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Uncomplicating HR: Making Workplace Compliance Accessible with Mindy Flanigan | Staffing Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories where leaders
0:07
share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
0:10
how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
0:13
they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
0:18
the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their
0:21
experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
0:24
by how they've overcome adversity.
0:26
My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and today's guest is Mindy Flanagan.
0:30
Mindy is the founder and chief inspiration officer at Inspiring
0:34
HR. They are HR done differently.
0:38
They uncomplicate human resources and empower small
0:41
businesses. They help you run your small
0:43
business better by taking the guesswork out of HR policies and
0:47
procedures. Working with Inspiring HR,
0:50
you'll get a dedicated HR consultant, personalized
0:54
solutions, prompt responses to your questions, and no complex
0:58
jargon or unnecessary legalese. You can find them online at
1:02
inspiringh-r.com. Interesting to note, the 1st 45
1:06
minutes are always free with them, so if you have a burning
1:09
HR question, contact them at inspiringh-r.com to get a free
1:14
opinion. They also have a rather
1:17
interesting and industry unique response guarantee where if you
1:21
call them by 3:00 PM, you will get a call back before the end
1:25
of the same day. And we're also going to get to
1:28
hear about both of her radio shows.
1:30
But before we get into all that good stuff, today's episode is
1:32
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1:36
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1:39
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1:59
Now back to our guest today, Mindy and again founder of
2:02
Inspiring HRI appreciate you making the time to Share your
2:04
story today. Thank you very much.
2:06
Inspiring HR inspired stories. I was super excited about this.
2:10
Marriage made in heaven? Yep.
2:12
So what first got you interested in the human resources field?
2:15
How did you find your way to this?
2:17
I it was, I had just aced tax accounting at the end of my
2:22
sophomore year, and I did. I was invited to take part in an
2:27
internship with a grocery company in Syracuse, NY, and
2:34
that internship was in the employee relations department my
2:38
dad was in. I don't even remember what it
2:42
was called then. We we'd call it the IT
2:43
department now. I guess it was the computer
2:45
department back then. I don't know.
2:48
I think back then sometimes they were under VO tech but I'm not
2:50
sure. Something like that.
2:52
Anyway. My dad was the kind of guy that
2:54
he could, they'd call him at 3:00 AM to say something was
2:57
down and he could cite code off the top of his head, which was
3:00
just fascinating to me. Anyway, he got me an internship
3:02
and he was the computer person for everything payroll.
3:06
So because of his influence in the payroll department, payroll
3:09
said employee relations needs an intern for the summer.
3:11
And he got me in there. Anyway, I loved it mostly
3:14
because I had my first taste of a director of what was personnel
3:19
and employee relations. That's how long ago it was.
3:23
And. Why?
3:23
Why do you point that out? That's.
3:25
Because we don't call a different vernacular now.
3:27
Yeah, yeah. HR.
3:29
I don't. I got to look up when personnel
3:31
went away and HR became a real deal.
3:33
Probably when the Society for Human Resource Management
3:36
started to grow. Grow.
3:37
But anyway, this director of the department really took me under
3:41
his wing. I'm not sure why his name was
3:43
John Pearce. I'm forever grateful.
3:45
And he just, he saw something in me and invited me to store
3:49
openings and taught me how to interview associates.
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And I don't, there's, I don't know, there was just something
3:57
that worked. So I went back to college at the
3:59
beginning of my junior year and I said to my mentor, Wanda
4:03
Spruill, my my accounting mentor, I'm changing my major to
4:08
HR, which then was personnel and Labor Relations.
4:12
And she said, are you crazy? You just ace tax accounting.
4:15
Here's what you should do. Get the four year degree in
4:18
accounting and then get your master's in personnel and Labor
4:21
Relations. And I said, you misunderstand.
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I have no intention of going to extra college.
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So I switched my major and graduated with the personnel and
4:32
Labor Relations degree That that accounting background though, I
4:36
had no idea it would serve me well in the future, in my future
4:40
years. And then I got a payroll job and
4:43
realized I didn't know anything. Specifically about payroll.
4:48
Payroll job, which is if you want to be any good at your job,
4:51
you, you learn wage and hour laws pretty quick.
4:55
And it happened to be with an entity that eventually put me
4:58
out into HR consulting field role and everything just kind of
5:03
grew from there. I'm going to ask you because I
5:06
just had a conversation recently with somebody who mentioned some
5:11
complications with FLSA and by I mean.
5:16
A lot of time around since 1938 and no one understands it still.
5:21
OK, enlighten us what? What's going on with FLSA that
5:24
has so many companies? Well, what you want to talk
5:27
future, we want to talk right now or you want to talk 1938 to
5:32
right? Now, right, right now, because
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I'm hearing a lot of concerns about bonuses and overtime and
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like what, what's going on there?
5:40
Break it down for the layperson. Well, what's going on with
5:44
bonuses and overtime has always been misunderstood, so let's
5:48
just put that to a side for one second.
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The biggest area of confusion right now for the Fair Labor
5:53
Standards Act is what is the minimum salary actually going to
5:58
be on January 1st that qualifies someone to be exempt from
6:04
overtime. And remember, for all your
6:08
listeners, I say everyone's been getting this wrong since 1938
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because since 1938, still to this day, there are tons and
6:15
tons and tons of business owners and leaders who believe that if
6:20
you make somebody's salary, that's it, they're exempt from
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overtime. That is not correct.
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Salary is only one of multiple boxes you have to check off to
6:31
be exempt from overtime. There's a duties test, and this
6:34
is where we get into layered, complicated federal government
6:38
regulations. All well intended, but I'll be
6:40
honest, they suck. You have to pull up the Fair
6:43
Labor Standards fact sheets to understand by position, not by
6:47
person, who does or who does not qualify to be exempt from
6:50
overtime. So this minimum salary, it went
6:53
up as of July 1st and it's supposed to go up again to
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somewhere in the neighborhood of 55 to $56,000 on January 1st.
7:04
But we're embarking on an election.
7:06
I don't know if you knew that. Here we are, what, just six days
7:10
away from the. Federal judges over the last few
7:14
months, somewhere in the arena of debate everything out that
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says they're not. Wait a minute.
7:20
We're not so sure the Department of Labor even has the power to
7:23
set a minimum salary, which is a really interesting position to
7:26
take since they've been doing it since 1938.
7:30
So anyway, the new amount, I think in July 1st, without me
7:34
toggling over to look it up, I apologize, was somewhere in the
7:37
neighborhood of $48,000 minimum to be exempt from overtime.
7:41
And then you have to pass a duties test that bump from 48 to
7:45
55 or 56,000 January 1. That's that's pretty significant
7:49
for a lot of small businesses that may have employees rate in
7:52
it. They already had to bump people
7:55
up before July 1. So another bump come January 1.
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Everyone's wondering, I already got 2 calls this morning about
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what's going to happen on January 1st.
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And I'm like, if I knew that I would play the Powerball.
8:07
So I don't know. It's just keep, keep an eye on
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it. That's the major confusion right
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now. Like what's next with the Fair
8:14
Labor Standards Act Now getting back to exempt versus non
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exempt. Here's where people get
8:21
confused. If you are, if you talk about
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overtime, you mentioned bonuses and overtime, correct?
8:29
OK, take that example that I just raised where paying a
8:35
salary does not automatically mean you're exempt from
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overtime, right? You can pay a salary to a non
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exempt employee, but you still have to track their hours.
