Payroll Specialist
Payroll
Parkwood Clinic now has all of their HR and payroll functions united under Xenium’s software platform. The waterfalls of paperwork which accompany any change in an employee’s status are now automated and integrated across all HR and payroll functions.
Benefits Manager
Benefits Administration
Parkwood’s leadership team is now free from the burden of benefits enrollment and managing changes in coverage for employees.
Before Xenium, I was wearing all the hats, and as we’ve grown, I’ve been able to focus more on the areas that I’m passionate about, which are helping kids, working with families, mentoring and training new clinicians and graduate students, and growing the business so we can help more kids.
Ashley Carter, Owner, Parkwood Clinic
Keeping Up with Constant Change
Parkwood Clinic quicky discovered that though Complete HR + Payroll is an established program for handling all things HR, it’s not formulaic or cookie-cutter in its approach. Xenium’s team takes a very personal approach and makes sure the most urgent needs of each business are met.
Rapid Response
It’s hard enough to keep up with state and federal regulations for HR, payroll, and benefits. Healthcare adds an extra layer of complexity – and urgency. Things change fast, and often they relate to patient care or privacy. As Parkwood’s HR Business Manager from Xenium, Toni Reynolds, said:
It’s really important to answer the phone when Ashley calls and be available when needed. Things happen quickly and in an instant.
The great thing about Xenium is we have a whole army of people behind us. For example, if a compliance update needs to go out, I can make sure it is personalized to the specific needs of Parkwood and notify Ashley quickly.
Emergency Response
A fast response from Parkwood’s HR team at Xenium was never more important than when the pandemic hit in 2020. As Ashley Carter explains,
Things were happening so quickly. There were a lot of changes with mask mandates and vaccine requirements, and we wondered how we were going to navigate this landscape that was shifting so rapidly.
Xenium was just on top of it from the beginning. Everything was rolled out so smoothly, and they gave us a roadmap we could follow so that as the changes were happening, we could support our staff.
Confidence to Keep Charging Forward
For a clinic like Parkwood, people are everything. They’re the product, the mission, and the purpose driving everything forward. Ashley now knows that as Parkwood continues to grow, her team will have all of the HR support they need to provide healing and hope in Portland and beyond.
Freedom to focus on business growth
When I was first introduced to Ashley, she talked about big, wonderful ideas she had about supporting the community and the kids they serve. I knew that as we learned about the organization and built the infrastructure, our job was to be shoulder to shoulder with her and take the HR workload off so she could stay focused.
Lacey Partipilo, Director of HR, Xenium
Playing to your strengths
One thing I didn’t realize until I had Xenium was how much I needed them. Having this partnership has allowed me to step back and prioritize what I’m good at and not be weighed down by areas that somebody else is really passionate about and can do really well.
Ashley Carter
Critical infrastructure for growth
Now that I have Xenium, I know that HR is area that deserves support. That infrastructure is so important to any business. And Xenium is absolutely infrastructure for your business. When you invest in HR, it really seems to pave the way forward in growth in your company.
Ashley Carter
The demands of HR and Payroll are endless. We provide a complete solution for both, so you can focus on what you do best – growing your business. Read More
