Let‘s Talk HR - Humanizing the Conversation

Trauma comes in many forms and we need to better understand it.

Trauma comes in many forms and affects everyone differently. This guest knows all too well what trauma can do. Michelle Vande Hey now a coach and educator, helping others be trauma-informed and making sure to take care of themselves before burning out from over giving. Michelle is a strong and brilliant woman, join the conversation!
 
Contact Michelle
LinkedIn - lightoflovecoaching.com 
E-mail – michelle@lightoflovecoaching.com
Website - lightoflovecoaching.com 
 
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  Today I have a very authentic and amazing guest joining me. Michelle Vande Hey. After the death of her son James, Michelle battled depression, anxiety and PTSD. Her relationship with her loving daughter was torn apart. She was binge eating to numb the pain and felt completely lost with where she was and where she was going. Michelle found herself again, with a holistic approach to healing alongside professional help and a meaningful connection built in a community with folks that were able to help her know her worth. This led her on an unexpected path where she now helps founders and nonprofits to recover from or prevent burnout from over giving and compassion fatigue, so they can create long lasting sustainable impact with their organization without losing themselves. Michelle founded light of love coaching in February of 2020, and is a trauma informed certified holistic life coach. Her mission is to create a welcoming community of folks that rediscover who they are by knowing their self worth and embracing their spiritual gifts so they can be empowered to influence change for themselves and others around the world. Together, they are co creating a more inclusive, peaceful and, and prosperous world. Michelle has been featured in brava magazine and is regularly a guest on podcast. When she is not coaching, speaking or facilitating. You can find Michelle making dance videos in her kitchen biking to Pilates getting lost in the world or running with the sunrise. welcome Michelle, I am so excited to have you join me today.
 
Michelle Vande Hey  03:03
Well, thank you. Thank you for having me.
 
Leighann Lovely  03:05
Why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and about your business?
 
Michelle Vande Hey  03:10
Sure. So I live in the sock city Wisconsin area with my husband and daughter. And we've lived here for eight years now we live, lived in Madison for a while and then moved here for my husband's work. And I've worked from home most of my life. So I'm just mobile. And yeah, I'm a certified holistic life coach. And I do trauma informed work, and really passionate about helping leaders and founders of nonprofits and mission driven organizations to create sustainable impact and sustainable success without burning out a lot with focus on like over giving compassion, fatigue and vicarious trauma. And I utilize trauma sensitive yoga as well. To help with those things.
 
Leighann Lovely  04:05
That's That's amazing. And I think that a lot of people nowadays suffer from over giving. I think that's especially in the nonprofit, I mean space. And that's, that's, that's absolutely amazing. And your your business, when you and I talked really came out of, you know, trauma in your life that led you down the path to coaching. Are you open to telling us a little bit about your story?
 
Michelle Vande Hey  04:39
Yeah, sure. Yeah. So coaching was something I had never thought I would do. Even though I would always have people kind of tell me like, oh, you should be a coach or you should be a speaker and that kind of stuff. And I just kind of, you know, was like okay, yeah, you probably said that to everyone sort of thing. And then in unfortunately in October Were of 2018, we had a son that died when he was about 12 weeks old in his sleep. And after that happened, obviously, like just all sorts of stuff. And by October of 2019, so about a year later, I had, I was already doing like daycare part time, and then working another business as well. And my living daughter, and then my daycare kids were all getting to the age of being in school. And I knew I didn't want to do daycare for the rest of my life. And so I was talking to a friend of mine. And I was just like, I don't know what to do. Because I have time. I don't want to just like, sit at home and be sad all the time. And, but I don't know what to do. And she's like, well, you should be a health coach, because you're already doing it. You're just not charging people for it. And I kind of thought around that. I was like, you know, I don't want to be a coach. I feel like this world has too many coaches already. Why? Like, why do we need another coach? And she's like, Yeah, but people really need coaches, and you're really good at it. So you should like what else are you going to do? And so because I trusted her judgment, everything I was like, alright, that's what I'm going to do. So I started health coaching. And basically, it was like, a couple of weeks later, because I've always been an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur. So for me, I was like, Okay, I'm gonna do it, let's get it going. So within a couple of weeks, I started, you know, I had all my promotional material. And then I like reached out to people that I thought would want to have a coach. And I started coaching, right after that. And then in that time, too, I really realized how my clients needed more work with their mindset, as opposed to what to eat and what not to eat. And so I wasn't actively looking, but I came across this holistic life coaching certification. And then I was like, This is what I think I need to do. And so when I decided to do that, it was during that time, when we were doing some of the coaching stuff that I do now, that it really kind of came over me that I shouldn't really be helping grieving moms. And so I quickly shifted from helping everyone to help Ingredion moms. And that was really, you know, it was also helped my healing journey, like I was doing therapy and all that kind of stuff. And for me to health and nutrition, and fitness was a big part of my healing journey, too. And then, last year, and 2021, I started doing more in person speaking and like facilitating things for organizations like meditations, group discussions, and things like that. And I started working more with these founders and leaders of these nonprofit organizations mostly. And I realized, like, that's who I really want to help, because a lot of them have been through something similar to me, or they've been through something in their life. And they started this organization, because of what they had been through. Sort of like me, even though my initially what I was doing wasn't about, like about the pain that I went through, or the trauma that I went through. But a lot of them, it was. And so and then also last year, during that, about that same time, I did this, like 20 hour trauma sensitive yoga training, and that really opened my eyes up to just more of like trauma work, and how so many people are affected by trauma, and really honoring that trauma isn't just isn't only PTSD, it isn't only people who served in the armed forces, it's, there's, you can have trauma from so many different things. And that it can affect your daily life without you even realizing it. Right. And so that's when I started kind of getting a little bit more into focusing on being more trauma informed, and using utilizing that kind of stuff with my clients.
 
Leighann Lovely  09:17
Right. And I love what you just said because people assume or associate trauma with one major event. But there are little traumas throughout our lives that often get on noticed and on treated. Yes or not even I don't know that treated is the right word. They get just brushed away as if it's it's nothing and we never address it talks about it or even acknowledge that something as small as and you and I think talked about this. You don't realize that changing jobs is considered one of the major traumas in an adult, individuals life changing jobs. And if we, if that is one of the major traumas, that means that every single adult is experiencing traumas on a regular basis, because I think that if we reframe what trauma means, we would start to realize how often we are experiencing trauma. And I guess, you know, when I look at what is actual trauma, it's, you know, having an event in our life, that sort of significantly impacts the way that we're either doing things the way that we're in taking information. So those small little traumas, you know, you go from having, let's say, you're at a job for seven years, all of a sudden, everything in your life is tipped upside down, and you have to find a new routine. Yeah. And that that is traumatic, that's a traumatic event. Now, I'm talking about a trauma that is not excuse me, life altering in the sense of, you know, so I'm not I'm not trying to be insensitive, obviously, your your trauma is completely and totally different. That is much more of an emotional, much more of a, you know, it stimulates different portions of, you know, I'm assuming of the brain than a trauma of changing a job. That's, you know, it's a wheeling trauma that you enter into. But there are on a regular basis, I mean, driving down the street, you driving down the road, and somebody almost runs you off the road, I will tell you that I'm I'm shaking, I'll shake for the next, you know, five minutes of going Oh, my God, oh, my God, that almost happened. I mean, you could have traumas of things that almost happened to you.
 
Michelle Vande Hey  11:55
That's definitely and, and talking about different types of trauma, too. I think that's a great thing to bring up. Because it doesn't mean that we're like, watering down or making it seem like Oh, trauma isn't a big deal. Because everyone experiences trauma, it's actually the exact opposite. Is that like, there are there it's like different different types of traumas, have you experienced things in a different way and need different types of healing or different ways, but like making sure that we're not just pushing them to the side or suppressing them to, and sometimes to some of those, like, quote, unquote, smaller traumas can be things, especially from like childhood, like things that happen over and over again, that are like small little things, that that affects, like what you are telling yourself and how you feel about yourself about your self worth, and all of those types of things as well.
 
Leighann Lovely  12:54
Yeah, oh, yeah, I completely understand that if somebody is, grows up, repeatedly being told, or repeatedly being hit for not getting an A, or not even something as simple as that they're going to grow up thinking that if they're not perfect, all of the time, that they're not worth anything. Yeah, I mean, I and that's just an example, I'm assuming off, you know, off the top of my head, but that all of you know, all of the good that happens to us. And all of the bad that happens to us is going to make up how we process information as adults, and how we see ourselves when we look in the mirror, and how we I'm assuming are able to self soothe ourselves. Mm hmm. So this is amazing work. And I'm going to guess that the majority of the people that you start working with, don't realize some of the, I guess self sabotaging habits are as bad as they actually are, because of things that they have grown up, or things that they have learned through those traumas.
 
Michelle Vande Hey  14:19
Yeah, definitely. And to talking about traumas is just like collective traumas, too. So the most obvious one that happened recently was COVID. And the pandemic is like, that's like a collective trauma. So even like, mass shootings and things like that are like natural disasters. Those are traumas that people experience on a collective level too. And those are things that oftentimes again, we get so used to just being like, oh, you know, we just kind of shove it to the side and don't realize that it can really affect you on your in your daily life and your decision making. You're even Like your confidence about the decisions that you're making, it can really affect all aspects of your life.
 
Leighann Lovely  15:07
And so do you think that when when a large group of people experience a trauma, for instance, you know, COVID, we just saw went through this right. And there were some people who took it extremely, extremely difficulty. And, you know, again, I had, I have a very strong support system, my family, we all managed to, you know, find a way to continue to connect and talk. But there are many individuals out there that that are lacking in that, that that don't necessarily. So do you think that because there are some people who have that strong community that they will sometimes push aside and make light of some of those, you know, traumas that make it even more difficult? For others?
 
Michelle Vande Hey  16:02
I think it can be twofold. I mean, the community aspect can be something that can be really beneficial, because like the, the not feeling so alone, and something can really be helpful. But if but if it's affecting you, differently than maybe the people that you're around most often, that can be really challenging, because you could start thinking like, well, what's wrong with me for feeling this way about this, when my closest friends and family don't feel the same way. And oftentimes, you might have friends or family that are feeling the same way. But it's like, we don't communicate those things often, either. So how do we can be helpful, but it can also in the aspect that you're talking about? It can be challenging, too.
 
Leighann Lovely  16:49
So how do we overcome that? I mean, I know that you, you, you talked about, you know, kind of teaching or educating and helping people and you know, more to the HR? How do you make people more trauma informed to, you know, try not to isolate others, and make sure that just because you may not be having an extremely hard time with it, that you're not making somebody else feel even worse by saying, well, it's not a big deal.
 
Michelle Vande Hey  17:25
Yeah, I mean, I think compassion is a big part of it. And it starts with self compassion first and having compassion for yourself. And that's a big part of trauma sensitive yoga, I feel like to is, when, especially when you're doing it in a group, it's something that can be done one on one, or in a group, when you're doing it in a group, you're learning how to have yourself and your body feel safe. And, and only you can decide if the space is safe. So like, I can say, like, Oh, this is a safe space, but like, I don't really get to decide if it's a safe space for anyone else, they get to decide that. But then being able to manage their own feeling of that sense of safety in themselves, while also being a part of a group as well. And honoring the people in the group that maybe they don't really feel safe, and honoring what they're feeling and what they're going through while also taking care of themselves. And I think if we can do that collectively, just as people, it just creates more space for for openness and for understanding. And knowing that, like, everyone's needs are a little bit different. And just because someone needs something a little bit more of something, doesn't mean that, that it's not fair that maybe you don't get it. And I know HR is probably challenging with that, where it's like, oh, you have like, this is what everybody gets, so to speak, you know, like with paid time off or like, even I know, like, mental health days have become a little bit more of a common thing. But it's like, some people are going to need more mental health days than others. And how can we how can we figure that out in a way that people understand that it's like, it's not like, being fair doesn't mean like, everyone gets the same thing. It's actually about like, honoring what each person needs. And, and knowing that everyone needs something a little bit different. Is can be really valuable. And that can be challenging in HR or organizations where you're trying to be quote unquote fair. And giving everyone the same things but not everyone needs the same things
 
Leighann Lovely  19:57
right. So and then we get into of Where's the how? How do we? How do we make sure that nobody feels like they're not getting all of the benefits, but also staying confidential, if somebody is taking a mental health day, but at the same time, we've started to realize, and we've started to learn that there is no cookie cutter solution to working with everybody, right? If I come in and disclose that I have PTSD. And trust me, I've I have experienced, being a recruiter I have experienced where there are individuals who, you know, have different disorders of some kind, whether that be PTSD, whether that be anxiety disorder, whether that be and they'll, you know, they've walked into facilities, and they've gone, I can't work here and you're like, Okay, well, why what's going on? They really like you. And it's either an environment issue, or it's a noise issue, or it's a and so, you know, we can't treat everybody, you know, like the cookie cutter, but how do we make how do we make HR how do we make the ER leaders more informed about how to address and how to handle that in a way that's not going to make that employee feel embarrassed or feel dissed, even discriminated against if they go up and say I can't, I can't do. Here's an example. This is a bad example. But um, I have two phobias. One, I can't touch chalk, which drives my daughter crazy, because she's always like, come and draw chalk with me, I have to put on gloves. I just can't touch it. My other is, I have a hard time with hair. So I, I remember, I was working with a long time ago. And they're like, everybody participates in vacuuming in our office. And I was like, Okay, I don't I don't mind me vacuuming. That's not a big deal. I can vacuum I vacuum my house. But this vacuum cleaner, this vacuum cleaner needed to be emptied. And what happens when you empty a vacuum cleaner is that there's hair everywhere. And like, in trying to unclog it, I like I like freaked out. I'm like, I can't I can't touch this. Like I can't, I'm gonna have like a panic attack. I can't touch this. And they're like, Okay, it's your turn to vacuum like you. Why can't you talk? I'm like, I can't do it. Like, I mean, they're just like, well, you're you got and what do you say like, oh, I have a phobia with touching, especially other people's here that I don't know, that's all wrapped up. And now that one, I mean, people kind of laughed off and funny. And I was kind of laughing but like, there are situations where people are like, like, I can't, I can't do that. Like, like, you can't, I can't just you just can't like, people there people are people and yes, was that one kind of funny? Yes. And I make fun of myself for it. I make fun of myself, because I can't touch chalk. Those are my two weird phobias. But there are real ones out there that exist. How do we as leaders, as professionals address that without embarrassing or? Yeah,
 
Michelle Vande Hey  23:33
yeah. And so, I mean, yes, your examples may be deemed funnier, but I mean, there's still real like, to you. It's real. Right. And, and, and especially with, like, phobias and things like that, a lot of them kind of feel like people who don't have that. It's like, really, are you serious, you know, but it's like, it's real to you. And that, I mean, that's exactly what trauma is, right? It's like, I don't have to know or understand what your trauma is, to be able to help you through that. And so obviously, like education is super important, but creating a culture in your organization, that people are able to come to you to, and be able to talk through like, Okay, this is a challenge for me. And I want to make sure I'm doing my part or whatever, but this I just can't do for whatever reason, and and having it be part of, of the culture, so I don't you know, I don't know if it's like having meetings and, and really talking about that kind of stuff, but something I use, because I do a lot of group coaching. Because I think being in a group, it really helps us in the real world, right? Because you're managing yourself while being in a group with other people that have their own needs. And so something I do is I have an anonymous feedback form that people Will can fill out anytime throughout their time coaching with me if they don't feel comfortable coming into me. So it's like something like that I have I ever had anyone use it not yet. Well, I maybe not. But it's, it's things like that, that you're telling people, it's okay for whatever you need. And, and so like it, it's letting people know that I'm creating, I'm creating a space where hopefully, if you don't feel safe coming into me that you still have a way to communicate what your needs are to us. And I don't know if that's necessarily an anonymous feedback form might not be possible in HR. But it could be, especially if it's not something where the person needs direct help with it. But if it's something where it's like, oh, these things have been coming up, I don't feel comfortable going to HR, is there a way to have an anonymous feedback form so I can share these things. So then they can get brought up and talked about in a group or things like that, I think is really important. And just like, Yeah, I mean, the self compassion and creating spaces for people to voice what they want to say, without having people say like, Well, no, we can't do that, or you're being too sensitive, or you're being ridiculous, that you can't clean out a vacuum cleaner or whatever, you know, like, like having spaces where people are just saying, okay, and listening, and not having to come back with something.
 
Leighann Lovely  26:38
Right. And I think, you know, it's interesting, because, you know, a lot of people and a lot of people thought, well, this world has become too sensitive, but the reality of it is that we're finally, we're finally creating, or attempting to create the space for people to talk about the things that for years and years forever, have been told, don't talk about that. Don't talk about that in public. You know, I finally, instead of telling my daughter, it's, it's not okay to cry or stop crying about that you don't need to, it's okay to cry, it's okay to be angry, it's okay to be mad at Mommy. But it's not okay to hit, it's not okay to do this. It's, so it's the direct result of, you know, the emotion, if you're acting out from it, it's okay to have experienced a trauma. But in order to get past it in order to, to, you know, get healthy and BB, we have to work through it. And I'm probably not saying the right words, on how you work with people. But we're finally creating space for these individuals and not saying suppress these emotions, because I think that it's been known for a very long time that suppressing emotion, the way that our grandparents and their parents have done that is not healthy. We have a rise of alcoholics, and drug addicts, and people with major mental health issues and people with all, you know, just a slew of major PTSD. I mean, and I could go on forever, a slew of all of these underlined issues. And the majority of them relate back to some form of trauma, that that happened in there, obviously, PTSD, but some form of trauma that happened along their life that they never dealt with that they just shoved out, because I'm quite certain that almost every therapy session starts with, let's talk about your childhood. I mean, it will not every, but every time you go and see a new therapist, and trust me I know because right now I'm looking for a new psychiatrist for my bipolar mine retired, and then my insurance anyways. And every time I see when they're like, let's talk about your child. And I'm like, I don't want to go through this 3 billion times. But it always starts there. Yeah, always because they're like, Well, is there some underlying cause of something that you're still struggling with from somewhere in there? And then it's your teen years? And then it's your, you know, when everybody's like, do you think that there's something you know, that you're still haven't dealt with? And it's like, maybe there is maybe there and again, let's stop talking about me. But the point being is that whenever you see a professional, they're always wondering, is there some traumatic event that you still haven't dealt with? Because we finally figured out that, for the most part, it usually comes from some type of traumatic event.
 
Michelle Vande Hey  30:01
Yeah. And oftentimes to what what my, I guess personal opinion, I guess it would be is that like, there's like layers of healing. And I talked about forgiveness a lot too. And so I feel like there's layers of forgiveness too. And so, sometimes there are things that you've healed, or you've worked through. And then, because I mean, I truly believe to like you and I like, it's like, we're always trying to continue to be better or grow. And not saying that we're not good enough now, but we're just trying to grow and as you're growing, you're going to come up against things that you've never come up against before. And those new things can bring up old, old stuff that maybe you did some healing around, but maybe it just requires a little bit more healing around that. And there's nothing wrong with needing a little bit more healing around that. I feel like there's always layers of things that can be healed. And it doesn't mean that we're all like, these broken people, it's just that there are wounds that can be healed, that are that may need to be healed. And like your, when you were talking to you about like, you know, this idea that we're becoming too sensitive. And it's because you know, our grandparents and parents, and it's like they were told not to share emotion and all that kind of stuff is like, we're also healing generational trauma as well, right. And there's a lot of science that backs that up of that, like we take on what our parents have gone through and our grandparents have gone through if they haven't done any healing themselves. And so I think that's talking about the rise of mental health issues, and alcoholism and all those types of things is we we are this like generation of starting to actually heal some of this generational trauma that we don't even realize that is there. But it's, it's in our DNA, so to speak, and it's in our bodies, and we have the ability to start some doing some of that healing. And it's really important. And so just, that's where like that self compassion comes in as knowing that it's okay for me to have to maybe heal part of this part that I thought I healed already. And, and that's again, where a lot of times with my clients, it's like, a lot of times they have seen therapists or are still seeing a therapist, but they're, they're needing a little bit more. Because it's because what they're doing now is different than what they were doing before. So it brings up all these things in a new way.
 
Leighann Lovely  32:32
Absolutely. And I am I'm a huge believer in, you know, hey, psychiatrist, if you need medication, talk therapy, if you're really dealing with some demons, a coach, if you're just not, you know, a life coach or a special specific coach, too. Because I don't believe that one hour a week or two hours a week is enough. Because they are they're trained to listen to you not to assist you in making changes in your life where coaches can actually help you make changes and put you on a path, not necessarily give you advice unless you're specifically seeing somebody to give you advice. But coaches can actually help you see the path and then help you and guide you to where that path is. Therapists are more of the common talk and will listen and get it out. And there is a defining difference. And trust me I have been through therapy. I mean, I've been through it all. So, and I loved I loved my psychiatrist, unfortunately, he retired a couple years ago, or a year or two year two, I don't know. And I was devastated. I cried. He cried. I got another one. My insurance changed. I had a amazing, amazing therapist that I saw for many, many years for anger management for talk therapy for he was he was a godsend. But there was just a certain point in which things that he could not help me do. And that was where I needed something else in my life. So I'm all for that. But there's something else that you said in there. You made a comment about forgiveness and self love and the greatest gift that anybody can give themselves is forgiveness, forgiveness of themselves, and forgiveness of other people. I have seen so many people out there that hold on to trauma and hold on to things because they remain angry. Mm hmm. And, and and trust me we all have traumas in our lives. We all have we We all have reasons to be horribly mad at somebody horribly. But the greatest gift that I ever gave myself was saying, You know what I'm done with being angry. And, and you'd mentioned that and I just wanted to throw that out there to the masses, that is the greatest gift you can possibly give yourself is reconciling the anger within you, because you're not that person doesn't give a shit. If you're angry at them. You're only on yourself.
 
Michelle Vande Hey  35:30
And they may not even know. Right? It's like, a lot of times with people that you have this like anger and resentment for they don't even realize it. And so you holding on to that is only hurting you.
 
Leighann Lovely  35:43
Yep. Yeah. Well. So let's, we've gone off on a tangent, I want to bring this back to I want to bring this back to like more of the work environment. How do you and I know that you work more with individuals, but you do some speaking engagements? And you do? So tell me a little bit about you know, that? And do you work with, you know, organizations to come in and, you know, do any, you know, talks with, with companies or anything like that to try to, you know, assist with companies that may be or talks with them?
 
Michelle Vande Hey  36:23
Yeah, I can definitely do things like mini workshops, or speaking engagements to talk about, and like, the first piece, and anything that I talked about often is just awareness. And a lot of times, leaders don't even realize that, oh, yeah, I should, we should be more trauma informed. And so it's like, just having that awareness, and the awareness for the whole organization or the whole company to be like, Okay, we're, we want to take this step, to be more trauma informed. So people feel like this is a company that they can feel safer to come to win, they have things going on, and that we're here to support them as well. And that starts with like awareness of not only the leaders within everyone in the organization, and how to kind of manage that, then when you're learning a new way to do things to it. I mean, and that goes back to, again, what you were talking about, with when we were talking about, like the generational trauma stuff, it's like we're, we're unlearning parts of the organization, what what used to be, and now we're relearning a new way to do things. And it's okay to unlearn. And that's a big thing, too, is like knowing that just because their company did it differently before doesn't mean that the company was bad before. It's just now they're learning new ways to do things. And it's okay to change, and adapt and shift. And we really should. And that's the same thing with individuals, like, I don't need to be just because there's certain things that it's like, oh, my parents did this. And that's why I'm this way. That doesn't mean that I can just blame them for the rest of my life and that it's their fault, right? Like, it's like, no, like, let's be honest, and be like, Okay, I just need to unlearn it, right. And so like, as an organization, it's like, what do we want to start unlearning? So we can relearn a new way to do it. And being open to doing that, right.
 
Leighann Lovely  38:31
Yeah. And unfortunately, there are a lot of organizations that are still. And I say this because they lead, they still are leading with the hard fist, which is only in turn just almost traumatizing their employees. Yeah. I mean, when you go to work, and you go home every day angry and pissed off? That is not. I mean, that's not the environment to be in when you're scaring your employees into compliance. Right. That's not, you know, so there is a lot to still be learned by many organizations out there on how to properly manage. And I think that that part of that is being trauma informed in order to understand the sensitivity the empathetic side of, of managing.
 
Michelle Vande Hey  39:27
Yeah, yeah. Because to like the did you say like the iron fist? Yeah. Yeah. That it's like, you can get compliance with that. But do you want to with that, oftentimes, you're probably going to end up with more turnover, because if it's affecting people, then it's like, they're not going to want to stay there. And so then you're spending a lot more money on training and hiring and all that kind of stuff. It's much more cost effective to keep your employees than to have to find new ones, especially nowadays, too. It's Like, it's so much better be able to keep people. And so instead of focusing on only the short term, it's like, you can get results, it may take a little bit more initially with not having an iron fist, but the long term benefits are way outweigh the short term benefits. Right?
 
Leighann Lovely  40:19
Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. Well, we are coming to time. So I want to ask you the question of the season, what would you change about your job? Or the practice that people have in your role? If you could?
 
Michelle Vande Hey  40:35
Oh, what would I change? I think I would, I would change that I wouldn't have to do everything myself. I would hire someone sooner. Um, I mean, I think like, knowing that, like, my like, zone of genius, so to speak, is in coaching and in speaking and facilitating, and if I could change something, it would be that I don't have to worry about writing all my emails. And, and I do have someone that helps me a little bit. But like, if I didn't have to, like, do all of the all of the business stuff, the administrative stuff, that would be so nice.
 
Leighann Lovely  41:20
And what I find wildly hilarious is that at the beginning of this conversation you started off with, I didn't want to become a coach. And now you're saying, my zone of genius in the coaching and which is I mean, absolutely amazing. You fought it in the beginning. And now you've submitted to that your zone of genius, isn't that and that's absolutely awesome. You know, how full circle this conversation has come? Yeah, that's perfect. Yes. So if somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?
 
Michelle Vande Hey  41:54
Yeah, I mean, they can find me on social media, Michelle Vande Hey. On LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, otherwise, if someone prefers email, Michelle at light of love coaching.com. And yeah, just send me a message. I'm always open to a conversation a question. I love meeting new people and having conversations like this, because that's, that's how you create changes is conversations and opening minds and opening hearts.
 
Leighann Lovely  42:24
Excellent. Well, thank you so much for joining me. This has been an awesome conversation. Yeah, thanks, Leon. Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, to follow us, like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
 
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
trauma, people, talk, coach, life, michelle, creating, ptsd, healing, hr, helping, organization, feel, generational trauma, realize, change, individuals, conversation, unlearn, experienced

Let’s Talk Financial Health, It’s Important

Conversations that often get pushed off, are the ones that feel uncomfortable, whether that be because we have to give a bad performance review, break up with someone, or talk about our financial situation and retirement plan. This conversation is the latter and my guest Dan Stich, Founder and Investment Representative, specializes in helping people have uncomfortable conversations in a comfortable way in order to find a path forward. Pivoting from Healthcare Administration nearly 4 years ago Dan found his passion in helping educate businesses and individuals. Not only is he brilliant, he is wildly down to earth.       
 
Contact - Daniel Stich
LinkedIN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-stich-cpfa%C2%AE-609140b/
E-mail - danielstich@ffig.com
Phone - 262-853-4541
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  I have an awesome guest on today Dan Stich, Dan was born and raised in Brookfield Wisconsin as the son of a solo practicing dentist and an educator. He grew up in healthcare and saw firsthand the peaks and valleys of running your own small business as well as garnered the passion to share knowledge and assist in educating individuals on difficult topics. Dan graduated from the University of Wisconsin lacrosse and attended Marquette University for graduate school. During his time at Marquette, he was drawn into the world of healthcare specifically managed care and started a career in healthcare administration. First, starting on the insurance side and moving to the provider side, Dan negotiated multimillion dollar contracts with some of the largest names in the Wisconsin healthcare industry. After over 13 years in the health care administration, Dan chose to shift his focus to financial planning, and has built a practice focused on working with small businesses pre retirement-age individuals, and medical professionals. He enjoys educating and presenting on all topics related to retirement planning, including Social Security timing, long-term care planning, retirement income planning, and financial basis. Dan earned his certified fiduciary plan advisor designation through the National Association of planned advisors, increasing his knowledge of qualified and nonqualified retirement plans for businesses. He has a passion for assisting business owners and offering their employees quality options for planning educating opportunities, as well as working with the owners for their succession plans. Dan is licensed to practice in multiple states including Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia and South Carolina. I'm excited to have this great conversation with a brilliant individual and someone who has become a friend.
 
Dan Stich  03:08
Stich Financial Partners and Futurity First Securities America are separate entities. The information presented here today is not specific to any individual's personal circumstance, and is not intended to provide investment tax legal or retirement advice or recommendations. To the extent that material concerns tax matters. It's not intended to be written to be used or cannot be used by a taxpayer for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed by the law. So the materials that were presented today are for general information educational purposes, based upon publicly available information from sources believed to be reliable. The information in these materials may change at anytime without notice, and securities are offered through securities America, Inc, Member FINRA slash SIPC, stick financial partners and securities, American companies are separate entities.
 
Leighann Lovely  04:00
Dan, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm excited to have you. Why don't you?
 
Dan Stich  04:05
Yes, it's great.
 
Leighann Lovely  04:06
Why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself?  Sure. Well, again, thanks so much for setting this up. I'm super pumped to be able to talk to you and it's always nice to just have fun conversation, right? So yeah, so I run my own financial planning practice. It's called stick financial partners. And we're located in New Berlin, Wisconsin, where I live with my wife Carolyn and our three kids. Willie, David and Lauren. And we we love the community and just just love being a part of that. And you know, it's, it's kind of, it's funny, like I grew up in Brookfield and I literally migrated five minutes south to New Berlin, right? So everybody talks about moving other places. I moved five minutes away from where I grew up, but I just love the area. Love Milwaukee love Wisconsin, and just really happy to stay here and build a career. We're out of it, you know, so  Yeah, awesome. You know it's funny. We all complain about the weather in Wisconsin. Yet us lifers we stay and deal with the the winters and the tundra that is Wisconsin. And then we enjoy the two or three months of flaring, blistering hot summer. And then we go back and complain about the crappy weather, right?
 
Dan Stich  05:27
Yeah, this week, like it's gotten up to 80 85 88. And, you know, and like, three weeks ago, we had a chance for snow. So we got through our 10th month of winter, and now we're dealing with summer. And, you know, it was it was, it's kind of funny to Leighann like, you know, being a business owner, taking a day off is is difficult, right? Because it's just you. And so I was able to take a day off on Wednesday, I took my daughter with I went with her class actually as a chaperone to Old World Wisconsin for their field trip. And it was awesome. But I was literally dreading because in 88 degree weather and like, old, you know, old homes from when Wisconsin became a state and all of that, and I'm going oh my gosh, you know, like, why am I complaining about this? It was like 20 degrees a couple months ago. And I, I wasn't complaining about that. So
 
Leighann Lovely  06:20
right, right. Well, and you don't going outside? You know, when it's 20 degrees, you're like, Okay, you got to bundle up gotta cover my face, because I might get you know, ice on it if I don't. And then when it's 80 degrees nice out beautiful. And what in California? That's their? That's their winter.
 
Dan Stich  06:42
Right? Right. Oh, I know. And here we are, like lathering up on sunscreen right away, because we haven't gotten there, quote, unquote, you know, base layer, right? And all that stuff, which I don't know about you, but I never get a base layer anymore. Because it's like, I don't know, I don't get to spend as much time out in the sun. So come September, I still look is is, you know, like, I still get sunburned. So I'm like, Oh my god.
 
Leighann Lovely  07:07
So I have to I have two colors. I have extremely white and red.
 
Dan Stich  07:15
And so true. And my, my wife, she's you know, she's like the one who is you know, we don't want to get you know, when he gets skin cancer. You don't want to do this. You don't wanna do that. So yeah, I mean, we are like lathering up our kids before they get outside every single day. So we like I seriously, I, you know, and this is don't don't construe this as a stock tip, right. But I should really should buy stock and some kind of, you know, like, banana boat or something like that. Because I think I spend a good majority of our dollars and disposable income on skincare products during the summer, it's, it's nuts. Well,
 
Leighann Lovely  07:49
here's the thing that I do, I lather my daughter up to the point where she's like, stab, stab, and then I set the bottle down with the intent of coming back to it and putting it on myself. But I'm still chasing, you know, the moving target, of course, because she's five, the moving target trying to make her look that she doesn't have like white goop all over her. And then we'll rush and we'll get in the car and go somewhere, and my husband looked at me and go, you put sunblock on right? And I go, Well, I put it on our daughter. Great. Well, so I'm gonna be read for the next week. So
 
Dan Stich  08:23
you did the real responsible thing, right? As a parent, you took care of the kids, you you're supposed to be taking care of, you know, so often right, as parents and in life in general, right? Not to get all philosophical here. But we always take care of other people. But we really need to take care of ourselves. And that's just goes to that point, too, right? We're always worried about them, right? But we don't necessarily worry about putting that stuff on our face. And like you said, yeah, now you're going to deal with being read looking like a lobster for a week, you know, it happens.
 
Leighann Lovely  08:52
This is actually a really good transition into what you know why I've run you on now that we've, you know, just kind of gone off a little clip here. All right, this is a really good transition into why I asked you to come on the podcast today. It's something that's utterly important about, you know, as an employee that's transitioning, or, as a business owner, you know, you work with a lot of individuals who are on the move. And it's true, sometimes it is secondary to take care of ourselves. But one of the most vital, important things is that we take care of our money. Right.
 
Dan Stich  09:35
Right. Right. Right. And it's, it's true. You know, I think that's, that's the thing where we were, as people in general, right, and I can't I can't talk about this for everybody, but I would say a majority of people care about others before they care about themselves and they're always trying to do other things. You know, and they're trying to take care of family members and, and things in there not necessarily They're always taking care of themselves and kind of keeping a weather eye on their future. You know, and that's, that's really, I think, when it gets down to it, the core of, of what we do as advisors, is really trying to keep people on a path. We're kind of an unbiased third party that, you know, meets with people and kind of draws out and ask questions like, well, what are your goals? You know, what do you want to do? What do you want to accomplish? When do you want to retire? Why don't you know, those kinds of questions? And I think people have these ideas in their minds, but they don't. It's not something you bring up, right. Like, it's not something I don't know, you know, you're not just sitting around on a Friday night having a beer with your friends and saying, like, hey, you know, like, how much do you have in your retirement account? But I don't know, we just don't really, unless you're really close to people, you don't do that. But even with your spouse or significant other partner loved ones, anything, you don't have those conversations on a day to day either. And that's why it's important, because those can be tricky conversations to navigate. Right, right. And so you know, I'll tell you sometimes my job, I feel like more like a counselor, right, than really an advisor, because I'm coming in and kind of drawing up questions. And that's why when there's there's two people in a financial relationship, I want to meet with both of them, you'd never want to just meet with one or the other. Because there's a lot of questions that are asked, and we need to really draw that out. But yeah, it is, it's a really important thing. I mean, I think finances and financial wellness can lead to mental wellness. You know, we talked about that we just got out of mental health month, right? That was the month of May. And there's really been a push, which has been fantastic in the United States to talk about mental health. But a huge part of that is financial health. And I'm not talking about having to be a millionaire and have so much money that you don't know what to do with but living paycheck to paycheck or freaking out where your next thing is coming from, or how am I going to pay for this? How am I prepping for this? How am I going to retire all that stuff? Right? It leads to a lot of anxiety, which puts us right back into me into mental health awareness. Right. So I think a huge component of that is, is talking about it. And so we do we're unbiased third parties, right? We come in we I want to know everything. I don't want to know, you know, if you don't tell me stuff, I'm How can I diagnose what's wrong?
 
Leighann Lovely  12:22
Right. Well, and here, you said a couple of things here that, you know, kind of sparked one, what are the number one triggers for, you know, one mental health, but also for a marriage falling apart? I mean, and that is a huge life altering event. It's conversations or arguments, start with money.
 