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And when they work more than 40 hours in a standard seven day
8:49
period, you have to break that salary down to an hourly rate
8:53
and pay them time and a half. So there's wage payment
8:56
obligations, there's record keeping obligations.
8:59
And this is what gets spelled out in all these Fair Labor
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Standards Act fact sheets that you can find at dol.gov.
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They're terribly painful to read, but I would much rather
9:09
look over these fact sheets and scan through what my obligations
9:12
are, then read the legalese that came out of the federal
9:15
government that is far more detailed and complex than what
9:19
these fact sheets will basically guide you on.
9:21
And there's a fact sheet for the Fair Labor Standards Act,
9:23
There's fact sheets for complying with OSHA laws.
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There's fact sheets with complying with the Family
9:28
Medical Leave Act. And a lot of our clients don't
9:31
even want to read those, So but we use that as a tool to give
9:35
them the basics of what applies to them and the specific thing
9:38
they're asking about. Yeah, well, that was a fun
9:42
little tangent to go off on. Get a little bit super nerdy.
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There for discretionary versus non discretionary bonuses.
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We'll save that for another time.
9:51
Okay, well, but I think it's fun to do that because it really
9:54
helps to highlight the depth of your expertise.
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You just rattling off things that most employers they have no
10:01
idea about. So if there were a question of
10:03
why do I need HR help, like, you know, I've got a payroll person
10:06
in house, well, here you go. There are all kinds of potential
10:10
things that you may be exposed to that you have no idea about
10:13
and so. Now what I advocate for for
10:15
small businesses is we'd love to have your business, but I also
10:19
don't want you wasting your money if the Fair Labor
10:22
Standards Act and compliance is really your only worry right
10:25
now. And you do have an in house
10:26
payroll person, whether you're outsourcing some of that payroll
10:31
tax liabilities to a small or large entity and they're giving
10:35
you the software you need to process payroll and have access
10:38
to direct deposit, You might have Fair Labor Standards Act
10:41
compliance expertise with that payroll company.
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I certainly would ask. Or you may have hired an
10:46
internal payroll person that has their CPP that's a certified
10:52
payroll professional. If you're a certified payroll
10:55
professional, in order to pass that test, you're supposed to
10:58
know the stuff. Now, does everybody apply it
11:01
correctly? I don't know.
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But you should have reasonable confidence that if you've hired
11:05
a payroll professional in house and they're CPP certified, they
11:09
for the most part should know how to navigate, navigate the
11:13
basics of Fair Labor Standards at compliance and how to set
11:16
people up correctly in the HRIS system to reflect complying with
11:19
those standards. And if you're not sure, as we
11:22
mentioned in the intro, you've got a free 45 minute evaluation
11:26
that you'll do for somebody new, so.
11:28
Yeah. When we say we support small
11:30
businesses, we mean it all the way down to we might be a right
11:34
fit for you, you might not be ready for us, but we take
11:38
seriously being good stewards of your dollars.
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Small business owners have thin margins.
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We want to make sure that when you sign up with our services,
11:44
it's a win win and we can add value.
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And sometimes that means saying now you more need us in a year.
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If fair Liver standards act in this instance is all you worry
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about, I'd I'd leverage your current payroll person a little
11:57
bit more on that plan matter and have them call us direct if they
12:00
have questions. Yeah.
12:02
So Mindy, what was you kind of gave us a little bit of intro
12:05
into what got you into the HR field to begin with?
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What inspired you to start Inspiring HR to start your own
12:13
company providing these services?
12:15
Having a baby. All right, let's hear about
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that. Well, I'm, I, I got married late
12:22
because I really love to work. I really do.
12:25
I love to work. I love to lead.
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Never thought I'd love entrepreneurship quite this
12:29
much, although there are days it is certainly quite taxing.
12:32
Like learning QuickBooks, for instance.
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Yeah, I never thought when I started inspiring HR at some
12:40
point I'd I would be pulling my hair out over QuickBooks
12:43
something or other at 10:30 at night it's supposed to make.
12:47
Our lives easier, yeah. I was really, I was really
12:54
worried after I had my baby prematurely.
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I, I've told this story on a couple other podcasts, but it
13:01
really is true. Everybody, every once in a while
13:03
you have these epiphany moments in your life where you decide to
13:06
pivot in the moment. And it was the right call.
13:08
So I had a very difficult pregnancy.
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We were not going to have any others.
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It was that difficult and I did what type A people do and I'm
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HR. I should know better.
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I was working during FMLA. I'm out on FMLA and I'm still
13:25
working, not full time but you know the computer sits there and
13:29
you're home. So I parked myself in front of
13:32
my desk in probably like week 8 of out of 12 of FMLA and my
13:38
little baby propped up with a blanket in her little swing next
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to my desk because she was still so tiny, was swinging away there
13:47
sound asleep. And halfway through my work, I
13:49
looked at the computer and I looked at her and I shivered and
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I thought, I can't go back to work.
13:54
This kid will never know me if I go back to work because I just
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at I will. I have to create.
14:01
I had to. I was motivated to create an
14:03
opportunity for myself where I called the shots with boundaries
14:07
and I'm not great at it. But when another company calls
14:11
the shots with boundaries and they know I'm type A and I'll
14:13
get it done, there's just too much risk of what should be a 45
14:18
hour a week turns into a 65 hour a week job.
14:22
It's it's a bad mix for me in corporate America.
14:24
I mean, I'm sure they loved it for a period of time because I
14:27
gave my heart and soul and anything they needed.
14:29
But when your family needs you at a certain juncture in your
14:33
life, you just, you have to say, can I make that sacrifice
14:35
anymore? And in that instance, I just
14:37
couldn't. So my husband came home and put
14:39
his stuff down on the table and I walked into the kitchen and he
14:42
said I'm not going back to work. And he said OK.
14:46
And I did the stay at home thing for about 18 months.
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But during that 18 months, I was figuring out what's next.
14:52
And what's next became Inspiring HR when we relocated to Richmond
14:56
IN May of 2006 and I launched Inspiring HR in July of 2007.
15:02
And so you were home for 18 months.
15:05
Was your intent at the beginning of that 18 months to truly never
15:08
go back to work or just not go back into corporate and you were
15:11
trying to figure out how to do your own thing?
15:14
The latter, yeah. Did I?
15:16
Did I really I I was a really reflective 18 months.
15:21
And I learned during that time that I really love to work it.
15:23
I really do. It gives me a great sense of
15:25
self. And I think what I realized in
15:28
all of that isn't just the work. I really love leadership.
15:30
I love leading people. I love leading other HR
15:33
professionals to be better than they think they can be.
15:37
And part of when I started inspiring HR was gratitude for
15:41
the fact that I felt like I had a well-rounded grasp of general
15:47
business practices and also highly skilled at HR.
15:51
And I believed to be credible at the table in my profession, you
15:56
have to have an under general understanding of business
15:59
climate, business functions, and be skilled at HR if you really
16:04
want an effective, credible seat at the strategy table.
16:08
Anyway, that's that. And that's who I hire, the
16:10
people that are motivated to be great business professionals
16:16
with a high level of HR skill because I think that adds the
16:19
most value and is the best ambassador for a profession
16:22
going forward. I want to go back to those 18
16:25
months at home. My, my wife went through
16:29
something similar and we had our first kid.
16:31
She decided to stay home for a bit.
