E160: Leighton Boyce - Follow where Happiness Takes You

Learn more about Leighton:  About Us | SYNERGY HomeCare of Longmont  

An Arkansas native, Leighton started her caregiver career at the young age of 12, taking care of her grandmother who suffered from dementia. She loved the time she spent with her grandmother, learning that the best way to keep calm was to not disagree or try to correct her when she didn’t know where she was or what day it was. She met her grandmother where she was, and it made all the difference in her grandmother’s quality of life.

She went to college where she studied political science and economics – a far cry from caregiving.

She was working at Whole Foods in a customer service capacity and moving up the management ladder thanks to her drive to be successful and do what needed to be done. She and her husband had transferred to a new Whole Foods in Colorado in 2015, where her husband had family.

But one day she had an epiphany. She no longer wanted to be a part of people’s obligatory errands. She wanted to be involved in something more meaningful. Like caregiving. She craved it. So she gave her notice, not knowing what she was going to do, but knowing she needed to do something different.

In 2017 she started working at SYNERGY HomeCare of Longmont as a caregiver and scheduler. She felt fulfilled and kept asking to learn more aspects of the business. After about two years, the owner approached her and said she wanted to sell her business and wanted Leighton to buy it.

“I should have been scared, terrified, even, but for some reason I wasn’t,” she said. So at the end of 2019, just before the pandemic, she became the new owner. She attacked the business from all ends and doubled the company’s revenue in the first year.

She takes a strong interest in memory care clients because it is so personal to her.

She feels that each of her clients have a wealth of experience and memories that are important to preserve and pass along to families who may not have the time to solicit themselves.

She says when we lose a life, we lose a wealth of knowledge.

Her husband works in the business with her as a caregiver.

Even as an owner, she takes shifts caregiving and can fill in when a shift is uncovered. She finds it keeps her close to the business and evens the playing field with her employees.

She believes that she and her caregivers create a symbiotic relationship with their clients. The caregivers benefit by learning from them, understanding their lives and history, while the clients benefit from highly personalized and engaged care. She also believes this connection strengthens communities by creating a shared understanding. In that regard, she says her business philosophy is to focus on community rather than the competition.

She calls her caregivers heroes and angels, but the reality is that she has provided many of them with the opportunity to excel in a career that is not often regarded highly or even seen as a career. She once helped a caregiver get a car because that was what she needed to be excellent in her job. Someone she hired was living in hotels at the time – today she is applying to be a homeowner. She hires people of all types, but the common denominator is kindness. She often finds that the people she interviews lack confidence and she encourages them to brag about themselves.

She offers a flexible and supportive work environment that recognizes that caregivers have a life and a family and hobbies outside of work. Leighton happily covers shifts if her employees have a pressing issue and can’t come to work. She has an employee value proposition:

Caregivers are whole people, with families, hobbies, and lives outside of work. We work to keep non-traditional hours and use unlimited flexibility to create a work-life fit for us and the people we love. Giving caregivers the freedom and flexibility to create their own work-life balance builds trust in our company, but it’s also just the right thing to do. That’s why flexibility is at the core of our benefits and culture.

She is also very tactful when she thinks caregiving is not the right calling for an employee. She prints out multiple job postings and suggests they look into them because she thinks they might make the employee happier. Her feeling is that if you aren’t happy in your job, it will affect your caregiving.

Leighton and her two sisters were raised by a single dad. He always told her you don’t have to go to college – be an artist, be a dancer. He saw the joy about her and never wanted her to lose that.

Family has always been important to Leighton, from caring for her grandmother to today caring for her family of caregivers. She says she has created a family in her business, in which she and her caregivers become part of the client’s family.