Latest / Business Roundtable / The Real Cost of People Problems | Helena Ferrari

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The Real Cost of People Problems | Helena Ferrari · Business Roundtable

0:14
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast. I'm your host
0:17
Speaker 1: David Carr Founders Doing Your Business, where we really help
0:20
Speaker 1: business leaders help build healthier businesses. That's by improving communication,
0:26
Speaker 1: leadership alignment, and really intentional organizational growth. And today I'm
0:31
Speaker 1: excited to have a brand new guest of the podcast.
0:34
Speaker 1: Perhaps your business feels like it's just overrun at times
0:38
Speaker 1: you can't really unplug. Perhaps your team is waiting on
0:42
Speaker 1: your decisions, and because something goes wrong, most with their people,
0:47
Speaker 1: most owners business leaders think hey, we need to hire
0:49
Speaker 1: somebody new, we need a new policy, we need to
0:53
Speaker 1: replace that problem person, or maybe they just say it's
0:57
Speaker 1: an HR thing. But really what I want to help
1:00
Speaker 1: today is if your most extensive risks in business aren't
1:04
Speaker 1: on your balance sheet at all, it's really hiding in
1:06
Speaker 1: your leaders. How are they showing up? And today I'm
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Speaker 1: excited to have Helena Ferrari, a fractional chief HR officer,
1:12
Speaker 1: board director. She's really what I call she calls herself
1:16
Speaker 1: a risk mitigation advisor.
1:18
Speaker 2: I love that.
1:18
Speaker 1: And Helena has saved companies over one hundred and fifty
1:21
Speaker 1: million dollars, believe it or not, across fifteen countries and
1:26
Speaker 1: it's not by hiring better or stopping the people problems,
1:29
Speaker 1: but it's about what's quietly bleeding that business. And that's
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Speaker 1: all these things we're going to unpack with you today.
1:35
Speaker 1: So Helena, I'm really excited to have you bringing your
1:37
Speaker 1: twenty five plus years of experience working with a variety
1:41
Speaker 1: of different companies and in fact, you've wrote a book
1:43
Speaker 1: about this protect your profit line, which we're going to
1:47
Speaker 1: unpack as well. Really excited to have you here on
1:49
Speaker 1: the podcast.
1:51
Speaker 3: Thank you, David, It's wonderful to be here. Thank you
1:54
Speaker 3: so much for inviting me to steward your business.
1:58
Speaker 1: Oh yes, absolutely well. I love on having the podcast here.
2:02
Speaker 1: Is a great way for our listeners to learn and
2:05
Speaker 1: get perspective from somebody that's in different aspects of business
2:08
Speaker 1: and the life cycle business. And you have a unique perspective,
2:11
Speaker 1: particularly in the HR world, which I sometimes I feel
2:14
Speaker 1: like gets the bad rap, and I feel like you've
2:17
Speaker 1: come and have a great way of you said the
2:19
Speaker 1: word dollarized, but looking at problems that are often treated
2:22
Speaker 1: as soft but actually putting a number around it, and
2:24
Speaker 1: like before something becomes a legal matter, a lawsuit, a settlement,
2:30
Speaker 1: you know, a turnover, You're like looking at these things
2:33
Speaker 1: and helping businesses be much more proactive, so they're not
2:36
Speaker 1: just being you know, going to the whims of what's
2:38
Speaker 1: hitting them left or right with ever changing conditions.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, David. So I think being in corporate America
2:47
Speaker 3: for over twenty five years and stepping out five years
2:51
Speaker 3: ago to open my HR advisory practice really passionate about
2:56
Speaker 3: helping more businesses and more people of being able to
3:01
Speaker 3: learn from some of the things that I saw as
3:03
Speaker 3: repeating themes. So some of the repeating themes, David is
3:08
Speaker 3: leaders who make accidental mistakes. They may make a off
3:14
Speaker 3: comment or a joke, they may say something that's perceived
3:18
Speaker 3: in a way that could be discriminatory. And I think
3:21
Speaker 3: what I do is look at the organization from a
3:25
Speaker 3: holistic perspective. For example, a lot of companies really don't
3:30
Speaker 3: invest in leadership training of like, what does it look like, David,
3:35
Speaker 3: to be a good leader, and are we educating them
3:40
Speaker 3: in compliance? So a lot of my work with my
3:46
Speaker 3: clients is when a big settlement or a lawsuit comes, oops,
3:52
Speaker 3: is how are we going to handle this? And I
3:55
Speaker 3: think one of the things that's really super cool is
3:59
Speaker 3: to be able to educate leaders on how to know
4:03
Speaker 3: when to escalate and who to escalate to, know how
4:08
Speaker 3: to answer questions from their team members, know how to respond,
4:13
Speaker 3: what to say and what not to say so it
4:16
Speaker 3: doesn't become an employee relations issue or a lawsuit. So,
4:20
Speaker 3: you know, and I think, honestly, a lot of companies
4:25
Speaker 3: really don't look at it from a perspective of how
4:30
Speaker 3: can we kind of elevate our employees, who are our
4:34
Speaker 3: greatest assets. I know, and David, I asked the C
4:39
Speaker 3: suite leaders, if you had no people running your business,
4:43
Speaker 3: would you still be able to make the same revenue
4:46
Speaker 3: and bottom line results? And typically it's no, because not
4:51
Speaker 3: everyone has one hundred percent robotics or AI in their company.
4:57
Speaker 3: So from that perspective, I think what I've learned a
5:01
Speaker 3: lot about C suites were very very good in our
5:05
Speaker 3: own lane. And I think a lot of companies don't
5:09
Speaker 3: realize that they're not up to current practices when it
5:13
Speaker 3: comes to policies, these practices and people. So I'm very passionate.