16:33
And then she realized how much she missed her job.
16:37
She, you know, she'd, she'd gotten a lot of education.
16:40
She put a lot of time into becoming really good at what she
16:42
does. She'd missed the people that she
16:44
worked with. And she had this, this nagging
16:47
guilt, call it mom guilt, where it's like, why am I drawn to go
16:53
back to work? Why don't I want to be here full
16:55
time with my kids? She really struggled with that.
16:57
It's so real. OK, you experienced the same
17:00
thing. That's.
17:01
What I was going to, Yeah. And for all of that guilt and
17:05
reflecting, which often meant I was out on a long walk with the
17:09
stroller trying to get some fresh air, figuring out what's
17:12
next. It's that horrible dilemma of
17:14
you're looking at your baby and you know, you did the right
17:17
thing, but there's a very loud bell of something's missing.
17:22
And then you lay the guilt on top of that of not providing
17:25
monetarily for your family. It, you know, and you look at,
17:29
you always look at these kids and you, the first thing you
17:31
think is how are we paying for college?
17:33
It's like they're nine months old.
17:34
Why are you even thinking about that?
17:35
Because that's what proactive planners do.
17:38
How are we paying for, you know, I even back then I was like
17:42
thinking like, how are we funding retirement?
17:44
Like, how are we, how are we, how are we?
17:46
So, you know, there, there are all these polls.
17:48
But yeah, that that was very real.
17:50
But it made me reflect on really, what did I miss the
17:52
most? And I went through an exercise
17:55
for about a month where on those days where I was feeling real
17:57
pain, what did I miss the most? And it sort of helped me discern
18:01
and make a choice on which way am I going here?
18:04
Am I going back to work in some capacity with an employer or I'm
18:09
again do it myself? And the things that resonated
18:12
for me the most, the two things I missed the most was
18:17
relationship building with clients and leading others.
18:21
And both of those spoke in favor of starting my own consulting
18:26
practice. And So what were the first
18:29
steps? How did you get the first
18:32
client? What did you do right out of the
18:35
gate? Went to networking events so I
18:38
mentioned the gift of a well-rounded business
18:41
background. So my pay, that payroll job I
18:45
mentioned earlier was in the PEO industry.
18:47
You're a benefits person. I'm sure you're familiar with
18:50
the PEO industry. Explain it please, for our
18:52
listeners. Professional employer
18:54
organization used to be employee leasing back in the 1980s.
19:00
Been an interesting ride and an industry I have not been able to
19:04
extricate myself from even today because one of our largest
19:09
clients is APEO where we are the HR department for their
19:13
companies. That's not the totality of our
19:15
business, but it is part of how we work.
19:19
PEO is a in essence a one stop shop for payroll, payroll tax,
19:24
minute management, benefits, risk management, work comp and
19:30
HR. So and every PEO is different in
19:32
terms of how they define and staff HR support services.
19:37
I have a strong opinion on what adds value and what doesn't,
19:41
which is why we don't work with a lot of PE OS.
19:45
There are certain PE OS that have decided to invest in a real
19:48
HR consultant experience with our standards for their client
19:51
community. But for those who aren't
19:53
familiar with PEO, it's it's had its problems over the years.
19:59
But where I see a really good match for the companies that are
20:02
thinking about PEO is these distributed workforces that have
20:06
become a reality since COVID. You have to really be discerning
20:11
on is this PEO really offering what we need for what they're
20:15
going to charge us. And that I would say look
20:18
carefully at that sales process to be sure.
20:21
But you, you sign up. When you sign a service
20:24
agreement with the PEO, you are granting them the right to be
20:27
the source of the wage, the EOR, the employer of record.
20:31
And in that service agreement, there is language that says in
20:35
this relationship what the PEO is responsible for and what you
20:38
are responsible for. And in the simplest form, PEO is
20:43
responsible for a multitude of things as the sponsoring
20:48
employee, including where states allow it.
20:51
Your employees go under their state unemployment tax account,
20:56
and they're supposed to be this savings by the pooling of
20:59
employees under a single account.
21:01
But that's all been parsed apart with regulations as of late.
21:04
But there's always that definition of worksite control,
21:07
cause the PEO generally is not going to tell you who to hire,
21:09
who to fire. And they do expect you to comply
21:13
with labor laws as an element of good the business practices and
21:17
risk mitigation. But then it begs the question,
21:20
do they have the services in place to help you comply with
21:25
your compliance obligations? And what are they offering you
21:29
in terms of what is helping you attract and keep the right
21:32
talent for what your business needs present and going forward?
21:36
So, so it's it's a really interesting if you like a one
21:40
stop shop for multiple things you are want to outsource PE OS
21:44
can add a tremendous value, but you've got to be put a very
21:47
close discerning eye on. What are the things to look out
21:51
for? Like you said, people go into it
21:53
thinking they're going to save money on workers comp.
21:55
Is that? Yeah.
21:56
That's not always the case any longer.
21:57
That was the case years ago. What's changed that makes that
22:02
not the case in? It really depends on the PEO
22:06
because if you think about it, the PE OS that have mediocre
22:13
director of risk management that might not have the influence in
22:16
the buying power when they go to the table with any of these
22:19
carriers to, to get a plan set up.
22:24
I don't know. It depends where, who's the
22:25
who's got the relationships to make sure you can actually put a
22:28
good master work comp policy together.
22:31
And then you have to look at what states you're operating in
22:33
because there's some states that will not recognize the PE OS
22:36
work comp policy. Ohio and the state of Washington
22:40
are two. They're considered monopolistic.
22:44
So if you're a company, if you're a company that has
22:46
presence in Washington or Ohio and you're working with a PEO,
22:50
you might not have heard during the sales process that you can't
22:53
go under the PE. The PEO cannot be the employer
22:56
of record for state unemployment and work comp in those two
22:59
states. You're still going to have to
23:00
have your own accounts. So it begs the question, is
23:03
there something you can sign that allows the PEO to act as an
23:06
authorized agent for you? But you're still going to have
23:08
to have your own accounts in the states that recognize the PEO.
23:12
You can actually close your state unemployment account or
23:15
continue to file that. I have zero employees because
23:19
those employees are under the PE OS federal ID number, not yours
23:23
when you engage in a traditional PEO relationship.
23:25
So. So you mentioned that maybe if
23:29
you're a company with a distributed workforce that a PEO
23:31
could make sense. Would that be because there's so
23:34
many different tax rates for different jurisdictions and
23:38
different laws, and they're hard for the average employer to
23:40
keep? Up with yeah, it's just the
23:42
multiple state unemployment accounts in itself.
23:45
It's just it's a pain. Yeah, so and hopefully they
23:49
would they would get you some savings.
23:51
The other mistake I see is we go into the PEO and then we decide
23:56
we don't like them and we're going to break up with them and
23:59
you break up with the And that's fine, I get it, the PEO may have
24:02
not satisfied your service expectations.
24:04
But be very careful about when you break up with the PEO
24:08
because you and the executive team being mad at the PEO when
24:11
you break up with them, what kind of shrapnel is falling down
24:15
to your accounting and controller team, right?
24:18
You unravel from a PEO in the middle of the year.
24:21
You've now just created an instance where your employees
24:24
are going to get 2 W twos at the end of the year and all of that
24:27
state unemployment. If you distributed workforce and
24:30
all 10 state unemployment accounts were being managed by
24:33
the PEO and now they're not your employer of record anymore, you
24:36
had an accounting team that's going to have to reopen and
24:38
recreate all 10 accounts going forward.