Dan Stich  12:47
Right? Right. Definitely. And I'm not trying to pretend I'm a marriage counselor or anything like that. But I think it's just a key component, right? We have, we have different advisors, and we have different people in our lives, right. And I have different partners that we work with on on these pieces. And it's about having all of those tools in your toolkit, right? For Success. We're just a small cog in a small part of that. But there's other pieces, but I'll tell you, right, like, you're only as strong as your weakest link. And if you're not having those conversations, other parts of of your relationships, your marriage, your future, your financial wellness, your mental wellness, all that stuff is gonna fall apart, right? Because Because if there's one weak spot, that weak spot is going to be pulled and intense. And before you know, you're in trouble, you know, so
 
Leighann Lovely  13:39
well, and it is I mean, not having, if you have a relationship where one person in and I'm going back to, you know, you want to talk to, to, to, you know, both parties who are involved, if you have one person who has no understanding of finances in the home. There, that's right, there is a is is could potentially be an issue in some cases and other cases, one takes care of the finances, the other does others. I mean, it's, that's sure to be a slippery slope, but So,
 
Dan Stich  14:14
It is,  Yeah, and you and you have to filter that out, right? Every situation is different, you have to feel around all of that. But still, when decisions are made, very rarely do I want you know, let me like I should say never but there are situations sometimes where things are made, you know, without the other spouse or their or loved one, whatever right is, you know, partner but you know, it's like I said, it's very, very rare. In fact, I can't even remember the last time that we that that happened. So it's just important because it's it opens up those lines of communication even if they say I don't want to know it. Well what happens in case somebody passes away or there's an emergency situation or god forbid, you know, any of that, that happens. Now, all of a sudden you've got a party who you know, quote, A quote was disinterested before, whatever. But now all of a sudden, they're thrown to the forefront. And they've got to figure it out, they got to pick up the pieces. And that's, you know, that's why I tell people to you know, and that even goes for for older individuals who's you know, who have their kids involved in their, their lives and their their futures as well to it's important that share that information, as long as they're trustworthy, and you can trust them to do that, and do the right thing and act on your behalf. You know, something happens to your parent, or your grandparent or aunt or uncle, and all of a sudden, you know, you're grabbing at loose ends trying to find things, and when most of that can be done upfront, beforehand, you know, not everything, but jeez, you know, you least you know, where 80% 90% of things are. I tell people where I give seminars a lot, Leanne, I talked to people about long term care planning and other things. And I said, you know, one of the best gifts that you can give to your family, is the fact that they won't have to make decisions on your future going forward. Right. So like, if you, you have things set, you know, Power of Attorney for Health Care things, so they know your end of life issues, all that stuff. You know, God forbid, you have to make that decision in a tense moment, when you know already what that mom said, you know, hey, no extra extreme measures. That's like, such great peace of mind. So, you know, again, it goes down a little different tangents. But I think that's as a role as an advisor. Let's say we do, right, we talked about the what if scenarios, right? But all of that is in you know, there's a couple of definitives in our world, right? One, we're getting older every day, right? To eventually we're going to, I'm getting Okay, all right? Well, you found the fountain of youth, if you can share the address for that I'll more than happily jump in. But, but death is undefeated as well, too, right? So we were all going to die. And it's kind of how you plan your olding aging years. But then also, what do you want to do with estates? What do you want to do with that kind of stuff? What are your wishes? How do you want to affect the next generation positively? All that stuff, right? These are discussions that you have, because, again, the more that you pre plan, the less of an emergent situation, it becomes.
 
Leighann Lovely  17:13
Well, and just having this conversation reminds me why people don't want to have this conversation. Right? It's, and I, you know, I'm laughing while I say this, because, you know, I have obviously I, you know, my husband, and I have all of the pieces put together, you we've have our, you know, will our power of attorney, all of that stuff is set out. And I remember how uncomfortable it was. You know, we put this obviously, all in place, when we had our daughter, it was like, Okay, we've put this off long enough, we should do this. And I remember how uncomfortable it was, where it was like, Okay, well, what are your wishes? What are your wishes? What do we do with our money? Where does this all go? Who's gonna be the power of attorney, and I remember when I called my brother, and I was like, I need you to come over and sign some paperwork. And he's like, What paperwork? And I'm like, Well, it's my will and my power of attorney. And he's like, Oh, God, really? And I'm like, sorry. But it needs to be done like this. It's, it's, but you're everything that you just said, I if God forbid, my husband and I were to be together and, and die, one, I don't, I don't want there to be a single question as to where my money goes, and where my daughter goes. And I should have said that in a different order where my daughter goes, and where my money goes. Right? Right? Because, and it's going to obviously my money goes with my daughter, but whoever is taking care of my daughter is got that money so that they can take care of her and hopefully have, you know, money continued to saved you for her when she's 18. But those are wildly wildly important aspects. And I mean, it as
 
Dan Stich  18:57
we don't want to, we don't want to talk about those scary things, right? We don't and, and, you know, a mentor of mine previously, I'd always said, you know, get comfortable being uncomfortable, right. And it's true, because that's part of my job. And that's part of everybody's job. Whenever you get out of your comfort zone, and you feel uncomfortable. That's when you accomplish the most I think, but at the same point, we're fearful of that. And again, that goes into everything in life, but especially in this, because these are just I mean, we have to ask these questions. And again, I, you know, I'll read the disclaimer here at the end of everything for me, but I'm not I'm not, you know, I'm not acting as a legal professional. I'm not acting as a tax professional or any of those things. And we have partners that we work with on all of that. But again, it's just drawing out those questions. I'm finding whether or not what people's wishes are, because I can tell you, I mean, when's the last time somebody asks you like, what are your hopes? What are your dreams? What are your goals, like, people don't ask that right? Unless you have a really good group, group of friends or family or whatever, you know, when maybe you'll ask that but it very rarely happens because you're in the grind That's right. And you're, you're constantly worried about the next step. The next day, the next this the next that, where's the next client coming from? Where's the next meeting? You know, I gotta get to my kids. Like, we were just chatting about this schools ending soon, like, what are we gonna do with our kids? Right? Like, oh my god, we got to figure this out, they get the we get we get eight hours of care every day now at school and now we got to figure out what we're gonna do with them for the summer, you know. So
 
Leighann Lovely  20:23
maybe maybe we can just all drop them off like at the same park and they can all entertain each other.
 
Dan Stich  20:29
Lord of the fly style. Just let them loose, let them go Lord of the Flies, go elect a leader somehow, right? That's so funny.
 
Leighann Lovely  20:41
We'll just erect walls around them so that we know that they can't go anywhere.
 
Dan Stich  20:46
They may not want to go home though, after I
 
Leighann Lovely  20:50
have weapons that they've shimmied out of like, I don't know, rocks and sticks, worse doing throw in the food.
 
Dan Stich  20:59
Right? Right. And I know, you know, the funny part is, is they're so fiercely independent, you know, but then at certain points all of a sudden, when they need you, you know, then they come crawling back and they, they want to do their own things. And I don't want to do this. I don't want to put my shoes on, but then also dead. Can you help me put my shoes, you know, I mean, it's just it's so funny how that happens. But that's because, again, there's this inherent trust, right? That's, that's what it is. They know that at the end of the day, no matter what they say or do to us, we still love them. And you know, and that's where you find people in your life like that as well, too. I mean, and not that I have clients that are coming in and you know, being like, I don't wanna put my shoes on, or they're yelling. I mean, like, like, I'll have a conversation every once awhile, like, hey, you know, perhaps we want to look at life insurance for the situation or disability insurance or, you know, have you thought about a rollover here or there, whatever, right of assets. And, you know, every once awhile, they'll leave, and they'll be like, No, I don't think I'm going to do that. And then all of a sudden, they'll come back a few months later and say that, you know, maybe we want to move forward with this. So again, it's but it's because, you know, this term gets thrown a lot around a lot, LeAnn and, you know, fiduciary, right? Like, we hear that in my industry, what is it being a fiduciary, and people use that in advertisements and everything, and we're supposed to all be fiduciaries, I can't imagine somebody acting in our, in our role as not being a fiduciary, but we're acting in our clients best interest, right. So from a monetary perspective, that's what we're supposed to do. And protection wise, asset wise, anything like that we're supposed to, it's not supposed to be to the benefit of us, it's supposed to be to the benefit of the client, at the end of the day, it's really what it draws down to. And I think if you keep that central in mind, you know, and it's kind of like, how we take care of our kids to like, it's to the benefit of that, right. Like, a lot of times, we sacrifice things in our own life for the betterment of our own children. And I'm not trying to say my clients are children, but we you they are that that's how you treat it, right, you want to see them succeed and push them towards success. And so, you know, that there's a lot of lot of things that go along with that, but it is part of that whole journey, you know, and it's a growth and it's a relationship, it's a long term relationship, hopefully, you know, hopefully, it's not transactional, hopefully, what you want it to be, is something that lasts for a long period,
 
Leighann Lovely  23:24
I don't, I can't imagine having a transactional relationship with your financial advisor, it just doesn't seem like it would be beneficial to the person going to the financial advisor, I mean, it just, unless you specifically need help with one thing, like, Hey, I just need you to help me do XYZ or,
 
Dan Stich  23:51
well, there are there are certainly there are those situations, you know, I mean, because you know, at the end of the day, too, I'm not trying to always replace what somebody has in place, what I'm trying to do is kind of enhance what they have. And I work with other advisors and help you know, help play some of their clients into insurance products and different things that maybe they don't focus on. So again, I you know, we we partner on certain things, but at the end of the day, it's it's card part of a conglomerate, right, or a group of of people that you find your your area of expertise, and I think that's, that's something to again, I can't be everything that everybody right, and I don't think anybody can do that. But especially even in our profession, you know, we have to find what we're good at and what we know, or we like to do the clients that type situations and we also have people that we have to refer out to if we if it comes to a situation where we don't necessarily do that. So that's where I think you know, a lot of people in our in our industry have an adversarial relationship and I think there's so many ways that we can work together because again at the end of the day We're trying to take care of people's financial futures. And there's a lot of opportunity out there because people just aren't prepped very well for their retirement. So I find again, that working with other people and finding ways to collaborate, just makes a heck of a lot more sense than always being, you know, kind of pounding at each other and competing for everything.
 
Leighann Lovely  25:21
Right. So I have a specific question that, you know, obviously, this this season, I've been talking a lot about, you know, employee retention, recruitment, all that kind of stuff. However, with that being said, a lot of employees are on the move. Right. And with employees being on the move, that leaves a gap for some, some things that need to be handled and handled properly, which is, you know, 401 K's employee has been at a company, they have a 401 K. And I've heard it said, and this is where it's scary, because I, I know enough that this is right. But I don't know, all the you know, all of the fine details around it. You know, people have said, well, you know, my 401k is it's secure, it's fine. It's sitting there. Why do I need to move it? And I know enough to say, Well, no, no, you don't want to just have it sit there. So why is it vitally important to make sure that you're handling that 401k that's sitting in? What is it? What is the big one fidelity or wherever it's sitting? You know, I'm assuming that you work with a lot of employee employees that are on the move, and we help them guide what to do with that chunk of money.
 
Dan Stich  26:45
Yeah, and that's great question. And thanks for bringing that up. Because it is, it's an important thing, right. So most people think there's this magic number out in retirement accounts, it's 59 and a half years old. And that's when you can start drawing money out of that without paying 10% early withdrawal penalty. Okay, so I think when we think of, that's the first thing, so a lot of people think that they have to leave assets there until 59 and a half, because they can't pull them out, they're gonna pay this 10% penalty. And that's not really the case, right. So if you have left a job, or you've left previous jobs, and you, you may have multiple 401k, as I refer to them as their kind of orphan 401k is right there, there, you're not, you're not contributing to them anymore. They're under the previous company's platform. And quite honestly, they could be in wrong investment strategies for you at that time, or they could be in, they could be in the same fund even. But they could be multiple amounts in different funds, right. And that's why it's important to talk to somebody, a professional like myself, who can kind of look at all those things. But when when you leave a job, whether through your own or whether you're you're fired, or you leave or terminate should say terminated, or been terminated, or you leave on your own, it's a triggering event. And what that allows you to do is allows you to access the 401k and move it through and they do a rollover is what they call that into a separate account into a different account, and you're not accessing the dollars for your own use, you're not paying the tax penalty, and you're not paying the normalized tax rate on it, you're actually moving it into a separate account. And we do this a lot, because then it gives you a little bit more control on how you want to invest those dollars, every company that you're with, as a set investment strategy within their existing 401 K 403 B, any of the other retirement accounts that they may have. And that platform, while it's it's good for the people, because you can contribute something in it's a great benefit to have, it may not fit your personal objectives, right. So especially as you move on, so it is important to have that conversation and be able to roll it out of there rollover into another account. And like I said, it gives you control over that. So then, you know, you can set it up as a as a personal IRA and contribute to that as well to keep contributing to it. And maybe cut down on some of the fees and everything that are associated with having your own personal IRA. Again, you can't contribute back to a company that you were a part of. You need to you know, in order to access those dollars, pull them out, but it is a good question because again, I think people there's this big misnomer out there to like unless it's an employee stock purchase option. A lot of people think well you know, I'm getting this 401 K through work and it's invested in that company and it's like no it's not you know, like if you worked for a lot and I don't want to name any large companies but you know if you worked for XYZ corporate Corporation, right and they had a 401k It's not like those 401k dollars were going in to buy stock of XYZ company right they were going into by A particular mutual fund. So people in their head, I hear this all the time, people think, wow, you know, the XYZ company is doing great, I gotta keep my dollars there because it's performing so well. And it's like, no, that has very little, if nothing to do with, with what your investment strategy is through there. So
 
Leighann Lovely  30:17
interesting. And if it's in your 401k is sitting there, and the company, like you said, the company is not investing those dollars, you know, properly or they don't have somebody managing that 401k properly, you could potentially just have your money sitting there and really not performing for you at all.
 
Dan Stich  30:39
Yeah, and again, it's not it's not necessarily maybe that they're managing them wrong, it's just maybe that they're every company has to pay fees in order to have particular investment strategies on their platform. And so it's it's extra again, and, you know, that gets into a whole different thing. Because there, you know, there are companies that have 401 K's that that have been set up, and they've never been touched. And we come across that a little bit. And I work with businesses to do that as well, too. You know, we look at plans that maybe aren't performing to their highest and we, and you know, how we find these plans, right, as I'm talking to somebody who used to work there, our client, and I looked through this, and say, Yeah, you know, we might want to look at the whole overall picture of this plan. You know, and a lot of that has to do with employee contributions are low, or performance is low, or any of that kind of stuff. And those are all indicators that I can look at. But realistically, like I said, for the individual, the biggest part is, is it gives you control over those dollars, that you can take a little bit more risk, or you can take less risk, you can move those dollars into something else, instead of it just being on the platform that the company has. So the company's platform may be great, but it also just gives you more flexibility to move it off of that platform.
 
Leighann Lovely  31:57
Interesting. That's and that's, I mean, it's good to know that because some of the myths that are out there are, I'm blown away by, you know, I've been I've heard, you know, well, I shouldn't move that because, again, some of the things that you you just hit on, and I'm like, wait, what? Why? Why would you keep it, you know, or, you know, you they've moved jobs five or six times, and they have five or six accounts sitting out there. So they could roll it into a Roth, an IRA? A whole gamut of different,
 
Dan Stich  32:35
correct, right. Yeah, and again, there's, there's different reasons that you could do that. And every situation is different. So I can't give a blanket statement that you'd want to be want to move it but yes, from like, you know, from a tax perspective, perhaps you want to look at and see if you can open up a Roth and you can use some of those dollars and, and convert it into a Roth and pay the taxes now, knowing that in retirement, that that money in principle will grow tax free, and you can access it tax free in retirement. So, you know, that's the big difference, too. And, again, LeAnn, to with all the changes, there's, there's so much stuff happening in this realm on the 401k side, and retirement planning side, a retirement plan side from the federal government level, people are realizing that we're in a crisis, right? We have, we have, I think it's 10 to 15,000 people a day turn 65. Okay, like going forward. That's, that's a huge number, right? When you think about it, so that's, that's the traditional age of retirement. Now, we all know that Social Security timing retirement now is about 67. So most people are working between 65 and 67. And they're retiring at that point, but they're not many of them don't have assets, they're their biggest asset that they're thinking of is Social Security. And then they do have some retirement assets, but they don't have a lot built up. So now the government is, is stepping in and you know, with the secure act, 2.0, and other things that are coming through, and again, this is a lot of gobbledygook that people might not understand. But that's again, so he talked to professional, right, because they we monitor this thing, they're looking there's contributions that are now maybe going to be made automatically when you first started a job. So you're going to have to opt out of a 401k instead of opting in, like you used to have to wait, there was a waiting period of 60 days, 90 days a year, whatever the company is set up, it's changing that because there is a crisis.
 
Leighann Lovely  34:29
And that's because of you know, we've heard talk of Social Security, possibly going away drying up and and so am I correct in that? I mean, we will have this for sure.
 
Dan Stich  34:44
And right. When we hear that and the the official unofficial answer on that would be, it'd be political suicide to take it away. So they will find something. It could be limited, it could be changed. These are kind of the things and what we hear over and over Again, but yes, you're exactly right in the fact that the government is trying to solve a problem by creating a solution and are they creating a solution? Are they creating a problem? I mean, I that's kind of your question right? Now people are coming in, they start a job. And on day one, they're going to be contributing into a retirement account. What if somebody leaves after two months, three months, five months, now we're going to have a lot of those, whether that come orphan 401k is right, we're gonna have a lot of those sitting around in different places. And so there's going to be a lot of work to be done. But that's where, again, with all these changes, some of that some of this dependency, you're gonna have to make sure that your plan if you're a business owner, small business owner, especially, right, who may or may not be getting all the management on this plan, you're gonna have to make sure that your plan is compliant going forward with the federal rules. And, you know, I think there's a lot of things that should be done now before, you know, if they're coming down the pipeline, and we know that this is happening, I wouldn't we want to change them now versus waiting until the 11th hour, right? Because that's what a lot of, I mean, I don't know about you, I've been a procrastinator a lot, a lot in my life. And thank God that hasn't rolled on to my kids, because I swear, I can't get my daughter to not do her homework right away. It's pretty impressive. But, you know, first things like this, you just do not want to procrastinate, because all of a sudden, it'll be it's gonna be a block of everybody trying to get everything done. Before they need to be done.
 
Leighann Lovely  36:24
They always that's always the way that government well, right.
 
Dan Stich  36:27
But let's people to like, right, we don't want to do anything till the last minute, right? Well, we absolutely have to well, and
 
Leighann Lovely  36:33
I'm opposite, like, I will start formulating like how I'm going to finish something before I even have the go ahead to do something. I'm, but I'm the I'm the the weird one. I've been told Anyways, my husband's like, why are you trying to solve a problem before the problem actually exists? We don't even know that that's going to be the problem. And I'm like, but I'm getting ready for it. Right? Like, I'm, like, I'm not sure that that's a good thing. And I'm like, Well, I just want to be ready. Like, yeah, but I blame my dad for that, by the way.
 
Dan Stich  37:04
We can't run from our genes, right? We can't run from where we are. I always tell people, you know, like, My People always say like, you know, the Apple didn't fall far from the tree. And I'm like, Yeah, well, my apple tree must have been on a hill because it tried to roll away and all it did was rolled downhill right into the stump like, I'm right back to it. You know, I mean, I'm, I'm my family to a tee. Right. So, right. Yeah. Remember that apple tree on a hill? That's me. So
 
Leighann Lovely  37:28
yeah, I I'm 100%. Like, there's been times where my husband's like what's wrong with your dad? And I'm like, he, I remember. Here's one. Here's a really good. So my dad, his trunk got stuck, closed. And so he was really frustrated with us. And it was just his trunk just got stuck. So he, he was supposed to come over and hang out for you know, a couple of minutes to say hi, he literally any I think he was dropping off our daughter. He literally drove in, took our daughter out of the car, dropped her off said Okay, I gotta go and left. Because he was so frustrated. He drove to the quick, the closest gas station and just started messing with his truck. Because yeah, he just, that's his money. But that's my mentality. Like my husband called me. And he goes, you know, the the generator is not working. And I'm on my way home, I walk in the door, say hi. And I go directly out to the generator. And my husband goes, What are you doing? Mike, when you said it wasn't working? He goes, right. Yeah, it's like dinner time. Like, you don't have time to do this right now. And I'm like, Why did you call me then? You shouldn't have told me until I had time to do it. Because in my brain, like, if, if there's an issue, I have to do it that second there is no
 
Dan Stich  38:46
it's just that I'm wired. That's me, like, you know, the other day, right? Like it got hot here, right? As we mentioned way back before it got hot all of a sudden. So we put our air conditioning on and the air conditioner was not performing as well as it should. So clearly, there was something going on. So again, I do not pretend to be an HVAC repair person. I don't play one on TV. I don't do any of that kind of stuff. But I know enough things as being a homeowner for you know, decades, right? Like, you know, like, you got to take care of certain things. So I go out and I'm cleaning off all this stuff. And I'm doing as much as I know how to do and I checked the filter to make sure that it was clean, do all that stuff, right? But then again, I'm out over my skis, right, like that's, that's as far as I've got. So then I'm sitting there at night, thinking like, you know, I'm just spinning in my head, like, what else can I do? What else can I do? And really, I had a professional coming in the next day. Right? So I should have just let that go. But I couldn't stop thinking about it. One because obviously you know there's a cost associated with things right so I didn't want it to be like oh my gosh, we're gonna need a new whole system here. But to the other part is is what if it stops working in the middle of night, you know, and all of a sudden we've got a 90 degree day the next day and it's hot and it's not working, you know? It's the what ifs right and those what if scenarios, so you know it And then as people to like, we tried to take those out, like, literally I called the person, he was coming the next day. So I did everything that I could and should be doing. And he took care of it and everything's fine. The house is great right now. But I think we sit and we worry about stuff at night, when we should just be able to take things off of our plate. I'll see. Other people handle it,
 
Leighann Lovely  40:19
and I don't sit and worry, I would be out there. Like, why did I pull the thing apart, and I'm like, I am bound and determined, and I will be researched. Like, I I'm one of those those people like, I will do whatever it takes to fix it and research it. And like, I'm just I can't let it go. And that's, that's my downfall. I can't let it go. What, which has made me a very handy person around the house, I know how to patch holes in the wall, I know how to do light, electrical work, light plumbing work I have done, I've remodeled
 
Dan Stich  41:08
I'm gonna be calling you. I mean, I, there's certain things like I always figure with plumbing and electrical. If I touch it, it could make it worse. And then it's going to cost more like I can do a lot of other things. But yeah, when it comes to electrical and plumbing, I'm gonna be calling you, Lea.
 
Leighann Lovely  41:23
I changed I changed out, you know, all of the, you know, we needed one of those. I changed out like almost all of my electrical units, or just the plugs in the entire house sockets and yeah, in the entire house. I changed out a couple, you know, sockets because I didn't like the way they they functioned. But when it comes to like I had a fan in a room and I wanted to change where the fan was to we change the way the dining room was. So I needed the, you know, the chandelier and the fan to be swapped out that no, I don't do that. I don't know how and but I did install a fan where a chandelier used to be okay, that was just the swap out. So and then as far as plumbing, I completely remodeled an entire bathroom. A new toilets did the sink. You know all that. However, I also have two sinks that don't have shutoff valves in my lower level. I don't know how to do that. So I need a plumber to come in. You know, I do light stuff.
 
Dan Stich  42:33
Yeah, not surface. Yeah, I gotcha.
 
Leighann Lovely  42:37
Yeah, when it comes, there's a professional, you know, you gotta call on the professionals for some some stuff like, like, Well,
 
Dan Stich  42:43
I think I guess that you know, to go back. That's kind of a metaphor, though. on everything, right? Um, life, right is there's, there's certain things that we can handle. Like I always think every well, because of social media and everything else right now people are becoming experts on everything. And I always used to laugh like every four years, we would become political experts when there was an election year and every you know, we're this and that. And everybody tries to be an expert. I mean, heck, like, you know, listen, I have brothers and family who are doctors, I certainly could go on WebMD and diagnose myself with pretty much everything ever that comes up, right. But that's going down a serious rabbit hole, right? And before you know it, I'm gonna be dead next week. And I'm freaking out about that. So I always think like, you know, sure, like with what we do, and Finance, Financial planning, estate planning all of those pieces, right? People can can do some of these things themselves. But is that really the best way to do it? Right? Like, sure I can, I can wrap my if I break my arm tomorrow, I can probably wrap it in a makeshift cast at home. But is it going to heal properly? For the long term? Am I going to have some serious issues with it going forward? Most likely, yes. Right. So again, it's really, you know, we kind of it's that old metaphor like staying in your lane, right? Like it's okay to know everything and my job and most people's job. You want to educate other people, right and teach them about stuff. But you also have to trust that the professional is working in your best interest. So they educate you enough on what you need to know. But that's why you hire somebody to do something else. Right? That's what we hired. So I hired the HVAC guy to come over because he needed to fix it. I was out over my skis. I didn't know exactly what I was at the end. And honestly, I'm not putting Freon into my own AC unit. Like that's what we need it. I don't know how to do that. I don't have access to free and I can't just go buy it somewhere. I don't think I don't know. Maybe you can but again, why would I need to worry about that? Right? That would be one thing. I just don't you know, take it off my plate. Right. So
 
Leighann Lovely  44:41
yeah, yeah. And I I grew up again, I'm referencing my dad. My dad said to me years ago, he goes you don't have to you know business owners and my dad was not a business owner. He thought about it. He says you know, all my all my friends. You know our business. as owners, and I've sat around the table with them all, and they've asked me, Why don't you run your own business? And he goes, so I told him, here's what, you know, me and my wife make a year, should we open up our own business? And all of them went, Oh, you make that? Not as a business owner, and he goes, aha, should we open up? And they all went no, if you if, if you're making that, not as a business owner, just don't open up your own business. And he went, Okay, then I think I'll stick with where I'm at. And he once said to me, he goes, if you're going to run a business, because they were in the real estate market, so you know, his wife was a very successful agents, my dad ran an office, sometimes up to 60. Plus agents manage them. So very much like, you know, very much like running a business. And he says, You don't have to be the smartest person to run a business. But you have to be smart enough to hire people who are smarter than you. 100%. And that has stayed with me, forever. And it and it made me realize that there are people out there who have started businesses run businesses, who, without college education, and the thing that they were smart, the reason that they were so wildly successful, was not because they were so unbelievably smart. It was because they were smart enough to know their own limitations.
 
Dan Stich  46:42
100%
 
Leighann Lovely  46:43
and to go to the people who were the experts in what they were the experts in.
 
Dan Stich  46:50
And that's, that's the key, right? You surround yourself with better people like, I remember, there's a quote, I can't remember who it's attributed to. But I, my wife is a leadership training expert, right. So I learned a lot of great things. It's always nice to have somebody like that in your household. And they always use this quote, like, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. Correct. And it's so true, right? Because I get blown away by people, colleagues, other professionals that come across in my own world or other people that you know, that that I choose to partner with, as well to different business professionals, because they bring something to the table that I can't write, and I'm smart enough to know, like, you it takes a long time to build up credibility, right and a real short time to ruin that credibility like that you can lose it. And one of the biggest ways to ruin credibility, right is pretending to know something that you have no idea about, or over selling yourself and your abilities. And you know, that's my promise, right? Like, every day I wake up, and I'm like, Listen, if I don't know something, I will tell a client or I'll tell somebody like this. I don't know the answer to that yet. But I'm going to either find somebody who does, or we're going to find this out together. Right, right. And I think most people, if you if you recognize and realize that and you tell somebody you're new, you're vulnerable, saying, I don't know how to do that. Most people will accept that. And nobody, I don't know, I haven't had anybody yet be like, well, I can't believe you don't know how to do this, right? Like, no, it's something we just, we can't like I said before, you can't be everything to everybody all the time, right. But and we can't know everything about everything either, right? We can know a lot and all of our industries and our jobs and what we do, but there are always questions, and a lot of it is because it's changing all the time, too. So that's when you surround yourself with really good people and good, good connections. And that's, that's important. You know, I think, again, like I go back to that weak link part, but it really is true. That's why you you find the spots where you're missing, and you try to find a patch, right to figure out how to make that stronger. I mean, that's, that's the majority, a lot of networking, right, I met you at a networking event, we've done networking together, I've done I've done a bunch of pieces of network. That's what I'm networking for. Right? Like I'm networking to find people that can fill holes in my, in my offerings or toolkit that I don't have, or you know, looking at things differently or learning something new.
 
Leighann Lovely  49:18
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, Dan, we are coming to time and ask you the question of the season. Oh, boy, what would you change about your job or the practice that people have in your role or job if you cut?
 
Dan Stich  49:36
We've talked a lot about a lot of these things here. But I think probably the biggest thing is that there are some bad actors in our industry, right? And that's caused some some tainted views for people and I can't change their behaviors, but I guess maybe maybe the stigma and kind of the professionalism that that comes along with what We do I think some of that people are fearful that I think they're fearful of sharing their, their secrets, right? Like, and I, I don't know, you know, I'm not gonna go out and blab on anything, right? Like if I'm only as good as what my client tells me and how I keep that to myself and how we prep for that. So I think that that's probably the biggest thing. The the other part I did allude to before was about the collaborative piece. And I wish there were more people that were more collaborative. And I think there are advisors that are more willing to work together instead of be adversarial. Because again, I think that there's so much stuff that we can accomplish, and work together on things, but everybody just wants to grab everything for themselves. And I've never been that kind of person. Because again, like I, I focus on certain areas that I like, and I refer things out that I don't, or don't do. But I think I think that I wish there was more of that, I guess, more more collaboration. Because I think, as our industry becomes siloed, based by the companies that you work for, sometimes, right? Because we are told that everything here is the best way to do it, or the perfect way to do it. And and maybe that's because I'm independent, and I can I can work with with anybody. And I'm not beholden to a particular company or anything like that. I guess that's, that's part of it. And maybe my view is skewed on that a little bit. But again, I think that there's more of a global view on that of, of ways to collaborate more than be adversaries all the time.
 
Leighann Lovely  51:32
And I completely agree, I, I think that a lot of people go independent if they are capable, because they want the ability to partner with people who are in this in the same space. Right. And when they are with a larger corporation or organization. They are, I don't want to say shunned, but they are kind of slapped on the hand by Hey, wait, did you try to shove our product down their throat first?
 
Dan Stich  52:02
Yes, and you're like, it's one way it's toeing the line, it's got to be doing this instead of looking at it from a different viewpoint,
 
Leighann Lovely  52:09
correct. And I and I believe that, that with the onset of COVID, and the onset of all business needs to be done a different way. And it's okay to say, hey, customer, like, Let's customize your product, to make it exactly what you want it to look like. And that might mean, working with me on this and working with my partner on this to make it a perfect, beautiful package to be
 
Dan Stich  52:42
100%. Yeah, like, that's, that's what we want to do, right? Like, at the end of the day, we want clients, we want businesses, we want them to succeed. And we want to give them the tools to succeed. And in order to do that, it's not just keeping everything insular in our own, you know, that we're, we're trying to help them because we see that and we see what happens when people try to do it all themselves or take on too much, or whatever. So, yeah, I couldn't agree more. And that's, you know, a lot of bad things happen with COVID. But a lot of really good things happen as well, too. And I think people are looking at the world businesses, personal finance, mental health, all these things differently. And it's, you got to look at the good in that. So, you know, I'm not that I'm this ultimate, altruistic, positive all the time person. But at the same point, I look at the last three years of our lives, and I'm like, okay, like, what did change for the better? And those are the pieces that have, yeah, finding better ways to do things. You know, I think that's really what it comes down to.
 
Leighann Lovely  53:45
Yeah. And I think that there's also the driving force of the younger generation, who is saying, hey, and it's awesome. You know, I wish I could say that I'm part of the younger generation still, but I'm not. But I do see that their influence is, and we are starting to recognize that influence of that younger generation, saying, Hey, wait, can we do this a little bit different? Can we be a little softer on the the corporate structure, can we while and of course, you know, the whole software and the corporate structure, you know, all of a sudden, you can show up to a networking meeting in jeans and and it's like, wow, everybody's wearing jeans. This is kind of cool. I don't have to wear these uncomfortable dress pants that make me feel like I'm at and it's it's widely accepted in so many circles and it anyways, I digress. If no,
 
Dan Stich  54:36
no, it's it's totally true. But yeah, yeah. Like I said, that every generation I think, can learn something from previous generations or from the next generation as well, too. And that's the thing I think is there's a lot of people that disrespect older individuals, they call people boomers, right, the millennials were a bad word and all this stuff. And it's like when you get down to the core of it, it's about what they were groomed and Rolling up in, right? That changed them and made them who they are. But there's, you know, there's, there's 1000 different ways to do things. What we need to do is look at best practices from all those and kind of make that and a generational system. I mean, some of my 79 year old mother that she's getting on Zoom calls now I'm like, that's just shocking, right? But love it. Three years ago, she never would have gotten on a zoom call. Now. She does. Oh, there you go.
 
Leighann Lovely  55:24
Yeah. Oh, my grandparents. My grandmother has since passed, but they were doing FaceTime. I mean, I could only see like an eyeball or a nose, but they were like trying to get here. Like, they were like, Okay, guys, wait, you need to move it farther. But they were doing like fate. I'm like, Oh my gosh, like you're in your 80s. And you're doing FaceTime like, this is so cool. Like,
 
Dan Stich  55:48
yes, it is. It is it shows that they're willing to learn even till that age as well, too. So
 
Leighann Lovely  55:54
yeah. So if somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about contacting you?
 
Dan Stich  55:58
Sure. So I will give you my phone number here. So my phone number is 262-853-4541. And if you don't want to talk to me directly, I sometimes I know people are can worry about that as well. They can shoot me an email. So my email is my full name. So it's Daniel stich. So d a n i e l s t i c h@ f f I g . com. And that stands for futurity first Insurance Group. That's where we that's the agency behind the scenes. So
 
Leighann Lovely  56:31
Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Dan, for coming on and talking with me today. I've really enjoyed it.
 
Dan Stich  56:36
This was awesome. Yeah, let's do it again. Let's do it on a different topic someday. Right? That would be awesome. All right.
 
Leighann Lovely  56:42
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, to follow us, like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
 
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Understanding Both Side Is Important especially As An Attorney

Lori Goldstein has been an attorney for just short of 40 years, this offers her a unique perspective on how to serve her clients. She has an intimate understanding of both the employee side and the employer side and works to find a middle ground. This is an amazing conversation that dives into Metal health awareness in the workplace, non-competes and so much more. Join me for a great conversation with this brilliant women.  
 
Contact Lori
Website - lorigoldsteinlaw.com
Linkedin - linkedin.com/in/lori-goldstein-745a2812
Phone - 847-624-6640
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  We have a great show for you today. I've got Lori Goldstein. She has been an employment lawyer since 1984. She has a unique business and perspective representing both business owners and employees through her solo practice after receiving her undergrad and law degree from the University of Illinois, Lori work as a management side employment and litigation attorney for two midsize Chicago law firms before starting her own firm in 2011. Her advice on workplace rights and issues ranged from discrimination, harassment and retaliation to equal pay leave of absence and wage hour matters. Lori also drafts negotiates and reviews contracts including employment, non-compete independent contractor and severance agreements, employer compliance audits and training including sexual harassment training. Now required for all Illinois employers plus administration claims and defense of charges of employment law violation are also a regular part of her practice. Lori also regularly represents and writes on employment law topics. Lori is practical and passionate about helping organizations and individuals achieve peaceful solutions to workplace issues, find closure and move forward. Giving back to the community is also very important to her. She's held several volunteer and nonprofit board positions including New Trier High School Board of Education Governing Board of the North southern Special Education District. Laurie serves as a board member at Career Resources Center in Lake Forest and currently serves as a board member and CO the liaison of Diversity Equity and Inclusion committee for EP wng professional women's network group and volunteer attorney with the lawyers for the creative arts. She is a member of the American Bar Association and Chicago Bar Association and the Illinois chapter of National Employment Law Association. Lori is always an active member of north north shore law and trusted advisors counsel. Laurie has been honored by several awards including Superlawyers, Illinois 2016 to 2023 Superlawyers Illinois 100 top lawyers and 2017, 19, 20, 22 and 23 and Super Lawyers, Illinois top 50 Women Lawyers in 2017, 2019 to 2023 rated superb by AVVO and distinguished by Martindale-Hubbell. This is sure to be an awesome conversation, so I can't wait to jump in.  Welcome Lori. I'm so excited to have you join me today.
 
Lori Goldstein  04:08
Thank you, Leighann. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for the opportunity.
 
Leighann Lovely  04:11
Yeah, so why don't you start out by telling the audience a little bit about yourself. And yeah, go from there.
 
Lori Goldstein  04:18
Sure. So I'm an employment lawyer. I have been one for 39 years and love what I do. The first 27 years I spent at two different midsize downtown Chicago law firms representing the management side. So working with HR mostly and representing employers. In 2011, I started a solo practice representing employers as well as employees and all of my employer clients came with me so it was a good start. And then I had the the newness of representing employees, which was a little scary, but I love it. And I love doing both sides. and, it gives me great perspective, I generally get respect from the other side, whichever side I'm sitting on, because I start out by telling them, I sit in your seat. So I'm not one of these scary, you know, opponents, and I'm very practical. I'm honest with my clients, and I just tried to get to resolve disputes get to some resolution, so people can get closure, not have to be in court. I enjoy the variety of what I do different issues, different situations, as you know, in HR, you could probably write a book. And there's different laws that apply, depending on where the company is where the employees are. No two days are alike. And, and I'd love to do this. Talk about employment law topics present right on them. I'm a big networker as you are. It's great connecting people, we were connected, which I was so appreciated. And I love to meet people learn about your stories, find ways that we can connect each other and try and align through our work and services and even through personal hobbies or interests. So that's, that's my professional side. And personally, I'm a mom of two adult daughters. I'm married to an attorney, that guy I met in law school, so Oh, wow. So you've been married for how many years? It'll be 36. In September. So that's,
 
Leighann Lovely  06:35
I love hearing I love hearing that. Because, you know, today, it's, it's an I was just saying to my husband, it's sad to see, you know, now I'm in my 40s, or my early 40s. And it's sad to see, you know, marriages ending. And, and I celebrate the ones that, you know, have that lifelong, you know, lifelong bond, we can all hope that they'll lifelong bond, right?
 
