Latest / Workplace Confessions: Behind Closed Doors / Meet a Serial Entrepreneur Turned HR Goddess

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Meet a Serial Entrepreneur Turned HR Goddess · Workplace Confessions: Behind Closed Doors

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Workplace Confessions Behind Closed Doors.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Elsa Barbie.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm Don Andrews.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_03: We have been friends since sixth grade.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: Somewhere between a car wash job, a few questionable boy choices, and 40 years of friendship, we became the kind of people who always want to know what's really going on, including at work.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: Don spent 25 years as an employment lawyer, digging into workplace drama from the inside out.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: I built a long career in the beauty industry as a private educator with a few TV cameos sprinkled in for fun.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_03: We came up in very different industries, but we have the same passion.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: Meeting new people and asking how they got their jobs, what they love, what they can't stand, and what happens behind closed doors.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: Every episode we talk to a new guest about their lived experience in the world of work.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: And because our guests stay anonymous, they can spill the truth without the false.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_03: We get into the choices they made, the tiny cruelties, the high kindnesses, and some of the moments that never make it into human resources reports.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: This show serves up all the tea while honoring the incredible, complicated, often messy work people are doing across the industries and across the map.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Workplace Confessions Behind Closed Doors.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Let's get into it.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: So you all know if you've been listening for a while or it's just starting, thank you so much.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: But the first question we always ask our guest is what is your first paying job?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: So my first paying job, I was 16 years old, and I worked in the business license office for the city of Richmond, California.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: So back then there was no computers.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: There were computers, we didn't use them.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Everything was manual, and I had a little index card box with all the business card business license holders.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so whenever we did any research, I had to go to that.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that lasted the summer.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it was arranged with the school.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so I can't remember what we called it back then, but it was arranged with the summer work through my high school.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's impressive.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: What did you do on the daily?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: So on the daily, I answered a few questions.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: There was a really stern lady who managed that office.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so I answered a few cur questions, but most of it was filing and pulling up licenses that people had questions about.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a really interesting thing for me because my father was always an entrepreneur.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: He had a full-time job and he also always had a side business, his side hustle.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so we've been, I'd been familiar with entrepreneurship my entire life.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: So working in the business license division was pretty interesting for me.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: And what do you do now?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: So now I'm a human resource consultant.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: I have an HR consulting firm.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a co-co-founder of that firm.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: My husband and I co-founded Vision Over HR Consulting.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: Next question is you got to take us from point A to point where you're at now.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: I started off my work career, graduating from high school.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I went through a program in high school that was a vocational program.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: So when I graduated, I was trained to work for Ma Bell, the phone company.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: So back in the day, it was Pacific Telephone and Telegraph.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Then it became Pacific Bell.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Then it became SBC.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Then it became ATT.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: So when I started, it was Pacific Telephone and Telegraph.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_03: I come from a phone company family too.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay, great.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: All we got to my grandpa.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, my grandfather worked for Southern Bell in Mississippi.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I started there as a telephone operator, TSPS operator.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't the board, you pull the cords, it wasn't that old.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: But we had a machine called a TSPS machine.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I was a TSPS operator, so I was a zero operator where people would call and place person to person, collect calls, would ask questions, different things, ask just different questions.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: So it was very strict.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: You had to have so many people on the board every minute.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: So what that meant is if you needed to get off the board, you had to raise what they called a tag.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Notify a supervisor, I need to get off the board, go to the restroom, whatever I'm doing, and someone would come over and replace you.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: So it was super strict.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: They had a rule that if you had three or more absences in any 12-month rolling period, you could be terminated.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: And they terminated many people for this.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a super stressful workplace.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: People came to work deathly ill because they could not lose that job.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: So many times the ambulance showed up to bring someone who had pneumonia or whatever they had going on and take them to the emergency room.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because of that, this was before sick leave.