Amrit Dhaliwal, founder and Chief Executive of home care franchise Walfinch, shares his personal journey from hospitality to home care, and why he his passionate about revolutionizing the sector.
What keeps me awake at night? Not much – except occasionally my two young daughters, but they are adorable, so that’s not a chore.
Being the Chief Executive of a growing home care company could be a source of worry in the early hours – but it’s not.
I’ve been heading up businesses since I was 22, and went on to own two award-winning hospitality outlets. I loved making customers happy, but I wanted to do more to change wider society for the better. I started as a franchisee in home care in 2012. By year three my turnover was £1million, but, ambitious to run my own home care franchise, I started Walfinch in 2019. We now have over 30 franchisees – and we’re working together to revolutionise home care.
It’s a big project, but I’ve learnt that there’s a practical solution to business worries: compartments.
Compartments?
I keep my business in a separate mental compartment from my family and social life, as far as I can. Occasionally I need a reminder. One night, while singing a song to one of my girls at bedtime, I found myself thinking about work. When I realised, I thought: “I need to stop this right now!”
I try to have time away from my phone, go to the gym, and ensure I have family time. I always want to be ‘in the moment’ when I’m with my wife and our girls.
Compartmentalising shouldn’t mean neglecting issues. Set them aside until a time that suits you. The problem will be there, waiting for you, but it needn’t impact on a night’s sleep.
Planning and fun
I may lie awake thinking about business, but that’s not the same as worrying. Instead, I might be planning how to achieve the home care revolution, ways to attract the best new carers, considering useful technical innovations, pondering ways to improve the bottom line for our franchisees, or how to keep up our 50% year-on-year growth.
And I find that fun.
I learnt that business can be fun as a child. My dad came to the UK from India in 1976, aged 23, with just £3. He and mum created a successful business that enabled them to retire by 52. (I’ve just made a Walking With Walfinch podcast in which I interview mum and dad about how they did it.) I learnt from them that growing a business means constant new ideas and plans, and I love that, even if sometimes it keeps me awake.
I’m convinced that even in the serious world of care, business can be fun, so when I founded Walfinch I made fun one of our values. I want work to be fun for everyone involved in Walfinch, because then that spirit will naturally be passed on to our care clients.
The Mum Test for business
We want to deliver the kind of care that you would want for your own mum. We apply what we call the ‘Mum Test’ when making decisions about care and recruiting carers, but it can be applied to the whole Walfinch business.
Are we creating a business good enough for mum to work in? That means not just making money but also making a positive social impact on our clients, our carers, our franchisees, and ultimately, on society as a whole.
I’m so convinced that the care sector can transform the quality of care in our society, at the same time as generating profits, that I have recently published a book about it: The Homecare Revolution.
If revolutionising our care sector means staying awake sometimes, it seems to me well worth it.