Lori Goldstein  07:02
I was gonna say staying power. But that's sometimes that's what it is,
 
Leighann Lovely  07:07
well, staying power. I mean, I hate I'll tell you that sometimes, that's what it's about, like, just buckle down and go through the storm with each other. Because if you can make it through the storm, then you can make it through anything, right. And definitely being an entrepreneur being, you know, just getting through the grind some time is, is hard. But if you can make it through the hardest times, then. Anyways, I digress. So, you know, I wanted to have you come on, because one, I love that you work on both sides, because I believe that it gives you perspective, right? You know, as a, as a recruiter, working in the HR industry, as a salesperson that has that, that works directly with the companies and being somebody who also came from the corporate HR. I've seen the pains. And then as the recruiter, I also see the pains and the frustrations of the candidates who are experiencing the interviewing process. But I also see why on the employer side, sometimes it takes a long time to make those decisions. So when you're working on both sides of the fence, I feel like it, it can make you a more powerful force at whatever job you're doing. Because you you understand and you can have empathy. You can also be smarter and be able to figure out what the other side is doing as opposed to
 
Lori Goldstein  08:37
Right. Right, usually know what you know what their thinking is, or you can send your client, you know, if I were representing the employer, here's what they're probably hearing that this is why they're doing what they're doing and try and come to, and what I just said to an opposing counsel today, you know, hopefully we can get to a resolution, which means neither of our clients will be happy, because that's what a good settlement is. Everyone has to give something up. Right? And that's how you reach I mean, in every relationship.
 
Leighann Lovely  09:08
So, right, you give a little bit to ultimately end or get what you want in the you know, in the end, really, and that's what it's a compromise.
 
Lori Goldstein  09:20
Right. I think that early isn't enough to be practical.
 
Leighann Lovely  09:24
Every relationship isn't that's pretty much a compromise in some way. You just, you know, it's, you ultimately can deal with that so well, excellent. So why don't we dive in? Why don't we start off a little bit with what what's the question everybody's asking. So what in your line of work has changed over the last couple of years? I mean, I'm assuming that there has been quite a bit.
 
Lori Goldstein  09:48
Yes, many changes. I mean, you know, we all lived through, you know, this new pandemic and how it affects life and how it affects families and the work Place and work and, you know, we all have still, you know, have the effects of that. The HR people, I mean, I, you know, my employers were so overwhelmed with questions, you know about what's the right way to do things safely, legally? What do I have to do? What can I do? And the laws kept changing? And you know, and the laws were new. So we were all navigating them together. I mean, I, luckily, I have a good group of colleagues who are employment lawyers, and we would be on the phone or emailing all the time. How are you handling this? Because the laws come out? And then there's a lot of but what about this, there's a lot that's lost between, you know, between the lines, and we have to kind of make it up until they come out with regulations, or some guidelines that explain what it all means, right? So we went through that. Then there's, you know, the work life balance that companies learned about, and I like that part of it that companies, employers really, more and more understanding managers more, much more understanding that we all have lives and things happen. And we have to kind of be flexible. So there were disability accommodations that became more prevalent, the work from home, hybrid, you know, all these different structures of schedules and locations for work. We dealt with the great resignation. And as a recruiter, you know, attracting and retaining employees is huge. And I know the numbers, you know, we just got the new unemployment numbers, and they're up again, for the for the country. But there's still so many jobs that need to be filled. So I think that's good news.
 
Leighann Lovely  11:48
Well, and it's funny, I was just talking to somebody about the, you know, the unemployment numbers and the amount of jobs that are open. And I feel like you can't really just simply accept that as being completely accurate.
 
Lori Goldstein  12:04
Right?
 
Leighann Lovely  12:05
There's so much more, there's so many. And in the past, yes, I would have said, Okay, these are numbers. But there's so many more layers that go into those numbers right now. Because, right, well, ours are on the move, and there's retirements and there's so many things that are happening, like daily,
 
Lori Goldstein  12:30
right. And there's more options, because because of all that, we have more people that are now entrepreneurs, we have more more people, you know, that forming small businesses and becoming new business owners and new employers. So it's a whole new world and a lot of a lot of opportunity. And I think another thing that changed was companies focusing more on the perks, and the benefits for work life balance, to attract and retain parental leave has seemed to be one of the hot hot ones.
 
Leighann Lovely  13:04
Absolutely parental leave. I mean, more and more companies are going to unlimited vacation for individuals,
 
Lori Goldstein  13:12
right?
 
Leighann Lovely  13:14
I never imagined that in the past. But there, I get it like they're trying to combat for me. I mean, what, as of the first of the year, I became an entrepreneur, and all of a sudden, it's like, oh, I can take vacation anytime I want? Well, not really, because no,
 
Lori Goldstein  13:33
right? It's a whole world
 
Leighann Lovely  13:34
It's a hole, right? I'm probably not going to be taking a vacation without having my cell phone glued to my hand, you know, for the next three years. But you know, the rise of the unlimited vacation for some of the smaller organizations, or for some of the larger organizations, depending on the type of business they are. I mean, you still have the manufacturing companies that just can't afford to do something like that. But, you know, the rise of, of mental health awareness, we have the rise, and you had mentioned that the rise of parental leave, because now all of the sudden people are going wait a second, you know, the most important thing in my life, you're going to tell me that I have to be back a week later. Or, you know, just because I'm the dad doesn't mean that my life just changed, or what happens if you have a, you know, a gay couple. Does that mean like because they didn't, physically to birth? Right? Exactly. Correct. And these are all things that are now all of a sudden, like, hey, wait a second, we adopted No, none of us are neither one of us had the, you know, went through the physical. Why is it about the physical aspect that you're allowing us to recover from? It's not that's not what it was ever or supposed to be about? It's supposed to be about bonding time.
 
Lori Goldstein  14:55
Exactly. And I have to explain that to companies all the time when they usually they want, either will they want me to review or draft a maternity leave policy? Or they send me one that says, basically, the mother gets three months and the father gets two weeks? And I said, No, there's law. I mean, there's cases, Estee Lauder got, you know, she had to settle a big case. You can't you can't even use primary and secondary caregiver anymore, because you can't really these days, everyone's getting involved. So, right. Why? Why would we identify a primary and a secondary, because that all of a sudden becomes discrimination on? Well, who determines that? Right? It's hard to determine. And often the, it's just assumed that the female is the primary. And that's, that's discrimination.
 
Leighann Lovely  15:48
Correct. And it's funny that you bring that up, because my husband actually shifted his job schedule after we had our child so that he would be only working three days a week, and staying home with our daughter, you know, to have those days so that we could cut costs on childcare.
 
Lori Goldstein  16:06
It makes a lot of sense,
 
Leighann Lovely  16:08
Right? So he really became more of the primary and me as the secondary working full time. I mean, so
 
Lori Goldstein  16:16
That's been a great, that's been a great benefit. I was talking, excuse me to another attorney recently, a partner at a law firm. And she said, not only for female attorneys, but for women in so many industries, the whole pandemic, and this hybrid work and the fact that, you know, you can your husband can be at home or your your significant other can be at home, and at three o'clock, they can pick the kids up from school, and we can really balance because you don't all have to be somebody downtown every day.
 
Leighann Lovely  16:46
Right. Right.
 
Lori Goldstein  16:48
It's wonderful.
 
Leighann Lovely  16:48
Now, have you seen some companies start to make a shift back to the office?
 
Lori Goldstein  16:54
I have? You know, it really depends. I mean, I think the legal industry, for some reason is being more strict about it than some of the others. And then it depends on the philosophy of the people that are there. Sometimes it's hard to attract or retain the attorneys or the employees, unless you give them work from home or hybrid. That's a factor, which is bad. But I have seen it, I've seen some that are either saying we all need to be back at least three days a week, and others that are suggesting it but not requiring it. But downtown Chicago is getting crowded again. But it's still pretty, you know, never what it was right. About where you are.
 
Leighann Lovely  17:43
Well, and it's obviously being in the recruiting world. It's it's hit or miss depending on the the company, some companies are going yeah, we'll do this 100% hybrid, other companies are saying, Nope, we want the people back in the office. And then there are other companies out there going, we really don't care. The person wants to work remote. They have the work remote. But I have seen it more. So it like an industry. If they're, if they have a large amount of workforce that has to work on site, they are trying, right, they are trying to bring even the office people in on site as well. And I think that has to do with fairness, right? If you're, if everybody on the manufacturing floor is required to come in, because they have to be here, because that's where the work is done, let's make sure that the office people are also on site to support those individuals. Right. To me, that makes sense. Like,
 
Lori Goldstein  18:41
I agree, I agree.
 
Leighann Lovely  18:43
This is a company that has to, you know, function all on site. So let's make it fair for, you know, the people who are in the manufacturing floor to have a presence where if they need to talk to HR, they can walk in and have a conversation with HR. That doesn't mean that that company shouldn't also make accommodations for, you know, an HR person who says, Hey, can I work from home one day a week? Because XYZ, great,
 
Lori Goldstein  19:09
Right? But you just have to be flexible, but Right, be fair, and let people have a voice and it's good for morale. And it's also good for the collaboration and the camaraderie which I feel like a lot of the younger workers these days don't understand. They don't know what they don't know. And so they feel like they can work completely remotely, never need to go in and meet with their boss or their team or you miss so much. And I know that having worked in offices for you know, years,
 
Leighann Lovely  19:41
some of my best friends now are people that I met early on in my career, whom I met me and the reason I became so close with them was because I met them in person we we hung out we had lunch together we met for drinks after work and that we built that camaraderie at that time, and we learned from each other by bouncing ideas off each other after hours when I was in my young, early day career, and I feel like that really helped drive me into the next stage of my career. And, and part of me thinks, you know, for some of these young professionals, like how are they going to get that learning, because a lot of that happened after hours, a lot of that happened on lunch, you know, now, as a, as a seasoned professional, I know where to go to get that camaraderie I go to networking events, or I have friends who are business owners, so I know where to go to get that additional support. But these younger individuals, where do they go? Where, right, if they're working from home, you know, they close their computer, at the end of the day, they unplug.
 
Lori Goldstein  20:53
They need Mentors, they need to be observing to I mean, it's not they need to, you know, to be just observing others doing the work or doing or being on a client call or things like that, where I know, there were a lot of times, I mean, it was called FaceTime, you know, as a young attorney, you'd have to be there, you know, 10 hours a day and on Saturdays, and part of it is, you know, that's just a requirement. But if you're there, and a partner walks by and says, Hey, how would you like to come in and do this meeting? Or you can you work on this project, if you're not there, you won't get the assignments, and you won't have that power.
 
Leighann Lovely  21:33
Right, that and that makes sense. And it's different for, you know, industry to industry, obviously, and, and that's the other thing, you know, as a young, I wanted to be seen, I wanted to have, you know, the, the head of my department walked by and see that I was there, that I was, you know, grinding and I was, you know, doing the work, and I was putting in the hours and I was making things happen. We have a different community of young professionals coming up, and they see, and are experience experiencing the professional industry very different than we did.
 
Lori Goldstein  22:13
That's true. Well, they're, they're all electronic. I mean, you know, when I first started, we didn't have really, you know, we weren't on cell phones, and you really couldn't have a lot of we weren't on Zoom meetings. So you're either in person or I guess you are on your, you know, from someone's your house phone to somebody else's right.
 
Leighann Lovely  22:31
I didn't get my first cell phone until I was an adult. So, I mean, and I grew up with what a parents who had, you know, a car phone. I mean, it was like, installed in that was like, really? I mean, it was this big, right? It was huge. And I used to pretend, like to talk on it when I was like, pick it up. But like, half the time, it didn't work like they were you get that? Do you do do this color? Yeah. Outside the right. area outside the area? Right. I mean, but yeah, I mean, the only way you could be in front of your manager, or was to physically be in the building. And they needed to get a hold of you. You had to be at home for them to call you.
 
Lori Goldstein  23:20
Right. That's true. Right? Yeah, it's not the same, right?
 
Leighann Lovely  23:25
No, absolutely not. I mean, my first email account, I never, I mean, I checked it like twice or three times a week. Now I have 10 email accounts that I check 20 times a day.
 
Lori Goldstein  23:43
Right. I know. Good and bad, too. All right.
 
Leighann Lovely  23:46
We're bombarded constantly with electronic information.
 
Lori Goldstein  23:50
Right.
 
Leighann Lovely  23:50
So this is obviously one of the hot topics we just came out of May, which is mental health, mental health awareness month. I, you know, I'm assuming that this is something clients come to you on a regular basis about how do we handle you know, one, if somebody in our, at our company, approaches us and discloses? And also if somebody, you know, has something going on? So, and it's, I mean, this is just something that people are talking about, I'm assuming that companies come to you and say, how do we, how do we do this? How do we handle it?
 
Lori Goldstein  24:32
Yes, all the time. And the good thing is, usually they want to do the right thing. The companies do, but you know, they don't know what the laws are or what the requirements are, how you're supposed to handle it. Because there's issues of privacy and you know, who needs to know what and what don't you know, what are the laws the, for example, the disability discrimination laws, which people pretty much know you shouldn't discriminate or harass based on a disability. But there's accommodation requirements too. So you're supposed to reasonably accommodate somebody with a disability, if that would enable them to do the essential functions of their job. So you don't have to, you know, change major parts of it. But you know, if a different chair would be better, or somebody needs to take Friday's off for kidney dialysis or whatever, you know, accommodations there are, that's something that companies need to deal with. And they saw that a lot during the pandemic, because people were asking for accommodations from the vaccine mandates. So suddenly, even companies that hadn't dealt with this before, we're dealing with it. I also see, I mean, the mental health industry is just growing so fast. We have a lot of mental health issues, because of the pandemic affects our society. We have more telehealth now, which is great, because there's more access. I think there's more awareness and understanding and less of a stigma on for mental health. And a lot of my new employer clients during the last couple of years, our mental health practices, they're either small ones that are growing us people that are leaving a company and want to know what they can do with their non compete or non solicit and starting their own practice. They're all starting to formalize. So where they were all, all the therapists were 1099, when they probably shouldn't have been, they know that they should be making them w two. So we do employment contracts, noncompetes employee handbooks, and you know, they become employers,
 
Leighann Lovely  26:45
right.
 
Lori Goldstein  26:47
And I think I've started to see experts here in there that are providing training, either to HR professionals or within an organization so that people know how to deal with mental health issues from both sides, even as an employee, what are my rights? And I get those calls to why should I disclose this? What do I need to tell them? What you know, I'm afraid I'll get retaliated against. So it's a scary, it's a scary situation. It's not easy. It's usually sensitive. So it's hard for both sides.
 
Leighann Lovely  27:20
And are you finding that more people are disclosing, then? Not?
 
Lori Goldstein  27:29
I think. it seems that that well, it's hard to tell whether more people are disclosing, or there's just more people that have issues, you know, so there's more. So you have more disclosures, because there's now more mental health issues. But I think, I think because of the work life balance, and again, people starting to realize that this is part of life, people are fine with disclosing if somebody calls me and starts telling me about, you know, toxic workplaces and the terrible environment, and they start telling me about health issues and seeing a therapist. And there may be situations that aren't illegal at work, it could be unfair, and a bully, and not because you're of your age or your race, but it's still unhealthy. And so I tell them to hang up the phone, call your doctor, ask them what you need as an accommodation, you may need to take time off, you may need a part time schedule, do that first, your health comes first, I had a client who had a heart attack last year in her 40s because of stress from work. And you know, that shouldn't happen. Right? So people disclose, but others will ask me do I have to disclose to my new employer? And if you don't need accommodations for a disability, there's no reason to disclose it. And, you know, unless and until you need them, right? If it doesn't affect work, why does anybody need to know?
 
Leighann Lovely  28:59
Right? And that's interesting. But there's also, you know, I've had people who have a lifelong for instance, addiction issue, excuse me, addiction issue. And it's whether you know, that they're, they're fearful of, you know, I've been, I've been clean for, you know, four years, but throughout my life, I've had, you know, issues where high stress environments can cause that, you know, that's a risk factor where I relapse, do I disclose to my company that I have, you know, addiction problems so that if and when I do relapse, they're aware because you can't disclose after the fact. If you were to get fired because all of a sudden you relapse and don't show up to work. So well kind of like the chicken and the egg situation. What comes first, you know, if you don't disclose, and then you get fired, because all of a sudden you relapse? Well, at that point, the employer didn't know.
 
Lori Goldstein  30:10
Right? And you can't say, Well, you did this because I'm disabled, as opposed. Yeah, they didn't know. So there is that, that sometimes you do want to disclose, kind of, you know, to use it as leverage. I mean, just because you have a disability, or you're over 40, or you're of a certain race, you know, doesn't mean that you're going to be discriminated against on that basis. But if, you know, if there's no reason, I mean, people are afraid to disclose because it's, there's always the perception or the possibility of discrimination or harassment, once people do know, right. And I don't know why. But people seem to disclose these to their immediate Manager, which I say never to do tell HR or whoever's handling HR, your boss may never have to know, what you have, what the condition is, what the treatment is, all the boss needs to know is HR says, or the company says, here's the accommodations we're providing, and that's it.
 
Leighann Lovely  31:12
Right. And, you know, for me, personally, you know, I've learned throughout my, my career, and obviously, as a business owner, myself, now I the only person I would disclose to as myself, which I already know, so, but, you know, throughout my career with with somebody who had struggled with bipolar disorder, and for most of my career, it was not something that was talked about, it was not something that people were open to discussing or hearing. So my, you know, my was always, hey, keep it, keep it quiet, go and show the employer that you are fully capable of doing the job that there is, you know, that I don't need accommodations that I'm perfectly and then once I had proven that I was perfectly, you know, normal, I guess, you know, when I'm doing quotation normal, you know, if at what point I felt comfortable enough, it was a conversation that could come after of, you know, a confidant at the company, whether that be with HR, or whether that be with, you know, a an immediate manager that I had had a relationship with, you know, and say, you know, yep, I do, I do have, you know, a mental health, you know, underlying condition. And it was never that awkward, like, I'm like to sit down and tell you about something, it was usually just something that I had gained, they had gained confidence in me, and it would be something that would eventually just come out. But it was strange, because I the, the, the reactions that I had gotten over the years were always so different, although, just because it was still during a different time in which, like, people didn't know how to handle it.
 
Lori Goldstein  32:56
Right. And they didn't know what it all meant, either. I mean, people didn't understand what it meant. And, you know, it was just kind of like with the Oh, with HIV, you know, when that, you know, when AIDS came, and everybody was afraid, you know, we can't have people working. Well, it's not contagious in the workplace. You know, it's so you have, there's a lot of speculation and disability laws, not only prohibit discrimination based on having a disability, also a history of one and just being misperceived as having one right. So you may not be disabled, but if somebody thinks you are because you limp, you know, that's discrimination to.
 
Leighann Lovely  33:33
Right. Right. Right. But you know, and the only reason that I ever disclosed is because if, if I did have an episode, if I did need to, you know, and for me, it was security, because sometimes it was, all of the sudden, I would have an complete and total panic attack. And people would be like, Oh, my God, like call 911. It's like, No, I'm not having a heart attack.
 
Lori Goldstein  33:56
Right, right. Now, it's good that somebody knows how to handle like, in school, you know, you just want them to know, this may happen. I you know, in case of emergency,
 
Leighann Lovely  34:06
Correct, you know, and I remember hearing in this is just my poor mother. So my mom was, she was, she's a manager, she is a manager, I'm not going to disclose the company or whatever. But she was in the middle of an interview, she was interviewing a younger, younger person. Now she coming from knowing, obviously, I have mental health. So she is fully aware of how to deal with somebody with a disability with a mental health issue. But she's in the interview, and she tells that she had She's the manager, she got called away for a second, or was he writing his application? It doesn't matter. Anyways, all of the sudden she heard this, this individual start saying Help, help, help and she walked into the room and he was having a full on seizure. Hadn't even gotten to the point of having a conversation to disclose. My Mom immediately jumped to action was able to hold him in a comfortable position so that he wasn't hitting his ad or, you know, and, and she hired him.
 
Lori Goldstein  35:11
That's great.
 
Leighann Lovely  35:11
But you know, and he afterwards was, you know, humiliated, embarrassed, and, but also completely grateful, like, thank you so much, you know, you, you handled this so extremely well, I'm so sorry. You know, I'm so sorry. My mom's like, why are you saying sorry? Like this? It's not a not a big deal?
 
Lori Goldstein  35:28
They  pick the right person to be the, to be the manager there?
 
Leighann Lovely  35:33
Right? Right. And it's great, right? She's very empathetic, very human person that understands that people are in right, you know, come in all shapes, sizes, and right seller, right, everything else.
 
Lori Goldstein  35:46
And I feel the same way. I mean, I have a big passion for that everybody has their strengths. And everybody pretty much can do something can work. And if you can find a good, you know, good connection between a company and an employee, and people are happy and feel productive. Life is good,
 
Leighann Lovely  36:04
Right? And if more companies were looked at humans as humans, and not humans as like, Oh, here's, here's the next robot coming in, that's going to do this job and then go home and write. Just when we were talking, you had mentioned something else, you know, you you'd mentioned non competes, you write non competes for. So this is another hot topic, because, you know, the Federal Trade Commission has, you know, had this on their radar of should or should they not, and because of the state of the world with all of these individuals, or all of these jobs, open noncompetes inherently stop individuals from being able to leave positions to go to competitors, or possibly higher paying jobs, or start their own business, because they may be under a non compete. Do do you think that I guess one? You know, are they? Are they going to go away? Are they? And I know Wisconsin has been a split state.
 
Lori Goldstein  37:14
I know California doesn't allow them. There's a right. There's a five states that just prohibit non compete.
 
Leighann Lovely  37:20
So Wisconsin is a split state, I know that there's a handful of them out there that will be that won't even hold them up at all. I don't know what Elena, you're in Illinois.
 
Lori Goldstein  37:31
Yes, Illinois, we have a we haven't had a new law or amendment, a January of 2022. That codified a lot of requirements that kind of were requirements under cases. But so we have restrictions, you have to have minimum salary, they have to give you something besides new employment or continued employment, you have to get a signing bonus or so there's a lot of hoops to jump through. But when people come to me and say, non competes aren't valid, are they? It depends, every you know, the lawyers answer, it depends. It depends when you signed it, where you signed it, what state law applies, and there's so many different factors. So, you know, I represent both sides, from the employer side, I can't imagine just doing away with non competes completely, which is what the FTC says. And the NLRB, National Labor Relations Board is starting to say similar things. I totally understand. We don't want to overly restrict people from doing what they want to do. And you have to give them something if you're gonna make them sit at home or not be able to do that same type of job. But how does a company protect, you know, their goodwill with clients and the business they've built? And some the some people feel and I think the FTC thinks that all you need is an NDA, you know, of a non non disclosure. So you can't you have to keep confidential information. You can't disclose it or use it in other places, that they think that that is enough, you know, that and some intellectual property clauses that we don't need a non compete, and we don't need something that says you can't take our clients for a year or two. I still think we need them. But I don't think you have to give them to everybody. And I think people should get something for it. So I'm torn because I'm depending on what side I'm on. I represent a lot of individuals now with non competes that seem to me that there are overbroad. I, it's hard to believe they'll get enforced, but we can never know what court it's going to go to what that judge is going to think whether the we're going to apply the law that's in the contract from the state that state or the law where the employees working. So there's so many ifs, right, I can never tell somebody, no this is not going to get unforced.
 
Leighann Lovely  40:01
It's, it's so interesting. And I agree with you, if we were to just wipe every single one away, that would be utter chaos.
 
Lori Goldstein  40:11
Yes.
 
Leighann Lovely  40:11
I mean, I have a feeling that there would be a whole lot of people out there that would be like, like celebrating and running around like crazy, you know, cats, living dogs, or what is that Zayn?
 
Lori Goldstein  40:27
Right. But it's a free for all
 
Leighann Lovely  40:29
Right, it's a free for all like, and I mean, I truly do it. But I also understand that if we wiped him away completely, it would it there, there is the likelihood that it would damage. A lot of companies out there, because they have spent a ton of money, making sure that you know, their clients and everybody, that all is secure. And rep. However, I'm also for the people that, and if you really dig into that, and you read it, and I'm sure you have, and you know, there are some people who have been locked in to a specific job for a very long time and have have lost the ability to make more money, or individuals who have left their industry completely and had to take massive pay cuts, right weighed out these non competes, right? And, and then, you know, a year or two later, years later, couldn't find, you know, an opportunity back where they were and it, it was a detriment to their career. And that I don't believe is right or fair.
 
Lori Goldstein  41:40
Right, there has to be a balance, really, I mean, I was talking again to another attorney today for a company over a noncompete that my client has. And he said to me, you know, listen, this guy's in sales, we're not trying to stop him from going somewhere and doing sales, which is what he's strong and just don't do it in this industry for a year, he can go to, you know, a health care industry and do it. So I think that, you know, for the most part, companies aren't looking to screw their former employees and try to prevent them from, you know, going to places and not getting, you know, doing things that they should be able to do. For the most part, sometimes they do, sometimes they're unreasonable. They have overbroad clauses, they don't care how much money they're going to spend to, you know, to try and enforce. And the Illinois law now says that if a company Sue's on a non compete or a non solicit and loses, they have to pay the employees attorneys fees, which was never the case, it was only one sided the other way.
 
Leighann Lovely  42:43
Right? Well, and I agree with that, though, I agree with that. I totally agree with that. And I also, I disagree with the fact that you shouldn't be able to kick somebody out of their industry, I, I'm against that, like if, if you've been in especially help, let's say it's medical device sales. If you have a lot of these individuals who are in medical health, device sales, or medical sales in some way, a lot of them will have a degree in biology or in science or in something. And that's why they like that type of sale. And a lot of them know all the players. And that's why they're so successful at it. So to go to that individual and say, sorry, you can't sell in this industry, go sell in something else manufacturing or HR, or there,
 
Lori Goldstein  43:39
But for the same reason. That's why the companies are worried and want to enforce this because these people have developed and we're worried they're gonna hurt us they could. So I think it's, I think the compromise is to have that a year that you can't solicit away the clients and the prospects that you dealt with. And that should be fine. Go anywhere you want. Competitors understand, Okay, we have to keep you away from that list for a while, but we want you right,
 
Leighann Lovely  44:06
I've I've had clients past clients call me when I was still under a non compete, and I've actually had to say to them, Look, I appreciate the fact that you're, you're calling me I really do. And I would love to work with you. But I am under a noncompete and I cannot work with you right now. And they understand Oh, yep, nope, I got it. I completely understand it. And it breaks my heart like, Well, I really loved working with this client, but I have to wait it out for a year or whatever that whatever that is, you know, so they do understand and and that's just, you know, that's what it is. But, again, if a client really likes working with a specific person, Ahh, I'm really split on that. Like, come on, right.
 
Lori Goldstein  44:57
It's a good relationship. Well, I have that client that just went through. And so a lot of the companies have non poaching clauses with their clients. And that's a lot easier to enforce than a non compete. And you know, or there's a damages clause. So if you're going to take the employee fine, but then you have to pay us something, and it usually works. And that should be enough, you shouldn't have to necessarily go after the employee to.
 
Leighann Lovely  45:24
And that, hey, I'm all for that, like, especially in some of these, like really specific industries, I get it like, and I get the I got the confidentiality, the nondisclosure, all of that you have trade secrets that you're protecting, I get that if this employee is going to go directly or competitor and try to sell your trade secrets go after that person, because that's not right.
 
Lori Goldstein  45:46
Right?
 
Leighann Lovely  45:47
I completely understand that. And if you want to work out a deal with, you know, your competitors, and say, Hey, you can hire my employee, but that employee cannot take our clients. And if they do, you're gonna, you're gonna be the one that pays us.
 
Lori Goldstein  46:02
Right?
 
Leighann Lovely  46:02
But don't stop the employee from thriving for their family, because now you're damaging the people, and the people are the ones who are buying from you.
 
Lori Goldstein  46:12
Right? That's true. That's a good point. What's your experience from recruiting for employers that know that this candidate has a non compete agreement? And you know, I've been through those situations where a lawyer takes a look, and the company's lawyer says, We think this is okay, we're not worried about it. But a lot of them won't, they just won't touch that candidate, because they don't want to get trouble.
 
Leighann Lovely  46:36
It depends on each situation. You know, I've had some, some say, Yeah, I don't know that we can get past that. I've had others say, Yep, I think we can work with this will work within the constraints. And, you know, sometimes, even if it's a large company that, you know, the company's in house attorney will meet with that employee and go over the guidelines of, you know, we'll go to bat for you bla bla bla bla bla, providing that you follow these rules, because what I have found is that companies want to do the right thing. And in the majority of the I don't know that I've ever worked with a company that's that blatantly gone out of their way to do sneaky stuff. In fact, if I found out that they were doing that, I would not want to work with them. Right. I see him here. Right. So companies, I think, you know, inherently want to do the right thing and stay within the lines. So I've even worked with companies who will have their in house attorney meet with that, you know, employee, do you understand that you're not allowed to do these things? Yes. Great. We'll take you on, you need to follow your non compete until its end. You know, if if anything were to accidentally happen, we will go to bat for you, blah, blah, blah. But if you color outside of these lines, you're on your own.
 
Lori Goldstein  47:54
Right. Fair
 
Leighann Lovely  47:56
Yeah, and, you know, for the most part, unless, and I don't think I've ever had any company say absolutely not. I've had some companies go this might this might be a deal breaker. And I think that ultimately, the candidate, just it wasn't the right fit. And that, but that usually gets into really high level.
 
Lori Goldstein  48:18
Right,
 
Leighann Lovely  48:18
Like, high level officers.
 
Lori Goldstein  48:21
Yeah, I agree. I've had some where the new employer pays the old employer, basically to take the employee, they buy him out of the contract, but they don't do that for most employees.
 
Leighann Lovely  48:33
Now, that's you're talking about, like the big the big directors, the the very high up individuals or companies. And I'm assuming that that individual also has a contract that they're going to stay at the company for a certain period of time as well.
 
Lori Goldstein  48:48
Right. Right, right. Yeah.
 
Leighann Lovely  48:51
Yeah, yeah. We're not going to buy you out if you only come here for six months.
 
Lori Goldstein  48:54
Right? Right. Exactly.
 
Leighann Lovely  48:57
Yep. Well, we are coming to time, I could sit here and talk to you forever. But we are coming to time. And I do have a question of the season that I would like to ask, you know, what would you change about your job or the practice that people have in your role, if you could.
 
Lori Goldstein  49:17
So, I mean, my job is a solo law practice employment law, which as I said, I'd love I wouldn't change a thing. For the most part, I probably need to delegate more. There are tasks, you know, that I give to a bookkeeper, but I could probably give more to her and maybe bite the bullet and hire a virtual assistant. So, time management is something I would change about my job. But, you know, I love that I talk to clients directly, and they get to talk to me and I'm not, you know, having them, somebody else feel the calls. But it's, you know, it does take time. And in terms of changing the practices As the other employment attorneys have, I wish some were more practical resolution oriented, more objective and, you know, focused on the client's best interest cost sensitive and most error, and that generally leads to better relationships and negotiations and getting to closure. But some of them, you know, some attorneys have either, you know, been raised differently, they're at firms that would rather litigate than settle. And whether you have principles. And so you know, then they play the litigation game or the game where and, you know, it would be so much nicer to really just be practical. Realize, I always say this to the other attorney, our clients hire us because they can't resolve this. So we need to be objective and neutral, you know, advocate for our clients, but their work, they're relying on us to resolve this. So let's be nice to each other. Let's be cordial. So that's, that's a good experience. And a lot of my colleagues, friends I've met through networking end up being somebody I'm ending up negotiating a severance agreement with or things like that. And, again, we are representing our clients and we advocate but I know I have a good person on the other side, who was a good lawyer, and you know, we're going to come to a deal.
 
Leighann Lovely  51:24
Awesome. If somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?
 
Lori Goldstein  51:30
So they could call me at 847-624-6640. They could reach me on my website, which is Lori Goldstein law.com, and my email address is lori that a that goldstein@gmail.com.
 
Leighann Lovely  51:51
Excellent. Lori, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been an awesome conversation. I think we've covered some some great content or great topics. So again, thank you so much.
 
Lori Goldstein  52:01
Thank you. Thank you. It was a wonderful engaging conversation.
 
Leighann Lovely  52:05
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, to follow us, like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPY
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
companies, work, employer, non compete, employee, disclose, clients, law, industry, lori, years, hr, individuals, attorney, disability, representing, day, great, illinois, starting
 

”People and Business Don’t Need Motivation, They Need Transformation” ~ William Deck

William Deck is a Success Mindset Coach, Keynote Speaker and so much more, by my account and conversation this is the person that you want to have in your circle. William takes real-world experience and understanding and helps people and businesses transform the way they see, feel, and understand the world. As he says in this interview and bio “People and businesses don’t need motivation, they need transformation” This is a conversation you will not want to miss!   
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  We have a great guest joining me today William Deck. William is an executive coach, corporate consultant and inspirational speaker that values integrity, transparency and accountability. With over 10 years of experience in workforce development, corporate training, and sales leadership, WM is committed to helping organizations and the teams therein identify and remove self-limiting beliefs that could impede their growth and long term success. For this reason, he understands that transformational change can only be achieved by identifying the root cause for personal and organizational dysfunction. Using real-world examples, William sheds light on the power of the subconscious mind and the value of developing one's mental fitness. He believes that through the proper use of one's thoughts, feelings and imagination, we can become the conscious creator of our lives circumstances. Therefore he understands and has proven that personal empowerment leads to organizational empowerment and success over time. William is passionate about sharing his message of self love and healing with the world, which is why his tagline states, people and organizations don't need motivation. They need transformation. In his free time, William enjoys yoga and traveling with his wife, Lauren, son, William and daughter, Sophia. William, I am so excited to have you come and join me and talk with me today.
 
William Deck  02:44
I am too I know we recently had a meeting and I had amazing conversation. And I'm looking forward to a whole lot more today. And so ready to jump in?
 
Leighann Lovely  02:54
Yeah. So why don't you start off by telling me and the audience a little bit about your background and yourself?
 
William Deck  03:01
Sure, sure. So once again, my name is William deck, and I'm the founder and CEO of mind business LLC. And we're a coaching and consulting firm that's really focused in on mental fitness education. And what that really means is that we help organizations and the individuals they're in to remove their self sabotage barriers from a mental and emotional level. Because the keys to success are not visible. They're invisible principles and ideas and belief systems that manifest in our behaviors and disciplines that cause these good outcomes to happen. And we help organizations and once again, those people in the in the team members to actually see where they're getting in their own way, and how they can get out of their own way. Because ultimately, we have to make good decisions with clarity in order to be able to make a transformational change. We can't just Helter Skelter, you know, kind of find our way there just by floating around in that atmosphere. It's about being intentional. And that's what we're really trying to help organizations see. And then of course, do the work.
 
Leighann Lovely  03:58
And that's amazing, because I can identify with that. Being somebody who's, you know, had a long journey to where I am, I've definitely noticed that the people that I surround myself with and the mindset, you know, personally, that over the years has changed. I can identify points in my life in which it wasn't, it's easy to point blame, but it wasn't anybody else that was in my way it was it was me. So I can definitely, I can definitely see how your work can help individuals and organizations drastically move forward. If you put the work in, so, so why don't you you know, again, and I've seen it too, you know, many people walk around, you know, unsure of how to change their life and to really get unstuck. So, tell me about how you work with people and companies to do that good work.
 