24:42
It's just it's, it's not something I would do quickly
24:44
without planning. So if you want to transition in
24:46
or out of a POPEO, the right move is to do it Jan 1, January
24:51
1 starting. Yeah, there's tremendous, I've
24:53
seen tremendous value for people who want to plan ahead to work
24:57
with independent PEO brokers that help you make an informed
25:01
choice on who really does meet your needs.
25:04
And there's also consultants out there that help you plan ahead
25:06
for breaking up with your PEO because you've decided you're
25:09
just going to bring it all in house, which I don't totally
25:12
understand because you know, I'm, I know how to run payroll
25:15
and I would never do payroll internally.
25:17
There's too much personal fiduciary risk and task task
25:21
risk with that for a small amount of money, you should at
25:23
least be outsourcing payroll to somebody who assumes the payroll
25:26
tax management liability and risk for you.
25:29
So, so this was a really long way for me to get to my point of
25:33
what about, I think you asked me what about the consulting part
25:36
or how did I know consulting? What was it you asked?
25:39
How did I know consulting was right for me?
25:41
And I told you I got really good well-rounded business skills in
25:45
the PEO industry because I got to be around sales people for a
25:49
period of time when I was out in the field and partnering with
25:53
salespeople to close deals and listen to pain points with small
25:56
business owners and then be the field HR consultant that became
26:00
their account manager. I loved all that relationship
26:03
building. I really did.
26:05
And in there were times that these salespeople asked me to go
26:07
to their BNI meeting for them. And, and that's where I learned
26:10
how to network early on. This is well long before I
26:14
thought I would start a business of my own, but I wasn't
26:18
uncomfortable doing the networking and I did that for
26:22
from 2007. First client probably came six
26:27
months later, but it was a slow go and this business was part
26:30
time for me. I wanted the business to grow.
26:33
As my daughter grew, it outpaced her, which I'm incredibly
26:37
grateful for, mostly because the, you know, my connections in
26:41
the PEO industry meant we got to start working with a PEO as
26:45
early as 2009. But for as many of those PEO
26:48
clients that we work with, we have just as many now non PEO
26:52
clients that elect our our monthly service plans, which is
26:55
really our primary offering. Let's talk about those monthly
26:58
service plans. I see them listed here on your
27:00
website. Tell me how these plans work and
27:02
the value that the clients are receiving.
27:05
We call people back. That's novel.
27:10
No, I'm kidding. No, I'm kind of kidding.
27:12
Not really. It's funny to me that that's a
27:14
competitive advantage. But I mean, I can say even
27:17
personally, I have been trying to find a trim Carpenter for my
27:20
new townhouse for at least six months.
27:23
And I finally reached out to somebody from somebody that
27:26
somebody referred me and I said he emailed me back same day
27:30
after I filled out the contact us form.
27:31
And I was shocked. And he actually said I'll see
27:34
you on Friday at 9:30. And yes, all of our business
27:37
over the last 12 months has merely been because people said
27:40
their contractors aren't calling them back.
27:42
That's it. That's their whole client base,
27:45
so I don't know what's going on with not calling people back,
27:47
but that's not really the total value of our service plans.
27:50
What I'm most proud of speaks to what I learned in the PEO
27:53
industry and still rings true today.
27:55
As much as we love technology, small business owners or those
28:00
they delegate to that are in real pain and need something
28:04
solved. They don't want to call a call
28:05
center and they don't want to deal with a chat bot.
28:07
They actually want to talk to a live human that cares about the
28:11
relationship being built between the two of them.
28:15
It is a We are a customized service based business where we
28:19
want to be as easy to work with as possible.
28:21
And that means a dedicated HR consultant that you have access
28:25
to that becomes very much a champion of your success and the
28:29
success of the company you're working with.
28:31
That's I mean, I can go over all the nice bells and whistles in
28:34
the service plans and they're priced differently to pay, you
28:37
know, based on the complexity of your operations.
28:40
You know, the more states up you operate in, the more complicated
28:43
you are. The nice thing that we do
28:45
outside of the relationship burning building is we eliminate
28:49
that burden of what newsletters am I subscribing to to make a
28:53
decent attempt to understand what labor law compliance
28:57
obligations my business faces and when they change, because
29:02
state labor laws change all the time now and we alleviate that
29:07
burden. And instead of saying here, read
29:09
this newsletter and figure out what applies to you, we actually
29:12
do that for you. We say, hey, this labor law is
29:17
coming, this is how it affects you and here's what we are going
29:21
to do for you. And make sure your HR
29:24
infrastructure stays current with this change.
29:26
And it normally means updating their employee handbook at no
29:29
cost. We include that in their Service
29:31
plan. So we charge to create the
29:34
employee handbook. But if it needs to be updated
29:36
because a labor law has changed, we do that at no, no cost.
29:40
That's considered document maintenance as a part of this
29:44
monthly Service plan fee that you pay us.
29:47
You know, as a small business owner, I could see one of these
29:50
packages almost serving like a a sleeping pill for me.
29:54
Like helps me sleep at night. Like there's so much going on.
29:59
Like when I was talking to a client the other day about FLSA,
30:01
I'd never heard of that before. And the, the, the lawsuits that
30:05
are happening around, you know, bonuses and overtime.
30:08
And it's like, Oh my gosh. And no idea.
30:11
That's these rat nests that exist sort of behind the scenes
30:14
when I'm trying to do the right thing.
30:17
And so having somebody like you behind the scenes that you're
30:20
keeping an eye on all that. I'm keeping an eye on all of
30:22
that, but we also don't know what we don't know, which is why
30:25
routine Q&A is also also included in those monthly plans.
30:30
Why? Because if you're calling a
30:32
dedicated HR consultant who certified an HR, if you've got
30:37
an HR basics question like do I do this?
30:40
Do I not do this? What is this law requiring of
30:43
me? You know, that's stuff we can
30:45
answer for you off the top of our head.
30:46
And I, we want you to call us because we want to build that
30:49
relationship. We want to be a credible support
30:51
partner for you because we don't want you A feeling like you're
30:53
on the clock every time you call your that's not us.
30:58
And B I, I please don't search Google or ChatGPT for answers to
31:04
this stuff. You're not necessarily going to
31:05
get the right answer. And particularly if you're
31:07
asking a wage an hour question, ChatGPT might give you the right
31:11
answer based on federal law. But if you're operating in any
31:15
what we call Tier 3 or Tier 4 states that are highly
31:18
regulated, Colorado, Washington, California, New York, Chet GPT
31:23
is not going to give you the right.
31:25
So far as we've tested state labor law compliance answer.
31:30
And when state labor laws are more generous or more
31:33
restrictive than federal law, state law, and then sometimes
31:37
local law prevails. And I tell you, as much as I
31:41
love AI too, it's not don't rely on it as it's giving you the
31:46
perfect answer. It is a tool to a path to the
31:49
answer. But I make sure you're getting a
31:52
credible answer as a basis for whatever decision you're going
31:55
to make. Well, and as I look at your
31:56
plans here on your website, like the price very reasonably, you
32:00
know, I mean, the, the lowest tier plan, you're looking at a
32:02
sign up fee of $150.00, a monthly fee of 119.
32:05
Now they're higher tier plans that have more services, you
32:09
know, more complexities involved in them.