5:21
Speaker 3: You know, you mentioned I wrote my book. It's really
5:24
Speaker 3: helping companies and leaders stay out of trouble. I can
5:28
Speaker 3: an example or two. David if you want. There was
5:31
Speaker 3: a company that huge retention sixty percent. They had sixty percent,
5:38
Speaker 3: and they asked me to come in and find out
5:41
Speaker 3: why they had such a big turnover. So what I
5:45
Speaker 3: did was I was able to run reports from the
5:48
Speaker 3: HRIS system. I was able to pinpoint where most of
5:54
Speaker 3: the turnover was coming from, how many people, and then
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Speaker 3: idolarized to using a calculation of how much that company
6:03
Speaker 3: cost in hiring and firing and leaving and all those things.
6:08
Speaker 3: And it turned out to have cost them in a
6:11
Speaker 3: one year look back about six million dollars, and that
6:15
Speaker 3: was huge to them, and they were a fifty million
6:19
Speaker 3: dollar company, so that was a huge cost to them.
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Speaker 3: So one of the things that I did pinpoint it
6:26
Speaker 3: was the accidental mistakes from the leaders because the leaders
6:31
Speaker 3: had never ever been trained how to be a good leader.
6:35
Speaker 3: For example, you know, a lot of leaders get internally
6:38
Speaker 3: promoted and then they just have to figure it out themselves,
6:44
Speaker 3: or we hire someone and assume they've already been trained
6:49
Speaker 3: and they know how to engage and motivate and hold
6:53
Speaker 3: accountable their team. So in this particular scenario, I asked
6:58
Speaker 3: the company if you could just give me less than
7:00
Speaker 3: one percent of that turn dollar amount of six million,
7:05
Speaker 3: I can turn this around for you. So they were
7:09
Speaker 3: obviously very happy.
7:11
Speaker 2: No brainer that, Yes, we.
7:14
Speaker 3: Were able to cut the turnover. We were able to
7:17
Speaker 3: implement training and educating, we implemented into the onboarding process
7:25
Speaker 3: through surveys and touch points with employees, and we were
7:29
Speaker 3: able to cut that way down in a very quick
7:34
Speaker 3: period of time.
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Speaker 1: That's that's amazing, Hele. You're hitting a point that I'm
7:39
Speaker 1: very passionate about as well. It'steward of your business because
7:41
Speaker 1: I come up from a scientific background myself, and like
7:45
Speaker 1: you said, very much, I was in that space of
7:47
Speaker 1: being promoted and being a manager is one thing and
7:50
Speaker 1: being a leader is.
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Speaker 2: A whole nother thing.
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Speaker 1: And what I saw your point was a lot of
7:54
Speaker 1: companies the differentiat or was the companies that did that
7:56
Speaker 1: work that you said kept their people, They retained them,
7:59
Speaker 1: they wanted to be there because they felt like they
8:01
Speaker 1: they're part of something bigger than themselves. And the companies
8:03
Speaker 1: that didn't do that where this constant revolving door of
8:07
Speaker 1: people coming in and out, and it's really hard, especially
8:10
Speaker 1: when you're a smaller company of you know, to stabilize
8:14
Speaker 1: that of your people right, and I think you know,
8:17
Speaker 1: looking at that, how you dolerize that? And if you
8:20
Speaker 1: have a listener, if you're if you're the business owner
8:22
Speaker 1: lead and you're like wondering, like how do I do this? Well,
8:24
Speaker 1: make sure we can put you in contact with Helena
8:27
Speaker 1: and put comments in here too as you're listening, Hey,
8:30
Speaker 1: I want to know this, how do I look at
8:31
Speaker 1: this or how this is broken down? Because Helena has
8:33
Speaker 1: got so many great resources it's amazing, uh and you
8:36
Speaker 1: can actually you're recording she has won. She's the host
8:41
Speaker 1: uh the executive practice forums there as well, and we
8:45
Speaker 1: met there and just so many great things.
8:47
Speaker 2: So I want to make sure you guys connect with her.
8:48
Speaker 1: But one of the things you definitely said to me,
8:50
Speaker 1: Elena is like why is it that companies don't slow
8:54
Speaker 1: down enough to look like you said of like there's
8:57
Speaker 1: just they're going too fast or maybe being accidentally. They
9:00
Speaker 1: they six million dollars, that's a lot of money, and
9:03
Speaker 1: they like you broke this down for them, and they
9:05
Speaker 1: just don't think that that cost is there until you
9:08
Speaker 1: put it. You actually go down and like you said,
9:11
Speaker 1: actually looked at all these signals that are going on.
9:13
Speaker 1: You're like do you realize you got this one, this one.
9:16
Speaker 1: They're all connected, right, it seems like you're connecting the
9:18
Speaker 1: dota like they didn't realize. Oh maybe that's just like
9:21
Speaker 1: you know, when we have symptoms and we're sake and we're.
9:22
Speaker 2: Like, oh, I'm not really that bad.
9:24
Speaker 1: But it's like when you put all these symptoms together,
9:26
Speaker 1: you're like, hey, you're in really bad shape.
9:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, David, I think one of the things
9:31
Speaker 3: that I'm able to do is to be able to
9:33
Speaker 3: create the stories to help the executives really understand because
9:39
Speaker 3: in most of the organizations that I see, they trust
9:44
Speaker 3: then their leaders and they don't know what they don't know.
9:47
Speaker 3: So let's use for another example. I've been asked to
9:52
Speaker 3: come in and help as a fractional HR leader or
9:55
Speaker 3: as an INTROIM leader. And the challenge that I see,
9:59
Speaker 3: and I'm sorry to say this as an HR professional,
10:03
Speaker 3: that a lot of HR departments are out of compliance,
10:07
Speaker 3: which is like super sad. So for one company, I
10:11
Speaker 3: did a one month sampling of wage and hour and
10:15
Speaker 3: classification audit and in a one month stampling, I found
10:21
Speaker 3: literally hundreds of meal break period breaks. So what that
10:26
Speaker 3: meant was that that company had to pay a penalty
10:30
Speaker 3: for every meal break period. And the thing is it
10:34
Speaker 3: was costing them so much money. And the challenge is
10:38
Speaker 3: that wage and hour lawsuits the average settlement just in
10:42
Speaker 3: California alone last year was one point one million dollars.