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: It was before FMLA and all the rest of that.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: So as an operator, I wanted to get out of that role as soon as possible.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that was my goal.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: I got promoted a few years, a couple years after starting.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I was promoted.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: I was pregnant at the time.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: I finished my training and I had a miscarriage.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I returned to work.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: I only took one day off, right?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: This happened over the weekend.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: I took Monday off because I got to keep this job.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I went in and I was met with you are being demoted.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: So they could have fired me, but they didn't.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: They demoted me.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, no, I can't do that.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I resigned and got many questions around.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: That was a really good job because it was a good paying job.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Ma Bell paid and had great benefits.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: And why did you do that?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I could I could not continue to work there.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know anything back then.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: This was before workplace trauma and psychological safety, none of that, right?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: I just knew I couldn't work there anymore.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I resigned.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that was never a place where I intended to retire.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Many of my friends who started there, they stayed and they did retire, but that was not some place that I wanted to stay.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I had the entrepreneurial bug early on from my dad and his small business.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I always wanted to have my own business.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: So over the years, I worked at a number of different places.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I left Pacific Bell, Ma Bell, and had a number of jobs that I can't even remember.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: I worked at one that stands out is I worked at Kaiser in the emergency room as the emergency admitting clerk in the emergency room, which was extremely interesting.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Many crazy experiences.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll stop there.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: I could go on forever, but I'll just stop there.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: So that was my Pac Bell entry into the real job world.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a toxic workplace.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is what really impressed upon me how important it was to work in a place that wasn't toxic.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: At that time, I didn't have words for that, but I knew I couldn't work there anymore.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_03: But it sounds like you credit that experience with your where you headed in your career.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: I do, I really do, because I learned early on how important it was to have people be happy at work, not be terrified to come to work.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was so repressive that that experience.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then lots of people on and off the board.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was gossip, it was just constant drama.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: That did impress upon me.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And after that demotion, I decided I didn't want to work for anybody else.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to work for myself.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: So that was transformative.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: It took me a few years to get there, but that was my goal from then on.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: What was your first entrepreneurial venture?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a small family business.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I did a couple, a few things.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: At one point, I baked desserts for restaurants.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an avid home chef.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so baked cheesecakes and delivered them to the local restaurants in Richmond, to Brickyard Cove, Point Richmond.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Did all of that.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then later on, my husband and I started a commercial maintenance, property maintenance company.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we did a lot of things around taking care of what are they called now?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: The malls, strip malls.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: So we go in and we did parking lot sweeping.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we had a big sweeper, we swept parking lots.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: We did maintenance of the units, move outs, changing of different fixtures and things like that.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: And what really set us, moved us forward, is we got a contract with Ma Bell.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was SBC at the time.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we started maintaining the you remember when there was a public telephone on every corner?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: And at the airports and the BART stations.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we had this contract.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: We were the only one in the Bay Area, and we serviced telephones from San Jose all the way up to Napa.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: We were in the air in the San Francisco Airport, the Oakland Airport, the BARC stations.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so we we maintained and serviced those public telephones.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was a huge contract.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: We did a little experiment for them.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it the experiment kind of to show them what will what we would do and how we get opinions from their customers.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: We did all of that.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so then they said, okay, you got the contract.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so what that meant is we had to go from two, three people to overnight 10 folks and hire them to do these thousands of phones across the Bay Area.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so we did that.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we hired about 10 people.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a huge process, putting ads in the paper at the time, interviewing all these people to get us up to speed to start that contract.