William Deck  05:02
Most definitely. So our one on one coaching, philosophy definitely kind of is intertwined in the work that we do with organizations because the mental principles and once again are the same. So when I say mental principles, what I'm saying is that they're universal laws, that just like gravity in the physical realm apply to the mental realm. So for example, there's a lot of correspondence the sense that any external outcome or, or situation is connected to an inner situation and our reality, meaning what we feel and think and believe on the inside, tends to manifest around us all the time, right? And so one could say, Well, I'm not sure if that's true, but no one questions gravity, it works, because it works in these universal law that our ancestors over 1000s of years have come to understand all around the world. When I say universal, it means it applies just like it does, here in Wisconsin, and Milwaukee, as it does in changing China or somewhere else, right? It works because it works. And so when it works. So when we work and do engagements with organizations, what we want to do is not try to recreate the wheel, there are certain mental, as well as physical laws, that are really important to understand the set of foundation, so that when we understand how the baseline or how the the scaffolding is put together, then it's easier to see some of the more mundane details, if we understand that if we speak negative words, for example, that we're going to have negative emotions. And those negative emotions tend to manifest negative outcomes, whether they're specific or in specific, they attract the same energy or that light energy. And so if we're having negative conversations internally about the organization all the time and what doesn't work and what we don't like, we can only expect to have more negative outcomes. Just the same if you're an individual, if you're talking bad about yourself talking about about your situation, talking only about the negative aspects of your family history as opposed the positives, right? Then it's very hard to make a positive or transformational change. I mean, they were born in the complete opposite direction, right transformation, something new, if we're talking and speaking from the old belief system, the old ideas, the negative ideas. And so we have to begin to understand and to see, you know, with our single eye of the Spirit, if you will, as well, our physical eyes, the mental and emotional, you know, psychological aspects of how we are speaking life into our situation, and speaking, a newness, a creative aspect that can bring new outcomes into our lives, which is love, which is positivity. Or if we're speaking, that negativity that only sees a certain a certain number of outcomes are possible outcomes, because this is what we experienced in the past. So we can expect, quote, unquote, to express these things. Again, it didn't work out last time I tried. So why would it work? Now, all those kinds of ways of thinking and feeling simply tells ourselves with words and no words, I don't deserve it. And most of the time, when we find the root cause of what's holding us back is because deep down, we don't believe that we deserve it. We don't believe that we deserve the new outcome, the higher level of financial security, the better relationship, because our own experiences have told us that we don't. And we have interrupted that pattern of thinking and feeling. And until we interrupt those those stuck, negative Denslow emotions, we'll never be able to get into the newness of life. That is what living this experience is all about. It's about constantly having an opportunity to get better, to see better to experience better to prove to yourself that there is no limit to what you deserve what you can have, right? Because it's not about just like holding something in your hand. It is about having an idea and manifesting into the real world. And that's what we want organizations to do. We just put the corporate speak around it, help them to learn the principles, and ultimately help them to begin to build the behaviors that will automatically produce the outcomes that they want. And we do the same thing with one on one coaching, because we are where we habitually do. Now when we say and honestly not even necessarily what we think to a degree, because we can be thinking negatively at first, but then begin to change our behaviors and our behaviors will pull us out of it. But if we only think and not take action, then ultimately we're not going to get to where we want to get so getting deep down into what those root causes. And the whys behind all of that, that we just discuss is important so that we can just put a program around here the challenges so we know exactly what we want to attack from day one. And we try to keep it simple. We don't try to make it difficult is simple and straightforward. These are your roadblocks, we've identified them together. Let's attack those and and get those out of your head in your heart and replace those negative belief systems with positive belief systems, actions behaviors, and once you do that, the subconscious mind will take over and it's automatic says, as opposed to automatic self sabotage, failure and all the other things that you don't want. That's how we do it.
 
Leighann Lovely  10:06
That's and that's amazing. Because, you know, and I suppose you know, simple like that and things that popped in my head, you know, in some of these are going to be really bad examples, so forgive me, but things that popped in my head like my husband and I play Yahtzee all the time. Like we're obsessed with playing Yahtzee. And I always think to myself, like, oh, today, I'm going to win Yahtzee because I had a really good day. And I have positive energy going into these dice. Which is kind of ridiculous. Because if you think about it, you know, Yahtzee is a game of chance, like and a little bit of skill, like which dice do I keep? Which dice do I don't write, but I always think to myself, today was an awesome day. So I have positive energy going into this game. Which is true. It's kind of goofy. But I always think like, yep, today, I'm gonna win, because today was a really great momentum day. So I'm gonna win. And I'm like, Yeah, I should go to the, you know, Potawatomi? Or did the casino Yeah, I'm not a gambler. Like, you know, not too much of an Avigail. But, you know, you get into this mindset, like, Hey, today was I had such great positive momentum, that nothing can bring me down. But on the flip side of that, I have a really rough day, and I'm like, I'm not gonna win. I can't do you know, and it's hard to get out of that rut. So if if, if you can create that automatic, like you were talking about that automatic, subconscious mindset, where you're pouring, you know, that positive momentum into things on a regular basis, think about how much more powerful you can be in any situation. But it's hard. It's hard to when you when you're just feel like you're being beaten down over and over. It's definitely tough to get out of that rut. Especially if and again, I suppose it some people, I don't suppose some people grow up in certain ways. So it is hard to look at the world with the glass half full and hard to get into the mindset that good things are going to happen if I put the work in, because they just grew up with the idea that good things don't happen to people like me, or people like, so it's hard to switch that. It really is. Yeah, so I got it. And so working with somebody like you to really change your view almost on the world, your view on yourself, and then say, Hey, I'm valuable in some way, whether no matter what it is, I'm I give value to somebody in some way. And working just on that small piece at a time. And knowing that, you know, it kind of goes back to what is that movie? I'm thinking I'm trying to think of the movie that's a Christmas movie where, you know, he wishes he was never born. And then the reality of seeing what would happen if you didn't exist in the lives Christmas story, not a Christmas story. Oh my God, how can I not think of the name of this movie?
 
William Deck  13:34
The one with Scrooge. No, he goes back in okay.
 
Leighann Lovely  13:37
No, it's not what Scrooge it's oh my god, right now my audience is like screaming at me going How do you not know the name of this movie. But it's always a mess around. Like if you remove one person from the lives of other people as if they never were born. The impact the ripple effect, because even the simple act of opening a door for somebody could be making their day you know, the positivity that you don't know that you spread. However, that's also the same thing for the negativity that you can spread. And if everybody kind of had that mindset of doing a little bit more positive, those those things can can change the world. And so if anyways, I digress. No. So and here's, here's another thing, the vision board, you know, you hear people talk about, oh, I have a vision board. And the idea behind that is that you are deserving of anything that you put on that vision board, if you truly want to get it. Then you need to actively seek out ways to switch your mindset in order to and if you're looking at those things all the time. And you're going about it in a way that's positive and an eye I'm a believer of that, right? Like if you are doing things in a positive and actively, but it's not just simple like, Oh, I'm just going to work three times how harder and I'm going to bulldoze my way through it. It's not the same as actually flipping that and you know better flipping that switch to say, Okay, I am going to do this better buy healthier, I'm going to do this. You know,
 
William Deck  15:33
I know exactly what you're saying
 
Leighann Lovely  15:34
And I'm just not finding the right words to say it's
 
William Deck  15:37
just taking a approach of self love, and acceptance. A lot of times we feel like, we are doing a good job taking care of ourselves and this and that, they will look into the details in the minutia. Whether it's constantly rushing, whether it's constantly being under anxiety, because we've been under a cloud of anxiety and overwhelmed for many, many years, which Psychological Science call that toxic stress overload. A lot of times those kinds of emotional states are normal, meaning that we're never really, truly settled would never really feel like we were doing them out that we have enough that we are enough, it's always the idea that there is a, a, a hole in our bucket. So it's not about it being half full or half empty, is that it's constantly being depleted is constantly draining. So people around you experiences always have to continuously pump you up, pump you up, pump you up, fill up your cup, fill up your cup, but your cup keeps on leaking, or keeps on becoming depleted, which means not enough, right? Because that is your state of mind. And so no one can I help you with it, we have to learn even though it's very difficult, let me make a quick statement. I'm not saying that this is easy. But we have to get to a place in our lives that we feel okay, in our own skin, doing nothing on a Friday night. The reason why I give that example is because to me on Friday nights for many years for like I had to go out and hang out and do things and go places. Because I wouldn't settle with where I was in my life. I was still in college, and it was in my college years. And I was on the eighth year playing when I started off with a four year plan and things that went wrong. They were outside of my control, but I felt like a victim. And I could not fulfill on a Friday night because I wasn't okay. When I begin to realize that, fundamentally, then I begin to realize, okay, so my behaviors like, you know, I would, you know, get a whole pizza and six pack of beer and, you know, consuming in one night by myself. And it's like, okay, Homer Actually, yes, I used to eat alive. But I'm not anymore. Why am I like eating this much food when like my Isaiah, that's enough, and I keep on eating. That was a sign of a lack of self love. That was self deprecation. That was, you know, in some ways, some deep part of myself was punishing myself. Because, once again, if you don't feel like you're okay, if you're good enough, most people also feel like they need to be punished in some way. So they means self sabotage, right? I need to be in a situation to where I'm struggling, striving and, you know, putting myself second place and someone else, physically or psychologically, or you know, work, you know, taking crap from a boss, when it's not just constructive criticism is actually you know, borderline abusive, all these different things. They just manifest and put people in this in this secondary position in their own lives, right, because they don't believe that they deserve the best or they're afraid of success. And so I have to do something to keep myself from being out there from speaking up for myself, because if I do that, then people won't be in agreement with me. But once again, it goes back to the secondary position. Because if you are not first in your life, other people will find ways consciously or subconsciously put themselves first. If you don't have your own plan, if you don't have your own vision, someone will give you their their plan and their vision and say, God help, you know, do this for me. None of those things are bad. But if you stay there, you will slowly lose respect for yourself. And ultimately, when we go from the left side of living, to the fear side of living, we cut ourselves off from opportunities on the fear side and self sabotage. And we keep on pulling ourselves down because we are the crabs in the bucket that are pulling us down. Because it's our bucket, it's our mind. But if we're on the love side, then we are free. We are evil, sorry, 2345 10 miles high in the sky, seeing hundreds of miles in all directions. And I choose where I go. I make decisions, I speak affirmations I take I create new habits and behaviors that are not easy at the beginning, when I choose to go through when it hurts and when it doesn't feel good. And I'm ready to you know, lose my breakfast at yoga or some kind of training session, but I choose to show up the next day or that or the next week. That's what self love was all about pushing through the challenging times at the beginning, knowing that there's something better on the other side Knowing that the vision that I have is real, it is alive and it lives to Me. And there's no second place, there's no way that I can let this go because it is my vision, I don't manifest it, it will never happen, and taking full responsibility for it. So love, it's not just being fluffy, loves being tough, it's having courage. It's feeling the pain, feeling of fear and continuing to go on. And of course, fears the exact opposite is pushing my opportunities away. It's making excuses and feeling sorry for myself. And none of those things play in the real world. The reality is, it's completely up to you. And that's what love teaches us. But it but when we have to relearn them, because we tend to lose that over time, because the world tells us put other people first put other things first, stay on the sidelines, don't make too much noise. But then those that actually do those things, are the ones that are more successful that Elon Musk and all the other successful people say, break the rules, find your own way, trust your intuition. So we have to really learn a lot of things. But it is so worth it.
 
Leighann Lovely  21:00
And it's funny, because when I hear you talk, and I can I can hear other people's reaction initially of well, doesn't that sound selfish? Putting yourself first all the time? And, and? And I and I? Yes. I mean, yes, absolutely. But what I have learned through my own personal journey is that when I was putting everybody else first I was completely ignoring my own needs my own. And I was allowing myself to live in a place of complete unhealthiness. And when you put yourself first and become completely healthy, it becomes easy to serve those around you. And it becomes fun, to be able to keep yourself healthy. And also love and serve those around you with kindness. And but you're right, it goes back to the saying of put your own mask on first. Otherwise, you're nothing to anybody else. Imagine then you answer my question, I was gonna say am I right in that?
 
William Deck  22:13
So yes, so there is. So what I've had to learn that there's a difference between selfish and selfish. When someone is looking for butterflies in fear, the poverty mindset, and I'm not talking about finances first, because that is the end outcome I'm talking about. Not enough, can't do it. Not enough time, I'm too busy. What I realized those are the selfish people. Because what they don't understand is that every time they are suppressing their own greatness and opportunity to grow, then they are masking the light that they were here to to be to become those who who are selfing and saying, if I'm not okay, I can't be abused to anybody else are saying that because I care about my family, my loved ones, the clients that I serve, I have to be mentally, emotionally, physically psychologically fit, so that I can go out there and produce the output or the light or the clarity, wisdom and knowledge that flows from within me my experiences my intuition, everything else to go out there and do the very best that I can for this world because I understand that I want to leave this world one day into every single virtue every every speck of light everything that I had to bring to the table I did dug deep within the old world of myself and brought it out that's someone who I believe who actually loves and cares people much more so than though the thing I'm going to cover my own lighter. I don't have a lighter I'm not alive, I can't do it. Those are the selfish ones because they don't see their connectedness to the bigger picture Those that do are saying let me make sure that I'm fortified so that I can always do and be who I need to be just like it says in every single scripture right the set the different definitions of you know God if you will with this I am with this for definition or otherwise are there other words or names they all go back to the idea that I am whatever you need me to be our I am whatever I need to be, which means that we always have more within us but only those who have the courage to dare to go into their own Atlantis within themselves and find all the gold and all the solutions desk although the stories about you as a human being right anytime there's a dragon at the gate or dragon you know, you know protecting this gold in this big castle and all that stuff. That Dragon that's covering the goal is the limitations within yourself because the gold is within your own castle. It's not somebody else's Castle is yours. But but that's the unlimited potential. That we are not that we have that we are and to and to have the courage to start that journey and to keep on going when is scary and when you're afraid and when No one supporting you and thinking that you're crazy. Those are the ones who are not just quote unquote selfish, but those are the ones that are. Or they have decided that I am the one in my life and have the ability to impact other people's lives in a way that I can't even describe it. It is beyond my comprehension. But I'm going to go after that pie in the sky idea and belief and vision, because there's something greater beyond what I can see. And everyone else and have to be honest, so your your listeners are going to get shocked again, and everyone else is just jacking around to just be living life, going to work coming home not being satisfied, being you know, repressing 1000, different ways, mentally, emotionally, vision for something that you want to do, that you just have given up on or about to give up on, and not showing your children a better version of yourself, year after year after year, that selfish is held, you have more greatness in you than you could ever imagine. And to not even touch it or to tap into it, that is much more worse. So selfing is excellent. selfing is what great people do. And selfish is what most people are doing because they don't see the big picture. So I want to explain that give some context. But most people are just sitting around waiting to die. And we can't allow that to happen to us. All of our all of that potential that lives within you, as an individual, every listener here could go to the grave one day, all these different ideas for businesses and, and ways to be a better parent and all of a sudden, that and you're afraid for any reason to do it. And you choose not to do it over and over again. It's not just impacting you, it could impact an entire community and entire city. That's how powerful we are. And for a lot of us to change the world. But what we're just sort of like gifts.
 
Leighann Lovely  26:47
Well, and that goes back to, you know, the whole, you know, concept of people who don't realize the impact they have on other people simply by being you know, who you are, who you are, by being kind by making, you know, extra times each day to reach out to some. But again, this comes back to fear. It all and you had mentioned that it all comes back to fear by asking somebody, can I open this door for you? Well, why wouldn't you ask somebody that? Oh, I don't want to get involved. I don't want to talk to this. You know what if I talk to him in the LM, a lot of what we don't do, comes back to fear of being rejected, or of being looked at cross-eyed or it comes back to what happens if I am not accepted? And trust me, I've experienced that. What if I get on this stage? And everybody laughs at me? What if I get on that stage? And everybody claps and says, Thank you for telling me that story. Or thank you for what you do. What if I, you know, what, whatever it might be. We as humans have a tendency to default to the negative versus the positive. And it's, it's difficult to get past the fear of the what ifs. Well, what if i What if that happens? What if this happens? For some reason, there came a point in my life, and I think it comes with age, right? Where all of the sudden, I just was like, what if? Who cares? Like, who cares? What if somebody doesn't like me, okay, they don't have to. Not everybody in the world has to like who I am. Not everybody in the world has to accept me. But I need to accept me. I need to be able to look in the mirror and be proud of what I see. And for and for that I needed to say some uncomfortable things about myself I II, I went and told the world I have bipolar disorder. There are people out there who are wildly, you know, uncomfortable with that. But you know what, I stepped into myself fully, because all of a sudden, I was accepted by a huge number of people in my community, who actually said thank you. Thank you for being so open and honest with who you were. And I'll tell you, when I did that for myself. I became so much more comfortable in my own skin. And it empowered me. It made me feel amazing to be able to just be who I am fully and not be ashamed of something that I was born with. I've spoken to other people who have told their story that were much more difficult. I'll just say that you tied to much more traumatizing things in their past that I cannot Imagine what they felt. I've seen, you know, and it's it's so amazing when people finally step into their whole selves and do things that you know, others stand up and go, well, thank you. And there are others who will say, Well, I don't ever want to talk with that person again. She's weird or She's strange. Well, then fine. Go find your people. But I'm going to clap for that person. Because here's the thing. Not everybody likes everybody. Not everybody jives with everybody. Not everybody meshes well, but everybody has somebody, we all have people, somewhere. And in order for us to all lift each other up, we all need to find those people, right? Because everybody has somebody. And if we get past the fear and realize that we can do better, it wouldn't be that much easier. We just have to be willing to take that first leap. Again, I digress and to some random thought by Leanne.
 
William Deck  31:05
No, but I mean, you're totally right. I think Maya Angelou is one of the ones that said it best is that our biggest fear is that we are not inadequate. Our biggest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. And, of course, she said more. But most of us have a much stronger fear of success, like what if this actually works. And I can scale this business or I begin to have a successful relationship, but I've never seen with a stable person, you know, what will happen once I get there, and do I have what it takes to handle it and to manage it, and to grow it or to be it a lot of people are more or more people fear that than the fear of quote unquote, failure, good, all of us have had quote unquote, failures in whatever capacity, whatever we believe that to be. So that's not necessarily scared, because it's not foreign, the foreign ideas and aspects of what scares us the most. So being wildly successful and at peace, and not having any issues and drama and having to worry about paying bills for a good number of the population that is horrified because what they have experienced is the exact opposite. It doesn't mean this, that's what they want. But what they do is communicate that with their emotions, and their self sabotaging and fearful and overwhelming thoughts that put them back in that space. And when I talked about the beginning, being that low, heavy denseness that you feel, as a cost, excuse me, your constant cloud around you all the time. Most of us feel that cloud, we see that cloud, experienced experientially by what happens in our lives, and it keeps us down. And it keeps us feeling that we're not enough. And although the things that I've already mentioned, that is and I know that for a fact, because that's where I was for many years, I know what it feels like to not have a clear vision for the future. And to just feel like you're wandering and doing your best just to get out of bed and feel encouraged every single day. I know what it feels like to be depressed because I was after my stepdad got sick and had to handle a whole lot of stuff that I wasn't ready to. Just because as an oldest boy, I know what it feels like to have a one vision and idea. And then all of a sudden life, you feel like life is blown up on you. And all of a sudden, you got to just start from scratch, like everything that you work for, quote, unquote. But this was my own story. I had lost and I lost people and lost friendship, I didn't lose anything. I was simply shedding that which was movable. So that which was immovable would remain in the end. And it talks about spiritual texts, including the Bible talks about the idea that every that life has periods or seasons, where everything is shaken just like sediments on everything, the solid. What is left is the foundation just like when you're looking for gold. You sift through a whole lot of dirt and this net, Moon sifted through what is remaining is that pure gold, right? And so it even talks about you know that when you go through fire fiery situations, the reason why you go through them is that you can come out as pure gold because you purify gold and silver and lead and things like that by heating it up. So that everything that is not the pyramidal, or element is burned away, basically. And that's exactly what happened. And it was very, very painful. What I did also learn I can tell everyone from experience, no matter what you're going through, no matter how hard it seems, no matter how hard it seems, is that when you go through the fire, you will not come out on the inside burned up like a little piece of charcoal you will definitely be that purified goal of psychologically physically emotionally, you know, steadfast and immovable able to do more than you ever thought you could do because you have grown your capacity. And that's what challenging times are for they don't come to stay they come to pass. That is not your life. You should not always because I've heard things especially in spiritual community about hey, you know, if you're going into the storm out of storm and through a storm, I don't believe in that. I believe that we have an opportunity each and every day A to decide how we feel how we think, and overall get to a place that over time, we'll have extended periods of time, we have extended periods of time of peace and prosperity, and focus, and clarity and passion. We don't have to just sit here and go through stuff. And a lot of people believe that, and I did too. But I kept on manifesting what I believe. So I want to also just with a quick tidbit in there, you don't have to stay in tough times, tough times come to pass. And we should be living in abundant overflow, much more than we're living in struggle and striving and hustling, grinding, they just wear us down to wear us out. The Hustle grind mentality for me, and I realized so many others, it just is not a real thing is just negative programming that causes us to burn ourselves out. Because most people don't know how to go hard and fast and not wear out. So it's not really meant for most people, there are a few people who have enough discipline, they can go hard and fast doing of self care, to not burn out quickly when you go in hard all the time. But I wouldn't recommend it. So
 
Leighann Lovely  36:08
you made a really valid point, there are seasons of life. You know, we and I've talked with this about somebody else on my podcast that we you know, we we go through different periods of times that we may have, you know, and again, this kind of you just brought a whole bunch of conversations that I've had with other people together where, you know, changing, you know, Jamar Jones has a book, change your circle, change your life, that also goes along with the seasons of life where, you know, there's going to be times where you have different people in your life where it may be time to change that circle. Depending on where you are in your life, you may be in a in a state of complete and total distress, depression, because of a situation that you've gone through because of a mental health disorder, because of addictions. But from my experience, you can only stay at the bottom so long, right? I don't know anybody that I've known, you know, I don't know anybody that doesn't eventually come up from that, you know, I've I've hit bottom, I have had friends, I've known others, you eventually will dig your way up. But it does have a lot to do with you as a person whom you choose to have in your circle. And that's a lot of it has to do with mindset on how quickly you will bounce back on how quickly you are able to bounce back on the situation, of course. But there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. It's a matter of whether or not you choose to follow it quickly. Or you choose to stay where you are for a longer period of time. But it is a choice. And speaking from somebody who has been there a couple of times in my life from different situations. I mean, it is it is but once you've been there, I'll tell you, I don't ever want to go back there. And I have worked very hard on self care on mental health awareness to make sure that I don't ever find myself back at that rock bottom situation. And a lot of that has to do with checking my mood on a regular basis. Now I'm speaking from somebody who's got a you know, lifelong mental health situate, you know, diagnosis, checking my mental health, my husband making sure you know, he everyone's about you seem down, you seem really really excitable, and I'm like, oh, we'll do much. You know, it's a matter of making sure that on a daily basis, that I am checking to make sure that I am mentally, physically, you know, doing everything I need to do to stay healthy all the time. And for a while it was changing the people that I chose to have in my life because they were unhealthy. So I mean, there's so much that goes into and it's not easy. Everything you know that that you've spoken about, and I don't know the depth. And here's my next question before I go on and on. You know, you work with organizations and companies. What do you think is one of the biggest challenges when it comes to you know, going into an organization and you know, helping them
 
William Deck  39:47
I will say the biggest barrier because working with people of course, is unresolved childhood trauma. Whether it's C suite all the way up and down doesn't matter the age when you get to the the The depths of a lot of times people are operating from their greatest fears and anxieties, as opposed to the greatest in their most creative inspirations, meaning certain people have certain belief systems or ideas on how things should be done or doing it the way that it always been done or whatever else that may be that belief that I did. Because it's comfortable for them, it's not challenging them to have to grow personally. It's not, in some way, from their perspective, challenging their position within the organization, or decision that they made that they got credit for five years ago, but you know, that time is coming on and the world has changed. And we need to do new stuff to get or try new things to get different results. A perfect example is from the organizational side, I was I just had a two part workshop, and consulting session with a C suite, or C leadership team to have a very, very large nonprofit, they do funds, you know, millions and millions of dollars. And these are well known folks. When I got into the session, we begin to talk about things when we have to do this in education and talking about some some different things that we need to discuss and go through, will begin to kind of begin to ask some creative questions like how would you show up to work differently if you had no fear? You know, how would you know how would your work or your focus, or your ideas shift? If you had no fear? Like, let's just take fear off the table. And think from creative inspiration only. And it was interesting to see the entire group that eyes lit up, they got excited, there was a lot of laughing, a lot of joking, and I heard different ideas or statements like hey, like, we asked her to the board, but like what's keeping us from actually going and trying X, Y and Z? Like, you know, how would it hurt? Or what would it hurt if we chose to stop doing this and doing more of that? And one question, I thought that I pose is, you all are known in the community for doing XYZ? What if you decided to shift your your your position in the marketplace? We are innovation firm first, that does XYZ, because we champion innovation, trying new things? And how can we then transfer those ideas to turn those into action steps and incentives for our team members to fail fast try new things, right, like what we do is within a certain lane, currently, but it could be so much more. And we don't we'll never know, if we don't get us out of our comfort zone. So the childhood traumas aspect is huge, because it keeps people feel with inside their own paradigm, you would assume if they're in the C suite, like not just the most creative, but like the most open. But sometimes it's true sometimes it's not true depends on the position, the organization human. But getting past that is huge. So at the beginning of my sessions, including that session, I have everyone put on a masquerade ball mask and said today, we're going to take off the corporate and social mass that we put on every single morning, based on what we believe the world needs us to be what I want you to come forth as who you truly are what you truly want. If you had to your way if you couldn't fail, if no one's going to judge you, let's rethink who we are. If that's not clear, because for a lot of people, isn't it? Unless rethink how we interact in the world the value that we provide, what could we be doing that could be pushing the envelope to change the future for yourself and the organization. And when people really begin and I would say this, it took me five minutes, 510 minutes for people to really begin to think through it. And there was silence for the first five or 10 minutes. But after that, the creativity that came out and just the spark in those individuals eyes was completely different. Because they were living in a child come forward because we are all children on the inside. The adult bodies don't mean that we are adults and adulting sucks and it's hard. It's unfair. And it's no fun. And I told them that too. And everybody started laughing and nodding their head, like adulting sucks. This is a program we don't have to live by that adulting is too hard is too restrictive. It says let your true self the inner child die. You know, sacrifice yourself. Everyone has to be a sacrificial lamb because that's what the world needs. So untrue. Once again, I go back to the same thing when you talk to successful people. They don't think that way. They're self deprecation. That's ignorance. That's blindness. Because what about you? It's an important question is what about you? So now that you're an adult, you just pay the bills and you don't get anything? Your kids get everything your husband, your wife, your your community, you just serve, serve, serve and dodge a shirt with a string being I don't get that right. That sounds dumb. What about you? And if you are not okay, you are never going to be your best, especially those with children listening to this you know, if you're stressed out and overwhelmed. You're not the best parent you can be. You're not thinking creatively, you're frustrated and making excuses you're blaming secretly you Let's be honest, you are secretly blaming your children for your issues, or some of them, right or your lack of freedom. And you can't do this and stop it. That is the way that we are taught to be programmed so that we can self destruct. And that manifest our greatness. But we have to be strong internally and next time. And we have to be free mentally and emotionally, to think our best thoughts and to do our best work, even if it's just making the best pancakes first thing in the morning on a Saturday morning for yourself, and or your family or whatever else. Like, that's what life is all about. But you have to be able to slow down enough to be able to see those things, and not be so bogged down with adults eating, and living life and paying bills and meeting expectations of other people. All of that is just too much, it's too heavy. We don't have to live that way. But we make a choice. So we can't blame the world. We can only blame ourselves because we are the captain of our ship. And the master of ourselves, right? I'm sorry, the captain of our feet and the masters of our souls, it is up to us and no one knows. And if you ever put the finger on the outside, just remember, it's a trick. point finger back at yourself in every situation. And you will see an entirely different paradigm of life that will give you the answers that you're seeking. But Don't point that finger on the outside, or you are you've been Duke is going to be another day, another week, another month, another year of blindness, for lack of clarity, lack of sight, the vision, the plan, because we're always looking on the outside for our solutions and the problems. But the problem is us and the solution is within us and all around us. And as soon as we tap into that, and begin to see with the inner eye and the externalize of life for what it truly is not what we want it to be because we didn't get this grown up, no one cares what you didn't get. Life doesn't care what you didn't get. You manifest what you believe, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. So as long as you're a victim, as long as you're feeling down and low and someone else did something, you're going to manifest that. But I mentioned at the beginning the law of correspondence, every external reality has an internal reality, or belief or idea that is deeply rooted within you. And if you want to shift what's happening on the outside, you have to ship what's going on within even if the externals don't affirm this change of vision, internal vision, that's where everything begins. That is the only way to turn this entire, you know, warship or boat of your life is making turns early, not when you need to make the turn to not hit the island, you make the turn, maybe a quarter mile ahead of time to turn that boat so that you don't hit the the rocks and the Enclave, right? Right. Same thing. So we have to see it first and begin to take the action. And then we will make the right turns at the right time. And but it's never a one to one comparison moment to moment. It's always like this lag and delay. But that's that's what makes life exciting. Because we can't know everything. But once you realize we can influence the outcomes in life, then the game of life becomes a very equitable game, because now we're not being made to feel like life is against those who have a situation that we can control to keep us from doing this. We know that for the most part 90 to 95%. It's up to us. And once you know that, everything changes.
 
Leighann Lovely  48:12
Yeah. So well said So absolutely. Well said. So I have, we are coming to time. So I have the question of the season. And just so you know, I could sit and talk with you for another, you know, three hours. You just it's absolutely amazing. But if if you could change something in your job, or the practice that people have in your role, what would that be? If anything?
 
William Deck  48:40
What would I change? So because I just literally just said they don't think I can change what happens within me, or decisions that I make that makes it much more difficult, but it's okay. Honestly, I think if there was anything to be changed in the kind of rolling work that I'm doing it is. And I don't mean this in a in a self absorbed or whatever way, but we are on the cutting edge of doing something new that is not common. And so one thing that I am doing, but I think is a challenge, because when you're someone that is creating a new vision, you have to get people on board. And I would say that in my line of work. It would be great if there was a way to communicate the ideas that I had more efficiently. So I'm doing social media and are communicating ideas. Have a one on one meetings, I'm doing podcasts I'm creating. I'm sharing ideas all the time. But if there was a more efficient way, which for me personally, could be a podcast, it could be a new media that doesn't currently exist. But I think just the idea that you can do whatever you set your mind to do, and there's no limitation but yourself in that core idea which is the core idea of mental bigness couldn't be more accurate, more easily transferred to the minds of other people, there'll be a beautiful thing. And I think that that is shifting because I truly believe that the world is in an age of awakening, that we're in the Age of Aquarius. So we're going from the age of thinking to the age of knowing. And I think a lot of people are beginning to have these kinds of revelations and move towards these very, very fast. And so I just would love for that to be happening more efficiently and effectively. Because whatever I say, I can be as articulate as I want to be, the open mind of an individual is what is required to be able to accept a new idea and then ponder for themselves. And so I just, I believe, and I know that there will be more effective way, but it feels like in the present moment, if we could find that perfect medium to be able to transfer these ideas. That is what I think currently is a limiting factor. Because right now, it's just word of mouth. And just like every other discipline, it grows over time, and then it's something standard that everybody's aware of. But I just pray the gift of mental fitness and believe that it will happen for more and more people. Because we all need it. It is not and that's a good thing. Because it's not personal opinion. It's, it's this reality, and seeing people with hope going after the dreams is so beautiful. And if I can be a small part of that shift, that's what I'm here to do.
 
Leighann Lovely  51:26
Excellent and how would somebody reach out to you or go about you know, reaching out to you?
 
William Deck  51:33
Yep, so on social media, which includes Facebook, LinkedIn, as well as Instagram is at William that B is in boy that Dick DS and David E CK. So William that be that deck. And then you can also email me if you want to reach out directly at W deck at minded business llc.com. Excellent. Oh, those are the primary wish.
 
Leighann Lovely  51:58
Excellent. And those will be in the show notes. So if you want to reach out to William you will be able to look in the show notes in order to get his contact information. But William, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been an awesome conversation.
 
William Deck  52:10
I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.
 
Leighann Lovely  52:13
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, life, idea, feel, talk, william, manifest, organizations, put, change, work, mental, years, day, living, situation, fear, mindset, love, speaking

Your Environment Matters, Not Just at Home But at Work!

Something that we often that we forget is that people do better, even thrive, in environments that they feel comfortable and welcome in. Jennifer Rundell reminded me of this, she taught me a couple of tricks for my own space and has great advice on how you can make employees more productive with a couple of simple changes. We all know that sitting all day is not good for you and sitting under bad lighting is even worse, but there is so much more that goes into creating a healthy environment. It is not enough just to eliminate the bad things we also have to focus on offering the healthy. Join me and Jennifer for a great conversation about how a couple of simple things can make all the difference.  
 
Contact Jennifer
LinkedIN - linkedin.com/in/jennifer-rundell-7b904a19
Website - rundellredesign.com
E-mail - info@rundellredesign.com
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  Today I am joined by an amazing woman who has helped educate me on the importance of the environment we work, play and live in Jennifer Rudell of Rundell Redesign. She has always had a passion for design. From the time she was little she was rearranging spaces in order to create a more harmonious feel. While her friends were playing dress up with their Barbies, she was busy setting up the furniture and accessories in Barbies home so she would be ready to entertain when Ken and all of his friends stopped by for a visit. Fast forward a few years. After countless hours, helping friends family members and coworkers redesign their homes, businesses and special events. It was time to open up Rundell Redesign. Owning her own business has not only given her the freedom to help her clients reimagine their best lives by redesigning their work life and play. It has also allowed her to create spaces where her clients can give their clients a memorable experience from the moment they walk through the door when she is not rearranging furniture or checking out the latest deals and steals in the Milwaukee's fabulous resale shops. You can find her soaking up some fresh air and sunshine on or near the water sharing a few laughs until you cry moments with her family or singing loudly in the car along with her favorite radio station. Jennifer, welcome to the show. I'm excited to have you.
 
Jennifer Rundell  02:43
Thank you, Leighann. It's a pleasure having the opportunity to chat with you.
 
Leighann Lovely  02:46
So from all of the guests that I've had, you actually run a very unique, a unique business. But in talking with you, you kind of educated me as to why this conversation is very important. So why don't you start off by telling us what you do and a little bit about yourself?
 
Jennifer Rundell  03:08
Okay, oh my gosh, boy, that's an open ended question. So my goal is I help people reimagine their best lives by redesigning where they work, live and play. So what in the world? Does that mean? People often ask me, okay, that's fine. But what does that mean? So I will go into a space and I will help design an optimal experience for your client. And sometimes your client is you.
 
Leighann Lovely  03:39
Excellent. So tell me how that relates to our conversation today? And what that you know what that means? You know, yeah, tell me, you know, again, tell me how you educated me on why this would be a great conversation.
 
Jennifer Rundell  03:58
So, employees function at a different level, depending upon how they feel in their space. And it's something that employers sometimes overlook. People don't give a lot of thought to, and you don't realize it's an issue until it's done. Right. So what does that mean? You know, what do you what do you mean? How does your face your space affect you? Well, think about it. If you're in a space that has a good combination, lighting, sound, color, texture, all of those things, you're going to feel more comfortable. So a perfect example of that is let's say you're going to spend a day on the spot which Hello, sign me up, I'm ready. And you know what to experience in that space. So you go to a spa, and you're picturing a combination of colors, textures light, you go to the spot the walls are dark red, The furniture is hard metal, the music is loud, all of a sudden your experience isn't right, it's just off. Well, employees have that same expectation when they go to work. So you go to work and you're picturing, you're going to be in an environment that feels safe, comfortable, the lighting is adequate. There's a choice of white noise versus music. All different things affect your functionality affect your creativity, and affect your productivity. And if people don't realize that if employers don't realize that they're not creating an ideal environment for their employees to have their top productivity,
 
Leighann Lovely  05:45
and that's, I find that wildly interesting, because, one, if you can, the audience can't see where I'm sitting right now. But I sit in literally in a bunker in my people have said Leanna kind of looks like you're in a bunker, right? And I'm like, I guess I kind of am. And there are days where I will choose to work upstairs in my home, because I do sit in the lower level of my home, which I have intentionally started to improve. Because it is it's a mess. And sometimes I get frustrated, because I'm like, oh my god, it's just so messy down here. And, and it does play a part into the psyche.
 
Jennifer Rundell  06:39
Absolutely. And visual clutter is so stressful for people and people don't realize it. And especially Okay, so now we've got this hybrid situation, and some people are working from home a little bit. They're working in the office a little bit, or they're totally working from home. And full transparency. First thing I thought when I saw what was behind us, I know somebody that can fix that for me. Right? Right, it does, it affects us. And we don't realize it. But there's so many studies that have been done that show, the increased productivity, when you're in a space that is cleaner has adequate lighting has a little bit of white noise, or music playing in the background, and not too loud, not too soft. So there are combinations of things. And it's very easy to set our employees and our entrepreneurial friends up for success by just altering a few things.
 
Leighann Lovely  07:35
So when we speak to that, how, how do we go about I mean, there are employees who work on the manufacturing floor. Right? So how do we how do we change that for those individuals? Is it? Is it about the break room? The lunch room? What how do we do better for those individuals where really their workspace is about safety? And making sure that they're? You know, yeah, it's about safety, you know, if you're running a big machine, so what do you how do you go into, you know, an environment like that to help them?
 