32:11
But you know, at a base like that, like I, I, I liken it to a
32:15
sleeping pill and that's a rather inexpensive, a way to
32:18
help you sleep at night. And then people who are in these
32:22
plans, then they have access to you for the more customized
32:27
needs that they have, right? Yeah, so what's nice too, beyond
32:31
that 119 plan, which is just our basic plan, you know, less than
32:34
25 employees, one state not named California or New York.
32:37
Sorry. Those are the Tier 4 states,
32:39
folks. I can't help it.
32:41
Talk to the legislators in those states.
32:43
The reason those states are more expensive is on the averages.
32:47
If an HR consultant is having to stay on top of Labor law changes
32:50
in those states, 4 * a year at least that we have to invest
32:54
labor cost into paying attention to what's the latest and
32:57
greatest coming out of those legislatures and how often do we
33:01
need to tell those clients in those States and how often
33:03
things need to be updated. So they're very fluid states,
33:06
but if you're not in those States and you're only in one
33:09
state, less than 25 employees, you're not all that complicated.
33:12
But you probably don't have a lot of HR right now, and you
33:16
haven't totally discerned what the path is to building up an HR
33:20
infrastructure that sustains you as you scale.
33:24
Because at some point you may have plans to be 5075 employees.
33:28
I promise you it is much easier to create the HR infrastructure
33:33
when you're small and growing than it is to say clean up this
33:37
mess when it's 50 to 75 employees.
33:41
So that's where a lot of our clients in that lower plan find
33:44
value is they will budget with us over 234 year period of time
33:49
for us to lead those projects that become a positive deposit
33:52
into their maturing HR infrastructure.
33:55
Handbooks, job descriptions, hiring checklists, off boarding
34:00
checklist, maybe some frontline HR basics training for leaders.
34:04
Because at some point when you grow, you need leaders to not
34:08
know HR granularly, but you need them to understand it enough to
34:11
know where the red flags are and ask for help.
34:14
So we help connect all those those dots with some HR
34:17
infrastructure that they they will start to depend on, which
34:20
ultimately makes them a more effective leader.
34:23
Mindy, what would you say is the most common issue that you see
34:26
when onboarding a new client? Like, oh, Yep, this is what we
34:30
see with most of our folks. We got to go in and clean this
34:33
up right away. You know, everyone's just
34:35
everyone rolls their eyes at the handbook and like, I, yeah, I
34:39
get it's a bummer, too. Doesn't have to be.
34:43
They normally come to us with a handbook that says we put a lot
34:46
of time and effort into this handbook and by the way, it was
34:49
expensive. And we look at it and we're
34:50
like, OK, it's out of date. And who would read this?
34:54
It's full of legalese, right? It looks intimidating.
34:59
It is a bear to read. Why?
35:03
Because somewhere in the neighborhood of their general
35:06
practice attorney, I'm sure well meaning saw a $2500 to $3000
35:12
opportunity to give them a handbook.
35:15
And no, it just sits up on the shelf.
35:18
It checked the box that they had a handbook.
35:21
No one reads it, no one understands it.
35:23
It became outdated. Yet you bring it to the table to
35:27
say, is this current? And the idea of us saying this
35:30
can't be saved, start over is painful to them.
35:32
They wrote a big check for that and put a lot of thought in that
35:35
being created. But that we for us to actually
35:41
fix what's outdated 9 times out of 10 ends up being more
35:45
expensive than just starting from scratch with our legally
35:49
vetted template. And I say our legally vetted
35:51
template because we deal with reasonable employment law
35:55
attorneys around here where we say we want to simplify this
35:59
anti harassment policy down to the way a normal person would
36:05
read it and understand what is and is not acceptable behavior
36:08
in the workplace and where they report these concerns.
36:13
And that's it. Like get all this legal ease out
36:16
of here. It is not necessary.
36:18
We just want to make sure employees feel welcomed.
36:21
Understand your culture and your brand.
36:24
Understand generally what's expected of them.
36:26
And if it's not in the handbook where they can find information
36:29
related to whatever question they have when they open the
36:31
handbook up. I don't know why all this
36:33
legalese and looking like it reads like a contract and
36:37
intimidating stuff needs. It sounds like a lot of people
36:40
are just creating the handbook to check the legal box.
36:42
Make sure we're taking care of, not.
36:44
A legal document, that's the thing.
36:46
The minute you put employment at will in there, as you should,
36:50
there's no guarantees. The only guarantees you're given
36:53
to employees are probably for the high level employees you've
36:56
hired that sit on the leadership team and they're under a non
37:01
compete or a very hefty CNDA or non solicitation agreement with
37:06
equity, right? That's where you start talking
37:09
about contractual obligations. A handbook is not a contractual
37:14
obligation. In fact, the state of South
37:16
Carolina requires that you put a disclosure on the cover page of
37:20
the handbook that says this is not an employment contract.
37:23
I mean that's how wrong this is gone in some.
37:26
Instances so you see the employee handbook as something
37:29
the employee should actually be able to use and reference.
37:31
That we love to create, to be on brand for any of our clients.
37:36
No2 handbooks we create really look the same.
37:39
There may be content that's similar, but if you give us your
37:42
logo and your color schemes and your vision and your mission and
37:45
your values and we get a sense of who you are.
37:48
These are we find these to be highly customizable documents
37:51
that we really want the frontline leaders.
37:53
When you bring on a brand new employee that hopes they make
37:57
made the right choice, we want to move them from hope to
38:01
believe to know they made the right choice and when they hope
38:05
they made the right choice is in this probably those first 30
38:09
days of employment, particularly in week 1.
38:11
They're really nervous, right? What impression are you giving
38:15
them when you hand them a document you have no confidence
38:18
in and hate, but say here, sign here versus a happy smile on the
38:23
face that says here's our employee handbook.
38:25
It'll tell you all about who we are.
38:27
We talked a lot about it during our interview, but we're really
38:30
excited you you've joined us. You can be a come a part of our
38:34
vision and our mission values, which you'll find in this
38:36
handbook, but it'll answer any other questions you have about
38:40
our policies, our practices, what to expect, what we expect
38:43
of you. Go ahead and read through it.
38:45
I'd be happy to point out some highlights if that would be
38:48
helpful. And then once you don't have any
38:50
other questions, sign the acknowledgement and return it to
38:53
me. It's just, it's not hard, but
38:56
you have to actually be proud of what you're handing to these new
38:59
employees. And a lot of people are not so.
39:02
And and that makes me sad because you've spent money on
39:05
something that you're not keeping current and you don't
39:07
really feel like it's, it's an actual part of your HR
39:10
infrastructure that is something to be proud of, to hand to new
39:14
employees. So.
39:15
As we're talking here, towards the end of 2024, what would be
39:18
the approximate price range that a company might spend with you
39:22
to create an employee handbook? It depends on whether or not you
39:26
need state addendum. So if you're a distributed
39:28
workforce that has an employee presence in complicated states,
39:34
you're probably looking at, yeah, I'd probably say $1500.
39:38
But for our bottom, you know, our our bottom Service plan
39:43
clients, one state, less than 25 employees with a template fee.
39:49
If we can keep it down to two or three drafts before we get to
39:52
the finish line, you're probably talking 800 bucks, maybe 800,
39:57
maybe $1000. You know what gets fluid in all
39:59
of this is we have some companies that surprise us
40:03
during the handbook process. We have a single point of
40:05
contact we provide service to, but they took the employee
40:09
handbook draft. And they invited their entire
40:12
leader team to review it and ask questions.