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: And we did that, work that contract for probably six, seven years for Ma Bell.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then they started pulling out the telephones.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: So and that that kind of work went down.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And but we continued with that commercial property maintenance.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: When we started, when we got the contract and we hired our first employees, this is how I got into HR.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we hired, we had to hire our first employees.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: I had no clue what to do with all these people that we're now hiring.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: The first person that we hired was actually a young man, and he came to us and he was very honest.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: He told us he had just gotten out of prison and he had done something when he was 19 years old, had been in prison for 12 years.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: But he just really impressed us.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: He was so sincere, and we felt like he just needed a second chance.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: We hired him.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: People say that's risky, but we hired him and did one-on-one coaching.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: There were some challenges, you know, but we coached him and he became one of our most loyal employees.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: He was with us for years.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: And because we gave him that second chance, he and his wife were able to buy their first home.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that just seemed what impact those HR inclusive decisions could have, not only on our company, but also on our employees' lives.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: That is what really gave me a passion for HR.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: So to manage all these people, we hired a professional employer organization, a PEO, because before we were just talking with attorneys about stuff that wasn't legal, but we didn't know where else to go to get the information that we needed to manage our people.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: And interesting story, my sister was NHR.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: She was a director, high leadership role in a global organization.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I would talk to her and she'd give me advice, which was really good advice.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of it I couldn't use because we're 10 people and you guys are like over 100,000.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: So some of those ideas didn't really fit.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: So working with that PEO who specialized in small businesses, that's what really gave me the HR bug and gave me my foundation for HR training.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then I got certified and took HR management at Count State Hayward and did all of that.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so that just really gave me my passion for HR and working with people.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: How long have you owned Vision Nova?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: So Visionova 2015, we incorporated.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Prior to that, I was consulting, just individual consultant.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then in 2015, we my husband and I co-founded Visionova, and he came on board and really helped us grow the firm to where we are now.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_03: Nice.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_03: Was there something that came in between the property management with the telephone contract and going full-time into HR?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_03: Were there other ventures?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: There were other ventures.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: We had a company called Easy Survival Kits.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And we put together, we built the backpacks that had your three-day supply, emergency supplies in them.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: We built those.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: We started off with our commercial property management, and we had a client that wanted those kinds of supplies because they were in a flood zone and they wanted emergency supplies.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And they so they asked us if we could help them with that, and we did.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: So we did the research, found out what do you need, why, what are the concerns in a flood zone.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: We did all that research and we built them this emergency preparedness kit for their team, for their office.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so that gave us the idea that every office should have these supplies.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then at that time, that's when we really got to training around emergency preparedness, ready.gov and the three-day supplies.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: That was a thing.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so we started to build those kits and offer them.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: And we approached Costco and actually started doing road shows with Costco.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we went on the road from Southern Cal to Washington State doing road shows with our emergency preparedness kits.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then in 2008, that was the recession.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And overnight, our orders just stopped.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody was buying anything because we sold them online for Costco and we did the roadshows.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so everything just it just stopped.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so we had to lay everybody off.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: At this time, by this time, we had a number of employees.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: We had a warehouse we were building, and we had to lay everyone off.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: So in between that time, 08, and was that maybe 2012 is when I started the started HR consulting.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Always was talking to friends who had businesses and helping them with their HR.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: But in between, there just a little positions here and there.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, so in 2012, I started working for Robert Half as an HR consultant and their management team.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so I did a lot of assignments for them.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: So worked with a lot of clients.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that really gave me a good exposure to some of the challenges that different organizations had in working with them.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a very interesting time working with Robert Half.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but you learned so much.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, learned a lot.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: What's the best part about what you do now?