Jennifer Rundell  08:16
So you hit the nail on the head, it's about the common spaces. So what does the break room feel like? What does the lobby feeling? What does it feel like when they walk in the door every day coming to work? What is the tone that said, what's the combination of colors that are even on the floor in a manufacturing space, it doesn't have to just be gray cement and white walls. It doesn't have to be gray on the wall, it doesn't have to feel like they're in a prison. There are many ways to address the safety factor and make it a stimulating, comfortable place for people to be. And a very simple thing that I know you and I had chatted about previously, if some people do not know this, just the sight of a live plant, anywhere in the workplace, stimulates the environment, and stimulates the productivity for people. And here's the secret. It's because subliminally if people see a live plant anywhere, whether it's a network place on the floor, which wouldn't make sense a manufacturing militates in the lobby or the gathering space in their head, they think if a plant can survive here, so can I.
 
Leighann Lovely  09:30
So here's one thing that I completely love, or find interesting, some of these really large organizations you walk into, and they have complete and total walls that are just live plants. Yes. And for the longest time, I wondered, what's with what's with that? Right, right. And now I'm starting to understand And yes, this is actually a subliminal kind of message that you're sending people that if. And is it anything else is it? I mean, some of these walls are massive.
 
Jennifer Rundell  10:17
Yes, yes, they are. And it's funny because so my office is in expansive, and the Mayfair collection. And we have several giant walls in the lobby area that are the live moss. And there's something very calming about that there's something refreshing about it, and different colors stimulate different things in your brain. Now, green happens to be one of the colors that will in your mind, it promotes growth and freshness. Balance, it's a grounding color. And I do think there's something about bringing nature inside. I think it's so important. Because nature is good for us. Sunshine is good for us, fresh air is good for us. And if any way that a company or an organization can bring nature in the side, not only is it better for you to have the live plants, but even fake greenery is really good for your psyche.
 
Leighann Lovely  11:18
So do these does moss produce oxygen?
 
Jennifer Rundell  11:22
That's a very good question. And I'm not sure my guess is yes, because of course, live plants, the oxygen exchange is very important. And it's very good for your health. And I'm guessing moss must because these moss walls are kind of a big deal. And it's I mean, I don't want to say it's a newer trend. But I think it is kind of newer, because I don't remember seeing it ever before.
 
Leighann Lovely  11:45
Right? I mean, you would assume that, hey, here's the purest way to create natural oxygen in an air at a company that, hey, just got to water it.
 
Jennifer Rundell  11:58
Right, right. Yeah.
 
Leighann Lovely  12:01
Which I suppose is also could be expensive, but it's beautiful. It's calming. It's right. Yeah, I completely. It didn't occur to me that creating the intentional environment was such a big deal. However, as soon as you said it to me, I went, Oh, well, of course, because I'm constantly, I'm constantly trying to think how can I create a better environment for myself to work? Great, great. And I've already I've already talked to my dad who's a carpenter about because I don't really have walls to like, if you looked at my space, you'd be like, Oh, I don't know how. I mean, like, I'm sitting in an unfinished part of my, of my house, right, that needs to be you know, actually have drywall and actually needs to be built out. So it's not like, it's just that I'm lazy. And just having pick stuff up and put it up, I just am sitting in a part of the house that just needs work.
 
Jennifer Rundell  13:15
And there's lots of things you can do, because you're not alone. I mean, let's face it, quite a few people work from home now, or they work in an environment that maybe isn't all finished and pretty. There's lots of things you can do in a temporary situation like that until the walls are built, you can put up screens and there's some fabulous screens that have all the potholders so you put up a metal screen that has all those rings in it and then you dump in a bunch of you know, pots that have living plants in it Winner winner chicken dinner, it's a two for one special
 
Leighann Lovely  13:49
right but what happens if you have absolutely no natural light for living plants?
 
Jennifer Rundell  13:55
Then you then you do fake plants so you can see the greenery right you have the effect of the greenery without having to care from and there are some things that you can do like succulents will survive okay without the direct sunlight and you could go that route as well.
 
Leighann Lovely  14:10
Yep. So with with the you know, the change in obviously the world. Yeah. Do you think that organizations have got gotten smart on that and thought okay, so you know, we don't necessarily have the greatest work and, and I've spoken with, you know, many of my friends who are like, I now that I've had a taste of working from home, and I've found that I am that much more productive. My My desk is sit sits literally in the middle of you know, this massive room. Yes, all day long people are walking past me. Do you think that companies have finally realized wow, this this, this is working the rise of the Hybrid work environments? Or do you think that there is a rise? You know of redesigns? Have you seen that? Have you felt?
 
Jennifer Rundell  15:09
Yes and both. So I think that companies, what's interesting is COVID forced us to go into some of those spaces and create more elbow room for people, right, because we were all trying to be six feet away from each other. And all of a sudden, that felt better. You didn't feel so crowded, you weren't tucked right up, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, in a row, we had to put some dividers and some walls up, whether they were temporary, or screens are something to give people a little more space. And that felt better to people. Because I think you look at some of those bullpens where you've just got a million desks in a row. And your space is the space of the guy across from you and next to you and you feel like you don't have any, any personal space. I think that felt uncomfortable. And COVID caused us to reevaluate that. So yes, I think some companies are saying, well, wait a minute, this seems to feel better. And not just because we're afraid of catching something from the person next to us. It gives you some room to breathe, and space. And whitespace is really important, whether it's on our calendar, whether it's on a piece of paper, whether it's on our lives, or whether it's in our physical space where we're working. So if you can give people a little more elbow room and a little more space, that's all part of designing a high productivity environment for people.
 
Leighann Lovely  16:33
And it's interesting that you say that, because, you know, if you talk to a business owner, they're going to well, at least they would have argued the opposite point. No, no, no, I need to get, you know, 30 people in here versus the 20 people that you're talking. Right. Right. So have you still seen pushback from from some of these companies on that?
 
Jennifer Rundell  17:01
I think it's all about the education process. It's all about having conversations with employers about the importance of the environment and the increased productivity. And I think that sometimes it's hard for them to see the ROI. Why would I put any money into my space, my space is perfectly fine. When you are bringing somebody into a space, and you're the first thing somebody sees employers, clients, whoever it might be employees, and they walk in, and there's old sofas that are ripped, there's blinds that are broken, there's paint peeling on the wall, I mean, what does that say? I don't care enough about you to create a beautiful environment. Now it doesn't come right out and say that, but that's what they're thinking. And people behave differently. Think about when you walk into an environment that's pleasant, and it's professional, and it's welcoming, you're going to stand a little taller, when you walk in, you're gonna feel better. And it's so easy for these employers to set the tone right away for their employees. What does their workspace look like? What does their that lobby look like? And what is the break room look like? Sometimes the break rooms are like, Oh, my gosh, I wouldn't go in there. It's gross.
 
Leighann Lovely  18:19
You know, and it's, it's, as you were just talking, I it popped into my head accompany that I years ago, and that engaged me to recruit for them. And I remember, you know, back back in the day, well, it's still this is still going on, for general labor recruitments. You too, or every facility you go into? Absolutely. One for safety purposes, you know, you're walking through and you're looking for clutter, you're looking for risk factors of do I want to work with this company? Are they too high risk to work with, you know, am I going to send an employee in that's, you know, gonna end up tripping and falling on, you know, boxes that are laying all over the place? Or, you know, are they blocking major exits, that type of thing. Anyways, the other thing that I always looked for was, Is this a welcoming environment? Are they going to walk in here and feel like, you know, they get a good feeling when they come to interview? Yes. And I remember so, you know, so I suppose part of me knew knew this. And that's the key, right? But I still consciously it's, it's one of those things that you don't, you don't think about? Exactly, but I remember walking into a facility. And when I walked out, I thought, oh, my god, that was a blast from the 80s the company and again, I'm guilty of this. I walk around my house and I don't see all the flaws. You know, I I I'm waiting to have some drywall hung. And I took down a shelf but I never took out the nails. Yeah. And I'm sure that people walk into my house and they're like, why does she have nails just a nail in the wall? You become blind? Absolutely to the flaws in your own home. It's same thing with you walk into somebody's house and it smells bad. Mm hmm. You become nose blind to the smell of your own home. And, and I regularly asked people when they walk in my house, do you smell anything in my house? Does it smell good in here? Because I have a puppy now. Right? And I'm always like, I, you know, I can't smell my own home. So I'm always asking people. It doesn't smell like dog in here does it? Anyway,
 
Jennifer Rundell  20:37
Exactly. I don't exactly know. And you're spot on. And they're all things that we the average Joe is not conscious of. Because what I do is I create an environment that creates the desired feel. I'm very aware of all the pieces that go into creating that environment. Most people don't think about it, and you don't realize it until it's either really right or really wrong. Because I think when you walk out of someplace, you're like, oh, my gosh, I would love to work here. What a great environment. Right? You're not consciously thinking, Oh, they had some live greenery on the wall. That was really cool. Or, Oh, I liked how they layered? No, I do. Because I see all that stuff, right? And I'm like, check, check, check, check. But this is where, like, with anything, working with an expert, somebody that's that's their job, like whether it's the safety expert to say, oh, there's a tripping hazard. There's this, there's that? Right? I am more aware of it than the average job. But it's amazing. If you would ask an employee. Did you like working there? What did you like about it? What didn't you like about it? They might not know. But if you specifically said hey, how comfortable were you in that break room? What did you like? What didn't you like? And maybe if you give some guided questions, people wouldn't be able to say, oh, you know, there was an adequate seating or, gosh, this was always dirty. Or the colors in there kind of felt like I was in prison. And things that you don't you're you might not be consciously aware of. But they are affecting don't let anybody kid you. They're affecting their performance. They're affecting, do they want to come into work every day? Is that a place that they're looking forward to coming to? Are they if you're in a building, and you're excited to bring guests in? And to bring people in? Or are you going to the coffee shop or someplace else? Because you don't want people to see what your office really looks like,
 
Leighann Lovely  22:40
right? And here's the thing about the company that I was talking about, you know, that felt like you're walking into the 80s. They were a tech company. What does that say about them? When they're supposed to be forward thinking technology. But when you walk into their facility, they have couches that look like they were my grandma's couch.
 
Jennifer Rundell  23:03
They're frozen in time, Qur'an, without meaning to your right, the message they're sending, whether it's their clients, their potential employees, whoever it might be, is, we are not forward thinking correct? We are frozen in time. Yeah. Or we don't care enough that that's not important to us. Right, which sends the message to the client. You're not really that important to us. Yeah, you can come in don't mind or dust.
 
Leighann Lovely  23:28
Right. But and I could not for the life of me get anybody to work there. Because I would get them excited about the job. They would go interview there, and they go, Ah, I don't want to move forward with that. Okay, tell me why, you know what, it just wasn't the right position. And really, it was that subconscious. Like, oh, I don't know that I want to work in that environment. It wasn't the work. It wasn't the job. It wasn't the people. It was the environment. I don't want to sit in a in a building that reminds me of my grandmother's living room. No offense to my grandmother. But you know, everybody, everybody, you know, I had hand me down couches in my first apartment for my grandma. Absolutely. And I gotta say I was really excited to make my you know, make some money so that I could replace those couches because everybody walk in and be like, what's what the couches? Exactly? It's beautiful. Extremely well kept couches. Yes. But you know the floral pattern that you know was exactly that was really like that was the style, right Laurel or the paisley pattern, which is fine in some things you know, some clothes and I think that's coming back or or is it already come back and gone again.
 
Jennifer Rundell  24:58
If you wait long enough Most things make a circle. Right? But it's that's not the kind of statement you want to make. Right. And I think, again, you know, employers and business owners are really busy. And they're trying to make their product, create their service, whatever it is. And this might be something they don't think about. But there are some really easy, simple changes they can make. And I think people would be surprised at the retention rate at the recruitment rate at how things change without spending a whole lot of money.
 
Leighann Lovely  25:39
Right? I mean, that there's another company that they they didn't go and spend or blow a ton of money on changing the entire environment. But what they did do is install a really nice TV, that you could go and play games, video games on, on your on your break, a couch where you could go and lounge on. Yeah. And that, right, they're made all of the sudden the employees like, wow, we have like a little hangout area where we can. And you know, the cost of a flat screen TV nowadays is, I mean, it's under $1,000, for a very large flat screen TV. Exactly. And if you're all if you're a business that has over 50 employees, that cost is really nothing.
 
Jennifer Rundell  26:39
Oh, my gosh. And I, I always tell all of my clients, you do not have to spend a million dollars for your place to look like a million bucks, there are some very simple things, you know that the live plants throw a rug, and if you've got all cement floors, and they're very cool. And I love that, look, throw a few rugs down, give some texture, give some add that extra layer, and it's amazing what that will do. How comfortable are the seats that people are sitting in? If they're sitting there for eight hours a day? How about a standing desk, give people an opportunity to be we all know now that sitting is the worst thing for you. So let's create an environment where we can have a standing that if we can't afford for everybody to have a standing desk? What about some stations or some break stations or opportunities for movement? And it's really simple stuff. Look at your lighting? Because that's huge. If you're in Super, yes, I'm looking at your lighting.
 
Leighann Lovely  27:42
I know, I know, oh, trust me, I've I've, I've looked into all of this. But you know, when you're in a bunker there, yeah.
 
Jennifer Rundell  27:51
And there's, there's ways to and I would love to do that for you, I would love to do a video of a before and after your space. And how was some very simple changes, we can change that from feeling like a bunker to feeling like a nice workspace you, you would have
 
Leighann Lovely  28:09
to come and see my space before you commit to that because I think you're I think you're committing to, to something that you don't quite understand. See, this space, and I know the audience can't see. But the space that I'm in is a very large room, it doesn't look from it doesn't look like that from the angle because I am actually in a tiny little corner of it. Right. And it's a very, very large room. That is actually also or was originally my art studio, that my daughter and I and so what I did was I converted, you know, like probably, you know, 100 square foot portion of this into my home office. Yeah. And if you were to just look a little bit further, you know, to my, my right, you're gonna see complete and utter chaos. Yep, paint on the floor, paint over every surface. And that's an art and my daughter. My daughter is five and she always used to say Mommy, I got a little you know, paint, you know, on the ground and I said it's an art room. There's supposed to be paint everywhere. And that's so she loves coming in this room because it is the one room in the house where she can just express herself in any way by getting paints by getting what you know, glue, whatever the medium is that we're using. And she can be messy. Yeah, and then we have to hose her off before she leaves the room because glitter I mean it's, it's insane. And I And again, I am a believer in you know, arch, that kind of stuff. I'm going into a tangent here. So but before you commit, you should probably see the room.
 
Jennifer Rundell  30:06
So, sight unseen, there are simple things you could do. And I'm sure there's other people that are in your same situation, again, a temporary screen, if if looking at that, it sounds like you've created this beautiful green of space, which is fabulous. However, for you to be productive, and to be, for your ROI to be as high as you want it to be, and for your productivity to be high, block that visually. Simple screen, right? And, and I, and I really think that can be done. And think of all the other people that are working from home and have similar situations to, there are some simple tips and tricks that that people can do without spending a lot of money to change that up.
 
Leighann Lovely  30:51
And that's awesome. Because, you know, the scene that I have, that you can't see it and I used to have a shower curtain hanging. But now I've changed my angle. And so now the shower curtain would be hanging over a table that I need to because I needed to expand my you know, so now it's hanging in the wrong place. And that requires me to stand get a drill and under you. Right, that's the pure laziness of like, oh, and I glued it. So then I would have to chisel away the glue. I mean, it was like put up there to not come down. Because I don't do things halfway, like oh, yeah, I'm gonna hang this and it's never coming down.
 
Jennifer Rundell  31:44
Exactly. Exactly. Well, that's good. Oh, good thinking,
 
Leighann Lovely  31:48
right. And then when I realized, oh, I want to redesign my space. Oh, now I have to get this shower curtain rod down that I hung up to, you know, never come down.
 
Jennifer Rundell  31:58
So there's, there's always a workaround. Right. But I think outside of the box,
 
Leighann Lovely  32:03
yes. And I love I, like, I'm a very creative, I'm a creative, not a designer, by any means design. I mean, again, you know, my that's, that's, that's the extent of my design. And again, my I wish the audience you know, sometimes they wish that I did video, so the audience could actually see the, the chaos that is my space. But I am a creative and I love, I love the concept of creating that beautiful environment to allow people to be more productive and successful. And I believe in it. Because I have seen I've seen it on the flip side of kit, and I didn't even realize it until you had reached out to me and said, Hey, do you know? And then it kind of all dawned on me of Yeah, I guess I do. Because I've seen candidates go into companies and racking my brain as to why are they not taking jobs? Yeah, the environment. It's not that it's a bad place to work. But they're turned off by the way that it looks when they walk in the door. Absolutely.
 
Jennifer Rundell  33:19
And more than the way it looks. It's the way it feels. And it's the way it makes them feel. And I think, again, we just go through the motions during the day. And we are not aware of how all that works. I mean, there's an art to selling. There's a reason that certain retailers are very successful. It's the music that's playing, it's the lighting, it's it's the colors in there. And there's all sorts of studies that are done. And I think sometimes employers forget that that's equally as important for their employees. And it's equally important for their potential clients because how you make the client feel when they walk in the door. And I always tell people, I say your business tell your tells your story before you even say a single word. Because it's the experience they have before they even open the door.
 
Leighann Lovely  34:14
Right. And here's something else that's that's becoming very, like, very apparent. You because You brought up selling. Yeah, I have. Everybody has seen a shift in the way people dress. Yes. People buy from people they are comfortable with. Mm hmm. People are drawn to people they are comfortable with. Over the last couple of years you've seen the the ties, the business suits starting to become a thing of the past. Correct. And I have found that I am much more apt to approach somebody wearing something a lot more casual than when I see somebody wearing a very stuffy? Yes, suit and tie. Because we I think it's a subconscious mindset of oh, they're wearing very stuffy suit and tie. They're, they're more unapproachable,
 
Jennifer Rundell  35:21
right? Well, your space does the same thing. How are you dressing your space? How does it feel? Is it warm and welcoming? And we do like to do business with people we know like, and trust, correct. We also like to do our business in a space that makes us feel comfortable, right? And your space should be warm and welcoming. It should. And again, like if you're in a high tech space, and you've got grandma's furniture in there, there's a disconnect. In our mind. It's uncomfortable. And we often don't know what it is that's not sitting, right. You know, you walk out of someplace, you're like, man, that just didn't feel right. But you don't know why. Well, that's why. Because there's a disconnect, and what you expect and the experience that you expect. And I mean, every successful business wants to create an ideal experience for your client, whether your client is your employee, whether your client is yourself, whatever it might be, and setting the tone, setting the scene, creating that environment, that physical environment, allows all that beautiful stuff to happen, all the exchange that needs to happen.
 
Leighann Lovely  36:31
And you've and you've said it multiple times, and I haven't, I haven't, you know, kind of highlighted what you said, and I want to do that really quick. It has nothing to do with what it looks like. It has nothing to do with what I mean it does. But the most, the most important aspect of all of that is how it makes somebody feel. Exactly, exactly above all else, if somebody walks out feeling an emotion that is negative, they will never walk back in. And that comes down to I mean, everything again, the guy and the guy or the gal in the suit, if you feel they are unapproachable. That feeling becomes reality, if you walk out of a business and they feel something you feel something negative. You know, that's that's the that's the, the thing that becomes reality to you. Because we are humans. And we are driven by emotion. Not logic. Exactly, exactly. And I think that the world is finally realizing that because so many people try to sell whether it be a job, or a reason to stay on logic. And that is not how we we are biological beings, we don't make decision on logic. We make decisions on emotional, you know, reactions to the way that things make us feel. And then we justify on logic.
 
Jennifer Rundell  38:07
Absolutely. And it's all because it's sensory. Right? So it's what does it smell like? What does it sound like? What does it look like? What does it feel like? All of those things. And it's amazing the difference, you could take identical spaces, paint them different colors, and have people walk in and walk out. And there's lots of science behind it. And there's studies that have been done. And how does it? How does it feel just based on the color alone, right? And if you feel good, if you feel relaxed, if you feel inspired, if you feel positive, you're going to be a high producing employee. And as an employer, that's what you want. Do you want these high producing high level employees? And the way to attract them is to make your environment feel good. The minute they walk in the door.
 
Leighann Lovely  38:58
So here's a funny story. My daughter in order to get her to get potty trained, we should because we were just really struggling with her wanting to. She just and I think a lot of kids are just lazy. They're like, well, I have a diaper on and I'm watching TV. I don't want to go potty. Right? So the the carrot at the end of that stick was once you're fully potty trained, you get to we were going to paint your room, and we're going to redesign your room. So I brought home some different, you know, like samples, you go there and they can have like different and she picked out the color orange.
 
Jennifer Rundell  39:37
Ooh, that's a high stimulation.
 
Leighann Lovely  39:39
And I was like I said, I don't know that I like orange is not my color. Oranges. Not at all my color. And I'm like, I'm looking at my husband going. I don't know that I can handle orange. And he's like, Yeah, but you pretty much told her she could pick whatever she wanted. And I'm like oh Oh my god, I cannot believe that this is going to happen. So I'm kind of like, well, what about pink? What about purple? No, she dug in orange. And I'm like, okay. So the compromise was every other like, two walls orange. And then we showed her a sample of a room that was orange and pink. And I was like, these are two strange colors. But it really turned out beautiful. But I was so afraid that every time I walked in that room that I was going to be like, Oh, right. And then she says, But Mommy, the ceilings not painted. And I'm like, Are you kidding me? And I'm arguing, you know, and my dad finally says to me, what's the big deal? Paint the ceiling? And I'm like, okay, so her room is orange and pink, with the ceiling painted orange, and she loves it. She absolutely loves it, which is all that matters. But for me the comfort on that was not. It took a long time for me to be able to walk in that room and be like, Oh, this is great. But it's there. And here's why not because I love it. Because I watch her walk in that room and just love it. And that's all that matters to me.
 
Jennifer Rundell  41:30
And she is your ideal client. And you are creating a space that makes your ideal client feel comfortable. Now. If you are offending people, if you are creating a space that maybe makes one person comfortable and everybody else uncomfortable, okay, that's a different extreme, right. And it's funny, I was at a networking event this morning, and we were just talking about colors. And we were talking about what color would you be if you could choose a color and why? Because color makes us feel something?
 
Leighann Lovely  42:00
Right. And I would be purple. I am 100% like purple is my color. And I always thought that she was going to be my Little Miss purple, because that's how I grew up. Right? Yeah. But I have a child whose favorite color is orange.
 
Jennifer Rundell  42:19
I love it. So purple. is creativity, luxury sophistication. Well, Natalie, so we're in just so orange is traditionally energy, excitement and inspiration.
 
Leighann Lovely  42:37
She's totally that she is full of energy she is this girl was so inspired. I mean, she is what color are you?
 
Jennifer Rundell  42:49
Ah, somebody asked me that this morning and green. Because green to me, signifies growth, hope, positivity. And my word for the year is fresh. And I always associate fresh with green and the spring. And green is also balanced growth. And it's a grounding color. And so, green is kind of my thing.
 
Leighann Lovely  43:15
Awesome. So we are coming to time, I want to ask you the question of the season. What would you change about your job or the practice that people have in your job? If you could?
 
Jennifer Rundell  43:29
You know, it's a fabulous question. And I saw it. And it's really funny because I have so much fun doing what I do, that I really can't think of much that I would change in my job. I'm one of those rare birds that I would do what I do without getting paid because I enjoy it so much. What I get out of it is watching the process of making somebody's dream come through in their space and watching them feel fabulous. So I have a really hard time answering that I'm not sure that there are a lot of things that I would change in it. And I've kind of made it my own niche. I've kind of done my own thing. I my non traditional designer, I love to use repurposed items. And maybe what I would do in my job has changed the stigma that you have to have a lot of money to hire a designer. That's it. And not that I'm cheap. But I mean, I think that there are people that think, Oh, I can't do that. That's not in my budget. And I am a huge proponent, huge proponent of let's think outside of the box, as a matter of fact, why does it have to be a box?
 
Leighann Lovely  44:37
Right? Right. I mean, and it is funny because when I think of, you know, hire designer, okay, well, I don't have 1000 or I mean, I don't have you know, $100,000 to have them come in, but I'm going to assume that you don't have to have $100,000 to have a designer come in, but you do not. It's always been the rich and famous?
 
Jennifer Rundell  45:01
Absolutely, absolutely. So so that is exactly what I would change, I think I need, people need to see that. You don't have to spend a million bucks for your place to look like a million bucks, and most importantly for it to feel like a million bucks to you and your ideal client, because that's the whole goal. And I work with a lot of small business owners, and they don't have $100,000 for me to come in and redesign the space, right? But we can work together for a fraction of that. And we really change things up and create this fabulous space that speaks to their story and their business and their ideal clients.
 
Leighann Lovely  45:39
Excellent. So if somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?
 
Jennifer Rundell  45:44
Oh, my goodness. There's many ways my website is currently under construction. My goal is June, we're going to launch the new website. So you can check out Rundell Redesign through my website. I'm on Instagram and Facebook all under Rundell Redesign, spelled R U N D EL L. And then the word redesign and LinkedIn as well.
 
Leighann Lovely  46:05
Excellent. And that'll be in the show notes. Jennifer, thank you so much for joining me. This has been an awesome conversation. I think you learned a lot and you know, appreciate your time.
 
Jennifer Rundell  46:15
Thank you. Thank you. It's been my pleasure. And what a fascinating way to look at HR and businesses and the whole kit and caboodle.
 
Leighann Lovely  46:25
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
Mark Schneider is a true "Do and I Do", not "Do and I Say", kind of owner. He leads by example so that all the people that work at his company understand that they are there for a common purpose. To get the job done well and on time for their customers while still making it home on time to be with their families. We can all learn a little from this amazing conversation. 
 
 
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
feel, space, people, room, environment, employees, change, work, walls, walk, create, color, live, business, paint, redesign, couches, orange, client, employers

Addiction is Non-Discriminatory an Epidemic and Needs to Be Talked About

Addiction is a real problem, some hide it, some are openly fighting it, and others have support but not enough. The only way that we can begin to understand the battle that so many fight is to talk about what addiction is. How it affects people and how companies can support their people instead of punishing them. Accounting to my two amazing guests, living in recovery can be not only wonderful, but can also be fun, and they are proof of this. Join us for a fun and educational conversation.
 
Contact
Lane Kennedy – linkedin.com/in/lanekennedy
Tamar Medford - linkedin.com/in/tamarmedford
 
Website – https://laughingwithoutliquor.com/
 
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  I have two great guests joining me today to have an awesome conversation. So I'm so excited to be joined by Tamar Medford and Lane Kennedy. With over 37 years of continuous sobriety from booze, white powder pills, and Snicker bars. Lane Kennedy and Tamar Medford bring a wealth of experience and authenticity to their discussion on living in recovery. Lane and Tamar are on a mission to empower women, especially mothers to break free from drinking and reliance on substances to have more fun in life. fearless and unapologetic. They address addiction, bad habits, and changing the internal dialogue women have with themselves. Their focus is on helping women embrace an often compromised and alcohol free lifestyle, leaving behind codependency and negativity. Well, today is going to be a treat. I'm so excited. I have two amazing women joining me today, Lane and Tamar. Welcome to the show.
 
Lane Kennedy  02:28
Thanks for having us, Leighann. Good to be with you.
 
Tamar Medford  02:32
Yes. So good to be here.
 
Leighann Lovely  02:34
So why don't you both? You know, start off by telling me telling my audience a little bit about yourself. Lane, why don't you go first? Perfect.
 
Lane Kennedy  02:40
I like to go first. It's great. Sometimes I deferred it Tamar, but I'll go first today. Thanks for having us on the show, Leighann. My name is Lane Kennedy. I live in long term recovery. What that means is I don't drink or do drugs or eat Snickers bars. And I've done that for about 26 years now. So that kind of guides the direction of my life. I'm also a hypnotherapist and a DNA geek. I help people live in high performance state. That's really important for those people who are Type A personality, who want to live a long life, they typically find themselves to me so I can help them or support them and finding a better more sustainable life so they can live into their 60s 70s 80s 90s and 100. Like I am
 
Leighann Lovely  03:31
Awesome. Tamar, tell us a little bit about yourself.
 
Tamar Medford  03:36
Thank you so much for having us land. My name is Tamar Medford and I also live in long term recovery except they still feel like a bit of a baby. I'm just about to celebrate 11 years. And I believe that I found my purpose as a result of finding recovery and getting sober. I'm a neuro change method practitioner. So I really help women, you know, kind of master their minds so they can let go of those limiting beliefs and create a life that they're fulfilled, you know, a life that they never ever want to go back to their old way of living. And I live in Canada. I'm the Canadian of our hosts our podcast and you know, I have a partner and three i co parent, three girls and three for babies. So I'm happy to be here.
 
Leighann Lovely  04:22
And three for babies. Wow, I have one my audience I have one dog. He just turned a year old and every day I have to stop myself from either kicking him out of the house or or just beating him to death. Puppies are so hard. They're hard. I have a five year old and she's so much easier than right. Because I'll yell at him and he just wags his tail and I'm like no, no, I'm not. No, no, no, you don't get it. I'm yelling at you and he's just like, Uh huh, you okay? Um, he's a big, like, gigantic golden retriever. So and he's stronger than me. And you know, he read sorry, I digress. I just love I love dogs I love and all animals and the liver. But he's maddening. Every I struggle every I don't know, maybe I need to go into therapy or something for this this. Yeah. Since I got him I've been going crazy. Right? Everybody who knows me right now is I know that I'm going through this this major issue with my my puppy, except that he looks like a massive, you know, he's like 100 pound just dumb, cute, adorable thing that terrorizes me every day. Okay, let's move on. So, I want you guys do is amazing. Because, you know, one, it's not it's not an easy thing to one, to live in recovery, and then to go out and talk about it. And that is what, right now the world needs. We need warriors, we need people having these conversations, to make it less of a stigma, right? Because, you know, for so long, there's so many things out there that people are like, Oh, don't talk about that in public don't and I still don't talk about religion, you know, politics and everything else. But this is a conversation that we all need to start having. And just really humanize and make it more, okay to be able to talk with people about it. Because if we did, more people would ask for help. They wouldn't hide it. For as long as people hide it. They would know where to go, right? So why don't you tell me a little bit about your journey to and again, whatever How much ever you want to share, but your journey to finding your voices? And do you know to become who you are today and what you're doing.
 
Lane Kennedy  07:18
Tamar? Why don't you start that off? Because it's been so long for me, you're closer to it.
 
Tamar Medford  07:22
Okay, no problem.
 
Lane Kennedy  07:24
And you're a corporate, right? You come from the corporate world,
 
Tamar Medford  07:27
I do. I do. I and I was very functioning towards the end. I mean, I, you know, started like a lot of people do drinking at the age of 14. And I just felt like I never belonged. And, you know, alcohol turned my life from, you know, black and white to color. That's the only way I can describe it. And I wanted more. And unfortunately, you know, in my 20s, I hit some very dark times, I think that was kind of where it was never enough. But then I thought, hey, you know what I gotta do what society tells me to do, I need to go to school, I need to get a good job, I need to get married by the car by the home. And so that's exactly what I did. And you know, I had a very good job. And I worked in corporate for about 28 years. And of course, they knew that I you know, was an alcoholic, it was no secret. But I think because I could come to work every day, I might have smelled like a brewery. But because I could show up. It was you know, the people that I worked for were under this, like, as long as you show up and you do the work well, it's okay, you know, you'll you'll be accepted here. And of course, there's such a culture of drinking in sales. I think you know, that it's still like that. But I remember, you know, it was just the norm to go out with your customers and get drunk. And, you know, do it again, the next day, go to trade shows. And towards the end, although everybody knew that I had a problem, because of course, at the company functions, I just let loose and I never remembered the end of them. And it always became a big joke. But I'm very fortunate, I had a few people who were really my friends in in my place of business and said, you know, you might have a problem. And of course, I didn't listen for a long time until I actually hit that spiritual bottom. And, you know, I was financially bankrupt, unhappily married, you know, all the things never gave me any sort of satisfaction or fulfillment in life. And I actually hired a personal trainer in the beginning and thought, well, if I lose 75 pounds, and I changed the way I look on the outside, people will love me more. I'm gonna be so happy, but it didn't fix the pain I felt on the inside. And that was I didn't like what I was doing. I wasn't happy in my marriage, my relationship. And so I actually began like, went on this six month journey of I went full on to the addiction of of fitness. And I had chicken broccoli and rice every single day. I would go to the gym seven days a week because I thought that's what would To make me happy and the cool part and how I ended up becoming sober as the woman I hired as a personal trainer was actually part of a 12 step recovery program. And partway through as you know, I would report how much I had had to eat all week and including, that was nine, nine drinks, I'd have nine beers on the weekend. And I was so proud, like, that was my happy, you know, look at me for a moment. And she had suggested, you know, I think you might have a problem. And this is what I do. And so I'm very fortunate that the business I worked for was very accepting, like they knew, and they were very supportive of it, they would try and plan other kinds of events that didn't involve alcohol. But of course, there was still that I just, I was very lucky that I came from that corporate world that was okay with me being sober and supported that aspect of my life. And, you know, becoming sober has changed everything, I found my purpose, I do what I love today, I was able to actually leave corporate, but I still talk to a lot of people and a lot of women who work in HR, on how they can start to support people who are sober or want to give up alcohol.
 
Leighann Lovely  11:08
And something that you said in there. I mean, that's an amazing story, because 11 years ago, it wasn't widely accepted. And knowing somebody, you know, businesses quite often just kind of, they didn't talk about it, if they knew it, it was a hush hush, you know, and if they found out about it, it was more like, okay, don't don't let anybody know that we know, because we don't want it to be known that we were allowing this. So it's amazing that you were in a situation where your employer, you know, helped you through that kept you and allowed you to continue to, you know, grow and and find other ways to, you know, other events because you're right, I'm I'm through and through sales, and it's events, evening events, they're at bars, they're at the first thing that everybody does is go and run and get their drink before they start networking. You know, and yeah, it's just but something else that you said, I'm switching addictions. In I have an addictive personality, I always have no I'm, you know, I'm not an alcoholic. But I, I'll go from one thing to the next. I remember I bought loose leaf tea. I became severely addicted to like loose leaf tea, and I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I got and then I would spend like hundreds and hundreds of dollars. And then everybody's like, What do you mean? What? Are you going to drink all this? No. And I didn't drink at all it just it became an obsession. And then it was fine wines for me like, Oh, I'm gonna go and buy all these fine. Get a drink all this? Well, no, now I've got like 8 billion bottles of wine. They're gonna sit there and it's gonna take me 10 years to drink. Because right now my addiction is, you know, my most recent one is I love making resin art. Okay, so these aren't necessarily unhealthy. But I have an addictive? Well, I mean, I suppose you know, collecting hundreds of bottles of wine is probably not the most healthy. Anyways. So there, but it's it's completely true people who have those addictive personalities. And unfortunately, if it is drugs and alcohol, and those, it is very easy to you know, fall down that. And there's a lot of professionals who have it. And as soon as you give up that one addiction, it's so common that you watch that person slide into some other addiction. Working out seven days a week. I mean, it and you can you can watch people like all of a sudden you'll say to somebody, wow, you've lost 60 pounds. What are you doing? Oh, I'm just working out and come to find out when you hear their full story. You're like, oh, I never knew you were an alcoholic, or I never knew you were struggling with this. And then then you hear their full story and you're like, Oh, why didn't you tell? You know, why didn't you ask for help? Or? Right? I mean, in both you're laughing at my grandson. Anyway.
 
Lane Kennedy  14:30
Well, there's a couple of things here. LeighAnn now I know why we're friends. Absolutely. I have a huge tea collection. And my husband's always like, what are you doing? Like, what's the purpose of this? I'm like, I don't know. I just have to have more tea.
 
Leighann Lovely  14:45
So, yeah, I have a tea pot collection. I have a different sifter that I know.
 
