Heather Brazik Smith, Chief Human Resources Officer at BrightStar Care

Episode notes

Care for Caregivers: Bright Star Care’s CXO on Community, Consistency, and AI in Hiring Summary How do you build connection and consistency for a largely solo, non-desk workforce? Heather Bresick-Smith, Chief Experience Officer at Bright Star Care (formerly CHRO), shares how the home healthcare franchisor is reshaping employee experience across 13–14k caregivers through community, clear lanes of ownership, and smart tech. Heather breaks down the shift from HR to Experience—employee, client, and soon owner experience—plus formal change management to drive franchisee adoption. She reveals Bright Star’s new employer brand pillars—connection at our core, flexibility that fits your life, and care that starts within—and why the first 90 days are the retention tipping point. Heather details a network-wide LMS for consistent onboarding and career paths, an employee mobile app that becomes the “virtual office” for distributed caregivers, and where AI fits: sourcing, screening, scheduling, and predictive signals that prioritize highly motivated candidates with a clean human handoff.