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think the best part is what keeps me motivated is I recognize that when you help someone improve the eight to 10 hours a day they spend at work, you can help them improve their life.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because most of us spend more time at work than we do at home.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: So if you are miserable at work, some of that's coming home with you.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you can help people improve that work life, it improves their personal life.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I go back to our first one of our first employees, where helping him get improve his work life, get a job, improve the entire family.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what keeps me motivated.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of the one of the best things that I experience now with HR is working with not only employees, but the leaders in small businesses, because so many of them are burned out.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's so hard wearing 12 different hats.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you have all those functions and you stick HR in there, and as a small business owner or partner, you're responsible for the HR function.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it can be overwhelming.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: So being able to help leaders with that is so rewarding.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then also help the employees.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's very rewarding.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's what keeps me passionate about HR.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: On the flip side, what's the hardest part about your job?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: The hardest part, I think, is any whenever you're involved in a termination or a really difficult investigation, those are the hardest issues.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Very difficult.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's still difficult to terminate people, even though they might deserve it.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: So being involved with that is difficult.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: What kind of situations have risen lately as opposed to 10 years ago?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: So lately, I think one of the big situations I've encountered is small businesses and nonprofits that have a trusted employee who has the keys to the kingdom.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: They have all the passwords, they have bank access, they have QuickBooks, they have email, they have everything.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just one person.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: So what happens if that relationship sours or they leave or they have to be terminated?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that is something that over the past five years, well longer than that, pre-COVID, I'd say in the last 10 years or and less, that's become a huge problem because we are so reliant on technology.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: And when you don't have redundant systems and one person controls it, if that relationship sours, you are in big trouble if you don't have a plan, a backup plan.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've worked with many clients that have been in that exact situation.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: And they've lost access to bank accounts, they've been locked out of bank accounts, locked out of QuickBooks, email, they've lost data.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's really a huge issue now.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: And like I say, particularly for small businesses and nonprofits that don't have policies and procedures in place.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_03: If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about your industry, what would it be?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's changing now, but I want HR to be more strategic.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I want leaderships and executives to realize HR is a huge piece of the puzzle.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: So when you do strategic plans, business plans, HR should be front and center because those plans can only happen with people.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: And if HR is not included in that, how are we going to recruit these people?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Who do we need to recruit?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: How are we going to upskill our current staff to meet whatever that new strategic plan or business plan is, whatever those new initiatives are, HR should be at the beginning and at the front of that.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: That is changing now.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's changing.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: When I first started, it was like HR does paperwork.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: We're just doing paperwork and benefits.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so that has changed a lot, but it needs to change even more.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, in the industry where people are not just reaching out to HR when there's a problem.
• 21:22
  unknown: Yeah.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: So that segues into our next question.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: You touched on it very briefly.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's what's a myth that people believe about your job that drives you nuts?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: That HR does paperwork.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's it's just admin.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: When I tell people about what we do, oh, okay, so you do the paperwork.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's the question people have, or you recruit.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's not really HR.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Recruiting is really separate, but I do help our clients recruit.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: But it's the the or the other thing is they think all you do is fire people.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: When HR, you oh, HR, they're gonna fire somebody.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: there's discipline and so yeah I would love that perception to change yeah definitely all right now let's get into the juicy part now what is the wildest weirdest or most unforgettable thing that you've witnessed at work wow okay so I had one client that had a crew that was out in worked outdoors doing some utility work and different things like that and they she always felt like this is like a family run business where it's a very small company but they were family family and I'm like yeah dysfunctional family but they were family right so we that's sometimes good and sometimes it's not and so there was this one employee who had been there the longest he was very skilled but nobody really liked working with him he was overbearing so she was always arranging things so that he would be by himself mostly right because whenever he was interacting with the team there were issues so we were talking one day and I'm in the conference room and she says I need to show you something and she showed me a video of the team that they're out working and this employee that everybody doesn't like had his hard hat in his hand and it was you couldn't hear anything you could just see it right grainy but you could see it he had his hard hat in his hand and apparently he was talking to this one guy and I guess he didn't like what he had said he took his hard hat and hit