10:47
Speaker 3: I know. And so what I did with that company,
10:51
Speaker 3: I was able to show them how much it would
10:55
Speaker 3: cost them. So for this particular company, I kind of
10:58
Speaker 3: annualized it just to general But if we kept going
11:01
Speaker 3: down this road, there would be a possibility that someone
11:06
Speaker 3: may go to the wage an hour or get an
11:08
Speaker 3: attorney because they missed meal break periods. And what happens
11:14
Speaker 3: is you get ordered and they look two years back
11:18
Speaker 3: and they look at everyone active and terminated, and then
11:21
Speaker 3: it costs for every meal break period two hundred dollars
11:26
Speaker 3: for the first and one hundred and second. So I
11:28
Speaker 3: was able to dollarize it that they had a risk
11:32
Speaker 3: of over nine hundred thousand dollars if we didn't put
11:37
Speaker 3: in some guardrails and education and ways that we can
11:42
Speaker 3: help coach the leaders and the employees on making sure
11:47
Speaker 3: we're keeping in compliance. That's just an example.
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Speaker 1: No, No, I totally appreciate you, know how your work
11:53
Speaker 1: gives owners this you know why it matters in dollars
11:57
Speaker 1: if you will, And I thenk you and I both
12:00
Speaker 1: share this people development side as well about how do
12:03
Speaker 1: then we actually fix it so that we're not carrying
12:06
Speaker 1: that risk on the business owner the shoulders. And it's
12:09
Speaker 1: like no understanding. And I think this is this is
12:11
Speaker 1: what I hearing you say too, Heleniau, is that you
12:13
Speaker 1: work with the business owner, but then you're like, how
12:15
Speaker 1: do we communicate this with the rest of the team
12:17
Speaker 1: And it's together, it's not us versus you, And I
12:20
Speaker 1: think sometimes again, I really appreciate coming in and working
12:23
Speaker 1: with somebody like yourself where you're setting up the standard
12:27
Speaker 1: and this way we're communicating and collaborating and hopefully that
12:30
Speaker 1: it's a it's a positive, it's not a US against you.
12:32
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes again people can get that and
12:35
Speaker 1: they may have had a native experience because HR wasn't
12:39
Speaker 1: helping them, which is kind of like, well you just
12:41
Speaker 1: do this, and it's like, O cool, Why how can
12:43
Speaker 1: I do this?
12:43
Speaker 2: What is what is the ramifications here?
12:46
Speaker 1: And like you said, all the way down, managers should
12:49
Speaker 1: understand this so that when they're looking at times sheets
12:51
Speaker 1: and so forth that they're being mindful and working all
12:54
Speaker 1: through the organization, because it doesn't it doesn't do us
12:57
Speaker 1: any good, right if you only started at the top,
12:59
Speaker 1: You've got to go through the entire organization to make
13:01
Speaker 1: this happen and reduce Like I like how you said it,
13:03
Speaker 1: those accidental mistakes of where people are like, oh, I
13:06
Speaker 1: didn't realize, you know, I didn't know that was a
13:08
Speaker 1: big deal, you know, And it's like, well, that was
13:11
Speaker 1: one one. And your example of like getting the lawsuit
13:13
Speaker 1: of one person that having to go back and look
13:16
Speaker 1: at everybody, and it was like, well, I thought it
13:17
Speaker 1: was just one person, but no, I didn't even think
13:20
Speaker 1: about that until you brought that up online. I'm like,
13:22
Speaker 1: how you open that up to pass uh and even
13:26
Speaker 1: your current and past employees.
13:27
Speaker 2: That's that's wow. That's a lot to consider, you know.
13:31
Speaker 3: It is, And I think too, David, there's lots from
13:34
Speaker 3: a board of director's perspective, you know, we're asking questions
13:40
Speaker 3: to our leadership teams. Is AI. AI is huge right
13:46
Speaker 3: now And even if you're a company that doesn't want
13:50
Speaker 3: to have anything to do with AI, well guess what
13:53
Speaker 3: your employees are using chat GBT Claude or whoever co pilot.
13:59
Speaker 3: They using their personal accounts and here we are, so
14:03
Speaker 3: if there's any mistakes or anything that's happened by them,
14:07
Speaker 3: the company's aliable. So one of the things that I
14:11
Speaker 3: recommend is that every company puts some guardrails and guidelines
14:17
Speaker 3: around having an AI policy, because I bet half of
14:21
Speaker 3: your employees at least are using it, and so that's
14:26
Speaker 3: another piece. There's a company that I support as a
14:31
Speaker 3: fractional global leader and one of the things is, you know,
14:35
Speaker 3: with human resources, it's a typical foundation that really is
14:41
Speaker 3: transferable to pretty much any industry, and they wanted to
14:47
Speaker 3: elevate their company from going from local excellence to global excellence.
14:54
Speaker 3: So it was really looking at do we have the
14:57
Speaker 3: right leaders and educating them and being able to have
15:02
Speaker 3: them opportunity to really be able to upskill and be
15:07
Speaker 3: able to take on these new roles. So I think
15:11
Speaker 3: leadership development is an ongoing It's not just a one
15:17
Speaker 3: shot as far as training, and it's more than just compliance,
15:23
Speaker 3: it's engagement and motivation. I've always said that seventy five
15:29
Speaker 3: percent of my success as a leader comes from my team,
15:35
Speaker 3: and it's my role as the leader to champion them
15:39
Speaker 3: to help them to be that person that they can
15:42
Speaker 3: brainstorm with and really help elevate them so they can
15:46
Speaker 3: be the very best that they want to be.
15:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that, Atlanta, And that's I mean, I agree.
15:54
Speaker 1: A true leader means they have people that want to
15:56
Speaker 1: want to follow.
15:58
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, that's a true leader.