Lane Kennedy  14:51
It's so important. And from the work that I do, you know, I would say you know your drdc which are genes that I look at when somebody comes to me and work with me about their behavior. And I would say you're all lit up, that's what I would say, just like I am, people who have addiction or have these snips is what we call them in my work. They just need more support. So we don't buy, you know, 10 pounds of loose leaf tea, or drink, you know, three bottles of wine every night. You know, it's here in America, I can't speak for Canada tomorrow. But here in America, we have, you know, about 14 million over 14 million people who are suffering from alcoholism, in the workplace. In the workplace, that's a lot of people in the workplace that's like one and 12 one and 13 people who are actively in their addiction, and 25% of them drink, like on the job during work hours. And I was one of those people. I, you know, come from the entertainment and fashion industry. I was at parties. I was working with designers, one of my designers says, you smell you have to go home, because that was literally reeking of vodka. And, you know, when you're kind of stuck in your alcoholic behavior, you don't you don't know. Like, I didn't know I had showered that day. I had done my hair that day, I had my heels on, I was looking good. I thought, but this designer said, No, you have to go home and like sleep it off. And I think that's something that a lot of people will ignore today is they'll just, Oh, it's fine. You know, like, whatever. And I'm really grateful because that designer gave me a moment for me to reflect on my life. Like, how dare you. Like, that was the beginning of like, questioning my drinking. I have a drinking problem. She just told me that I smell how's that possible. And so I drink and I use and I love drinking vodka, I love red wine. But after that moment, you know, after that designer said that I really kind of had to slow down and reevaluate, I became a, what we call a periodic drinker, where I would drink for a couple months and then stop. Maybe I would drink for a couple of weeks and then stop. And then it just, it just wasn't fun anymore. Just literally was not fun anymore, you know. So I'm grateful that I, by accident, stopped drinking, like it wasn't my plan to stop. Like that. Just it just happened, I say. And I jumped into recovery. And my life got exponentially better. Like I had a great career coming into it. But as soon as I found recovery, my career exploded, my life exploded. It was teknicks all the things that I didn't even know that I wanted, I started, you know, accumulating. And one of the the big things around, you know, addiction or alcoholism is is the stigma. Right? That we don't talk about it that we don't. It's like no, that's you're not going to bring that up into the light. And I just want people to hear that, you know, there's the American Disability Act that says you can talk about it, you can say, You know what, I need help. You can raise your hand and say I need help, and then that then you don't get fired. Like, I didn't get fired, because I actually went back to that designer and said, I think I have a problem. And they're like, oh, okay, great. So a lot of people don't even know that, that they you know, they think that they have to keep it quiet. So, I don't know, recovery is a great tool. It's it's, it lets us live our best lives. Like, don't we want to live that?
 
Leighann Lovely  18:57
Right. And in recent years, I believe now they have they they've actually made alcoholism, drug addiction, all of those specific wording has now become protected classes, just like mental health, just like so if you go to your employer and say, I have, you know, an addiction, or I have a, they, they can't they can't fire you for that. Because it is now just like, you know, if I were to go to my employer and say I have bipolar disorder, they can't say okay, well, we're gonna fire you because of that. Of course, I'm self employed. So, you know, that'd be myself firing me. Maybe I should fire myself. I don't know. No. So you know, and that's it. That's the whole point is that if you hide it, and you get fired for your behavior, and the you know, and then you go back and say, Well, no employer you can't fire me because I'm an alcoholic. It's too late at that point.
 
Lane Kennedy  20:02
Yeah, exactly.
 
Leighann Lovely  20:04
It's too late. If you go to your employer and say, I need to go into a recovery program, because I have a problem, that employer is now able to assist and help by offering you the time that you need, and your your job is then secure, so that you can go and take the time that you need to get the help that you need, and know that you have a position to come back to. And I don't know that people understand that. And I'm not you know, and again, I'm sure that there's employers out there going, oh, man, don't don't tell the masses. But this is this is a real thing. People stay quiet until it's too late.
 
Lane Kennedy  20:13
Because when people die, yes, what happens? People die. I mean, alcoholism is a deadly disease, addiction, substance use disorder, it's killer, and people die in their home alone, because they're too afraid to say, You know what, I have a problem. And they're too afraid of the stigma or the feedback, or somebody getting in trouble at work. And I think the pandemic, I mean, thank God in a lot of ways, and like, Thank God for the pandemic, because recovery came screaming out of the closet, you know, it's like, we have to recover together, we have to talk about this, you know, mental health, we have to be talking about it.
 
Leighann Lovely  21:34
Absolutely. And that's, you know, the I went through the, I went through a recovery program, Lee, and I think you and I talked about this. And again, it's been a long time since we last spoke, but I went through, I went through the 12 step program. And this was very early in, you know, I was in my early 20s. But I had not yet properly been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. And so after I went through, you know, the recovery, and my, my doctor told me, I will not treat you if you continue to abuse, alcohol, and drugs, and continue to do what you're doing. And I'm like, oh, yeah, but you know, when I'm not doing it, I can't stay in my own head. And he's like, okay, I get that. But in order to get you to a point of, of health, healthy living, you have to stop. So I went into recovery, I went into the program. Now I'm now I'm sober, I'm on, you know, fast forward, I'm on the proper medications. And I'm, I'm high functioning. And I said to my doctor, I don't believe I'm an alcoholic. And he goes, Well, we don't know. Do you want to risk it? I don't know if I do. So I didn't drink for a very long time. And then one day, I had a glass of wine, and I'm like, okay. Okay. I know, I'm a social drinker. But I'm also not, you know, I don't, I'm not an alcoholic. I don't, I don't have that drive or that. But I'm a rarity. For most people, once they crossed that threshold, they don't go back. For me, it was an underlying issue of mental health. And I needed to I, you know, again, I still I still have an addictive personality. But I never I the the reason that I had my alcohol and drug addiction was because of that underlying mental health issue. And my brain was just not functioning properly. For most people. Never once they've crossed that threshold. It's just better to walk away from it.
 
Lane Kennedy  23:56
Well, alcoholism is a mental, right? It's a mental disorder. Yeah. And a lot of people don't want to look at it that way. They don't want to think Oh, my God, I have a mental disorder. No, no, one more disorder. But really, like, alcoholism stems from, like, depression, anxiety right there. They're all kind of the same. You know, drinking is the medicine for the disorder that we suffer from. End of sentence period. We suffer from a mental illness. And for Tamara and I, we use alcohol. We don't take a substance. We don't take a pill. Right? So we suffer from this. Again, I look at the jeans. So I can look at them and say, okay, the OPR is off the dr. DS off the AP ones off. So those jeans, that body needs to get fed, somehow they need to get that information. So not everybody will, you know, pick up a glass of wine. Like like you're picking up the tea right? Hey, I like it's going to find a way to soothe it, so to speak. But some people will find recovery, and then they won't have to go around in that that constant loop. It gets rid this is such a big conversation here, LeAnn?
 
Leighann Lovely  25:18
So, so and I see now you're educating me on something. And I find that very interesting. And this is why you know, I love talking to people like you because so there are DNA indicators. Yes. That say that can you can actually read that say that this person is is more apt to become an alcoholic or is an alcoholic?
 
Lane Kennedy  25:47
I would say more inclined, if the environment you have to think about like your environment, it really it. It shapes who you are your environment, just think about that for a minute your environment, you can have the perfect life. But say you have a neighbor that's constantly pounding on the door next to you, that is going to drive you crazy, right? So that environment, your environment, is going to start feeding into like, you're going crazy. And then you want to do something that's the environment, the environment shapes you. I get the second
 
Leighann Lovely  26:28
I get the BB gun. Yeah,
 
Lane Kennedy  26:30
okay, you get the BB gun. Yes. Right? Which, so I'm not gonna say, Oh, I'm gonna look at your jeans. And I'm gonna say, I'm gonna call you an alcoholic? No, what I see are, you know, your jeans or your DNA? They could go sideways. They could be little rebel rousers in there, one gene is not going to be the answer, right? No, it's the whole your whole environment, your whole body, there's so many contributing factors that lead to somebody becoming an alcoholism.
 
Leighann Lovely  26:57
Almost like an autoimmune disease, which is in you. But it's an autoimmune disease is triggered by a series of, you know, events stress it can you know, I could I could have the all the indicators for an autoimmune disease, but it and here's why I bring that up. I have identical mirror image twin brothers, one of those twins, has both of them have the indicators for an autoimmune disease, only one has triggered it.
 
Lane Kennedy  27:24
Yep. And that would be in their genes. Correct. So I'd be able to look at that and be like, Oh, here it here's both of these sets of genes. This one has this and there's this one little snip that's different. And that's been triggered. Interesting. Yeah.
 
Leighann Lovely  27:38
That's, That, see, I find that completely and totally fascinating. Because, you know, and especially in twins, again, mirror image, identical twin brothers, which means that they're 100%, there is no differentiator between those two, they were created by the same egg, the same sperm. You know, I mean, they, when I was a little girl, they're three years older than me, I used to mix them up because they are so identical. That's awesome. Right? So but one has triggered it, the other one has?
 
Lane Kennedy  28:15
Yep, that's exactly right.
 
Leighann Lovely  28:18
And that comes down to, you know, stress, and one has more gray hair than the other one. At the why is that? Well, because life happens. And when life happens, it changes the way that our body reacts. And so one may have more stress than the other one, therefore, he's going gray faster. He's also got two kids, you know, that are. Okay, if there's ever a study that wants to be done on why we our bodies change in a certain way, or at a different rates, produce some mirror image, or produce identical twins and see how they grow up. Because, yeah, that's that I find that completely fascinating. Okay, so, obviously, and this is another great case study, because, you know, employees now coming forward and talking about this kind of stuff. It's, we're, we're literally in. And I suppose every generation, every generation has said, we're in a pivotal moment of changing the landscape of the way that we look at humans and trying to really push, you know, that we're humanizing humans and we're not putting them all into this bucket of, okay, you know, you this is the way that you're supposed to act at this given time. We're now looking at individuals in the workplace. We're trying, we're trying to make that shift, right. How do you think that this is really going to impact our workforce going forward? I mean, As far as helping them versus penalizing them, do you think it's going to make a huge change? Tomorrow? I see you coming off of mute. So why don't you go first?
 
Tamar Medford  30:13
Absolutely. I mean, you know, part of the reason I never wanted to talk about it is because of the stigma. You know, because I had always heard that you have to have had a traumatic childhood to become an alcoholic or an addict. Now, it runs in my family, right. But again, my family suffers from depression, anxiety, you know, my dad is very open about it with me now. And I think in the workplace, if we can, you know, create an environment where people can actually say how they feel, and we have leaders in business that understand and are emotionally intelligent themselves, then that will create or foster that openness, that vulnerability. And I think, you know, a lot of people that I talked to that don't understand that they don't maybe know anybody directly that's been affected by addiction, which is very rare, because at some events, when they ask people, you know, who here has been touched by addiction, a lot of people put up their hands. But, you know, I still have people once in a while that I meet, that haven't really experienced anybody that they really love that has gone through this, having that compassion and that empathy. Because, you know, I mean, I've had people say, you know, why, why, why do you drink so much? Why can't you stop? Why can't you just have one glass of wine? And it's hard to explain, because they don't like my partner has maybe one alcoholic drink a month, and it still baffles me. Right. But, you know, I think if they can change the culture in the workplace, to having events that don't always have to involve alcohol and understanding it more, I think that's, you know, if you don't know anybody that's had it, right, you're I know, lots of people will look at people who are homeless and say, Oh, that bomb. And like, we're trying to teach our kids that when you look at someone, there's a story behind that person, right? You can't just judge right away, you have to have empathy. And maybe there's something else at play here. So I think really educating people as well, in the workforce of what it's like, you know, because I'm sure that somebody who is judgmental about it Ratan right now and believes that stigma, if they're their husband, their wife, their kids, they developed addiction, or they became an addict or an alcoholic, I'm sure their perception would change, because now it's affecting them directly. And I think we we only take the time to understand when we're in that, that, you know, oh, no, now it's affecting me directly, but we have to be proactive.
 
Leighann Lovely  32:47
Right, and, and the number of people and I've argued this with, you know, other other podcasts, you know, we talk about mental, it being a mental health, you know, thing being a mental health issue. You know, we talk about neuro diversity. So, everything's falling into now, you know, under the, the, are you neurodiverse, or, you know, there's all of these different things now that are following falling under that category. And I think statistically, that, you know, the amount of people that they say, who are now considered to be neurodiverse was like, it was a really low number. And I truly believe that that number of people who fought would fall in the bucket of being neurodiverse shouldn't it is like, probably like 70% of the population. And the only reason that the studies are so off because they think it was like 30%, or something. The only reason that that number is off is because most of Americans do not disclose in any way. Because if you truly think about it, and I have these conversations all the time, and I because I'm so open about the fact that I have bipolar disorder, I had an uncle who died of alcoholism. I have, you know, alcoholism throughout my entire family. I know, I have a dear friend of mine, whose partner is an alcoholic. I I also live in Milwaukee, like the capital drinking state of the world, where we have fests that are all about beer. It's so it's where I grew up, you know, there's the joke that if you know, if you have we went to college, you probably have an OWI it's not really a joke. It's, it's sad. That you know, we I grew up in a in a place where it's just it was so normal that the adults around you were drinking a beer and by the time you were 12, you probably have the taste of you know, alcohol by that time. You had a point. Anyways, neurodiverse. It's if everybody disclosed, it, that number would be like, we would be the majority.
 
Lane Kennedy  35:13
It's just people don't out of fear out of, I think there's a lack of awareness of what, what neurodivergent means. I mean, I have a 13 year old who is not neurodivergent, I had no idea what that meant, right? Until I went through this process of learning and understanding what is happening to him. And I would have never gone through that if I was not, you know, having carrying a kid or wasn't curious. Like a lot of people and resources, I have the resources to go down that path and to discover what was happening, right, people are kind of, like, in their own little box in their own little worlds. You know, we're becoming the loneliest nation in the world right now. And, um, tomorrow, again, I'm speaking about the US. And it's a sad we're at, we're kind of in a sad state right now. You know, and so people who are suffering from neuro divergence, or who see the world a little bit differently, you know, it's a time for us to come together and build start building community, start building connection with others. And that's one of the greatest gifts of recovery is that we have recovery communities, you know, there's Buddhist recovery, there's yoga recovery, there's 12, step recovery, there's all types of different recovery, where we can go find support and be in community and not isolation, because neuro divergence, right? It's a little tiny box, whether you're suffering from autism, I had a client last year, you know, we through working together, we figured out that she has, she's autistic. And she was like, Oh, my God, this is so I'm so relieved. Right? And then she was able to get into her a community. And she's just grown as a human being. I mean, it's incredible what's happened. So it's like, saying, you know, questioning, like, what's going on with me? Like, I'm a little bit different, I see the world a little bit differently, and then talking, opening up and talking to others about that. So you can start to find your people, so to speak. You know, that is like, where we need to start healing, not only in the workplace, but in our own neighborhoods, right, our own schools, our own our own cities, we have to start connecting
 
Leighann Lovely  37:37
The problem. One is that it's your right, we don't openly talk about it enough. But and, again, this is a US thing. Sorry. The medical medical institutes have made it so difficult. Yeah. Yeah, to get the help that you need. Yeah. I mean, I call and I make an appointment. And I'm like, you know, having a really bad headache, and it's been consistent and consistent. And the doctor literally walks in and goes, Okay, so you're having headaches? Okay, well, here, I can probably give you a prescription for blah, blah, blah, anything else? And I'm like, no, no, wait a second, I want to know why. I don't want to put a bandaid on it, and take a medication for it. I want the why.
 
Lane Kennedy  38:27
So that we can they don't know, they don't know that, right?
 
Leighann Lovely  38:31
We're not treating, we're not treating the problem. We're treating the symptoms. And that has become like, that is a problem. When we just constantly throw medication or throw a, you know, well, if you do this or do that. That falls on our Medical Institute, who basically is overbooking because the more patients they see, the more they get paid, which means that doctors are not spending time with their patients at all. Right? Not to mention insurance companies are driving who you're allowed to see. So I've had to switch doctors like five times. So they don't know me. They don't know my medical history. And regardless of whether or not they helped me, I have to pay them. So I don't get to say, Yeah, this was a really shitty oil change. I'm not paying you. Well, you know what I mean? So I had to get a new psychiatrist because I'm on meds for my bipolar. I didn't like him. So I said, and again, nothing against him. He was a really brilliant person just didn't jive with my personality. I I called and I said, you know, I'm not going to make another appointment. I would like to request a different doctor. They got all upset. Well, what do you mean? No, you need to get his permission to get a different doctor. I said, Why would I need his permission to request a different doctor? What is wrong with our? I mean, come on, why? Why? I'm like, why, why? And then he explained to me, well, we don't want somebody, you know, seeking out medicine or Dr. Jumping. I'm like, okay, I get that. But the answer is simple. I don't like him. Well, we still have to get his permission. So then they have to go back to him and say, well, she doesn't really like you.
 
Lane Kennedy  40:38
Yeah, the system is broken, the system is broken. It's really broken here in the States, Canada, not as broken.
 
Tamar Medford  40:45
It is it is still broken. But not quite as badly. Yes, I will. Second.
 
Lane Kennedy  40:50
Yeah. I think being an advocate, right, we all have to advocate for ourselves. And if we're not doing that, then we're part of the problem. So again, I just go back to we have to stand up, we have to connect with others, we have to start telling the truth, even if we're super afraid of it. Like, I have to tell the truth today. Otherwise, I am doomed to a life of isolation. Forget it. Forget it. Yeah.
 
Tamar Medford  41:21
Yeah. And I feel that there needs to be more resources. For people I mean, here. It there's such a lot like it's such a long waitlist to get in to go see a doctor for you know, an MRI or something like that, or, like example is one of the girls needs a new psychologist while on a waitlist, it's been eight months. And so they're not getting the help or support that they need. And there's so many people out there and kids, especially, you know, so when it comes to addiction, like they're not getting the help they need, what do you think they're going to turn to, they're gonna go to school, their friends, gonna give them, you know, some alcoholic beverage, and they're gonna say, Oh, this makes me feel better. And there we go. And you know, the science says, if you start drinking before the age of 21, you know, one in four people will develop a substance abuse issue, if you hold off till after 21. It's one and 25. And so, you know, if you just look at that alone, the lack of resources for people out there right now, like we have to start being more proactive.
 
Leighann Lovely  42:30
I did not know that statistic. That's Wow.
 
Lane Kennedy  42:37
Yeah, it's stunning, right? It's really, really stunning. That's why I think that's why Tamar and I talk so much to moms and, you know, we laugh about our recovery, you know, laughing without liquor. It's fun, it's upbeat. We're talking about real subject matter. But we talk about our kids. You know, I have a 13 year old and if I had to talk to him about fentanyl, I had to talk to him about drugs. You know, this is the world that we live today. But because I'm in recovery, which is awesome. Right? I have that capacity. When I was drinking and using. I just didn't have it. I just couldn't, I would have never been able to.
 
Leighann Lovely  43:16
So what about about legalizing marijuana?
 
Lane Kennedy  43:24
Tamar? What about legalizing cocaine
 
Tamar Medford  43:27
Yeah, Canada here talk about
 
Leighann Lovely  43:31
I'm sorry, Canada.
 
Tamar Medford  43:34
They have decriminalized criminalized it. So of course, just like when marijuana was decriminalized up here before it actually became legal. There was these little shops that started popping up. And so I have heard that there's a couple shops now that they're actually selling cocaine, they're not supposed to be because you can't, you know, you can't. It's when you get arrested with a small amount. It's not as big of a deal, but it's insane. And the whole marrow. It yeah, there's an author called Judy, Judy gazelle. And she wrote a book the experience in neuroscience of addiction. And she actually, I had interviewed her for my Summit, and she talks about marijuana being the most addictive drug because it's the only drug that lights up every part of your brain and you know, we have 218 year old twins, one of them who they're both neurodivergent but one who's cognitively at a 1012 year old level. She has her friends telling her no just smoke this joint like marijuana is not harmful for you. In fact, hemp is healthy well maybe the hemp part is the you know, the THC part is not and it's no wonder why everything just seems better when you smoke a joint so I don't. I'm kind of it's hard to talk to that. Because for me personally as someone who is addicted to a lot even chicken strips Lee I'm so don't feel bad about your tea last year was chicken strips for me. You know, it's it's hard to, you know, legalizing marijuana I just I feel like people need again to be educated more. Right.
 
Lane Kennedy  45:15
And for marijuana there is a gene that if it's sideways, you know, you're going to be more addicted to it. Some people have that and they can smoke and they're like, I don't want it. Right.
 
Leighann Lovely  45:28
Well, and, you know, the the impact that that has to, to businesses, you know, I've seen it obviously being on the HR side being on the staffing side. How is that affecting companies, and what I have seen now is that they are no longer testing for marijuana, which means that it's more likely that somebody's going to come in intoxicated. And you can't test to see if they are intoxicated at that moment, or if they smoked it two days ago. So that's another controversial, you know, thing that, of course, is been popping up, despite the, you know, the unknowns about what it could or could not do to one's body or to children's brains. You know, we talked about the the implication of a child smoking that before their, you know, certain age or drinking before a certain age, what are the implications of a child smoking something that could alter their brain chemistry before a certain age, or just alter the brain chemistry. For at any age, you know.
 
Lane Kennedy  46:46
The body is this big chemistry, right? It's a factory, right? And we're putting things into it, we have this beautiful set of DNA, that is going to work. And remember, the environment and what we put in, are going to be affecting all of that DNA all the time. So if you're a child, and you're smoking, if you're an adult, and you're smoking, right, you're affecting the chemistry of your body, which then affects your mood, it affects your sleep, it affects your weight, it affects your relationships, right? It affects everything. So and I don't think this is where the education part comes in. Right? We don't talk about our body and the chemistry and what we eat, we just say eat a fruit, drink some milk, eat a sandwich, right? Nobody talks about our, you know, what, how the body operates. So I think we're doing a huge disservice for our children, you know, in school, by not educating them properly about how the human body operates, and what's needed for it to properly work, you know, all the mental illness that we have in the world right now. We don't it's, it's, it's because we're not feeding the body properly. 100% with that, so 100%
 
Leighann Lovely  48:02
And I also, I've been one of those people who, you know, here's my little conspiracy theorists theory. So. So, since I've been young, I've been on one type of medication, you know, as a young young child, they're like, Oh, she suffers from depression. And they were feeding me antidepressants, which probably was swinging into a manic episode and Yeti anyways. So, I, at one time write about our water filtration systems, the water that goes into our home, right? Yeah. So they regularly update those filtration systems to try to get rid of, you know, all of the stuff that goes into the water in the ground, or, you know, into the ground and blah, blah, blah. But here's, here's something that they don't, and can't possibly keep up on. All of these new drugs that all of these pharmaceutical companies are constantly producing and making when somebody doesn't use all of those drugs, and they decide, oh, here, I'm gonna flush them down the toilet, which regularly happens even though the drug companies are like, don't do that. Bring them back to us. While it's irritating, I'm just gonna flush them down the toilet, it still happens. We're still or they get somehow into a landfill and that's ended up ends up back in our Okay. Now I'm drinking the water which is filled with all these antibiotics and all of these other psychotropics and all of these other drugs. That is changing our brain chemistry 100% How is that not partially the cause of the rise in the amount of people who have mental health issues who have all persons other issues? The same thing with why is it seemed like everybody is taller than me? All of these kids are popping out that are way taller than me. I don't know what they're feeding these animals hormones. I don't know. That's my conspiracy therary.
 
Lane Kennedy  49:59
Oh, it's so great. So a lot of times I will I want to work with client, I will just have them go to the Environmental Working Group, right, and they can put in their zip code. And they can look at their water and see what's in their water. And a lot of times the water is 100% toxic, and they graded A through F, what kind of toxicity to your point about the medications. All of it's in there, if there's construction going on in the city, which here I live in San Francisco, there's a lot of construction here. So there's a lot of runoff down into the sewage, right? There's, there's a lot. So I always suggest that people, you know, get filter, osmosis, right? Just do it. Because our skin is our biggest organ, we are taking in all those chemicals, which is going to be down regulating our beautiful blueprint, that DNA that I talked about earlier, you know, and I don't want my kids suffering, right? I don't I don't want my neighbor suffering. I don't want my friends don't want you guys suffering, right. So just do yourself a favor, to Leon's point, go over to the environment in Ew, g.org. And you can just plug in and check out it's a free resource. You don't have to pay anything. But you can just educate yourself. On you know, empowerment Knowledge is power when it comes to our own being it's advocating for yourself. Yeah, I'm really passionate about that.
 
Leighann Lovely  51:19
Yeah. Oh, I can hear it in your voice. So we are coming to time. I'm looking at the clock. And we are actually at time and I want to respect your time. So I have a question of the season. No, to have both of you jump on that. What would you change about your job or the practice that people have in your role, if you could?
 
Lane Kennedy  51:42
Well, that's a good question.
 
Tamar Medford  51:44
I feel like I've just finally landed in a career over the last couple of years, that completely fulfills me. And it's because they give us the time we need, you know, we work four day workweeks, because that gives us back some control of our time. If there's personal issues, they give us the time, we need to deal with those issues. And they ask Are you okay? So I would say I've never really had it to this degree before. But if if that was if I wasn't getting that that's definitely what I need. But I didn't realize I needed it until I started getting it. So I hope that answers your question.
 
Leighann Lovely  52:25
Absolutely. That's awesome.
 
Lane Kennedy  52:27
I need you to repeat it. Yeah, I need you to repeat the question again, because I'm mulling it around.
 
Leighann Lovely  52:32
So what would you change about your job or the practice that people have in your, in your role your job, If you could do?
 
Lane Kennedy  52:42
Nothing? That's beautiful. Yeah, nothing. I'm super grateful for what I do and, and how I show up in the world and how the people around me are able to show up. Yeah, and that's what I want for others, you know, is I want people to show up and be their best self and to live in their bodies and feel comfortable and safe. Yeah.
 
Leighann Lovely  53:05
When you get to a point where you can say that, you know, that you've, you know, that you've 100% I mean, I I think there are a few people out there that that can can truly say nothing and but that is the that's the goal, right to to find your you know, find your place to find your happy spot to be fulfilled. So that's awesome. If I'm, If my guess or my guess, is I'm just not on the ball today. If my audience would like to reach out to you how would they go about doing that?
 
Tamar Medford  53:51
The easiest way is without liquor. I love it when Lane sings it.
 
Lane Kennedy  53:57
That's laughingwithoutliquor.com, Laughing without liquor, on social on the website. That's really the best place laughing without liquor or lanekennedy.com, for me. Tamar?
 
Tamar Medford  54:14
Laughing without Liquor
 
Leighann Lovely  54:16
Awesome. Awesome. Thank you ladies. This has been such a fun conversation. I really enjoy it.
 
Lane Kennedy  54:22
Thanks so much for having us.
 
Tamar Medford  54:24
Thank you.
 
Leighann Lovely  54:26
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
Mark Schneider is a true "Do and I Do", not "Do and I Say", kind of owner. He leads by example so that all the people that work at his company understand that they are there for a common purpose. To get the job done well and on time for their customers while still making it home on time to be with their families. We can all learn a little from this amazing conversation. 
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPY
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
addiction, alcoholic, recovery, life, drinking, day, alcoholism, tamar, drink, suffering, alcohol, years, marijuana, people, drugs, change, talk, give, stigma, sober

An Owner Who Live’s By ”Do As I Do”

Mark Schneider is a true "Do and I Do", not "Do and I Say", kind of owner. He leads by example so that all the people that work at his company understand that they are there for a common purpose. To get the job done well and on time for their customers while still making it home on time to be with their families. We can all learn a little from this amazing conversation. 
 
Contact Mark
LinkedIN – https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-schneider-39906a19/
Phone Number – 262-784-1010
Website – www.osccinc.com
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  I am honored to have this guest come on and talk with me today. I have been after him to come and talk to me about how he runs his business and creates the environment that he does for his employees. Mark Schneider is the owner of one source construction Corporation, a design build commercial building contractor located in Brookfield, Wisconsin, and covering all of Southeast Wisconsin. Mark has a Bachelors of Science in Building Construction Management from UW Platteville and has been in the industry for over 34 years. One source has been in business for over 16 years, and currently has five employees. The underlying culture at one source has always been how do we help the employees have a family life, but still get the work done. Mark, welcome to the show. I am so excited to talk with you today. I feel like it's been a long time coming for this to finally happen.
 
Mark Schneider  02:10
Well, thank you for having me.
 
Leighann Lovely  02:14
So why don't you start off by telling me a little bit about yourself?
 
Mark Schneider  02:19
Well, my name is Mark Schneider, I am the owner of one source construction. We are a commercial general contractor located in Brookfield, and we've been in business coming up on 17 years, I have been in the industry for over 34. And we provide construction services to all things commercial, whether it be retail, restaurant, offices, warehouses, pretty much everything in that realm. And we handle all southeastern Wisconsin from the border up to Fond du Lac from the lake all the way out to to Madison.
 
Leighann Lovely  02:58
Awesome. And I love you. And I've had the opportunity to talk actually multiple times. And the reason that I'm so drawn to you is because unlike a lot of business owners, you you are very intentional, about a couple of things that just are wildly interesting to me. One, the size of projects you bring on the size of your business, and the way that you run your business. And so I want to dive into a little bit, you know, of each, each piece, and each one of these things, has really created the company that you are today. You know, as a business owner, obviously, you wear a lot of hats, right?
 
Mark Schneider  03:51
Yes, that is true. The one thing
 
Leighann Lovely  03:53
that I'm interested is your your approach when you're hiring people and driving them, you know, to to be interested in your company. So let's, let's start, let's start there. How do you how do you create, you know, interest or buzz about, you know, working for you?
 
Mark Schneider  04:15
Well, let me let me back up a little bit. So you have a foundation for why it is the way it is. So 16 years ago when I was nudged by a good client of mine to start the company. One of the factors that played into this was that I had five children under the age of 12. And I wanted to still make sure that I would have time to be with them even though I was going to start a business run a business. And so the premise of everything is making sure that myself and my employees can get home and get a good time for dinner and to be able to leave and go be with their family during the day if need be. So let's say they're two I'll have some program happening at school, they'd be allowed to leave and go be with their, their child for their program. Yeah, maybe they come back later, maybe they don't whatever, at the end of the day, we all know we have to get our work done. But our office typically is a ghost town about 515. And that's great. The pause in the show earlier was that I just, I'm currently looking for an additional site superintendent, and it doesn't say, you know, on my invite or my job posting, it doesn't say, General Superintendent, do you know, position open? You know, it says, Do you want to get home at night for dinner with your family? Do you want to, you know, have more free time and not have the stress of being overworked? It was the things that were important to me were top on the list, because second or third down on the list was, Do you know how to do this type of work? So the first part was, what are your goals? We all need to make money. And that's understandable. However, I wanted to be able to capture the people that had family as as more important than money, that family was something that they could work, you know, work towards, instead of you don't want to, what does it work, you don't want to work to live, you want to live, I'm sorry. To get it wrong. You want to you want to be able to live life and work is secondary, necessary. But secondary,
 
Leighann Lovely  06:33
Right, you don't want to live to work, you want to work to live,
 
Mark Schneider  06:37
Correct. And so that is that's been very important to us all along, to try very hard to keep that. It's not, it's, it's not uncommon for my employees to say, hey, I want to take off Tuesday, and I'd like to go to the bureau game in the afternoon or whatever. And basically, it's like we can we'll work that out, well, you got going on, I'll cover for you or somebody will cover for you. And that happens on and off throughout the year with various things.
 
Leighann Lovely  07:09
So let me let me stop. Let me stop you for a second. Because what a novel idea 17 years ago? Yes. So what a novel idea. 17 years ago, somebody starts their business and says, Hey, let's create a business that caters to the individuals who want to actually have family life, above and beyond a work life, which is what everybody wants. Now everybody's talking about it. I mean, not to say that people didn't want it back then. But now everybody's talking about it. Now. You were already there. 17 years ago.
 
Mark Schneider  07:49
Yeah, it's you know, and it's a work in progress. Always. I would say over the course of a given year, there's probably 10 times 10 days of the year that maybe I'm working until about six o'clock. And I know that that's in my former place of work, which I really liked. It was not uncommon for me to be there till seven 730 on a somewhat regular basis. And that was a bummer, because I still had we still have the children at home. But my wife did a fantastic job, you know, helping take care of them. And and that maybe it stems from hers. In my personal life. We had decided years ago once we had three kids in daycare, and daycare was not really the right method for us. And she was working just to go to just to pay for daycare. So that didn't make sense. But that was a decision we made. And of course, there were tough times, but we worked through it to do our own thing. So it's a culture that I continually am trying to improve on. I'm not perfect. The employees will tell you what I've explained to you. But they'll also say, yeah, there's times where we're working a little harder here there. But nobody, I will say nobody works late into the day. But do they get called on a Saturday maybe to check on something that's kind of the life of a superintendent that happens from time to time. I, as the owner get called all the time whenever I'll address it, but I don't generally jump in the car and go somewhere. But that's the life of a business owner
 
Leighann Lovely  09:24
Right now here. Let me explain. Let me tell you a story. When I was 16 years old, I was working at a gas station. It was Thanksgiving. I was the the top employee at the time and the owner of the gas station called me on Thanksgiving and said the employees there can't figure out how to close the store up. Can you go in and they looked at my dad and I said well what should I do and he goes, You're a hourly paid employee I was making $4.18 $4.18 And he goes you are not going anywhere. or, and I'm like, well, but but the owner of the store is calling me telling me that he needs me to go in. And he goes, Yeah, because he doesn't want to leave his Thanksgiving dinner. Because, you know, nobody wants to have to do those. Now, my dad would not allow me to do it. I was 16 years old. Right? And so he figured, oh, let's call the 16 year old who knows how to do all of the operations? You know? Well, not all of the average. But I did all of the, you know, cash, cash drawer checkouts, I did all of the at 16. Right. You know, even you know, the owners don't want to do it. If you have somebody to delegate it to. That's great. But it is such as the life of an owner that if nobody else can do it, who do you call?
 
Mark Schneider  10:50
Well, the other the other side of that, too, is it this is what I do. I lead by example, if if if I'm walking around a jobsite, whether I'm wearing nice clothes or not, if I see something that needs to be picked up, or get a broom, or do something to make it safer, or just cleaner or present better to the customer, my superintendents know that I will do it, I will jump in and help out no matter what I'm dressed in, because they know well, he owns a company. So he just does it. So now that means there's nothing to there's nothing to nothing below me, I guess I'm trying to think in the right terms. But I will do whatever whatever it takes to do it properly and put the customer first.
 
Leighann Lovely  11:32
And there's never any pointing fingers of well, that's not my job. There's never anybody who who can possibly say at any point, will you go and do that, because it's not my job. You know, and when you create a mentality of employees, who basically at any given time, are all willing to pitch in and do whatever it takes to make the job get done, and get done well, because the owner is the person who's showing by example, are leading by example. That's an extremely powerful force. Because I've walked around manufacturing floors, I've walked around businesses of all different kinds. When those individuals, they look at the owner as an untouchable, they look at the owner, as somebody who comes in walks around once a month or every quarter, you know, and they're in a suit, they walk around, they don't know the employees names, they don't know anything about anybody who works for them. And every time that person walks around, they feel a little bit uncomfortable. Like, is he scoping me out? Like what what's going on? Why is he Why is he walking the floor, and it becomes almost uncomfortable, I guess is the only is the only reward and when that when that person is not engaged, when that person doesn't know what's going on. There's there's not a sense of camaraderie, as much so as if the owner is willing to walk around and do what needs to be done just like any other employee.
 
Mark Schneider  12:53
So, so yes, Leighann, we were talking about, you know, management or business owners that appear to be unapproachable or feel that employees feel that they're unapproachable. And that's another caveat to our company, is that I've got a relationship where my employees, at least I believe they do, and I know one of them has told me to my face, that they're able to tell me what they're thinking without worry about repercussions, they want to tell me, hey, they're gonna call me out, I'm doing this wrong, or I could do this better. So both of us, you know, have this, we'll have our little discussion. And then we move on and, and it's he's been nine or 11 years, this particular employee, so he's been around long enough that we're comfortable. And I hired him out of the construction industry, but the residential side. So we've been, he's been learning from us all along. And he's gotten, he's one of my senior guys now. And so that's, I think, a part of the culture that makes a big difference, not just for the family, but that your employees are actually they work with me, I don't, I don't introduce people as somebody who works for me. And a boss of mine years ago, had introduced me that way. And it stuck with me for oh, gosh, an hour, probably on 23 years that, you know, my employees don't work for me, they work with me. And, you know, at the end of the day, maybe I'm the one that has to sign something, but they still work with me. They do they do everything that that I do. So, that's a big part of the culture.
 
