Lynette Walbom, the new CFO of The Pennant Group Inc. (Nasdaq: PNTG), is a newcomer to the health care space. As she gets her feet underneath her, there’s a few key areas she’ll be focused on.

Those areas are all in line with Pennant’s strategy in recent years: labor, acquisitions and enabling local leaders.

“This as an opportunity for me to continue to learn and grow in my own career,” Walbom told Home Health Care News. “The industry is one where I think that there’s a lot of growth opportunity. I love the idea of being able to provide life-changing services, which is what Pennant is about.”

The Eagle, Idaho-based Pennant is a holding company of independent operating subsidiaries. Those subsidiaries are providers of home health, hospice and senior living services. Its network includes 97 home health and hospice agencies and 51 senior living communities across 14 states.

Walbom comes from the popular fast food company Raising Cane’s. During her time there, Raising Cane’s doubled its footprint. She was in charge of financial reporting, acquisitions, tax, accounting systems and equity management.

“Labor is definitely one [of the focuses],” she said. “It’s about finding the right people to be on the team and making sure that we create an experience that allows us to reduce turnover. Creating that great experience is one of the core values we have.”

While Pennant has performed well over the last few years, it has had pronounced troubles with turnover.

On the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call, Pennant COO John Gochnour said turnover had increased by 25%.

“While the pandemic has created a role in staffing difficulties in turnover across many industries, we are ultimately responsible for creating a life-changing employee experience,” Gochnour said on the call. “Our turnover results have not measured up to the highest standards we have set for ourselves.”

To curb that turnover, Walbom says that Pennant is taking a customer-second approach, in hope that retaining employees and keeping them happy with have a trickle-down effect on patient care.

“It kind of sounds counterintuitive, but when we’re providing these life changing services, we really have to focus on taking care of our employees,” she said. “And as we do that, it will reduce turnover. Turnover is a huge driver on labor costs.”

Pennant announced it was initiating a search for a new CFO and chief investment officer in November. Derek Bunker resigned from the role officially on Dec. 31, and Jennifer Freeman served as the interim CFO.

The company has grown its home health census considerably over the years through acquisitions. Walbom’s said she expects that to continue.

In May, Pennant set the goal of nurturing and developing 100 local CEOs, which Walbom will likely be playing a hand in as well.

“To earn the title of CEO, our leaders must not only achieve extraordinary clinical outcomes, culture and growth, but also drive significant financial improvement in their operation,” Pennant CEO Brent Guerisoli said during the company’s first-quarter earnings call.

Hospice News Editor Jim Parker also contributed to this article.