16:01
Speaker 1: You can be somebody in a position of authority, but
16:04
Speaker 1: not really have be a real leader. You're an authority
16:07
Speaker 1: and you can manipulate, you can have power over people,
16:09
Speaker 1: but you want to have the hearts and minds of
16:11
Speaker 1: people that want to come alongside. And like what I
16:14
Speaker 1: love how you said, Atlanta. You're elevating them. And this
16:16
Speaker 1: is very much compimentary with what I do at Steward
16:18
Speaker 1: your business, because what I hear you saying is that
16:21
Speaker 1: you know most of the problems I think, and I
16:24
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it's even ninety percent, but people the
16:28
Speaker 1: challenges I see with people. I love how you said
16:30
Speaker 1: accidental mistakes. I don't think people are willfully doing these things,
16:33
Speaker 1: but I think that they're undermining their influence and effectiveness.
16:36
Speaker 1: It's just because they're unaware. And if you're unaware, you
16:40
Speaker 1: can't you you're making these mistakes and you know where
16:43
Speaker 1: are you know you mentioned AI is one of them,
16:46
Speaker 1: but as potential one. But what are some what are
16:49
Speaker 1: some other accillental mistakes that you commonly see? Healing companies
16:53
Speaker 1: are like, you know, hey, they're just tripping up over
16:55
Speaker 1: themselves here.
16:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I can give you a couple of it examples.
17:00
Speaker 3: There was a supervisor that came to me and they said,
17:04
Speaker 3: I need to write up one of my team members
17:08
Speaker 3: and I said why and he said, well, he's come
17:12
Speaker 3: to late work every day for the last two weeks.
17:16
Speaker 3: And I said, I asked him one question. I said,
17:20
Speaker 3: have you actually talked to your team member and asked
17:24
Speaker 3: if they're okay? And he's like no. And the funny
17:30
Speaker 3: thing was that I said, well, I tell you what,
17:33
Speaker 3: why don't I reach out to him? But or you
17:36
Speaker 3: can reach out to him and asking me if he's okay.
17:38
Speaker 3: I will tell you that that employee had a medical
17:42
Speaker 3: condition that he was on new medication and that's why
17:46
Speaker 3: he was late to work. And so if we had
17:51
Speaker 3: given this person a documented as a performance improvement plan,
17:58
Speaker 3: that manager actually technically is setting up more risks for
18:04
Speaker 3: the company because this employee would be protected. So we
18:08
Speaker 3: were able to we were able to work out and
18:12
Speaker 3: modified work schedule for a couple of weeks to accommodate them.
18:16
Speaker 3: And I think that's that's one example. Yes, yes, and yeah,
18:22
Speaker 3: And like for example, I do a lot of workshops
18:25
Speaker 3: and in the workshop there's like from C suite down
18:29
Speaker 3: to Leeds on the warehouse floor. And it's really interesting
18:33
Speaker 3: because I say, if you haven't had this training at
18:37
Speaker 3: least every two years, you're going to be probably saying
18:42
Speaker 3: the wrong thing. Like, for example, one of the C
18:46
Speaker 3: suite letters said, oh, yes, you know with the interviewing
18:50
Speaker 3: and we use some role play scenarios, and some of
18:55
Speaker 3: the audience said, oh yeah, always asking my interviews, oh
19:00
Speaker 3: which university did you graduate from? And then also things
19:07
Speaker 3: like well, you know, do you have any kids? What
19:10
Speaker 3: do you do on the weekend? And they're coming from
19:14
Speaker 3: a very good place because they want to learn more
19:18
Speaker 3: about the candidate. But the challenge is a lot of
19:21
Speaker 3: these questions are totally illegal, and I think a lot
19:26
Speaker 3: of leaders don't realize that. So if you think, like
19:28
Speaker 3: twenty years back, you were allowed to ask those questions.
19:33
Speaker 3: Even now, asking someone how much money they are making
19:38
Speaker 3: or how much money they've made is off limits now.
19:41
Speaker 3: So I think there's a lot of aha moments from
19:46
Speaker 3: leaders of not realizing that they say something that could
19:51
Speaker 3: potentially come back to bite them. For one company, they
19:56
Speaker 3: were interviewing someone and them hiring men. I managed to
20:00
Speaker 3: ask them, are you planning to retire in the next
20:04
Speaker 3: few years. Two weeks later they received a demand letter
20:09
Speaker 3: from an attorney and that company settled for one hundred
20:12
Speaker 3: and twenty thousand dollars out of court because they didn't
20:16
Speaker 3: want to ruin their reputation.
20:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're absolutely right, and there's ever changing standards
20:24
Speaker 1: and you have to evolving or being updated, and so
20:27
Speaker 1: if they're not something like you looking at these things,
20:29
Speaker 1: and to your point about AI earlier, it's like, yeah,
20:32
Speaker 1: it's a great tool. I'm not against A in itself,
20:34
Speaker 1: but if you're not inquiring and understanding these things, you
20:38
Speaker 1: could get AI hallucinations or giving you some feedback, and
20:42
Speaker 1: that is wrong. And one of the things you mentioned
20:46
Speaker 1: about working with these companies and I want to come
20:48
Speaker 1: back to you earlier in the podcast about you have
20:52
Speaker 1: worked in over fifteen different countries. You've traveled over I
20:56
Speaker 1: think forty three countries is what I have my notes here.
21:00
Speaker 1: You bring a perspective that most people don't have because
21:02
Speaker 1: I just in the States alone. Right before we start
21:04
Speaker 1: recording this, I said, I work with a couple, especially
21:06
Speaker 1: smaller companies, and they have employees or distributed workforce, and
21:11
Speaker 1: their employees are not in the same state in which
21:13
Speaker 1: the company is incorporated or sat up, and they run
21:15
Speaker 1: into problems. But I imagine you're seeing things that you go
21:19
Speaker 1: into another country and there's all I mean, you can't
21:21
Speaker 1: these are these are lot. This gets really complex pretty quickly,
21:23
Speaker 1: is what I'm I'm hearing you say.
