From System Administrator to Consultant: Team Member Q&A

Tori Reifel is a UKG Advanced Scheduling Consultant at HyBridge Solutions. Prior to joining the HyBridge team, she spent over six years working with a large regional health system, serving in many roles including Kronos system admin. We recently asked her a few questions about transitioning to the consulting world and what it’s like to be part of the HyBridge team.

How did you get into healthcare?

My aunt was a nurse, and my sister became a nurse. I always loved talking to them about it and hearing about all the cool things they do. And watching the medical shows growing up, I really got into it.

Before I dove into nursing school, I volunteered to see if I would even like working in the hospital setting, sitting with patients, delivering flowers, and cards, and I realized how much I enjoyed being around people.

After my first semester of nursing school, I became a nursing assistant to get more experience. I liked it, but I started to realize how quickly you can get burnt out.

I said to myself, I still love healthcare, but maybe clinical is not for me. I decided to go into health administration and became a staffing coordinator for the corporate pool department of a health system while finishing my degree. I was staffing and working closely with the administrators and the house supervisors, making sure every department was staffed properly across four different locations. I enjoyed the business aspect and getting to know the admins and CNOs and getting to learn a different side of healthcare.

Once I finished my degree and was ready for a full-time job, I went towards the HR route within the same health system, and they had me working with Kronos (now UKG) software. I like the puzzle aspect, configuring, and always learning something new, and it’s still in healthcare. I still get to communicate with the nurses and the staff to figure out what they need.

What made you decide to join the consulting world?

When I was doing Kronos at my previous employer, I enjoyed it, but as a system admin, there wasn’t room for me to grow. It wasn’t easy to take Kronos classes to learn more.

I’m a hands-on learner, so I learned from the other Kronos admins and poked around in the system to see what else I could do. Or I’d learn from the experiences as I brought new departments onto Advanced Scheduler.

I really wanted to grow my knowledge, and the best way for me to do that was for me to get into consulting. So I started looking around for solutions consulting roles and trying to get more experience and training.

What was your experience like as you applied for consulting positions?

Before I applied to HyBridge, I actually applied for a consulting position outside of healthcare at a large, multinational consulting firm. I went through four rounds of interviews before they ended up going with somebody else who had more experience in the private sector. That was one of my pet peeves. I was like, it’s OK if you go with somebody else. Can you just let me know instead of me hanging out for weeks between calls waiting to hear back?

I continued looking, and HyBridge posted a job opening. I applied on a Sunday, and I got a call back the next day. I loved the fact that she called me right away, not waiting two or four weeks before I get an email. I appreciated that email right away to set up a phone call. I liked that it was a quick and easy process.

We talked later that week and set up meetings with a few members of the team, and as soon as that was done, they let me know a couple days later, it was very quick. I told HyBridge at the beginning I wanted to give my current place 3-4 weeks’ notice, but the whole hiring process was very quick – 4-6 weeks – and for me that was something that I appreciated versus waiting every three weeks, and then you’re onto the next interview.

What was the biggest difference going from a healthcare organization to HyBridge?

You always have a team that you work with at any company, but I feel like the culture here is different. I really do. Everybody’s opinions or concerns are taken into consideration. Not that you go with my opinion every time, but at least you sit and listen.

I like the culture and that aspect of ‘yes, my title is VP or CEO, but if you want to drop a meeting on my calendar and have a conversation, then let’s do it.’ Compare that to super large organizations where your point is your direct supervisor, and you don’t often see the manager or talk to them.

I think the culture and the team aspect of the entire company is very cool and easy and one of my favorite things. I’ve worked places where you get an email from the CEO, but you never see them on a phone call or in a meeting, so us having our quarterly townhall meetings and just getting to have that conversation if we wanted to is very cool to me.

What do you like most about HyBridge?

I love the culture and growth opportunities, not just knowledge-wise, but position-wise. At my last job, there wasn’t a clear path to grow unless I left the full department. You’d have to go from Kronos to an HR manager. I was like, I don’t want to be in HR; I like Kronos, so just the opportunity that we have here if we wanted to go to integrations and learn more or (UKG) Timekeeping or from solutions consultant to senior solutions consultant to a team lead or whatever.

Any final thoughts?

I love it here. I don’t plan on going anywhere any time soon.