Leighann Lovely  14:33
And it's interesting that you say that because I made that mistake early on in my career where and I meant it in no disrespect, but, you know, with being a salesperson, you know, I had recruiters whom I worked with, and I made the mistake of saying, Oh, I'm going to pass you on to my recruiter, which is possessive. Like as in my recruiter, and what I didn't mean as in mind that I owned that I in any way A, but it was taken in a, in a negative sense from the person from the recruiter. So I very quickly realized, wow, I shouldn't do that, that's, it's inappropriate, because I have no owners we are equals. And by saying mine, I'm putting myself above them. Right. So quickly change that language from mine to, you know, my partner, or to just make sure that I'm putting them at the same level as me. So that there's no ownership, you know, I'm going to do introduce you to my partner, versus, you know, calling that, and therefore, it's, you know, again, just switching a word from recruiter to partner, partner is then an equal
 
Mark Schneider  15:55
Well, and you can say, recruiter I worked with, you know, a lot of it has to do with respect, I run into many, many, many different people in what I do, from, you know, the business owners, who, you know, maybe they earned a little more, but they get a little more respect from me, then, I don't know that what I'm trying to say is, they're the same as you and I, it's just that they've accomplished a little more, sometimes a lot more, you know, but, you know, I ran into judge lift skis, the CEO of Northwestern Mutual, his kids go to the high school that my kids went to, and he was at an event and I said, Hi, and everything. So I didn't treat him like, Oh, he's something special, but he's in charge of a very large company, you know, and he's done fantastic things and all of that. But at the end of the day, I have a company that does, you know, between eight and $10 million a year, he Okay, his does a billion dollars a year, but we still each run a company that is multimillion, for him his case, billion, but, and he's a very down to earth guy. And the cool thing is, I say this a lot about certain honors, you'd never know that he is in charge of so much, because he doesn't carry himself any different. He carries himself just like you and I. And that's what I try to do. I don't try to walk around, I drive a truck that's nine years old. You know, my employees have some vehicles that are newer than mine. That's okay. I, you know, I'm not I don't want to be the showy guy that shows up in the Mercedes, because that's not what it's about. And that's, that's kind of, I think, done well for me in the past, and I'm just not, I don't do things, I don't earn money for things I earn money for my family, or to be able to do an experience with my family is kind of how it's evolved. And so I went to a coach, business coach one time, and they were touting how, you know, you could fly a helicopter to work every day, if you do this, and this and this. And I said, I don't care about that. That's not what I'm, that's not me. So we got to come up with some different motivating factor, because we flying it on a helicopter to work every day is not what I care about. So that's, that's what that's that's the work in progress for the culture. That's a work in progress for how I wanted to be a business owner, a boss, and it's very challenging. HR is one of my least favorite things to do, but I'm trying to get better at it. Go ahead. It's one
 
Leighann Lovely  18:34
of your least favorite things to do. And you're doing it as well as you are. And I'm not saying about the like the technical stuff when it comes to we're not talking about that I'm talking about the people leader thing. There are people leaders out there who are not doing it as well as you. And again, I'm not bashing anybody, you have a team of six,
 
Mark Schneider  18:54
Simply have six people right now I'm trying to hire seven.
 
Leighann Lovely  18:58
You have a team of six. And the way that you describe your people leader skills is far above the way that others that are people leaders, and coin themselves people people lead hers, do it. Because you you and I don't want to say humility. I don't know your you know, I don't know your full backstory, but I believe that people who have come from nothing, starting your own business from the ground up and building it to success and having it where you want it to be. And, you know, continuing to nurture that gives you a you know, not you I'm speaking in terms of but most people gives them this this humbleness of, yeah, I created this. And, you know, most business owners know what that struggle look like in the book. Beginning because most people, it wasn't just handed to them, there's a struggle that goes along with the first year, the first six months, the first two years, the first, what they say, when you hit the five year mark that you can usually breathe a little bit lighter. But I've also seen companies that have been in business for 30 years, have to close their doors. So I do believe that most business owners have a little bit of humbleness, that they usually keep at bay when in front of people because of, but you clearly have that you have a humbleness, you don't drive the fancy car, you don't show up saying, Hey, I'm a business owner, you know, you you introduce people, as as partners as people I work with, not as my employee. That's that humbleness that makes you human, that makes people want to talk to you that makes people want to work with you, that many of those others that can throw around, not that you can't, but that can throw around a ton of money. And people think, oh, I want to be friends with that guy, because he has so much money. But in reality, and I'm not saying everybody, in reality, are they really great people, if they're just throwing tons of cash at everybody and showing up in fancy cars, a lot of them that have to do that are not great people. Some of them
 
Mark Schneider  21:28
I have seen that too, through the years,
 
Leighann Lovely  21:31
Some of them can outright be assholes. And the reason that they have a following is because they buy people that give the give stuff away to people. And people are like, Oh, I'm gonna go and be friends with that guy. And or gal shouldn't just say, guy, you know, and that's the way they get their following. That's the way that they continue to stay. You relevance. But then there's the ones that truly care. And they don't need to fight to stay relevant. They stay relevant, because they're good people. And obviously, you have to have a successful business and all I mean, there's, there's other things that you have to do other than just be
 
Mark Schneider  22:13
more, right still have to do the work, right.
 
Leighann Lovely  22:17
But I mean, and unfortunately, the ones that are, you know, kind of fall in the asphalt, they're going to be a flash in the pan, eventually, you know, they're, they're going to, they're going to drift away. And when they're no longer out there throwing your own money doing the flashy things, people will start to forget about them. But the greats the ones that will remain as the legends are the ones that one did the great work, to actually made a difference in people's lives by being great people, and caring. Those are the ones that will be known as, you know, their names will be remembered years after they left the industry as being somebody who Oh, man, I worked with that, you know, that company, the owner of that company was not only did he do great work, he was just such a great guy to work with, you know, I Oh, yeah. You know, and I've met those people. I've met people whose names you still mention, and they're, and I hear people go, Oh, I remember that person. Didn't they retire like five years ago? Yeah, yep, they did. And that I would, I would hope that we would all aspire to be or run a business, where you're remembered for doing that not remembered for, you know, blowing through employees.
 
Mark Schneider  23:32
And we have long said, you know, and I worked one of my employees that's been here. For years now. I worked with him for seven years at a previous company. And then he retired and I pulled him out of retirement to come work with me. And for all the years that I've worked with him, we've always kind of gone by the mantra if you do the right thing, you do what's right for the customer, that the the money and everything else will follow. It just will. And so we've gotten our our partners or vendors in construction to think the same thing. If they see something that doesn't look right, tell us because at the end of the day, we'll make it right, we'll let the owner know that, you know, we've made it right. And it'll come back around even if it doesn't come back around on that project. It'll come back around because he'll tell somebody else about us. He'll tell somebody what we did. And so that kind of goes it's even the golden rule to treat people how you want to be treated while somebody is doing a project for me. I'd love it if they would tell me if I'm doing something that's not quite right or whatever, for the betterment of the project. Don't just try to go I'm gonna make an extra 50 bucks this you know, this this job and I'll make more money great. I get to have 10 bucks in my pocket as part of my bonus. i Our guys are not compensated by how much money the job makes, they're compensated for doing the right thing. And so I try to really take care of them at the end of each year. When we're doing profit sharing and things like that, to say, you know, thank you, if I made $1, I'm making sure that they get something to because I'm if I if they made me $1, I wouldn't have had that dollar without them. So that once again is, you know, that's the they're helping me. So I really want to take care of
 
Leighann Lovely  25:19
You just use sparked a story here. So I have a plumber that they've told me multiple times I need to find a new plumber, because I'm outside of their service area. I was inside their Soviet service area in the last house that I that I lived at. And every time I call them, they're like, you know, he really outside of our service area really should find somebody new. And I'm like, I don't want to find somebody. I don't want to find a new plumber, like I like you guys. And oh, and their plumbing and electric. And so the reason that I go back to them, it's It's shrimp plumbing, okay. It was started by the by the father, who's now I think he's fully retired, he might be fully retired, anyways. And then he had a son, two sons, one was the electrician, and one was the plumber. And I, I've called him multiple times, where I'll say, Hey, I've got this issue going on. And he's like, Oh, that's your what I have a well, in my home. He's like, it sounds like it's your well. And he ended up spending an hour on the phone with me an hour, troubleshooting the issue to figure out that it was my Well, which they don't do work on. They don't do plumbing on wells they so then he gave me a referral. And then he said says to me, call me back. Because I'm really interested in what exactly is wrong with your well. And I just I just want to know what a curiosity. But the fact that for free, for free. This man spent an hour troubleshooting all of these issues on the phone with me to determine that it was not my plumbing. It was in fact, my well then gave me a referral. And he did this with me twice. After I had bought my new house, I'd called now, this is going wrong. It's insane. No other plumber that I know of.
 
Mark Schneider  27:14
No, you wouldn't have gotten past the receptionist. Correct.
 
Leighann Lovely  27:17
They would have been like, Okay, we're gonna schedule a service call, it's gonna cost you 75 bucks just for them to drive to your house and probably 150 Now, just for them to drive to your house. They are outside of my service area, and don't charge or haven't church. Maybe that's because of a past client. But haven't charged me extra for coming to my house, when they've done some plumbing and electrical work for me. And they still continue to tell me that we're gonna electrician. But, and that's why I won't call anybody else. That is the kind of service. And that's why I'm shameless ly plugging their company. Because that's the kind of service that lives on forever in my head. When anybody ever asks me, Hey, do you need a plumber? Or do you know a plumber or an electrician? I'm like, Yep, I do. I do. I do you. Where do you live? I absolutely 100% I'm like, Yeah, this this guy is he's awesome. And the sons I've met both of the sons, they're awesome. And they don't overcharge, they charge. You know what they should, and I don't mind paying, you know, a decent amount for their service, because they come in, they do a good job. They're personable. And that's what that's what it's all about when you go to your clients, your end. And I had an issue in my own home where the guy was, did things himself and they came in and they said, Yeah, this is not the code. Like if I touch it, it's going to cost you three grand. Oh, don't touch it. Right? I mean, those are the types of things that like, just do the right thing, do do the best for your client, be honest with your clients, and you will have a repeat client, and then that client will go out and be your salesperson.
 
Mark Schneider  29:12
So the hardest, the hardest part, not the hardest part, a difficult thing to instill and repeat is to get your employees to do that too. Because in a way they're selling but they don't realize it. And if you can get them to take care of the customer and do what's right. They don't even realize it, but they're creating more leads for you down the road. And in my industry. I mean, yeah, there's times where I can get a job in a month. But most of the stuff I do is three, four months of cultivating before they decide or think about it and other stuff that it could take, you know, years that I've just stayed in touch and all of a sudden it was the right time and they're going to add on to their company or they're going to do whatever they're going to do and And then they call me. So it's part of it is trying to keep your company at front of brain. That's why we all do marketing and networking and things like that. Because you know, you're not going to get a job at that marketing event, you're going to get a job, because they thought of you or saw you a month ago and said, Oh, yeah, I saw you know, Liane color. So, you know, that goes back to the culture, you will take care of them, they'll take care of you, they'll take care of the company, which is kind of like taking care of you. And, and that's, you know, that's always served me well, even as an employee all those years prior to starting the company. I did what was right. And, and, and didn't, I did have an instance where I threw all them. 60 was like 75 bucks. And I'll never forget that little story that I, I unfortunately said, No, he owes me 75 bucks. And the owner said, you can send them the bill, go ahead and do that. But I'm gonna tell you that I think you'll regret it. And I was doing my job. So I sent the bill for 75 bucks. And he wrote a little note with the 75 bucks and said, I hope this makes your companies here. And the owner knew already that my honor had already kind of rearranged us. And I think they had talked and it was it was early on in my career. And that stuck with me too. And so there's those little things that you hope you take with you that helps you be a better person and and helps you to not worry about the little, little things. Look at the bigger picture. And sometimes unfortunately, some things do cost a lot of money, and there's just no way around it, I have to charge $300 For this lock is just what it costs, I can't do it for free, even though you can go to Menards and get a residential one for $39.
 
Leighann Lovely  31:48
Right. And, and that's wildly interesting that you brought that up, because it is really just as easy as it is to make a client extremely happy, and have them become a salesperson for you. It is just as easy for it to completely go the other way and have them all of the sudden be like, don't, don't ever use them. Because that has also happened to me. Yes. Where somebody has come to my home actually happened with my I have a generator of a permanent generator in my home. And I even called them and this kid walked kid me young. When did I come to an age where I'm calling 20 year olds kids. He comes to my home. And the first thing he says to me when he walks to the back of my house and looks at my generator is I've never seen a generator like this before. And you're gonna fix it.
 
Mark Schneider  32:44
Yeah, no, when you want to hear no confidence there,
 
Leighann Lovely  32:47
right? So two hours later when it's not fixed. And I get a bill for 250 bucks. And then they come back a second time. And they don't fix it again, and then try to charge me $575 I call them and I say I'm not paying this. Well, yeah, but he was out there. And I said, you're gonna haggle over $575 When you were out here twice, for five hours total, didn't fix it. And the first thing your technician said to me was I've never seen this generator. Well, and I'm like, Ah, I said, you know, it's been fixed by another guy who was here for 20 minutes, and charged me 175 bucks. And they're like, Oh, really. And then they wanted to know the name of the company that came in fixed it. And that's all they started caring about, well, who was it? Well, who came? I'm not telling you that. And then I had to actually call the maker of my generator and say, you know, XYZ company was here for x amount of time. They didn't fix it, do you? Is there a reason? You know, a reseller of this? Should I pay their bill? And they said no, I called the company back and said, You know, I've already contacted XYZ company. You're the reseller of them. Are you still going to charge me 575 bucks? I got an email from them saying we're really sorry about the misunderstanding. We will not be charging you. I'm like, Wow, all of that work. Right? You could have just simply said, Hey, we're really sorry about this. I could have been could have maintained a relationship with them, but because they pushed it.
 
Mark Schneider  34:40
You'll never call them and you'll never recommend them.
 
Leighann Lovely  34:43
I will absolutely positively. Never call never recommend. But I did you know talk to the kids supervisor and say it was not his fault. He was nice. He was polite. You sent him back a second time when he didn't Know the product? What is wrong with you? Yeah. Like this is
 
Mark Schneider  35:05
he was unqualified to look at it
 
Leighann Lovely  35:07
correct. And I told his manager, this is on you, you sent a guy who clearly told you in his notes that he didn't know the product, and you sent him back to my property to fix a product he had never used. Well, we do that for training on your dime on my right. And he even tried to upsell me on a new one.
 
Mark Schneider  35:31
Oh, geez.
 
Leighann Lovely  35:34
Right. And the guy who came and fixed it in an hour and a half or an hour or whatever, he was like, Oh, this thing's got years of life left.
 
Mark Schneider  35:45
There you go, right. So it does circle back around to culture, culture and the right people. And I've had, and I've had, I'm not perfect, I've had people come and work for me. And then they said, it's not a fit, and they've left. And that was, it was kind of good on both of us. He was, he was glad to leave. And I was glad that he left. And, you know, because we're a smaller company, I do kind of need people that are on their game, almost right away. It would be hard for me to take an intern that doesn't know anything under my wing, although I'd love to mentor somebody. And that might be what I do later in life. When I decide to sell the company or retire, whatever, I don't think I'll retire, I'll want to be a mentor to somebody to show them how to do this, how to do what I what I do. So
 
Leighann Lovely  36:40
that's awesome. That's absolutely awesome. So now you we've obviously talked a great deal about your culture and everything else. What about, you know, you and I talked a little bit about the size of the projects that you take on. And I think that leads a great deal into you being able to really maintain and being intentional about, about that. Because, you know, if you companies when they grow to a certain size, it is harder, obviously, as an owner to be able to intimately know each one of their employees, you know, I pick on these monster sized companies, and how dare the owner not be involved? Well, obviously, they have to step back, they're not able to be in the day to day every you know, all the time. And as you grow to even bigger at all.
 
Mark Schneider  37:30
Well, even even with six employees, there's times when they're not going to do it the way I would do it, even though when I started the company, I was doing everything. So you have to number one, allow them to do it their way to a degree to get to the end result. You know, we I purposely keep the company at a at a size between really five and $10 million, our end, but we've had some larger projects through the years we've had, we've done a grocery store development that was $7.2 million. Now that might sound like a lot, because he that's three quarters of your top volume of the entire company. But in construction, I'm doing virtually the same. I'm doing the same things for say $2 million project that I'm doing for a $7 million project, it's just that the pieces of the pie are bigger. If the electrician was doing $100,000 worth of work on that $2 million project, he's doing $800,000 worth of work on the $7 million dollar project. So I'm still dealing with one electrician. So but backing up here, I've made sure and sometimes there's some challenges to do this, that, okay, I'm not going to bid these couple of jobs because I don't want to grow so big that I lose touch and I lose the ability to have this culture, there's been a number of times where Oh, I could grow it to $20 million, then I'd have to, you know, of course, hire more people. And that's how that works. And then I have more people to manage. And then I have layers of management. And then I'm no longer really in touch with what's happening. And my former employers, there were projects where I did the whole entire project and the boss never showed up at all, I got all done at the end of the case to the to the future, the customer and he was happy and they moved in and I went on to the next job it was that's just how it was. Now, maybe my owner met with their owner behind the scenes and I didn't even know that that happened. But I know he never showed up on the job or anything like that. Because my superintendent and I would say we've never seen so and so was never here so so there's that challenge. You know, we talked about the guy from NML you know, he hasn't met all 5000 people and that company can't but you know, but it doesn't mean he wouldn't be nice and and the same kind of person that you know that I met when he didn't know me from Adam and I was one of three Are people from the local high school that was at an event that he was at? So, you know, I guess it's, it's stay yourself no matter what. And you pointed out, you know, being humble, if you're a business owner, that's probably the best thing you can do is to, you know, sir, sure, treat yourself but I tried to treat myself quietly or or, you know, I don't know, I don't know the right term, but just don't flaunt it if you have something, but I don't. But things have never been my thing. So there's nothing really for me to flaunt.
 
Leighann Lovely  40:36
You don't want to drive around in a in a Mercedes or No, How about how about a Yvette Corvette? No, does not
 
Mark Schneider  40:45
interest me in the least in the least. And I am starting to look at my next used car. Because
 
Leighann Lovely  40:53
they're just, they're just as expensive as, as new cars.
 
Mark Schneider  40:57
They are, I'm just having some I'm starting to have some mechanical issues. And I'm like, do I let them snowball into a big one? Or do I just, you know, upgrade to something a little newer, and so, so it's, you know, the size of the company, and like I said, when the employees help us, you know, maintain or, or get, get to a volume, that's wonderful. I also, another thing that I do is, I pay my employees, whether we're busy or slow, the busy part, maybe I'll throw it, but if we're slow, and I'm like, go home, be with your family, or work in the garage, or cut the grass or do whatever, I'm still gonna pay you because I value you all year round, whether we're busy or not. And so there's some times where maybe they're gonna work 50 hours a week, but then there's a lot of other times they're only working 38, or whatever. And that's fine. They've come to they've come to know that I will take care of them there isn't there isn't on the lay you off. And so that's something else. Yes, I'm taking money out of my pocket to say, you know, there's very few times that that has happened. But that's, that's what we've decided to do. No, we're going to take care of you no matter what. Because they still have expenses. And I know And with today's today's world, I know that they could they could get a job somewhere else. I know somebody would hire them. They're all great, great people, and I want to keep them. I want them to stay with me as long as they want to stay with me. That's great.
 
Leighann Lovely  42:31
That's great. So we are coming to time, and I have a question of the season. I hope you had the opportunity to look at that. So if you could change something about your job or the practice that people have in your role, what would that be?
 
Mark Schneider  42:50
Well, in my position, I'm wearing all the hats. I'm marketing I'm, well, I know marketing, I'm not I actually get help with marketing from from some people. HR is the one thing that I would love to change, I'd love to be better at remembering to remembering to not just think I think my employees often verbally, but I'd like to do more. And I'd like to do more of such as, hey, here's a gift certificate for you and your wife or family to go out to dinner. And so it probably comes in spurts. My employers might tell you, yeah, we don't hear anything from Mark and then all of a sudden, we'll get a gift card out of the blue. And hopefully that's a, that's a nice thing. So if there was one thing that I could change it would be to remember, and it's probably as easy as just putting something in the calendar, but I haven't done it to remember how to continually thank my employees for what they do. And, and make them understand that they are valued. That's probably the biggest thing. You know, I don't want to get into the complaining that I don't like HR, but
 
Leighann Lovely  43:59
well, you're, hey, you're not alone. You know, most people did not start a business to you know, have to do the, the HR stuff to have to do even the marketing the sales. Most people start a business because they love the thing that they do. Right.
 
Mark Schneider  44:21
Right. But I love construction. I love what I do. I love helping people get into their buildings. You know, I say you dream it and we'll build it. What do you what do you want to do? I help people with their dreams, all the different businesses that I have helped those people get into buildings, or spaces in a strip mall or whatever. Their dream was to have a club Pilates or to have a Dunkin Donuts or to have a nail salon or hair salon or all these different things that I've gotten in through the years. That was their dream and I was part of their dream, you know, and and many of them have refer me to their friends that were trying to have their dream to do. Yoga six down in Oak Creek. That was the latest one that we finished. I never thought you'd do yoga in 100 degree room with 40% humidity, but that's what she's got going and people love it. So
 
Leighann Lovely  45:18
I am not a big fan of sweating and being hot and
 
Mark Schneider  45:24
there's a lot of different fitness categories out there. You know, I'm going to be starting a rumble in Brookfield soon that that one's punching bags and barbells and things like that while somebody yells at you with music playing really loud.
 
Leighann Lovely  45:38
Is that Rachel? It is Rachel. So she recently was on my podcast talking about about Rambo. That is awesome. So you're helping her with is this location
 
Mark Schneider  45:50
to the Guitar Center on Blue Mountain Calhoun in Brookfield.
 
Leighann Lovely  45:54
Okay, so I thought she had one location built out or was that just a preview? I think that was a preview. Okay. All right. So she had some areas set up where she gets one,
 
Mark Schneider  46:03
but she's, I thought she was looking to do three eventually.
 
Leighann Lovely  46:06
Awesome. Yes, I think she is. Yep. She's gonna be expanding and awesome. Well, that'll be fun. I can't wait to see how that turns out when you're finished with that. Yeah. Well, Mark, if somebody wants to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?
 
Mark Schneider  46:21
So a couple of ways. One is to call us at 262-784-1010. The other way is to look us up on the web, of course, www, that all osccinc.com and then that'll have all our email addresses and everything on there free to find us and you'll be able to see a whole pile of pictures and descriptions of projects that we have done.
 
Leighann Lovely  46:48
Awesome. This has been an awesome conversation. I really appreciate you coming on and talking with me today.
 
Mark Schneider  46:54
Thank you for having me.
 
Leighann Lovely  46:56
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support. Without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, to follow us, like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPY
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
employees, years, call, owner, company, business owner, work, business, brookfield, walk, starting, project, job, plumber, money, culture, humbleness, family, service, client

Candidate Experiences Should Be More Important to Everyone!

There has been a great deal of negative social media about recruiters and how they work, I thought it would be a great time to bring together a couple of recruiters to talk about our industry and what we do. Join us for a great conversation about the world of candidates, recruitment, and how the industry continues to change and evolve.  
 
Contact -
 
Morgan Sbabo - https://www.linkedin.com/in/morgan-sbabo-387a3b185/
 
Chenae Erkerd - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chenae-erkerd-j-d-racr-%E2%80%94-out-of-office-798b2389/
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  I have a special treat for you today. On today's episode, I am bringing together two additional recruiters to talk alongside me who's also got the 20 years of experience in recruiting one way or another and I'm extremely excited about this conversation. I've got Chenae Erkerd, who earned her bachelor's degree from St. Augustine University, and juris doctorate degree from North Carolina Central University School of Law. After graduating Chenae decided to pivot into human resources to become a recruiter. She has recruiting experience in higher education, healthcare and big tech. along her journey. She has picked up tips and tricks that will help job seekers make their search easier. Chenae is committed to helping the community learn networking techniques to catch the eye of recruiters and hiring managers. Her goal is for everyone to win. She is originally from Camden, New Jersey, but currently resides in Durham, North Carolina with her husband, Terrence Erkerd, and their two dogs, Bain and Kodak. I'm also joined by Morgan suavo. She is a direct hire recruiter with 16 years of agency recruiting experience. She has filled entry level to C suite positions across every industry you can think of. She has dedicated her time to helping not only her clients to have the best experience but to make sure that her candidates become partners in creating their own success. She currently lives in California with her family but is looking to relocate to the Wisconsin area soon. She's a military spouse, mom of three and dog mom, welcome ladies, I am so excited to have this amazing conversation today. This has been a hot topic that you're seeing all over LinkedIn, Facebook, wherever you go, you see comments about recruiters comments about ghosting comments about my resume didn't get through because it got blocked by an AI bot that kicked me out. And I am so excited to welcome Morgan and Shinae to the conversation today. So why don't you start out by giving me a little bit about your background? Morgan, why don't you go first? Tell me a little bit about yourself.
 
Morgan Sbabo  03:34
Morgan Sbabo so I've been doing recruiting for about 16 years all agency. I didn't have a break where I did about six months of corporate recruiting and it just wasn't for me. So I do direct hire placement across the board. All industries right now I specialize in manufacturing. And I've done everything from skilled all the way up to the C suite level.
 
Leighann Lovely  03:58
Awesome. Chenae, why don't you tell me a little bit about our audience a little bit about, you know what you do?
 
Chenae Erkerd  04:05
Yeah, so my name is Chenae Erkerd, I been recruiting Now it's interesting, because when people say they've been in recruiting for like, 16 year old like a baby. So I've been in recruiting, I'm a recruiting baby. And I've officially been in recruiting now for four years, one month in about a week or so I'm not counting but you know, whatever. So I started in so I originally wanted to be an attorney, I pivoted from legal into higher education into recruiting pivoted again into healthcare, recruiting and now officially pivoted into big tech. Happy to be here.
 
Leighann Lovely  04:41
Awesome. And you are a baby because you know when you hit that 10 year mark, and you're still recruiting, you're you're you're a lifer. I think I've tried to leave recruiting. I've tried to leave the industry if Morgan's making a face at me But once you've made it a certain, a certain point, you know that you're going to become a lifer. It's one of those things that you just keep. And I've talked to many, many of my counterparts in the industry who have said, Oh, I'm leaving the industry. And then a year later they're back. It's it's just right, Morgan.
 
Morgan Sbabo  05:23
Yeah, I think for me, I was talking to my kids this morning, too. Sometimes it becomes like, recruiting is like an addiction, basically, like, you have your highs and your lows. And it's like, you know what I mean, it's an adrenaline rush. Sometimes when you got those candidates go in, and you're going through the whole process. So for me, it's kind of like I'm, I personally am addicted to recruiting like, I couldn't do anything else. I don't want to.
 
Chenae Erkerd  05:45
I love it.
 
Leighann Lovely  05:46
Yeah. It's, there's, there's one, the rush that goes with, yep, I'm going to fill this. And then the, the candidate that comes back at the end of the processes and says, Wow, this is, I love this job. Like, thank you so much for helping me. And a lot of people and I want I wanted to state that because some people think, Oh, well, why are you addicted? Is it the money? Is it the, but at the end of the day, for me personally, it's been the letters that people have written me, it's been the candidates who have come back and said, Wow, this is like my dream job. Thanks for hanging in there and helping me find a job. And, you know, that's personally why I've, why I've stayed in it.
 
Chenae Erkerd  06:36
Yeah, for me, it's been like, if you, when you make an offer it you can literally see the person's life change, like, right in that moment, you can see like, they have literally been on their last or they've had enough. And then you say, I want to make you an offer of this. And you completely see like, it changing, you can see the hope that they have in their future at that point is for me, as if nothing better.
 
Morgan Sbabo  07:05
One of my moments was I had a gentleman who I called and offered a position to him. And he said to his son, while he was on the phone, he was a single father. And he said, Go get your shoes on. I'm going, we're going to go buy you that toy. And it was like, that was that moment. Like, I wanted to cry, because I was just like, You know what I mean, that was that life changing moment. And I think for me, like I mean, as most recruiters who are in this for so long, that's just that's why we do it. Because we get to make that difference. Right?
 
Leighann Lovely  07:36
Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. So unfortunately, in the, you know, especially because of social media, and over the last couple of years, recruiters have been getting just kind of a bad rap and getting, you know, bombarded with this negativity around the idea that we don't either care, or that we're, you know, ghosting people or so I wanted to bring, you know, we all come from different kinds of different industries, right, you know, Morgan, you, you're in the staffing realm Shinae, your your corporate recruiter, myself, I'm more of an independent recruiter. So taking these three different points of view, and some of the media that's out there, some of the posts that you see people just slamming our industry, I'd love the opportunity to just, let's talk about it.
 
Chenae Erkerd  08:40
Yeah, I'll start. So I think one of the things that I always tell people, is that accountability has to be taken somewhere, right? I, from time to time, I've ruffled some feathers. And I'll say something to the effect of candidates will also go so to like, we talked about this right before, you know, we hit record, so it can, this will also ghost us. I've also, I've also will say something, I'll also say something to the effect of give us grace, because we're only one person. And so people will say, Oh, I've been ghosted, people, recruiters will set up, you know, meetings with me, and they won't show up to the meeting. Now, there are recruiters who who just don't do a good job at the communication part that they need to do in order for candidates to understand why they did not show it to me and I think a candidate is Oh, that. I also think on the other hand, though, that I asked I think candidates should also and I also ask quite a bit that Kenyans do devote give us grace for recruiters like us who genuinely want to help who literally I myself Whoo hoo dedicate her personal time, more personal time at this point for my community than it is for myself, who dedicates her personal time to wanting to make sure people when it is difficult to change the narrative or the mindset of the candidate who was traumatized by the recruiter before me. And so I understand the weight that a candidate holds. I was talking about this yesterday, the candidate urgency is different than our urgency at times, because it's the kin that that needs to job. I also charged the candidates, though, to understand that our urgency is also going to have to be elevated or heightened in a way because dependent depending on the kind of recruiter you are, will depend upon it, that recruiter will get commissioned based off of your salary. So I charge accountability mutually on both ends, because recruiters do get a bad rap. But from the recruiter community, so two candidates, and there there are times when candidates don't know that, depending on how you talk to a recruiter at times, can depend upon whether that recruiter goes to Morgan and Leanne and Sarah and Jake and James and Stephanie, and Monique and whoever, there are times when our community will talk to each other and say, so I have the same experience with him or her or I have the same experience with him or her and your name, will follow that to a point where it'll be difficult for you to break down the barrier of getting the job. So while recruiters are not always professional, and always give you the best experience, I charged the candidate to do their best is not always really perfect, but do their best to stay as professional as possible. If if recruiters if you don't have a good relationship with a recruiter go to go find a recruiter and keep searching recruiters and shopping around with recruiters. And so you find land one who gives you the best experience and the best relationship that you need for your job search. But we are getting a bad rap and it does suck. But at the same time, I have to agree with the candidate pool to an extent that not all recruiters are perfect. Right. And in mutual respect, though, in the recruiting community, we also have experience with candidates and not all candidates are perfect. So it's expecting us expecting everybody?
 
Leighann Lovely  12:31
Well. And to add to that, you know, if if if a candidate, if you ask a candidate, you need to check in with me as equally as I'm going to check in with you. And they choose not to eat there. I mean, you can you can lead a horse to water, you can't make them drink. I mean, there is you're talking about accountability, right? You know, if you want the job if you want me to work for you. And I'll say this to the candidates that I work with, I'm not going to chase you down. You have to take accountability and responsibility for your own search. And, Morgan, how many candidates do you work with? On any given day? How many candidates how many balls are in the air that you're juggling? And it same with you Shinae how many candidates are you trying to juggle? And because I think that candidates forget that you're not the only person that I'm working with. There could be 15 that I talked to in a day, there could be two, there could be 20 people applying for the same job. I mean, today there's 150 applying for the same job.
 
Chenae Erkerd  13:49
And there were in the recruiters are also talking to the hiring managers, there is a heightened like, yeah, stakeholders that we have to do we have to juggle
 
Morgan Sbabo  13:57
and coming from an agency side. So we are working with not just one hiring manager for one single company. I currently am coordinating interviews for next week for six candidates with six different companies working with HR people who are checking in with six or seven different people. So you know, we have juggling communications for all of them. I tell candidates from the first time I talk with them. Look, I'm a mom of four. I'm married to someone in the military. I've got four dogs last I made prop the ball if I don't respond in a time that you want me to call me, text me this is my child email me however, just say hey, Morgan, you were supposed to send me that email. You didn't you're slipping however you want to say it to me. Say to me that way. And I'm okay with it. You're not going to bug me because guess what if I want to find you, I'm going to find you do the same thing to me.
 
Leighann Lovely  15:00
Yeah, you don't want Morgan hunting you down? Well, I'm kidding. So and it's, it's funny because you can tell. I have told candidates check in with me weekly. And then I will, I'll talk to them. And then in two weeks from two weeks go by, and I'm like, Okay, let me call them. Are they still available? What's going on in their world? And I call them and they're like, oh, yeah, I'm still looking. And I'm like, Why haven't you checked in with me? Like, you need to advocate for you need, you need to be your number one, advocate for yourself, right? If you're still looking for a job, and I'm out here trying to market you, or trying to get you in front of a hiring manager, but I don't hear from you, you're going to drop to the bottom of the list. If you're a candidate who's calling me twice a week, then I know that you are absolutely hungry to find that job. And you're going to be the one that constantly comes to mind when opportunities come up.
 
Chenae Erkerd  16:11
That's confirmation. I say that on LinkedIn all the time. So there are candidates who will reach out to me and asked me, so how do I how do I get on a recruiting radar? How do I stand out like we all get those kind of like generic run of the mill type of questions. I tell candidates all the time. If you're on LinkedIn, and you comment under a post that I write, you are in my DM, you come to my virtual events and you comment, you react to posts there, you're going, I'm gonna say, Oh, I see him or her all the time. And then once they send me a DM, and they go shut down, need some help. It's almost like a second nature that I go, Oh, what's up, I see you all the time. What can I help you with? Or if I'm doing like a one off event on a Saturday, and they come all the time, if I can, at that point, say your name, even though I've never met you in person, and you have gotten to a point where you stood out. So being like literally bugging us and being on our radar, you suppose a bug that's that's our that's our job to receive it? Right?
 
Morgan Sbabo  17:14
I've done the same thing. I've had candidates who reach out to me connect with me talk to me on LinkedIn, and then I'll see a post that someone else has posted a job they're hiring for, and I kind of that person in the comments, because that candidates name come straight to my head because they're constantly in communication with me. They're constantly and communication wise, like Shinae said, is liking post it's comment saying it's, you know, making sure my DMs, like making sure that I know your name, because once I know your name, I'm not gonna forget it. That's one thing about recruiters, we don't forget that. We don't forget the
 
Chenae Erkerd  17:47
people who, especially people that like we were not going to relate to everyone. So let me start there. Because all of us come from different backgrounds, different walks of life. So we're not going to relate in every single facet. But there are times where there is something about a candidate that, like I can see myself in you that it helps it kind of our spidey senses go Oh, snap, like, let me pay a little bit more extra attention, doesn't mean we're going to take our attention off of everybody else. So I 100% agree with Morgan.
 
Leighann Lovely  18:17
And I like what you just said that we're human, we're not going to connect with everybody. Which is why when when the way that you need to be an advocate for yourself is that if you do do an interview with somebody, and you don't feel like there has been a connection made, go find a recruiter who you do have a connection with because an eminent and it's I was gonna say it's sad to say it's not sad to say it, you truly have to be a salesperson for yourself not. And let me clarify, just to your recruiter, because not everybody can be a salesperson. And that's why you're coming to a recruiter so that they can advocate for you advocate for you a different opportunities. And that's, you know, if a recruiter is reaching out to you, excellent. But you need to be open honest with that recruiter in order for them to help you. And if you're not if there's if you're not happy, you know, if they don't have anything for you, and you know, at that moment, and you're not making a connection with them, it's okay. Find somebody that you do, make a connection with, that somebody you feel comfortable with, that you feel like could assist you in finding your next opportunity. And so I love that you brought that up that not every recruiter and every candidate are going to jive together. I mean, it's it's that's just the way the world works right.
 
Chenae Erkerd  19:54
And the hardest part about that is people take their personnel and is it is not It's very much a thing of we want to help you. But there are times when this recruiter can't like. And it's not because we don't want to, it's what I my level of expertise, or what I recruit for does not fit your skill set. So I can't help you. I can give you tips and tricks on how to prepare for the next opportunity or how to approach the next recruiter. But personally, I'm unable to help you. So it's in from that level of honesty, I've learned that candidates appreciate. And that level of honesty recruiters should be able to have. And there are times when I've had to tell candidates there are so if you're ghosted, one of the reasons why you could be ghosted, and I've done this before, I've had to come back and check myself on it, where if we reach out to a candidate, and we didn't thoroughly investigate their skill, set their level of expertise for our particular role, we've gotten that candidate excited about this role, we've then literally realized, they're not going to be a good fit. So it's easier for me not to follow up, then to take it and admit that I was wrong and have to eat it. So I do my best not to do that and just say, hey, you know what, actually, I made a mistake. Or I've actually changed that to do to go to my hiring leaders and say, Hey, I have so and so I found them on LinkedIn, or wherever I was searching. Do you mind taking a look at their skill set real quick? Are they an ideal candidate for your role? If yes, then I reach out to the candidate, but it's recruiters sometimes can can get, we can get really excited. For those of us who absolutely love our jobs, we can get really excited when we felt when we feel like we have found that ideal candidate, and we were wrong. And if we're wrong, it's really hard to go back to that candidate who was probably desperate to then say, so by the way, I was wrong. You are not the right candidate. Like how do you tell a candidate that right? So it's easy for a recruiter to not say anything further to just go on about a business? That's although very wrong, it is very real. So I want candidates to understand that if you are ghosted, it is still wrong on behalf of the recruiter, but just go on to the next recruiter.
 
Leighann Lovely  22:18
And you're right. It's it is very humbling. It is very, almost somewhat embarrassing when you go Oh, okay. Well, yeah, I totally missed the mark on that one. But we're human. That's, that's the reality of it. We're human beings that make mistakes.
 
