HR ANSWERS HISTORY

It all started on a hard-core door over two empty, but optimistic, file cabinets in my home.  What precipitated this was my layoff after Eastmoreland General Hospital was purchased by American Healthcare Management, a for profit organization.  They started their ownership with a 21% reduction in staff, including me. After I left the hospital, I had three calls by Wednesday of the next week asking if I could help them.  One was from the very hospital I just left.  I offered the following response, “Sure, I would be happy to help you until I find a full-time job.”  I never got around to searching for that full-time position.

One evening as I was preparing some material for the next day’s appointment with a doctor’s office I was assisting, my husband said, “You are working at home in the evenings just like when you worked for the hospital.  Does this mean that this is a full-time job?”   That question was the turning point.  I thought that there were a large number of small employers who didn’t need full-time HR, and would likely encounter situations where they needed HR assistance.  So, the concept of HR Answers, Inc. was born.  As I write this, that was in 1985, forty years ago.

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