145 cities. 145 different arguments.
Most speakers have one talk and change the city name on the title slide. This page exists to show that is not what happens here.
Every city page on this site makes a specific claim about what is actually hard about leading people in that particular labor market. No two cities make the same claim. They are grouped below by the kind of problem they describe, so you can find the one that sounds like your organization even if your city is not on the list.
Response within one business day.
The research is the preparation.
Chris Sund runs national healthcare staffing organizations. He hires into these markets, competes for the same people your audience is competing for, and has been on the wrong side of most of the problems described below.
That is where these arguments come from. Each city page starts with something verifiable about that market, a published labor statistic, an employer concentration, a piece of geography, a demographic fact, and then works out what it actually does to a manager on a Tuesday. The result is that a room in Bismarck and a room in Baltimore do not get the same session, because they are not carrying the same problem.
Operator, Not Consultant
President and COO of national healthcare staffing organizations, making these calls rather than studying them.
Researched, Not Recycled
Every argument is checked against every other one. No two cities on this site run the same idea.
Built for the Room
Sessions are shaped around what your people are actually dealing with, not a fixed keynote with local colour added.
The market is closed
Every hire comes out of somebody else’s building, every departure is felt, and a leader’s reputation never resets.
Leaving without moving
The next employer is minutes away, so someone can quit you without changing anything else about their life. Daily experience becomes the whole retention strategy.
Nobody tells you
The signals a leader uses to check whether they are leading well are the first to go quiet. Silence gets read as agreement.
Recognition has to survive the conditions
The work itself makes being seen difficult. Recognition has to be built deliberately here or it simply does not happen.
Experience nobody reads correctly
Someone arrives already knowing how to do hard things and the organization files them at the bottom. The waste never shows up as turnover.
Getting there is part of the job
Schedules assume people can simply arrive. Geography, transit and traffic quietly decide who can hold the job at all.
The load is not constant
Demand rises and falls on a schedule everyone knows, and staffing rarely moves with it. The hard stretch becomes normal and stops being named.
Emotional labor is labor
When the job is absorbing other people’s feelings, or performing one all day, the person doing it needs somewhere the performance stops.
Meaning is not a substitute
In mission-driven work, leaders lean on purpose until it stops being support and starts being a way to end conversations.
Trust that has to be rebuilt
These workforces have been through something. They will not take a leader’s word for it the first time, and they are right not to.
Growth outran the culture
The organization added people faster than it could pass anything on. Norms that once transmitted by proximity now have to be taught on purpose.
Decided somewhere else
The people setting the terms are not in the building. Local leaders absorb the gap between a decision made elsewhere and the team living with it.
Two workforces, one organization
Part of the team has options the other part was never offered. Both groups know exactly where they stand.
Permission, not policy
The rule already exists. Whether anyone feels able to use it is decided by a supervisor, not a handbook.
Departures you can see coming
These employers know roughly when people will leave. Most treat that as a loss to absorb rather than a window to use.
The supervisor is the whole company
The larger or more dispersed the organization, the more completely one frontline leader becomes the entire employer in a person’s experience.
What the work costs the person
Some jobs ask for something that does not appear in the description. These pages are about naming it rather than assuming people will absorb it.
Inherited and imported
A reason to exist, a management system, or a way of working arrived from somewhere else. Very few organizations use the whole of it.
About this page
My city is not listed. Does that mean you cannot speak here?
Does Chris really change the talk for every city?
Where do these arguments come from?
Can Chris speak on a topic that is not on this list?
Does this apply outside healthcare?
Find the one that sounds like your organization.
Send your date, location, and audience. You will get availability and a quote back within one business day.
info@chrissund.com · 402-212-5771 · All locations · Testimonials