21:26
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, it definitely does. I think one of
21:29
Speaker 3: the good things though, if you're a US based company,
21:33
Speaker 3: let's just say, and you have different regions out there,
21:38
Speaker 3: like one company has five different regions, and they all
21:43
Speaker 3: have different local laws, and they all have different cultures.
21:46
Speaker 3: So the way that I look at it, there are
21:49
Speaker 3: foundational policies and procedures that you could do as a foundation,
21:54
Speaker 3: but then you can roll and integrate them and make
21:57
Speaker 3: modifications based on local law and practices. Like for example,
22:02
Speaker 3: one company, we had a rewards and recognition program, and
22:07
Speaker 3: in China, they're very team oriented, like they don't like
22:11
Speaker 3: individual rewards. They prefer it as a team effort. So
22:16
Speaker 3: what we did was we actually modified our rewards and
22:19
Speaker 3: recognition program so it'd be more team centric. Does that
22:23
Speaker 3: make sense?
22:24
Speaker 2: Oh? That makes total sense.
22:25
Speaker 1: And I think this is another accidental thing that you
22:27
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, where I've tried to come up as a
22:31
Speaker 1: previous companies come up waste or rewarding staff or identifying them.
22:35
Speaker 1: But to your point, having somebody like you're Helena coming
22:38
Speaker 1: in and looking at it, is that program or whatever
22:41
Speaker 1: you're offering fair and equitable? Is it being applied consistently
22:44
Speaker 1: through the company? And where I found where Oh, we
22:46
Speaker 1: kind of haven't done that that way, and we weren't
22:50
Speaker 1: talking and even not even a huge company they say
22:52
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty two hundred people, but different managers
22:55
Speaker 1: or different groups weren't comparing notes with each other about
22:57
Speaker 1: how we were compensating folks or what we were looking
23:00
Speaker 1: or how we're offering things. And so having somebody like
23:02
Speaker 1: you come in and do the analysis and say, hey, guys,
23:06
Speaker 1: let's you know, let's look at all these things again.
23:08
Speaker 1: We may be just blind to them. And I think
23:10
Speaker 1: you bring such a great perspective leaning in that helps us.
23:14
Speaker 1: I like how you said being a risk mitigator. It's like,
23:18
Speaker 1: if you do this work now, it's much better than
23:20
Speaker 1: waiting until you know you're you're out of gas or
23:25
Speaker 1: you're using a car anal here you crashed because you didn't,
23:28
Speaker 1: you know, tighten up some loose bolts. You know, It's
23:31
Speaker 1: like it could have been avoided if you would have
23:32
Speaker 1: gone there and just adjust these things now and get
23:38
Speaker 1: our company in a healthier position.
23:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, exactly. So just some other examples. So for
23:49
Speaker 3: companies that need to write size or downsize whatever you
23:53
Speaker 3: want to say. So, there was a time. I know
23:56
Speaker 3: we talk about COVID. It's a long time ago. But
23:59
Speaker 3: in my world, unfortunately, there are like reorganizations. So I'm
24:04
Speaker 3: looking at it from a perspective of equality and making
24:10
Speaker 3: sure that we're fair. So one of the things that
24:14
Speaker 3: we look at is if we're laying off people, are
24:18
Speaker 3: we triggering the Worn Act and if so, we need
24:22
Speaker 3: to follow that, or are we biases against different cultures
24:30
Speaker 3: or different backgrounds or women. But to really being look
24:34
Speaker 3: at it from an overall perspective, and so that's another
24:39
Speaker 3: area that I think a lot of companies get into
24:42
Speaker 3: trouble with having layoffs and then getting lawsuits later, right right.
24:51
Speaker 1: And you brought COVID up, and there was the you know,
24:54
Speaker 1: understanding and I'm blinking on the program, but you know
24:58
Speaker 1: there was the was it the p EPP program or
25:00
Speaker 1: whatnot where you could get money from the government depending
25:03
Speaker 1: on how things were. Again, you need someone from an
25:05
Speaker 1: HR documenting this because there were some companies that got
25:07
Speaker 1: money and they didn't appropriately handle it well and so
25:12
Speaker 1: it's either they had to give it back or they
25:14
Speaker 1: had to like recalibrate it. And this again understanding like
25:17
Speaker 1: somebody like you, Halenda, to come in here and say,
25:19
Speaker 1: how do we take care of our workforce and make
25:23
Speaker 1: sure if we're changing them in any status or removing
25:26
Speaker 1: them or adjusting their hours, but we're doing it so
25:28
Speaker 1: that it's not like you said, appearing like it's it's
25:32
Speaker 1: it's not being objective. It's it could be a peer selective.
25:36
Speaker 1: It could be somebody may like you said, may take
25:38
Speaker 1: it and feel punitive by it instead of like, no, no,
25:41
Speaker 1: we can document this. And this is why it's somebody
25:44
Speaker 1: like you come in and help reduce that risk. And
25:47
Speaker 1: I like how you said earlier too. You you you're
25:51
Speaker 1: you sit on other boards as well. So you're helping
25:54
Speaker 1: these board members understand the risk and speak a little
25:59
Speaker 1: bit to that because I think, yeah, especially because you
26:02
Speaker 1: come in if you're not an owner or so those
26:06
Speaker 1: of you that I worked with a small company and
26:08
Speaker 1: they were very the original owners, they would have to
26:10
Speaker 1: have an internal board. They didn't have an external board. Yes,
26:13
Speaker 1: and we didn't have that voice of somebody coming from
26:15
Speaker 1: the outside looking into the organization and talk a little
26:18
Speaker 1: bit about what how that unique perspective comes in and
26:21
Speaker 1: how you help the companies and those boards.
26:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I've done both internal where they have no
26:29
Speaker 3: external boarder directors, and also I'm on an external board,
26:34
Speaker 3: So I think like from a perspective of actually, when
26:38
Speaker 3: I was in corporate America, typically HR was not at
26:43
Speaker 3: a board meeting, which is kind of eyebrow raising. So
26:47
Speaker 3: I bring a new lens to a board of Okay,
26:51
Speaker 3: we have our one to three year plan. Do we
26:55
Speaker 3: have do we have the skill sets in place? Do
26:59
Speaker 3: we have people all that we can upskill well? Do
27:03
Speaker 3: we have like workforce analytics where we can plan so
27:08
Speaker 3: we do have the right talent when we need them
27:10
Speaker 3: at the right time, you know, So looking at it,
27:13
Speaker 3: do we need to buy, borrow or build as we
27:17
Speaker 3: would call it in HR and a lot of companies,
27:20
Speaker 3: they're very reactive when it comes to that, whereas I
27:23
Speaker 3: think if we were better at planning, we wouldn't have
27:27
Speaker 3: those oops. We don't have that skill set, which slows
27:31
Speaker 3: down or does it we can't meet our goals and objectives.
27:34
Speaker 3: So now we're trying to recruit more reactively than proactively.
27:40
Speaker 3: So I think that's one of the things. And I
27:43
Speaker 3: also think at the board meetings is to share what's
27:49
Speaker 3: happening with key people, Like succession planning for example, is
27:55
Speaker 3: very very important from a board perspective, So what happens
28:01
Speaker 3: if key leaders within the organizations leave, then all the
28:06
Speaker 3: IP walks out the door. We cross training and backing
28:11
Speaker 3: up and having those contingency plans in place. Yeah, absolutely,
28:16
Speaker 3: those are some of the things also that we try
28:20
Speaker 3: to look at.
28:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, you hit on a couple of different topics there
28:24
Speaker 1: helaning that which I think are really important.
28:25
Speaker 2: And one of the things I like to say when
28:27
Speaker 2: I work.
28:27
Speaker 1: With business owners or team leaders like can they take
28:29
Speaker 1: a vacation and meaning do they have duplicity? Do they
28:32
Speaker 1: have roll duplicity? The other people that they could step away.
28:35
Speaker 1: How long could they step away from the organization in
28:37
Speaker 1: a good, healthy way, knowing that the team would still
28:39
Speaker 1: run well, understand well how to play well together. And
28:42
Speaker 1: you're bringing up a great point, and in fact, we
28:44
Speaker 1: just did an episode recently about workforce planning and what
28:47
Speaker 1: does that look like? And to your point, Holane, if
28:50
Speaker 1: you're not thinking about this and then what's the lift
28:53
Speaker 1: right if you have to hire a bunch of people,
28:55
Speaker 1: on board them, get them equipped, trained, what is all
28:59
Speaker 1: that going to take right and think through that because
29:00
Speaker 1: they don't think it's like it's not like a light
29:02
Speaker 1: switch just turn it on and off. It takes some
29:04
Speaker 1: time in planning. And where I've seen the ball dropped
29:08
Speaker 1: a lot of this, and I'm sure you see this
29:09
Speaker 1: is if if you're onboarding people and then they're like, well,
29:12
Speaker 1: who's going to be the manager, Who's who they're going
29:14
Speaker 1: to be assigned to, how they're going to be integrated? Right,
29:16
Speaker 1: all of those things and hearing you talk about that
29:19
Speaker 1: at the board level and think about where do you
29:22
Speaker 1: guys want to go? Where is the company going, What
29:24
Speaker 1: are the services or the expertise that really need to
29:27
Speaker 1: have on there?
29:28
Speaker 2: I think is so important.
29:29
Speaker 1: And if you're a business owner or in your have
29:32
Speaker 1: your board and you don't have somebody like hel and
29:35
Speaker 1: Er at the HR at the table, I think that
29:36
Speaker 1: is so much more important, especially from the point of you,
29:40
Speaker 1: I know you work with mergers and acquisitions and things
29:42
Speaker 1: like that too, or where people are going to sell
29:44
Speaker 1: their company. Most people don't. You know, it takes years
29:48
Speaker 1: in the making to sell a company because you have
29:51
Speaker 1: to get it in good shape. And to your point, right, Helen, well,
29:54
Speaker 1: what happens if we don't we don't have these key people,
29:56
Speaker 1: if they don't stick around, How valuable is this company
30:01
Speaker 1: without those without those people? Potentially? Right, if you're leaving
30:05
Speaker 1: the company, what is it? What is what are you?
30:06
Speaker 1: What are we actually selling here? Particularly when we're talking
30:09
Speaker 1: professional services and people focused elements.
30:14
Speaker 3: So yeah, I've done hundreds of m and a's and
30:17
Speaker 3: you know, not only domestic but also global, and I
30:22
Speaker 3: think one of the things that's really important. There's a
30:25
Speaker 3: perception out there that HR is there after the l
30:30
Speaker 3: o I has been signed, which means that the deal's
30:33
Speaker 3: already done. But the challenge is that HR really needs
30:37
Speaker 3: to be at a deal seat because what we're looking
30:40
Speaker 3: at is we're looking at talent, we're looking at culture,
30:45
Speaker 3: we're looking at systems, we're looking at benefits, we're looking
30:50
Speaker 3: at all of the things that we're actually acquiring. And
30:54
Speaker 3: that's where huge decisions are made, is do we integrate
30:59
Speaker 3: them into the parent company or do we keep them
31:03
Speaker 3: as separate subsidiaries. Because, for example, there was a specific
31:10
Speaker 3: example where an entrepreneur who built this very successful business,
31:16
Speaker 3: he was the visionary, he was had created a like
31:20
Speaker 3: a two hundred and fifty million dollar company, and he
31:24
Speaker 3: was being bought by a very conservative, very process oriented company,
31:33
Speaker 3: and so it was two totally different cultures. And what
31:38
Speaker 3: happened was that no one really looked at that, and
31:41
Speaker 3: that CEO was gone in six months because he couldn't
31:45
Speaker 3: operate in that culture. So it wasn't a matter of
31:50
Speaker 3: assessing that beforehand and then working through, well, how we're
31:53
Speaker 3: going to manage that and how we're going to do it.