40:14
And the draft process becomes a back and forth crash course in
40:20
HR, which is fine, but the more drafts we have to go through and
40:25
the more meetings to get to the finish line, the more expensive
40:28
it becomes. However, we've had some clients
40:31
say totally worth it because we actually checked the box on
40:35
training and the handbook at the same time.
40:38
So some people pay more through that process because they get a
40:41
lot of great Q&A and education through the customization
40:44
process. Mindy, are there any geographies
40:46
where you can't provide your HR services?
40:50
Well, we're not on site, so if you feel like you need and then
40:53
I'm glad you brought this up because I want to be clear, we
40:55
consider ourselves HR support partners.
40:57
We are not the three day a week in office fractional
41:00
generalists. And you and I could probably
41:03
have an entire separate conversation about why I would
41:06
be very careful about that. And you can ask me about it if
41:09
you'd like. Yeah.
41:11
So we're not on site. We can provide on site services
41:14
if we have a footprint in those geographic areas for which I we
41:18
have an HR consultant working. We're all US.
41:24
You start talking about me, about Canada or you hired
41:27
employees in the Philippines. Sorry, I can't help you with
41:30
that. We hesitate to really provide
41:34
consultation for companies that are have a presence in Hawaii,
41:39
believe it or not, because California and New York are
41:41
complicated. But Hawaii's got some unique
41:46
requirements. Like I don't know if you, you
41:49
might know this better than I. I believe health insurance
41:53
mandatory even if you have as few as 25 employees on.
41:58
Oh, I hadn't heard that. Interesting.
41:59
Yeah, that's, that's one. So there's a Hawaii is, you
42:02
know, it's a, it's an island unto itself or multiple islands,
42:06
so to speak. So, so we, we're, we, the other
42:10
thing that we've done that I love in my desire to simplify,
42:13
which is one of our core values, and we've talked about this
42:17
already. I actually think some HR people
42:20
could make a fortune if they just sat on the state
42:23
legislature floors. And once a law was passed, the
42:27
legislator turned to an HR person and said, here, take all
42:30
this legalese and put it in regular sentences, right?
42:33
Because then we'd have a chance of people actually understanding
42:37
how to comply with labor laws. But that's in essence what we do
42:40
is we have created this proprietary state labor law
42:43
tracker. And I say proprietary because
42:47
it's become a key part of how we really add value.
42:50
We have put together this in essence easy to navigate through
42:55
on our own database where we took the labor law for all the
43:01
states that we operate in, all the states for which we have a
43:04
client presence is and that's all fifty of them at this point
43:07
except No 49, not Hawaii. And you can go through this drop
43:12
down that says, OK, California, like 80 lines, OK, now I'll
43:17
filter for Alabama, it's like 5. But we can easily toggle across
43:23
through our plain English definition of what these
43:26
obligations are from state to state, which is how we've come
43:29
up with this tier system to price out which Service plan
43:34
makes the most sense for you based on how complex your
43:37
distributed workforce might be. So what's the concern about
43:42
fractional on site HR? Just just give me two or three.
43:51
It's it's sort of layers into my concern with HR in general at
43:57
companies. How are you using them?
44:00
I worry in my profession that we are still trying to overcome not
44:07
just that HR was the police or the Terminator in the room that
44:10
was bad enough baggage to get rid of.
44:14
The next thing I am worried about and continue to worry
44:16
about is HR people either on payroll or in a fractional
44:20
capacity undermining the leader to employee relationship.
44:26
HR is not a psychologist's chair.
44:28
It is not for just this open door.
44:30
Everybody comes in and complaints all the time and then
44:34
HR just magically fixes it, right?
44:36
HR should be bridging together reasonable people to solve their
44:41
workplace challenges. That's part of our
44:43
responsibility. And I worry with fractional in
44:49
order to justify your existence, it's much easier to just sit
44:53
there in the psychology chair and tell employees, I care and
44:58
I'll fix this for you. And they're not playing the long
45:01
game. And the long game is HR is not
45:05
there to do the leaders job for them.
45:07
HR is there to be a conduit for good working relationships
45:11
between employees and leaders when there's a breakdown.
45:14
We are certainly paying attention to infrastructure and
45:17
labor law compliance. But to be a true long game
45:20
strategist and brand ambassador, we have got to get people out of
45:25
under my the leader to employee relationship.
45:28
And part of the leaders are to blame on this.
45:30
They're in so much pain with confusion and have so much on
45:35
their plate. There comes a time where
45:37
somebody decided 12 direct reports was a good idea with no
45:42
leadership training whatsoever. And the leader gets inundated
45:46
and just said, HR fix this, fix this, fix this person, make it
45:51
go away. And that's not setting anybody
45:54
up for success either. But if you're going to be a
45:56
leader, you're going to build a good collaborative working
45:59
relationships with your direct reports.
46:03
And if you've committed to that, the last thing you need is HR
46:07
undermining that. So that's where I worry with
46:11
fractional HR generalists that if, if you're there to justify
46:14
your existence for three days a week, just please make sure
46:20
you're acting in the best interest of the long game for
46:23
the company and certainly creating that HR infrastructure
46:27
if they don't have one. But please don't become the
46:30
psychologist chair that becomes this place where everybody just
46:34
complaints and then you solve and you fix and the leaders
46:40
don't stay on the same page with you.
46:41
And all of a sudden we have unintended fractures in our
46:44
culture. It it worries me a great deal.
46:47
In a couple minutes I want to get to your radio shows because
46:49
I think that'd be something fun to talk about.
46:51
But a couple more questions before we get there.
46:54
I especially. Let me ask you a question.
46:56
Has that been ever something that you've worried about or
46:58
experienced around HR people, the undermining of the leader to
47:01
employee relationship? Is that anything you've ever
47:03
seen or do you hear the eye rolls from business leaders that
47:09
say HR? Everybody just goes to complain
47:11
there, whatever. Like the complaint hotline over
47:13
there. You know, most of my businesses
47:16
have been on the smaller side, 20 employees or less, lots of
47:20
distributed workforces and so and.
47:23
So who is the HR person, The office admin, catchall something
47:26
or other? Or the business owner.
47:29
A little bit of me and a little bit of whoever was sort of like
47:34
in the COO role, we didn't have like a a specific HR person or
47:40
department. Yeah, that's all.
47:42
Our point of contact is with a lot of our clients is an office
47:45
admin, Catchall, the controller, the poor school because the
47:48
controller was told run payroll and all of a sudden they're
47:51
supposed to be skilled at HR or the CEO, the CEO or the VP of
47:55
OPS. That's typically who our points
47:57
of contact usually are at our clients.
47:59
OK, similar. So I want to talk about your
48:02
callback guarantee because this seems unrealistic to me.
48:07
Like we were talking about this, you know, before we went live
48:09
with with the interview and you and I are both people that we
48:13
return calls, right? We don't understand people who
48:16
who don't, but that really bugs us.
48:18
But explain to me your callback guarantee, because this is next
48:22
level. So most of what I have done at
48:25
Inspiring HR, I kind of used my own experiences and my own
48:30
desires for how I would want to be treated and applied them to
48:33
our service infrastructure. And Jennifer Archer on my team
48:36
has done a great job as taking over as our services managers
48:39
and making sure that these preferences and best practices
48:43
just became a part of our culture and our standard.