him with it in the head he had his the other guy had his hard hat on but he stumbled that's how hard he hit him and she said I have what should I do and I'm like did you have you talked to them did you did anybody report this she said no but they didn't report it she just saw it on the happened to be reviewing that video which wasn't reviewed on a regular basis but she just happened to be reviewing that video when she saw it and so I said have you talked to any of them what's what's happening and she hadn't yet I said you need to talk to we need to talk to the the employee that was hit and the other employees and see what's going on why is everybody standing there and nobody reports this why is that happening so we find out that he's been bullying people they were afraid he's been bullying people and because he's the favored child so we're talking about this dysfunctional family people didn't report it because they didn't think anything would happen and so we did all that got all the information and then she asked do I have to terminate him and I'm like yes yes you need to terminate him and we need to call an attorney and get an attorney involved and it took a while we she did terminate him and then of course he turned around and sued for some other madness I can't remember what it was about but he did because inevitably when you have those kinds of workplaces there's not documentation there's this closeness opposed family and so the employer always ends up doing something that's inconsistent something they that probably was wasn't in compliance.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember what he sued for but they ended up having to settle with him that case.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was a really good lesson for her and really making things more formal and moving past that we're family thing.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was that was horrible but that was the one of the craziest things I ever saw.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: I would say it's not illegal to be a jerk but you can still have policies around respect and creating a respectful workplace where everybody can show up and do their best job.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: Do you find that you get more respect as an external HR partner than HR folks who work inside companies oftentimes you do you do because people value the fact that you have worked with multiple clients and so sometimes when it's when you have internal HR and most internal HR support was promoted from within and so they may or may not have additional experience around different companies different industries and so it sometimes there's less respect there because of that or because they knew them when they were the receptionists and now they're HR even though they've gotten certification and so forth and so on there may be less respect.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: So when you come from the outside and you bring that those credentials those experiences oftentimes you get more respect and more support people believe you faster than if you get it I've come in many times where an internal HR say department of one has given some advice and it's totally correct totally accurate but leadership is not buying it and then I come in and say this is correct this is the way to do it and then they buy it.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: I have one question but I'd like you to answer it with two different lenses.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay one is from the entrepreneurial side and then one is from the HR side okay and what is a lesson that you've learned the hard way as an entrepreneur I think the lesson that I learned the hard way as an entrepreneur was it was when we started our easy survival kits and when the handwriting was on the wall that sales were really dipping they're not going to come back this is a recession was not making the decision soon enough that we're gonna have to let people go and lay people off.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was a very difficult time very difficult decision and it took too long to make that decision.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah so that that was a hard lesson to learn and so I'm very conscious of that now from an HR standpoint is to I think the hardest lesson I learned was around recognizing my limitations.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: When I was consulting with Robert Half those years ago I was brought in to conduct an investigation and it started off thinking it was going to be a simple investigation and it just blew up into an employee walking in with banker's box full of documentation of emails of all the horrible things that had happened to her on this job for years.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I called Robert Half and I said you know what this is too much but we're like go ahead you can do it we have assistants attorneys and it traumatized me for to see all the things that had happened to this this employee over the years and others it was traumatizing.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I should have walked out I'm like that was beyond me and not saying this is beyond my limitations I can't do this that was it was a horrible experience but it taught me a lot to recognize that and get help and make sure that I am upfront about what I am comfortable doing and what I'm not comfortable doing.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: And if it happens there's something that comes up I get support I have a a dream team that I work with of attorneys, IT people, finance folks that can step in and assist or I can turn that over but recognizing your limitations and where you're in this kind of role if you don't you can get in way too deep way too fast and it's hard to extricate yourself out of that and so yeah so those are some lessons that I've learned those are great.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: Wow if anybody out there is listening today and interested in HR, what kind of skill set does one need to be successful in an HR position?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think the for me the first skill set is that you enjoy working with people I think that's so important unless you're doing like HR admin where your is mainly paperwork benefits that kind of thing but for what I'm doing I believe you really need to enjoy working with people.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: You need to be a good listener that is that's crucial a good listener work on your communication skills and how to get the information that you need because oftentimes the information that you need is in what's not said and what people are avoiding saying and if you can determine that there's something missing here's something that is being avoided and if you can determine that and use good questions to pull that out those those kind of soft skills to me are so important with it.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: So communication being flexible adaptable being really focusing on clarity and setting clear expectations today it's even more important with all the different generations and the different backgrounds and diversity in the workplace there needs to be clear expectations that each person understands because my lived experience is totally different.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: So if my expectations aren't clear I'm gonna base it on my lived experience my worked experience and that may totally be wrong and the assumption is that everybody thinks like I think and they don't so being clear about your expectations so those soft skills they are critical and the better you are at those skills the better you will be in human resources and leadership yeah definitely how do you see aid AI impacting your business of at all from from our business our firm standpoint very much I am a I enjoy working with AI.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: The the key for me is what we use it for is a lot of research.