31:56
Speaker 3: So that's just a different example examples peoples like, for example,
32:03
Speaker 3: when you go into valuations, the biggest one where we
32:07
Speaker 3: miss is systems integration. So typically you know they have
32:12
Speaker 3: separate HRIS systems, they have separate CRM systems, financial on
32:17
Speaker 3: accounting is like, have we really mapped that out before
32:21
Speaker 3: the acquisition to see if and to plan for that.
32:26
Speaker 3: And I think one of the biggest things, whether it's
32:29
Speaker 3: a mergers and acquisition or you're hiring people, the first
32:34
Speaker 3: impression is always the most important. So we talk about
32:39
Speaker 3: the employee experience, the people experience. What are companies doing
32:46
Speaker 3: to wow candidates, because candidates are very smart now, they're
32:51
Speaker 3: the ones that are actually interviewing you as well. They're
32:55
Speaker 3: looking looking you up, David and seeing all of the
33:00
Speaker 3: Google reviews and the Glass store reviews and see what
33:04
Speaker 3: kind of a leader you are, right and what kind
33:07
Speaker 3: of a company you are, and really assessing whether they
33:12
Speaker 3: want to actually work for you. So it's actually kind
33:14
Speaker 3: of done a flip flow.
33:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, no, You're you're running the money there, Helena.
33:19
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm fifty two. You know, I'm the Gen
33:23
Speaker 1: X generation. We have the Baby boomers that are leaving
33:25
Speaker 1: the workforce. Now we have the millennials and these Gen
33:28
Speaker 1: zs And I agree with one hundred percent with you.
33:30
Speaker 1: When I came into the workforce, you know, it was
33:33
Speaker 1: kind of a black box of understanding what's going on
33:35
Speaker 1: in these companies like you said, it's completely flipped and
33:39
Speaker 1: now employees, potential employees can look and decide is this
33:43
Speaker 1: something that I want to be a part of because
33:45
Speaker 1: I can do this type of work in a lot
33:47
Speaker 1: of different places in a lot of different ways.
33:49
Speaker 2: Why is your company unique or different?
33:51
Speaker 1: And to your point of the culture, Elena, and and.
33:55
Speaker 2: I don't know.
33:55
Speaker 1: And I've noticed this actually even with Acquisitie, I'll use
33:58
Speaker 1: use exacquisitions because I've had a couple folks talk to
34:01
Speaker 1: you recently over the last couple of years on the
34:03
Speaker 1: podcast and just personally acquisitions where a company is acquiring
34:07
Speaker 1: a firm to your point, Lena, but there's been no
34:10
Speaker 1: effort to really, like you said, employee experience, like oh, well,
34:15
Speaker 1: just assume that you're just going to absorb and we'll
34:16
Speaker 1: want to be a part of this great company because
34:18
Speaker 1: we're so great, and not communicating the offers or not
34:22
Speaker 1: communicating how will we integrate you? And it's like, I
34:25
Speaker 1: don't even know what's going to happen and is there
34:28
Speaker 1: an opportunity. It's just and so it's it's very awkward
34:31
Speaker 1: for those folks. Now they can I've seen them do
34:33
Speaker 1: like some kind of signing bonus or something to retent
34:35
Speaker 1: retain them. But after that's that's up right, they're like,
34:39
Speaker 1: I'm out of here. I'll give you my year or whatever,
34:41
Speaker 1: then I'll put my time in. But then I'm like,
34:43
Speaker 1: I'm out of here. So like having somebody like you
34:46
Speaker 1: come in and work alongside them, like you said, even
34:48
Speaker 1: before that letter of intent is provided, but think about
34:51
Speaker 1: what is the strategy for integration or how we're going
34:54
Speaker 1: to work together to make this as a positive experience
34:59
Speaker 1: in one where people walk away saying, oh, my goodness
35:00
Speaker 1: is great, versus people that I worked with another colleague
35:05
Speaker 1: who are a large firm, and she was working on
35:07
Speaker 1: this integration for like three years on a company and
35:09
Speaker 1: it was just like burning I mean she was the
35:11
Speaker 1: parent company acquiring them, Helena, but it was just burning
35:14
Speaker 1: her out the pressure and everything that's just coming on.
35:16
Speaker 1: It's like I couldn't wait to kind of get out
35:17
Speaker 1: of that. I didn't even realize how well, yeah it was.
35:21
Speaker 1: It was just even though, And this is the one
35:23
Speaker 1: thing I'm noticing, Helena. I love your thoughts on this.
35:25
Speaker 1: You know a lot of times we would throw money
35:28
Speaker 1: around if you will not money, but I mean they
35:30
Speaker 1: we'll try to retreat you. But again I'm seeing a
35:33
Speaker 1: change in the workforce. Money certainly always is there, but
35:35
Speaker 1: it's like my environment has my opportunity for development. The
35:39
Speaker 1: culture americ. Can you talk about how you look at
35:41
Speaker 1: that with companies as well, Helena is not just the
35:43
Speaker 1: financial you know, dollar dollar, but the other elements that
35:47
Speaker 1: companies to be evaluating.
35:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think too, it's really the leadstship. So
35:54
Speaker 3: I use this analogy. I want you to think about
35:57
Speaker 3: the best manager, leader, or mental youth ever had, right,
36:02
Speaker 3: and I challenge people to say, well, are you leading
36:05
Speaker 3: like that? And I think leaders need to really these days.
36:12
Speaker 3: It's about emotional intelligence and empathy. Is that we're all human.
36:18
Speaker 3: We all have challenges, we all have different pains, we
36:21
Speaker 3: all have different backgrounds, come from different diverse but we
36:24
Speaker 3: all are human. And I think really putting that human
36:29
Speaker 3: element into leading in companies is really key today. And
36:35
Speaker 3: I think, honestly, I look back in my career and
36:40
Speaker 3: I had one of the best leaders in my entire life.
