What Happens When 160 Employees Go Missing Overnight?

Summary: What do you do when your hospitals flood, 160 employees go missing, and you realize there’s no playbook? You rewrite the rules. Austin Maggard shares how Appalachian Regional turned two back-to-back disasters into a culture-defining transformation and why HR became the backbone of resilience.Chapters: 00:00 – Generational workforce shifts at ARH03:23 – What rural healthcare really looks like06:52 – Why documenting culture became mission-critical10:14 – Chick-fil-A vs. McDonald’s: A service consistency lesson13:42 – How Disney influenced ARH’s culture strategy17:00 – The 2022 flood: 160 employees unaccounted for20:28 – Helicopters, horseback, and healthcare chaos24:05 – The emotional toll and operational breakdown27:32 – What the second flood exposed: A trust gap31:03 – “This wasn’t a logistics failure. It was a leadership one.”34:40 – Building a distribution system for disaster relief37:56 – How HR became the heart of recovery41:22 – Turning pain into process: Making resilience portable45:00 – Aligning every decision to the culture statement48:14 – Final reflections on leadership, humility, and legacyHost Alexa Beavers: linkedin.com/in/alexabeaverspmpGuest Austin Maggard: linkedin.com/in/amaggardExecutive Producer Jim Kanichirayil: linkedin.com/in/drjimk Music Credit: "Lost in Dreams" by Kulakovka