Michael Bowers and Bonnie Polvinale of APTA on Outsourcing HR to TPO

July 30th, 2014
Written by: TPO

TPO provided outsourced HR services to the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) during a critical management transition period. Here is what APTA CEO J. Michael Bowers and Vice President, Member Relations, Bonnie Polvinale, had to say about the value of working with TPO.

J. Michael Bowers, CEO of APTA

I joined APTA as CEO several months ago, and in my experience TPO has been consummately professional. The fact that TPO served as our outsourced HR function actually helped with my transition to the CEO role. Having someone who had been there and was able to help onboard me—and who also had an outside perspective—gave me deeper insight into APTA’s challenges and priorities. TPO brought objectivity and independence.

It has been invaluable to have someone here with an outside set of eyes and expertise who can solve a problem.  TPO has helped us understand what we do well and what we can do better.  And we have a lot of plans moving forward based on work that TPO has done.

Bonnie Polvinale, VP of Member Relations and former Acting CEO of APTA

When we were considering what to do with our HR function, we were not only having challenges in HR, but we knew we were going to have a change at the CEO level.  In fact, I was the acting CEO at that time.  So we decided the best approach was to hire a company that could serve as our HR function on an interim basis, rather than hire a full-time employee.

In talking to several HR consulting firms, we found that TPO’s CEO Dana Papke stood out as being very professional and very knowledgeable. And we had a sense just by getting to know Dana that TPO was a good environment—and that one of their consultants would probably be a good fit for our organization.

We also felt TPO was a good size—not a “mega” company where we’d get lost in the shuffle.   What also impressed us was the onboarding process they use when bringing on their consultants.  It showed a depth of thinking that we liked.  I wouldn’t hesitate to refer other organizations to TPO.