36:45
Speaker 3: He trusted me one hundred percent. He would let me
36:50
Speaker 3: learn and try and do things, and it was I
36:54
Speaker 3: learned a lot of lessons, which was super cool. But
36:58
Speaker 3: I really was a to really brainstorm and bounce ideas
37:04
Speaker 3: and he was very supportive. But that worked for me.
37:08
Speaker 3: So those were the things that now I could lead
37:12
Speaker 3: that way and like, just let's just use for an example.
37:17
Speaker 3: I read this great book called The Empathy Edge, and
37:22
Speaker 3: it was really how we as people can put empathy
37:27
Speaker 3: into our decision making and into our leading every day.
37:31
Speaker 3: And I think that's really one of the things that
37:36
Speaker 3: we look at and that can be done by. It
37:39
Speaker 3: can be done like with leadership development, it can be
37:42
Speaker 3: done by There's many assessments out there. I'm a very
37:46
Speaker 3: big fan of the five Behaviors, which is a Patrick
37:51
Speaker 3: Lincioni framework based on the five dysfunctions of a team,
37:56
Speaker 3: and it's really working together collaborative as a team rather
38:01
Speaker 3: than as an individual contributor. And I actually am certified.
38:07
Speaker 3: I love it so much. I love training and facilitating
38:10
Speaker 3: those groups because you see people come together and like, wow,
38:15
Speaker 3: this is amazing, and they've been able to tenx their
38:19
Speaker 3: revenue and business because they've changed the way and being
38:23
Speaker 3: able to collaborate, which is a new way of thinking.
38:27
Speaker 2: I love that, Helena, and I'm with you. Yeah, I
38:31
Speaker 2: use one of the tools I use. This is called
38:32
Speaker 2: the Five Voices.
38:32
Speaker 1: I love pactically own and he's got working geniuses as well,
38:35
Speaker 1: among others. And I find like you when you do
38:38
Speaker 1: this work, and I like how you said it's a journey.
38:42
Speaker 1: It's not a destination and development. It's ongoing and so
38:46
Speaker 1: we keep getting better and better over these times. And
38:48
Speaker 1: I love the different tools. And that's why I wanted
38:49
Speaker 1: you have on the podcast because as you listen to
38:52
Speaker 1: Helena and you're leaning in, you're like, oh, I haven't
38:54
Speaker 1: thought about this in a different way, and it's great.
38:56
Speaker 1: I mean, and we're going to make sure you guys
38:58
Speaker 1: can connect with Elena again on LinkedIn. I'm going to
39:01
Speaker 1: put links to her book Protect Your Profit Line and
39:05
Speaker 1: you can learn about the HR Prescription prescription or company
39:08
Speaker 1: and how you can get connected with her. And I
39:10
Speaker 1: know we're getting into the podcast and I would love
39:12
Speaker 1: to go alonger with you, but I feel like we've
39:14
Speaker 1: covered a lot on this podcast, and I'm hoping if
39:16
Speaker 1: if if they're if you're a business owner or leader
39:20
Speaker 1: within the company, you're in a position that's hey, you're
39:22
Speaker 1: managing people, and what would you encourage them to do
39:25
Speaker 1: to kind of reflect look at themselves so that they
39:27
Speaker 1: are not like you said, you know they can they
39:30
Speaker 1: can helpfully mitigate their risk not be as accidental as
39:34
Speaker 1: they may be right now. But what would you encourage
39:37
Speaker 1: that leader or business owner to kind of reflect back
39:39
Speaker 1: on and evaluate themselves and their company.
39:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really love that. So from a different perspective,
39:47
Speaker 3: I would from a leadership perspective, have you had a
39:50
Speaker 3: one to one meeting with every team member and it's
39:55
Speaker 3: their meeting, How are they doing? What any ideas any
39:59
Speaker 3: challenge that they may need help. From a policy perspective,
40:04
Speaker 3: do you have an AI policy that is really a
40:07
Speaker 3: risk to your company and to be able to train
40:11
Speaker 3: the leaders and employees on. And the last thing is
40:16
Speaker 3: has your handbook or your policies been updated in the
40:19
Speaker 3: last year. If they have not, likely they're probably out
40:23
Speaker 3: of compliance. That also, as you said, David, I wrote
40:29
Speaker 3: my book, I have built risk mitigation frameworks where I
40:33
Speaker 3: can identify big risks very quickly and be able to
40:37
Speaker 3: help with giving recommendations so we can protect those business
40:43
Speaker 3: owners and corporations and even leaders from staying out of trouble.
40:48
Speaker 1: That's been fantastic, Lena. I'm so grateful that you came
40:51
Speaker 1: on the podcast. We will definitely love to have you back.
40:53
Speaker 1: I think you just gave some great, amazing takeaways and
40:56
Speaker 1: I'm hopeful our audiens will late lean in and take
40:59
Speaker 1: a look at your book and can reach out to
41:01
Speaker 1: you and again leave comments, but we'll make sure they
41:04
Speaker 1: get back to you.
41:04
Speaker 2: So thank you so much for joining us.
41:07
Speaker 3: Thank you David, It's been an absolute pleasure.
41:10
Speaker 1: Well you guys, I really appreciate you always liking subscribing
41:14
Speaker 1: follow Along. We've covered a lot today on the real
41:17
Speaker 1: cost of people problems, making sure we're reducing those accident
41:21
Speaker 1: anymal mistakes that can get expensive quickly. Really stood out
41:24
Speaker 1: to me is that you know, people aren't the problems.
41:27
Speaker 1: It's not themselves. It's how we can get out way
41:31
Speaker 1: and stop making those accidents, getting help, getting somebody like
41:34
Speaker 1: Helena to help you along the journey, so that you
41:36
Speaker 1: have somebody an advocate I'd love to say on the
41:39
Speaker 1: podcast here that can help you along your journey.
41:42
Speaker 2: So again, like subscribe.
41:44
Speaker 1: Follow along and join us until next time, be well,
41:47
Speaker 1: Thanks everybody.
41:49
Speaker 3: Thanks David,