48:45
And the guarantee was born out of that.
48:47
So when we say you have a dedicated HR consultant who you
48:52
can depend on and build a relationship with, at the heart
48:55
of building a relationship is dependability and credibility.
48:59
And we said, OK, well, if our clients are calling with a
49:03
question or concern, how do we know it's not like a real pain
49:07
point for them that they'd rather not take home with them
49:10
that night or at least feel like there's a path to resolving it.
49:14
So we came up with how do we make, it's all about how you
49:17
feel. I can talk about labor law
49:19
compliance until I'm blue in the face.
49:21
No one's really going to hear it and comprehend it unless it's
49:25
also alleviating a pain point, a fear, an area of confusion,
49:30
something. So a lot of that has to do with
49:32
the relationship and the communication delivery.
49:35
So at the heart of that is HHR consultant follows our
49:39
guarantee. So if you are a client of one of
49:42
our HR consultants and you call before 3:00 PM with a question,
49:46
a request, an inquiry, your HR consultant, or if they're out of
49:51
office, they're back up for the day, we'll get back to you.
49:54
Same business day. It won't necessarily be solved,
49:58
but they'll get back to you. At least get to.
50:00
Talk heard and someone's working on it, or maybe we can solve it
50:03
real quick. It it depends.
50:05
But we always want that when I call them or e-mail them,
50:08
they're going to get back to me because that's the way we would
50:12
want to be treated as consumers and that's what we deliver to
50:15
our clients. It seems like a really basic
50:17
thing to me. But we are in an era where
50:19
people are just getting lost in technology and not keeping track
50:23
of incoming inquiries. And, and that's sad to me that
50:27
it really is sad to me. I mean, if we've got companies
50:29
that trust us and spend money with us, the least we can do is
50:35
return their calls and emails. I, I don't really see this as
50:38
something that's hard. And if after 3:00 PM, no later
50:41
than 10:00 AM next business day. So that for HR consultants
50:44
basically means before they leave their desk at the end of
50:47
the day. Have I honored my guarantee for
50:49
half 15 minutes, thirty minutes a day?
50:51
Have I honored the guarantee with all the inquiries that came
50:55
in? And if I didn't, I've got this
50:56
blocked off period of at the end of the day to get back to people
51:00
and then again first thing the next morning for anything that
51:03
may have trickled in after 3:00 PM.
51:05
That's part of how they start all their days.
51:07
Who do I need to get back to before 10:00 AM?
51:09
And that's just a basis of how? We work, I'm going to go back to
51:12
the sleeping pill like that. That's going to help the
51:15
business owner or you know, whoever your point of contact
51:17
is, sleep better at night. Because if they've just had an
51:21
issue come up, they don't know what's going on.
51:23
They don't know how to deal with it.
51:24
They don't know what the ramifications are.
51:25
They need to talk to the expert. If they've got to wait a few
51:28
days to hear back from their consultants, this is just going
51:31
to fester and whatever the situation is could explode,
51:35
become bigger. And so knowing that I've got
51:38
that quick. Access back.
51:39
That's right. And it also takes you back to
51:42
what I love about leading this company the most.
51:44
Remote work works for us. Not for everybody, but remote
51:47
work works for us because I've hired part of our team is
51:54
skilled autonomous independent HR consultants who can manage
51:58
their own schedule in time. I got to be honest with you,
52:01
there are sometimes I've had to honor the guarantee myself and
52:05
it's from the Target parking lot because I may have started the
52:08
day really early with an interview or something.
52:13
And at the end of the day, someone's called at 2:45.
52:17
Well, I may have already left my desk because we actually work in
52:20
a highly flexible environment. This is why these these
52:23
positions are really appealing to not just people that want to
52:29
work remotely, but they want to be treated like adults, right?
52:31
They want to be able to balance work and what their personal
52:35
life requires of them. And flexibility will do that,
52:39
which means remote work works, your cell phone works, you got a
52:42
signal, get back to people before you go into Target and
52:45
take care of your shopping at the end of the day.
52:47
So. Mindy, let's talk about your
52:50
radio shows now. I love.
52:52
My radio show. Tell me why.
52:53
Tell me what they're about, where people can find them, what
52:55
you talk about. I don't, I think you can only
52:58
hear them in Richmond unfortunately, but they do get
53:00
video clipped out on LinkedIn through Mike King.
53:03
So this is the Mike King business radio show.
53:06
It's on our local ESPN Radio station.
53:11
So this does not, I am not on ESPN.
53:13
I wish I was, but I'm not. But the some of the mid sized
53:17
markets, as I understand it, Richmond being one of them, has
53:20
a local ESPN Radio station that does not start airing from the
53:25
mothership until 7:00 AM. So a lot some of these stations
53:28
have dead air from 5:00 AM to 7:00 AM.
53:30
So Mike King actually records throughout the week all of these
53:34
sessions with business leaders and he created this Mike King
53:37
Biz radio slot and all of these interviews that he produces airs
53:41
at various slots throughout the week.
53:43
So my weekly interview with him airs on Tuesdays, normally
53:47
sometime between 5:00 AM and 6:00 AM, and I've been doing
53:52
that for over a year. But I am now also going to be
53:55
airing on Fridays because we be inspiring.
54:00
HR became a title sponsor for the VCU Woman's Basketball
54:04
Coaches Show that aired with Mike King.
54:08
So we created Mike and Mindy and we talked to Coach Old Boyle,
54:11
the VCU woman's head basketball coach, once a week.
54:15
And then that collaborative interview that puts a spotlight
54:20
on VCU women's basketball and my getting an opportunity to talk
54:25
to the coach about the parallels between workplace and sports
54:28
teams. Super fun.
54:29
That airs on Fridays, I think between 6:00 and 6:30.
54:32
And this will be a weekly show as well.
54:34
Weekly show? Yep, through the basketball
54:36
season. So I really want them to get
54:38
into the big dance so I can keep talking to the coach all the way
54:41
through March. And so this the show is only
54:45
happening during season, not during last season.
54:47
Yeah, yeah, OK. Yeah.
54:49
And then I'll just go back to my regular Tuesdays.
54:51
And what does the VCU Women's program look like this year?
54:54
What are the predictions? You know, good question.
54:57
The only thing so far I've picked on the coach about is she
55:00
doesn't have a Wikipedia page, but apparently we share New York
55:03
roots, which I suppose explains why we get along so well.
55:07
She's got, they're really diverse team.
55:10
In fact, I've got the roster right there behind me.
55:14
Oh, you can't see it. Well, I know you kind of can see
55:17
that sort of blurred black and yellow thing on my whiteboard
55:20
back there. That's the roster.
55:22
Very diverse team. I think there's six or seven
55:26
different countries on that roster of players that have
55:29
joined VC women's basketball this year.
55:33
She's been, I've got my notes on that team success somewhere from
55:37
when I last chatted with her. Yeah.
55:40
The thing we're most looking forward to this year is getting
55:43
there's a lot of momentum with woman's basketball in general
55:46
right now and VCU woman's or VCU men have gotten a lot of
55:50
tension, particularly since the shock of smart era.
55:55
We'd like the women to get an equal amount of tension.
55:57
So I'm I'm enjoying being participatory in the business
56:00
community and getting more and more people to fill the seats at
56:03
what we call the Stew, which is the seagull center at VCUI.
56:08
Think they're going to be good. They've got a putting a lot of
56:12
effort into making sure that they're home game against temple
56:17
on November the 15th as well attended.