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: It has cut our research time in not I won't even say half even less than that you need to know have the right platform that you're using you need to set up parameters so the research that you're getting is accurate.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: You choose your sources you're not just getting information off the web that is going to be wrong.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: So for research it's huge and that is a big way of how we use it designing workflows to make processes easier.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: So yes I am a fan of AI at the same time there are huge risks and we talk to our clients about that all the time setting up AI policies and procedures people talk about shadow AI and that's when individuals bring their own AI tools in you don't know what they're doing you don't know how accurate it is what are they uploading are they uploading proprietary information what's going on I had one client that said an employee uploaded all of their financial data to chat GPT to do some kind of a report but that's out there now you are not getting that back and so if you don't have policies and procedures for what's an acceptable use for AI and even beyond that as an employer choosing what model they're going to use what what is the company AI that we're going to use it's gonna cost you some to do that but to have everybody bringing in their own AI or using this system and using that platform that's just opportunity for huge risk especially with HR when you have so much proprietary information and identity theft and all those kinds of things.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to be really cautious about the model and the security that you have set up don't ever use free models because there's no security and they're going to learn on your information.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: So you definitely want to do that.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: So when employees bring in free models and start using those it's an issue and we talk to our clients all the time are your employees using AI and they're like no yeah they are yeah we are yeah we are yeah you're you they're using AI they just haven't told you so you need to put a policy procedure and a process in place for getting that approved and deciding in advance what you're going to allow and but you got to do it because they're going to use it.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: So you definitely want to set up the system that you want that's going to protect your clients company and customers definitely and in regards of AI where do you see the future of the workplace I think it it's going to eliminate some jobs but it's gonna create jobs for people who know and understand and can use AI.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's important.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: In any career you have to keep progressing.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a skill that we need to be conscious of as candidates they need to be conscious of that.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: How can they get that experience?
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the the future is there for AI to do a lot but that human judgment is always going to be key because AI cannot replace human judgment.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: It can give you scenarios and but you still need to and should have human eyes on it at all times.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: And nothing goes out with that that that human eye on it to make sure that it's accurate because there are horror stories out there.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: Vision over HR we our ideal clients are small organizations and nonprofits mission driven organizations that don't have an internal HR department typically they have 10 to 150 employees they may have no internal HR or they may have an internal HR department of one or two people.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so we support those clients to set up an HR foundation to make sure that they're in compliance and they're building the culture that they want to see it's not an accidental culture it's a planned culture.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so our philosophy is that compliance and culture go hand in hand.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: So some people think if you want a great culture that compliance thing that's too corporate we don't want to deal with that.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: But in order to have a good culture you need compliance because you have to know what employee rights are and company rights and responsibilities are.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so culture and compliance go hand in hand and to be compliant having a great culture helps you with your compliance so we think they're interweaved and very important.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: So we really focus on building culture and compliance not for the sake just for the sake of compliance but culture and compliance and one of the things I say all the time is we want to build respectful workplaces.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the way we do that is by building cultures where people can show up and do their best work.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: So if you focus on what's respectful you will never get to what's illegal.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that is the most important thing I think is building those respectful workplaces with cultures that are intentional.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: They don't just happen they are intentional.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so we help build those cultures and we help support organizations that already have cultures that are working.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: We're located in the Bay Area we're in the East Bay so our offices are in Richmond and most of our clients are California based but we do have a lot of clients that have offices and locations in multiple parts of the country so although we're California based we service every state in the country it's just that California if you can do HR in California you can do HR anywhere because California has more compliance than any other state.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so that is our focus but again we're nationwide.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: And where can our listeners find you they can find me at our website which is visionovah.com and that's like visionova V-I-S-I-O-N-O-VAHR.com Bernadette Jones I'm on LinkedIn so definitely can find me on LinkedIn and yeah that's how you can find us awesome thank you so much Bernadette Jones for being such a great guest and for all of our listeners who probably thought HR was nothing but filling out paperwork and finding out when you're gonna go on vacation next and making sure you call HR if you're sick.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: Hopefully you've all learned so much more that there is so many other details that HR is responsible for.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: Number one is definitely the culture and where we all work and with that I want to thank you so much for sharing your story with us.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_03: You have officially joined the ranks of the brave and the bold exciting thank you so much that's it for this week's confession with laughs, crisp and maybe question our queer choices.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: Big thanks to our anonymous guests for keeping it real and reminding us that behind every job title is a story worth telling if you've got a workplace confession of your own for all ears hit us up at our email address.
• 40:37
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• 40:42
  SPEAKER_03: Until next time keep your badge clear your coffee's tricky and your story spot this is Workplace Confession behind closed doors