By Jeff Holmes
When Coralville chiropractor Mary Audia needed to hire a new person to manage her office, she decided to take a different approach.
“I went on Craigslist and placed a help-wanted ad for a ‘Front Desk Dynamo,’” Dr. Audia said. “And I found one!”
“I read the ad,” said Pam Freund, “and decided, ‘hey, I can be a Front Desk Dynamo.’ And here I am.”
Ms. Freund and Dr. Audia make up the entire staff of Corridor Chiropractic in Coralville, the second-ranked small business on the 2014 Corridor Business Journal’s Coolest Places to Work.
“We do very good work,” Ms. Freund said, “but we also have a lot of fun, too.
“You should have seen our Halloween costumes,” she added. “And we made May baskets for our patients on May 1.”
“We have a newsletter that we send out to our patients,” Dr. Audia said. “We want it to be a positive place to be, a great experience for everyone.”
Dr. Audia’s bedside manner also makes Corridor Chiropractic a cool place.
“She is such a kind and thoughtful person, not to just me as her employee, but most importantly, to the many patients we serve. She knows each of them on a personal level. A day does not go by without laughter, words of thanks, words of encouragement and the desire to do our best,” Ms. Freund said in her nomination form.
There are a lot of advantages to having such a small staff.
“Oh, we take walking meetings,” Ms. Freund said. “And lunch meetings and shopping meetings.”
“The big thing is that we have fun,” Dr. Audia said. “I have always felt that a positive attitude is so important to good health and that’s what we do here. Laughter really is the best medicine.
“Places of business can be so stuffy sometimes,” she added, “especially in health care. People answer the phone and they are so unhappy. When you call a doctor’s office you already don’t feel well – why should the person you talk to make you feel worse?”