56:19
So I'm really looking forward to that.
56:21
But I'll be honest, I've I've lived here since 2006 and I've
56:26
only been to one men's VCU game because my blood is orange.
56:31
I'm from Syracuse, NY, OK, but I do love just college basketball
56:36
in general. So this this was a layup for me,
56:39
so to speak, when Mike asked if I wanted to.
56:41
Be there. I mean, as you mentioned, yeah,
56:42
women's basketball has got a lot of momentum behind it right now.
56:45
Yeah, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese and, you know, going from
56:48
college to the pros and sort of continuing that friendly
56:50
rivalry. And New York, Liberty just won
56:53
the championship for the WNBA. And yeah, I just, it's, I don't
57:00
watch women's. I will probably watch women's
57:02
basketball college more because of this title sponsorship.
57:06
But come March Madness time, I will equally watch the men and
57:11
women. I am.
57:13
I don't even work the first two days of the tournament and
57:15
everybody knows it. Yeah.
57:18
That is one of the most fun time of years in in sports is the big
57:22
dance for both men and women. Yeah, I love it.
57:25
Yeah. Mindy, I've just got one more
57:26
question for you. But before I ask it, I want to
57:28
do 2 things for those listening today.
57:30
If you liked the content, please hit the like Share subscribe
57:32
button on your favorite podcast app.
57:34
I also want to let people know the best way to get in touch
57:36
with you. Mindy, what would that be?
57:38
Inspiringh-r.com, There's two places that you can reach out to
57:42
us, the contact us form. And yes, that is an e-mail that
57:45
goes to myself or Valerie Juarez, who helps me field these
57:49
inquiries. So we'll get right back to you
57:52
if you submit information on our Contact us form.
57:55
You can also go on our services page and schedule a more robust
57:58
introductory call. That's where we ask you some
58:01
questions about, you know, how many employees on payroll and
58:04
are you internally handling HR or outsourcing it, all those
58:09
things like that that would qualify your inquiry for a more
58:12
serious call or just go old school.
58:15
Our main number's right on the top of our website,
58:17
804-715-1920. Connect with me on LinkedIn if
58:22
you want to wade into the pool a little bit and see what we're
58:24
all about or follow the inspiring HR LinkedIn page.
58:27
All all good ways to understand who we are and to reach out to
58:30
us. That's great.
58:31
So last question for you, Mindy, what do you see the big changes
58:34
coming to your field in the next few years?
58:37
How do you see things unfolding? I would like to believe we
58:44
continue on with a path of not the EI.
58:52
There's nothing wrong with the EI by the way, I just think the
58:55
rebrand of what it is and getting away from once and for
58:59
all overcorrecting will sit on the plates of HR professionals
59:05
now. And the reason it will and going
59:08
forward is we still. We were already migrating
59:13
towards less and less labor available to fill seats before
59:19
COVID hit and we went from. And when I first started in HR
59:25
it was always employer choice. Recruiting was all about they're
59:29
lucky if they get the job, do everything you can to knock them
59:33
out-of-the-box. We don't think that way anymore
59:37
in our cultures for a variety of reasons, but one of them is we
59:40
need labor. So we have turned from an
59:43
employer choice market to an employee choice market.
59:47
And I don't see that going away anytime soon.
59:50
And when it's an employee choice market, HR people have to get
59:54
more serious about your inclusion practices, how you're,
1:00:00
how you're creating work life balance.
1:00:03
What HR strategy is in place to get the right people in the
1:00:07
right seats? This takes a really a higher
1:00:10
level of HR skill and strategy with business climate acumen
1:00:15
than we have historically seen. But I'm super excited about all
1:00:19
of it because we've got this younger generation of workers
1:00:23
and I have no patience for complaining about the younger
1:00:27
generation of workers. This, this whole argument that
1:00:29
they don't work as hard as I used to work is so tiresome.
1:00:34
It's not comparing apples to apples.
1:00:36
I find this younger generation that's about to enter the
1:00:39
workforce to be caring and bright and inventive.
1:00:43
And I think it's going to be a whole new brand of leadership.
1:00:47
And it begs the question, how will people in my profession
1:00:49
align with that and make sure they support these leaders with
1:00:54
inclusive policies? Great place to work cultures,
1:00:57
nice perks and benefits. Because it's not all about the
1:01:00
money anymore. People are looking for a, a
1:01:03
total experience when they join the workforce and we need not
1:01:08
only their skill, we need their engagement and their
1:01:10
productivity. So it's, you know, what's the
1:01:13
right strategy and the right recipe ultimately to get the
1:01:16
right people in the right seats to keep moving the company
1:01:19
forward. And so that's that's where I see
1:01:23
HR headed in the. Next So do you disagree with the
1:01:25
narrative that exists out there that younger people, they just,
1:01:29
they don't want to work? Every generation complaints
1:01:33
about the younger generation. It's just tired.
1:01:36
It's just tired. And where.
1:01:38
My grandparents said it about my parents, my parents said it
1:01:41
about me now my generation saying it about and so it's just
1:01:46
what? Old people, do you know what?
1:01:47
That's the easy thing to say. I actually had conversations
1:01:50
with people who said no one wants to work anymore.
1:01:54
And I'm like, that is, where are you getting that no one wants to
1:01:57
work 40 hours anymore? And I said, you know what I say?
1:02:01
You're right. One know why?
1:02:03
If you thought they were working 40 hours, most people were
1:02:06
working 40 hours in the 1st place.
1:02:07
You're nuts. Yeah.
1:02:09
And The thing is, I've had this argument now with remote work
1:02:14
and flexible work versus in office.
1:02:17
If you really believe just because you anchor them to a
1:02:19
desk, they're working, good for you.
1:02:22
What are you measuring in terms of outcome?
1:02:24
But besides that, if you really think about it, what's unfair in
1:02:28
all of this, what I faced and what I had available to me to
1:02:33
make my life easy when I was age 30 is not the same for 30 year
1:02:38
olds now. It is just not.
1:02:40
Take just healthcare right up your alley.
1:02:44
Navigating your own healthcare and the healthcare of the people
1:02:48
that depend on you kids or parents is 20 million times more
1:02:52
difficult and time consuming than it was 30 years ago.
1:02:56
And guess what? A lot of times you can only take
1:02:59
care of that during work hours. So yes, the conditions, that's
1:03:03
why I have difficulty with this. The conditions are not the same
1:03:08
as 30 years ago, right? People had more help 30 years
1:03:13
ago navigating healthcare and navigating things in your
1:03:17
personal life. A lot of this stuff isn't as
1:03:19
easy as it was 30 years ago. So I just before you just label
1:03:25
everybody is not wanting to work.
1:03:27
You've got to really figure out what are their life
1:03:29
circumstances that they are facing to juggle all of this
1:03:32
that are very different from what you faced 30 years ago.
1:03:35
Fair. Fair, great insight Mindy, I
1:03:39
want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time
1:03:41
and your story with us today. I really.
1:03:43
Appreciate having me, I had so much fun.
1:03:45
I hope I get to come back and do another one.
1:03:46
I would love that. We've got so much content we
1:03:49
didn't get to. So stay tuned folks.
1:03:51
We will have her back for another episode some point down
1:03:53
the road. But for now, that's a wrap on
1:03:56
another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:03:58
Thanks for learning with us today.
1:03:59
Thank. You.