Chenae Erkerd  22:44
Yeah, we're not forgiven often.
 
Morgan Sbabo  22:49
Still do it. You know, sometimes you see those things. And then the person you talk to somebody that you connect with, and then you're like, you go back, and as you're doing your write up, or you're reviewing it to max up. So what happened was, someone had to do it, and I go back to candidates, and I'll tell them, Look, you know, I've kind of been through your resume. And here's what I saw. And yeah, it's, it's kind of blowing to the ego, when we are sitting here going, like, Ah, now I gotta call him back and tell him it's not gonna work out. So what I tend tend to do is look at other roles that I have available with other clients and see where I can get him in, or will FYI, that person to a client that we have set up a profile and then send them out to our clients who have got the seller candidate, here's their experience, do you have something just so that person knows that I'm still trying and I'm still trying to push? Here's a different thought. And here's something I've been saying. For over the last year, a lot has happened, and especially the agency, part of the recruiting industry. In 2020, we had a very slow year, in 2021. It was one of the hottest years in recruiting. Everyone was hiring. Everyone was hiring recruiters, even recruiters without experience. And when you do that, and you hire in mass, you're not giving proper training. So I honestly feel that the candidate experience part wasn't in that training. And fortunately, that's where we started seeing a lot of problems. In my opinion, that's kind of
 
Chenae Erkerd  24:38
Yeah, I was trained in higher education. And my mentor taught me about the candidate experience even before I got to healthcare. So I agree with that. But to your point, Morgan, like, to your point, you're right, like, I wouldn't have known about the candidate experience for real when I started recruiting had I not good gotten under a senior recruiter who understood the candidate experience And who could teach me right from wrong? So, and there will be little things that I would do like it would be something to the effect of, if I if I disqualify a candidate, and and they got that disqualification email, my mentor would say, well, this actually was a good candidate. But now that you've disqualified them, don't put them back. Or, or I had done something when I had transitioned into healthcare. So I was working in patient transports, I was working on the patient transport positions. And I had made an offer to someone who did not even interview yet. But their names were the same. So what was hard was, their names, their first names were the same, and their last name was similar. So I went to the wrong name and made an A made a call and made an offer. So when I went back and looked at my sheet again, I was like, Oh, crap, I made an offer to the wrong candidate. And so I went back, and I said, So candidate, I made an offer to you without even thank you interview. Yeah, it was like, No, I was confused about the call, but I was gonna accept the offer and then went, and we just laughed. And so it was the good thing about that was he still he still interviewed, and I actually was still able to make him an offer eventually. But it was on me to go back to that candidate and say, You know what, I made you an offer. And I apologize, and I really hope this doesn't mess up your day. And I explained to him that you guys's names were similar. So it was my it was my mistake. And so he was like, No, I get it. I was gonna accept it. I won't go ask some questions. I said, if I was you open medical questions. And we just laughed about it. So just being able, just being able to have that honest conversation and to admit like I was wrong, I think candidates respect that a lot more.
 
Leighann Lovely  26:56
They, I, I completely agree. The the honesty and the humility, when we accept responsibility for making a mistake. But here's what I love about and here's where are your two roles differ. Morgan has the ability that if a candidate doesn't qualify for one role she's working on, she can then market that out. She now you come from the corporate environment, people are applying or you're sourcing? Unfortunately, you know, you can you only have so many places within your organization. And if they get disqualified, you know, it's kind of like, so at some point, you're going to have to let them know that, you know, they're not qualified for your organization, which is why you have a network of individuals, I'm just, I'm assuming that you probably work with like, Hey, this is a really great candidate, they're just not right for, you know, the company I represent.
 
Chenae Erkerd  27:57
Or, for me, it would be the position that I'm recruiting for or so for me is always is always I have, I have colleagues who I can shop that can around and hand them off. But there are times when I'm just like, I don't think they're going to be a good fit for this particular role. I've also had candidates that may not be may not have gotten into the company that may, I may know another recruiter that can help them better than me. And so, I mean, I just tried to build a network that us as recruiters can get together in see where the candidate can land.
 
Leighann Lovely  28:34
Yep. And that's awesome. And I was talking to Morgan about that yesterday to be able to have a community because a lot of people think for recruiters, especially recruiters who are on commission. A lot of people have gotten the idea that for recruiters, it's all about just the money. And for me, of course, you know, I work for money. I don't know anybody in the world who doesn't go to work in order to get paid. I mean, that's just that's why we work right. But we choose our industry. And we choose what we do. And those recruiters who are great at what they do care about the people that they work with. I've met I mean, I've met hundreds, hundreds of recruiters throughout my career. I've been in it nearly 20 years so I got some time on on Morgan even
 
Morgan Sbabo  29:31
Started earlier than mean we're the same age
 
Leighann Lovely  29:36
but I've met hundreds of recruiters and the ones that are great at their job. And this is not a this is not a boast. This is not a hey, that a girl that a boy that uh this is not a but they have a tendency to be the ones that are still taking calls from their candidates at seven o'clock at night. They're still taking you know, calls or answering texts on the weekends? Because they actually care. And they're like, oh, you know, I just want to let this person know what's going on. And again, I'm not I'm not advocating for working 24 hours a day. But they're the ones that seem to always be there for their candidates. And the ones that actually get involved and get to know these people beyond just what do you do for a living Morgan smiling, because she can probably tell you everything about the some of the people's lives that she works with, I know she can. There's been times where I've told Morgan, you need to cut this person off, she thinks you're her mom. She becomes a life counselor to everybody she works with no, I'm kidding. But I mean, and then there's recruiters who are transactional, and they do the interview. And that's the way I was in the beginning. Because years ago, that's the way it was. All I want to know about is, but we also have to remember that there is a fine line between what we can ask and what we can't ask. And as Morgan was saying, recruiters were being hired with no training. And we have to be careful to make sure that we're not imposing, you know, on their life or crossing over any lines. And if that individual chooses, to get to know us, all the better.
 
Morgan Sbabo  31:35
I mean, recruiting is all about building a personal relationship with these people. And it's, I mean, it's all professional, but still, they want to know they can trust you. They want to know you're a human, they don't want there's this whole thing about these bots out here. And they want to make sure that you know, one of those, you know, and like you said, making a transactional call, like, I will tell you, I'm not a used car salesman, plain and simple. If I'm a candidate, I just recently had a candidate who just kind of, there were some red flags, and a lot of them had to do with attitude. I just told them that I didn't think it was going to be a good fit with my client, I'd let my client know, they're no longer interested, because of the way they were behaving like, I'm not going to put you out of my clients business. And know that in three, four weeks, there's going to be issues, whether it be personality, whether it be attendance, whatever it may be, I'm just not going to do it because I am about the candidate experience, but I have to be about my client experience as well. And I'm here to build long lasting relationships. With both my clients and my candidates, I've had candidates who have started, they've had issues going on at the business that they're at, because I do direct hire placement, they've had seen some issues came to me. And I facilitated that conversation between them and HR, so they felt comfortable because a lot of people when you start a new company, you don't feel comfortable, you don't want to be the quote unquote, problem child. But I facilitated that and been able to make sure that there's that communication and make sure it's established. And they've said it and things have been fixed. So it's knowing you have to build a rapport with them so they know they can trust you.
 
Leighann Lovely  33:24
Absolutely. Now that you brought up something that let's let's put this to rest, because I just I I love this question or I love this and it and I giggle every time it gets brought up
 
Chenae Erkerd  33:39
Can you guess is it the applicant tracking system? Oh gosh, yes
 
Leighann Lovely  33:42
it is. So I'm the candidate well I applied to the position and I know that you know the applicant tracking system must have just like disqualified or it didn't put me through or so do a eyes applicant tracking systems or any artificial intelligence disqualify applicants so that they are never seen? Is there a big black hole when resumes gets sent that that you know disqualify people or make their resumes you know, disappear into a black hole?
 
Chenae Erkerd  34:28
Here's an interesting thing and my experience in my experience, I have never heard of an AI take like doing our job. That's that's actually the recruiters job so so when when people apply into a position in any company, they're going to be most of the time required questions you have to answer. If you answer no to any of those required questions, more Most likely the recruiter got those required questions from the job description that was written by the hiring managers. If you answer no, the system says you don't meet the minimum qualifications for that role. So you're going to be automatically disqualified. That is not the same thing as saying, Did I beat the applicant tracking system? Because it's how you answered the question based on how you completed your application. If you say yes to those required questions, and you make it to the recruit recruiters view, the recruiter will manually go through your resume and the job description and the notes that we'd have taken after we have met with the hiring manager before the position is even posted. We go through all of that we review all of that against your resume, to make sure that you actually do meet those minimum qualifications. Because what candidates will also do is they won't answer yes to those questions. And they typically don't meet the minimum qualifications. So we have to make sure that we do another check, to ensure that we can actually send you over to the hiring managers. We also this is LeighAnn. Going back to your first question about the bad rep that recruiters get, we also get a bad rep if if you say you meet the minimum qualifications, but on paper, your resume says you do not or how you wrote your resume says you do not. We will if we if we ended up sending you over to the hiring manager just for quote unquote, I wish I could see my air quotes, but quote unquote, for a chance to sit in front of a hiring manager to explain your experience. There is a legal ramification to that. So we send you over and you don't meet those minimum qualifications. This is the part where all of the candidates disagree with me. So I'm completely It's okay. And this is the part where I get bashed, but it's okay. So there are times when if we send you over, and there is a candidate in it amongst the 1000s of people that have applied for this role, all it takes is one candidate for them to reach out to the legal part of the companies we work for or for them to retain an attorney, to go through that job description, go through that resume and literally compare them, and then say, this company discriminated against me. If that then happens, every single person that is in line, and had had a chance to touch that application of the person who was hired, we are all on the hook to understand why this person was hired over the person who is now suing the company. If the person that was hired, technically didn't meet all those minimum qualifications, but the hiring manager just felt like they wanted to give them a chance, then that means we did something wrong. Right? So I've had people say, Oh, that's not gonna hold up in court, but it's a reality that we have to deal with. And so, so, so long is long answer to answering the question of is there a such thing as applicant tracking system? In a way? Yes, because you have to answer required questions, but how you answer those required questions is going to depend on how far you get in that bucket. Right.
 
Leighann Lovely  38:21
And people who think that they can beat that is sorry, I'm gonna let Morgan dive in here real quick.
 
Morgan Sbabo  38:29
So on top of that, it's like, those questions are set up manually by the recruiter. So it's not like something that's pre formulated by some applicant tracking system, your recruitment recruiter has actually gone in and set those up. I have worked with five different ATS systems over my career, and not a single one of them has ever disqualified a candidate. I get every resume for anyone who has ever applied to through our own company's website. Any company I've ever worked for, as well as any job board I've ever posted jobs on. I've had candidate two. Oh, yeah. Mark. Yes. And they're qualified and when I call them oh, well, I don't see plastics in your in your resume. Oh, I misunderstood the question. So when you answered you had six years of plastics manufacturing experience, you don't? Well, no. Okay. Then we're not qualified.
 
Leighann Lovely  39:33
Right. So and going back to what Janae said, the legal ramifications of the reason that companies put that requirement there and the reason that they will not budge on that expression, and they, what companies can choose to do is they can choose to repost the position with the new requirements. If they decide that they want to take a look at people who don't necessarily We meet the original requirements, but if that's what they are posting, and they're using an applicant tracking system, to prequalify them, and then they choose to hire somebody that does not meet that those qualifications just to clarify, they're basically saying, hey, everybody else that we disqualified prior to, you know, hiring this person, you basically were discriminating against, and we didn't give them a chance. So in order for them to, you know, decide that, let's say we're going to take out the five years of whatever experience, a company could choose to do that, but then they would have to repost the position and give the other applicants the opportunity to apply. And we've heard this, we've heard this before, where companies have, you know, with the whole AI thing, or whatever. And the reason companies are really being careful with this is because it was an error in the way that their AI was set up, and they got sued. So companies are really making sure that they're cracking down on, no, we will not accept anybody if they don't meet the specific qualifications. And if they choose to change those, it has to be reposted. It has to be re reviewed. And I think that a lot of candidates don't quite get that, especially if you're working in a very large company, or a company that would be a target for possibly being sued. Those are, those are real things that are happening in today's world. Not to mention, we're also living in a Sue world happy, right, or Sue, happy world, Sue world happy. Sue happy world. So I love the point that you brought up on that tonight. That's I mean, that's awesome.
 
Chenae Erkerd  42:01
Can I can I add a follow up question to that? Yeah. So what do you all think about? I saw that Morgan, what do you all think about recruiters telling candidates to if they don't meet 100% of the qualifications to apply anyway?
 
Morgan Sbabo  42:18
No. I mean, in all honesty, if you want to go shoot your shot, go ahead. But we're not swiping right and left here. Like it's tender. So basically, you shoot your shot, you're going to get your feelings hurt, plain and simple. Because you're going to get something saying, You're not qualified now. And we're talking like, minimum qualifications, like minimum experience, not looking at a job description, saying, Oh, I've done that before. Oh, I've done that. That's not what we're looking at. We're looking at minimum minimum qualifications. If you don't meet those don't apply,
 
Leighann Lovely  42:54
Ya know, if it's, if it's written, if it's hard, you know, pen to paper written that these are the minimum minimal qualifications? No, if it's one of those, like, nice to have. That's a different story. Right? So yeah, nice to have, you know, flex. But if it's an absolute minimum, minimum qualifications, you don't meet those, no, you don't apply. But if you're a little, like, on the, you know, what am I trying to come up with, if you're not quite as seasoned as they're looking for, but the job description is, you know, allowing for that, sure. You know, but again, Morgan's to Morgan's point, minimum minimum qualifications. It has to be, it has to be there, when I'm working with my clients, and they say, we absolutely need X, Y, and Z. I don't submit a candidate unless they have X, Y, and Z. Because my client is going to come back to me and go, What is this? They don't, why would I hire this person when they don't have X, Y and Z? I told you that I need that. Okay. It just makes me as the recruiter look incompetent. So if I'm, you know, interviewing candidates, it'd be like, Yeah, I think, yeah, I think we've covered that I think I go on.
 
Chenae Erkerd  44:28
And yeah, I got to ask, I asked a follow up question, because I've seen so many recruiters say, oh, apply anyway, if you meet 80% of the minimum qualifications. And while while and I've had I've also seen candidates where they've said, I've, I haven't met the 100% of the qualifications, and I got hired while and I've always said while that may be true, while you may have gotten hired anyway, one, again, I have a legal background. So we're gonna go back to the legal ramifications about that, but then to That's not true for everybody for a great majority. So it's, it's, it's misleading to tell a candidate, oh, apply anyway. Because like we're gonna say you won't get your photos are a great majority of people that if you tell them oh, if you meet 80% of the minimum qualifications, then go ahead and apply. A great majority of people in that pool are going to get their feelings hurt. I had a recruiter, I saw a recruiter almost be canceled on LinkedIn, because she posted the amount of people who apply for a role. And then she said, how many people she disqualify. And that sparked this conversation about minimum qualifications versus preferred qualifications versus well, maybe the hiring managers or even you, as a recruiter is incompetent with, with the job description that you wrote your skill set, and then what the kind of skill that the hiring managers are looking for, like, like, it sparked this whole thing, bashing her and I literally said to myself, but they would have 100 in so us however, many people don't meet the minimum qualifications, and y'all told them to apply anyway, it's still her job to disqualify all those people.
 
Leighann Lovely  46:17
Right? Right. And that's why we have to be careful when, and we have to coach, our hiring managers, when they're writing job descriptions. When they say I need a master's degree, or that's a minimum qualification. And we have to look at him and go, do you know how many people in the US have master's degrees? And then when you give them the actual number, they go, Oh, okay, a bachelor's degree. And then you say, Do you know how many people in the US have bachelor's degrees? And then they go in industry? Oh, so do you want that to be a minimum qualification? Or do you want it to be a preferred qualification, and then all of a sudden, what was a minimum qualification becomes a preferred qualification, and then it's just five years in the industry, or 10 years in the industry, or the verbiage becomes a bachelor's degree or equivalent experience, because all of the sudden, they're realizing that 40%, you know, that the amount of people who have a bachelor's degree is only about 40% of people, unless they're in a very specific industry, you know, engineer, doctor, and so on and so forth. I mean, people out there don't realize that the numbers of people who have bachelor's degrees or higher, are not very high. And it's just the fact and less and less people are spending the money to go and get bachelor's degrees. Well, okay, we are coming to time, and I could continue to talk for with both of you ladies for the next two hours. But to respect both of your time I have a question of the season, and I think I'm gonna get some fun answers from both of you. If you could change your job, or the practice that people have in your role? What would you change about it?
 
Chenae Erkerd  48:22
I'm gonna let Morgan go first. And she gets 16 years, and
 
Morgan Sbabo  48:28
I've got one. Um, so when you say practice, what are you? Are you looking at, like practices on how we do things? Yeah.
 
Leighann Lovely  48:36
I mean, if you could, if you could change anything about, you know, the way that that something that's happens in your job on a regular basis, or the practice that people, you know, have in your role? What would what would you change? What would you make different?
 
Morgan Sbabo  48:57
I would honestly, for me, it's going to be about the candidate. And if you're an agency client experience, so it's, it's a customer service issue. And it's humanizing, keeping that, that human interaction with people. And I understand like, we can't respond to, if I get 300 resumes a day, and they're not qualified yet, we're going to start, you get an automated response. I can't send a personal email to three. I don't know 290 candidates out of 300, who applied for a job, because then I don't have time to do anything else. So but it's still you need to have that human interaction and it's putting trainings in place and put processes in place for your employees, especially if you're bringing on new recruiters who've never done this who've never been in the industry and don't understand it or don't have a customer service element. And haven't worked in customer service. There are translatable, skills that come from other customer service industries. And you're working with different people from all walks of life. So it's better training into delivering a better customer service to your candidates and your clients. That's what I would change.
 
Leighann Lovely  50:23
Awesome. What about you today,
 
Chenae Erkerd  50:26
I would say, for the competence of the recruiter. So it goes along with, partly with what Morgan was talking about when it comes to the candidate experience. But it also ties into us understanding that we are the liaison between the candidate and the company, and whatever facet because if you are like Yulia, you're independent. Morgan is an agency and I'm with corporate. Either way, all of our jobs are similar in the fact that we are the liaison between the candidates in the company, part of our jobs. Because we're in the middle, we take the brunt of a lot of the bashing, it's the candidate bashes us for either ghosting that not responding at all, or not getting them through to the hiring manager as it does in our control. We also get bashed from the hiring manager of either not sending the right candidates. Although we are paying attention to JavaScript, I'm not sending the right candidate, or having to convince the hiring manager that there is not a perfect candidate. So either way, we do have we take on a lot of the mental part that goes along with juggling different stakeholders in our process. I in my everyday job. I had a hiring manager one day, say to me, Oh, and by the way, I'm going to look at every candidate that you send over. Right. So I thought to myself, because they're going to look at they're going to look at all of the candidates anyway. But I asked myself, Why did he feel the need to tell me that? And so I realized I said to myself, did another hiring manager that I work with, tell them how I work? Because I hold everybody accountable that I work with. So what month one of my directors said to me, should they you have reached a point where you've taught them how to treat you. Okay, great now, awesome, very good. And part of that is because I am someone who I demand a certain level of respect from everybody, candidate, CEO, director, whoever you are, I demand respect from everyone. So I will want the difference that I would change is I would want the confidence in the recruiters to increase because our confidence had our hands, our confidence have to be on par because of the level of sacrifice time and effort that we take to try to literally bring the ideal candidate candidate and talent into our companies. But then also, us either not getting as much accolades as we deserve, or us taking the bashing for something that's technically not even our fault. Yeah. So I would hope that our confidence would increase, and that we know how to separate business and personal so that we can give a better candidate and client experience.
 
Leighann Lovely  53:47
That's awesome. And I totally agree. You know, we're we're constantly being, you know, the ping pong ball in the middle, taking on the brunt of the stress. So, so, if somebody wanted to reach out to you, you're welcome to provide contact on how they can do that. So somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?
 
Morgan Sbabo  54:13
Look me up on linkedIN,
 
Chenae Erkerd  54:14
Yeah.
 
Leighann Lovely  54:17
LinkedIn, and I will I will put your, your guys LinkedIn in the show notes. So if somebody does want to reach out to learn a little bit more about about you, they can go ahead and do that. And I thank both of you so much. This has been an awesome conversation. You know, hopefully, you know, recruiters in general can can start to kind of dig out of this. I don't know this, this whirlwind of, of getting this bad rap that we've we've continued to kind of try to dig out of but I know that you know, we all have the idea that we can help and we want to help individuals find you know, work and anyways, Thank you so much for the opportunity to talk with both of you ladies today.
 
Chenae Erkerd  55:04
Thank you for inviting us.
 
Morgan Sbabo  55:06
Yes, thank you.
 
Leighann Lovely  55:07
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible so don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us, like us or share us have a wonderful day.
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
recruiters, candidate, morgan, people, recruiting, minimum qualifications, hiring manager, work, experience, company, disqualified, job, talk, applicant tracking system, resume, hire, apply, conversation, job description, person

Complex HR Simplified, Hiring and Firing and Everything In-between

A lifelong HR professional and consultant Susan Raemer-Rodriguez is the Chief HR Strategist at R & R Human Resources Solutions. Susie helps make complicated HR simple, we all know that in today’s world HR is constantly changing, and having a professional to assist is more important than ever. Susie helps with Hiring, termination, and everything in-between to make sure that people are treated with respect and that companies are protected. This is a great conversation that is well worth your time.
 
Contact Susie-
Website – www.gethrresults.com
Linkedin - linkedin.com/in/susanraemerrodriguez
E-mail - srr@gethrresults.com
Phone number -  847-867-7307  
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both, because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely let's get this conversation started.
 
Leighann Lovely  01:10
Susie, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really excited to have this conversation.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  01:15
Thank you for having me. I'm excited as well.
 
Leighann Lovely  01:18
So why don't you start off by telling me a little bit about yourself.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  01:22
Okay, so I am a human resources consultant. I have consulted for more years than I sat in the HR chair as an HR lady. I have been consultant most of my clients are small to medium sized businesses. In a lot of cases, they do not have a human resources department, but they have employees, so they need help sometimes. And I get involved with everything from hiring to saying goodbye to those people who are not in the right seats on the proverbial company bus. And everything that happens in between I help write policies, I help implement employment manuals, employee relations issues, lots of employee relations issues, I do a lot of recruiting, although not as an agency would do recruiting. So just as if and HR that I was, you know, the HR person for the organization, I get involved in recruiting, I get involved in getting people on boarded, and then everything through to off boarding.
 
Leighann Lovely  02:36
Awesome. So something that I noticed, you have a motto, that's and I love this, your motto is sophisticated, HR made simple. I love it. Because we all know that HR can be so unbelievably complicated. And And as I'm saying this, it's it's funny, because I just recently read a post on LinkedIn. That was it was actually a poll that said, Do HR professionals, do they require or should they people be required to have a degree? And I was wildly surprised that a lot of people were saying no, that HR professionals shouldn't be required to have a degree you're sort of. And as I was thinking to myself, or as I was reading that I was thinking to myself, this is part of the problem that individuals don't fully understand what HR professionals and people who said in those roles do.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  03:39
Exactly. So I think a lot of people think that HR is a payroll and benefits. And yes to do payroll and benefits actually probably could be better served by having an accounting degree. I've never been of the mind that HR people should be the ones processing payroll, you know, sometimes in a small company that happens, but I think that payroll is better left to the accounting professionals. And I do disagree with our I agree with you. But I disagree with all the people on the LinkedIn poll, who said that HR professionals don't need to contribute I think that's completely false. There's many university master's programs in organizational development, human resources management, as well as, as you probably know, certifications that HR professionals can obtain, you know, early on in their career and then even a little bit later on in their career at at a higher level. So I think it is very, whenever I recruit for an HR person, I always look for someone with a degree, always
 
Leighann Lovely  04:50
Right, someone with a degree and even someone who's, you know, Sherm, there's different involved it's Sherm getting certifications that are being on that, because laws are, are constantly changing and right, in order to keep up with those laws and HR is really, it's about compliance. It's so many pieces of what we do. And then of course, there's the human side of it.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  05:20
Exactly. But it's, oh, go ahead, I'm sorry, no,
 
Leighann Lovely  05:23
and I apologize, I was just going to finish up a saying, you know, and that's where I think that people, people get lost in that they think, human resources, it's supposed to be a, you know, a human as a resource for them. But, you know, as we all know, that has gotten sidelined. And HR is really about the watchdog for the company, the compliance piece. That is, and again, that's why I go back to your motto, sophisticated, HR made simple, because it is truly, it is truly a complex process.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  05:59
Exactly. And I'm of the mind. So a couple of things. It is really hard to be in compliance with every single law at every single moment. Because there's a lot of intertwining of laws, as I am sure you know, all the big acronyms out there, Ada FMLA, you know, just all sorts of employment laws that that a company based on their size has to be with, in compliance with and in terms of, you know, simplifying HR, because it can be complex, it, you can bring it down to a simple level. So, you know, for example, I'll use an example of a performance appraisal process, I often see and one of the things I do a lot when I start working with a company is I do what I call an HR assessment, where I do a deep dive into how all their processes are run, and what their documents look like, and how they're managing different functions and of quote, unquote, HR. But I see a lot of very complex performance management processes, you know, for pages and pages of forms and competencies, and all sorts of things that need to be filled out and it becomes all about the form. Right? It becomes all about filling out this form. And that's why people hate it so much. But it really doesn't have to be it's, it's a conversation, and it's a conversation that truly needs to happen more than once a year. Maybe we're formerly documenting it once a year. But we should be conversing as managers, we should be conversing with our, with our staff all the time. Nothing should be a surprise at the end of the year. And believe me, I've had many clients that wait until that time, to let the person know how much they hate them.
 
Leighann Lovely  07:59
Well, and it's interesting that you bring that up, because I was actually working with somebody who a group of employees that, that every year they they got that big long form that they were required to fill out. And this company said, If you don't fill it out and sign it, you don't get a race, you won't get your race, right. And this group of employees just decided that we're gonna we're gonna boycott this. It's this like seven or 10 page long document basically saying, What did you do for the company this year? How do you feel your performance was? How do you think you could have improved and all of these just, I guess, outdated, almost questions, just to the point where the, you know, the employers were just like, so they they refused. It leaves, like a large group of employees refused, just outright said, I'm not doing it. Like, you never asked me through the year. You never talked to me about this through the year, we never discussed, I'm refusing to sign it. I am refusing to sign this document. And the company was kind of like, what what do we sell it right now? What like,
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  09:10
What do we do now,
 
Leighann Lovely  09:11
If you've got, you know, a large handful of employees who just outright are going to refuse because they disagreed with something maybe on that forum or
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  09:21
Club because it sounds like they wanted their increase. But in order to get that increase, they had to fill out this form. And that's why I'm a big proponent of separating those two processes. Right.
 
Leighann Lovely  09:34
And, and the end of the story was that they didn't sign the form, the company did end up giving them the raise because the alternative was, we don't give it to them and they leave.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  09:47
Right. So what are that? Right, right and and how did that help the employee in terms of what the performance management process is supposed to accomplish, which was coaching, counseling If necessary, you know, applying corrective action if necessary, what, you know what? These people associated doing a performance review with their increase? And really that's, that's wrong? It's interesting I have a current client now I'm sorry, no, do you want me to? Okay, so I have a current client that I'm working with now and you know, stepped into actually an eight an interim HR director role from a person who was very exact about how the processes go went. And so we have people constantly, can I have my performance review? Can I have my performance review? Because they know that when they do it, then they get their increase? Right? And so it isn't about how can I, you know, what are my goals? My career aspirations? Do you really care about me as a person as an employee? It's about what's my increase? And when am I gonna get that.
 
Leighann Lovely  11:03
And that shouldn't those two things should not be exclusive, it should be about, let's talk about your growth, let's talk about your career path, let's talk about and if a company if you are of a position where you get those incremental increases, whether it be once a year, whether it be twice a year, you're assessed at that, that should be more about the continuous conversation that is set forth with your manager, where you're having quarterly conversations, where you're having daily conversations, or maybe maybe weekly conversations of just touch points of, hey, do you need anything from me, you know, you're doing a great job, or we need to, let's, let's tweak this a little bit and do it. And again, I know that, you know, in companies that are hundreds of 1000s of people. But that's that's the point is that you shouldn't have a manager who's managing 1000 people, because clearly, that manager is not going to know every one of their employees, you need to take bite sized, you know, bite sized pieces here. And if you have a manager who's managing supervisors, each one of those supervisors should have only enough people that they know exactly what's going on in the work, you know, the work of every, every single one of their people.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  12:23
That they can truly be a good manager too. And that brings up another point is I'm also a big believer in doing assessments of the manager, like giving feedback, anonymously, of course, through a 360 or 180, I guess, if it's just the employees, but just giving the manager feedback, and how are they doing for their people? Because that's what it's all about.
 
Leighann Lovely  12:51
Right? And if if employees, if employees knew that they have the ability to, then this wouldn't have happened, you know, the whole I'm not signing my review wouldn't have happened if the employees felt that they had a voice to be able to say, hey, I don't agree with this process. Oh, I or this is, this is the reason, you know, if they had ever asked the employees, hey, how do you feel your manager does for you? How do you feel these processes are? Do you feel that these processes are effective? Because the company would have figured out that, oh, there's a problem with our process, and that the employees actually feel degraded by this process, right? They feel like it's just basically a bash session of here's what you need to do better. You did this, okay, better, but we're gonna give you your and I think it was, in this case, it was like a 3% raise for everybody. And they were all like, Oh, great. Here, I get my 25 cents, or, I mean, it's, it's basically an insult, you know, for this particular one, these people were like, some of these individuals were like, take your 25 cents and shove it where the, you know, where the sun don't shine.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  14:05
But it's a very old fashioned, I guess I'll call it right way of managing people. It's, you know, kind of the 70s 80s maybe way of doing things, you know, we're the bosses, you're the peons, and you do what we say, and you are happy with that. And that's how, you know, things worked in the 60s and 70s. And I think it was around the 80s where companies would big layoffs started happening and you didn't, you know, stay somewhere till you got your golden watch. And, you know, the children of I guess that was probably Gen X saw how their parents were treated by companies that they had put in a lot of time and effort to and then they were just like, Go Oh, and this new generation of millennials isn't gonna stand for that.
 
Leighann Lovely  15:06
Right?
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  15:06
Now we've got Gen Z coming to
 
Leighann Lovely  15:09
Right now. And it's an it's, it's interesting, I love the study of the generations, because you, you watch how they're how each group is influenced by, you know, the previous group and how they, you know, and of course that, you know, the oldest group always criticizes the work ethic or the decisions of the younger group. But in essence, they're criticizing that group for making decisions based on what they learned from thegroup in front of them.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  15:46
Well, and also were the parents of that group, correct?
 
Leighann Lovely  15:49
Yes. We're criticizing our own children for for trying to do it a different way. Because created this from the pains they had.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  15:58
Right? Right. The Boomers are the younger boomers, I'll say. And the Gen Xers are the parents of the millennials and the Gen Z ers,
 
Leighann Lovely  16:10
Right? So we criticize, we criticize their actions, yet, they're, they're making an attempt to do it better and different. Because they saw the pains that their parents went through or their grandparents went through. And they, they, they don't want to, they don't want to experience that they don't want to experience that. And it's hilarious, which is why I love the study of the evolution of how the generations change, you know, I was a latchkey kid, I. And I saw both my parents working, you know, hard as hell to provide and, and I mean, it was just, you know, and then layoffs and, and just amazing. It's amazing. If you were to really dive into the analysis of why each generation does what each generation does, you know, that the kids that come up, we, you know, they get a trophy, you know, trophies and you talking about, you know, participation trophies. Right.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  17:14
Exactly.
 
Leighann Lovely  17:16
And we created, we created the whole, like, Oh, you're not gonna congratulate me for showing up to work? To congratulate me,
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  17:25
I don't get that corner office. I have to actually do something to gain that that in the workplace. Right? Yeah. Well, would it be you're
 
Leighann Lovely  17:36
Not gonna, you're not gonna just pay me $80,000 A year for, this job.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  17:42
That's, that's another topic. I don't know, if we want to talk about the we're gonna mindset,
 
Leighann Lovely  17:50
We're gonna get into that. You do a lot of recruiting for your companies. And right now in this world, the idea, the mindset, what you just said, you know, the hiring in today's world, it's, and trust me, I've been around the block, you know, I've been around the block. I've, I've, you know, in the industry now hiring 20, almost 20 years. It is a it is a different animal. And obviously, every you know, every year that goes by things change, but right now, we are. It is unprecedented. You know, I say this, like every five years, like, Oh, my God, the world has changed so much. But no, we are truly in, you know, a time period in which somebody comes to me and they're like, Oh, I just graduated. And I was told that I should be able to make $70,000 At my first job. And I'm like,
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  18:46
Okay, no, you can want that. To get it. Right. Yeah, there's Yes, I've always said, and I've been recruiting problem for more years than you have. But back in the day when you ran an ad in the newspaper, and you've had to call the Chicago Tribune and actually read it to them, so we won't go there. That's become easier. But in terms of people's attitudes, and so what I was saying was, I've always said, even when there's a lot of candidates out there, it's always hard to find the people. Always it's obviously harder when there's not as many people out there, but it's always been hard to find good people. Okay, so having said that, what I keep in seeing these last couple of years is one, this unrealistic view of what my worth is in the marketplace? And to know, no courteous behavior, no etiquette, no thank yous No. follow ups No, go or I shouldn't say no ghosting And I get ghosted. I actually got ghosted the other day by an HR person, I should have called them and yelled at them because that's like our people. Right, right. I'm writing a search for an HR person. And my, I have a Calendly app and like, you probably have something like that. And it actually asks the person to reconfirm a few hours before the time that they're going to be there. And this person who will remain nameless, reconfirmed and didn't show up. I'm sitting on the Zoom call. No, I'm so sorry. I can't make it. Can we reschedule just so
 
Leighann Lovely  20:43
I've had that with recruiters. I've had recruiters ghost and I'm like, You You're a recruiter, you know, the paints. You know, the frustration, you know, the work that goes into setting up interviews?
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  21:01
Or HR card,
 
Leighann Lovely  21:03
Right? Yeah, absolutely. You just, it just got pulled from you, you are no longer you are no longer on our team. It's amazing. It is absolutely amazing. The amount of people the respect of time, people do not respect other people's time. And I that was always like, my, I grew up with a dad who used to say to me, if you're if you're late. If you're on time, you're early. Yeah, if you're on time, right, if you're late, if you're on time, you're late, if you're if you're just on time you're late, so you better be showing up there 10 minutes early to make sure that you know where you're going. And when I was young, and I was interviewing, he used to say to me, you need to drive there the day before, so that you know where you're going. So that there's no excuse as to why you can't show up and run. That's ridiculous. And then when I started interviewing, you know, living in it, I lived in a little tiny town. At the time, it was a little tiny town. Now it's exploding. But I lived in a little tiny town. Some people who are from the Wisconsin area will know it was a kind of walk population at that time. Like that's where my daughter went to camp. Right. So at that time population was like, I mean, it was less than 10,000. I think that now it's like 45,000. I mean, it's exploding, it's exploding. But at that time, it was under like the 10,000. Right, it was a very small town. And then I started interviewing closer to Milwaukee, which is, you know, like a 45 minute drive. And, you know, being this, basically a little small town girl going out into these areas. I was like, wow, now I understand because navigating that when you're you know, 2023 years old and going, I can't find this place. And all of a sudden made sense. Like, oh, that's why I'm driving here the day before, because it took me 20 minutes to find the building. And I would have been late,
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  23:09
Right? Because I'm taking it seriously, because
 
Leighann Lovely  23:11
I'm taking it seriously. And that was the way that I grew up. Again, I'm 42 years old. There is a there is a lot of people in my generation that didn't grow up that way, I'm kind of on the cuff, but I had a dad who was adamant about that kind of thing. And, and i i People still even in the tail end of my generation still are not a huge, they still have that issue with the whole, like not respecting people's time. But I was also you know, I was 18 when I got my first cell phone. So God, wow, that was
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  23:47
I was a lot older than that.
 
Leighann Lovely  23:48
I know. It's so strange. Like I was at that you mean they have an adult life but and the thing that used to drive me crazy. When I was out with one of my girlfriends, you know, we're having lunch or something and one of them with their phone would ring and sitting at a table. They would pick up their phone and just start having a conversation. And I'm like, we're out to lunch. Right? Hello. I'm here, right? I'm here in person. Now I know what occasionally happens. And people will say I'm sorry, I'm sorry, excuse me, I have to take this. And then they'll come back and say sorry, it was my wife or it was my daughter or was an emergency call. I that's there's been times where you know, I came out of a meeting and I had 21 missed phone calls because my daughter knocked her tooth out. Oh, we all have emergency phone calls that that we need to take but respect people's time right? Set a meeting show up if you set a meeting don't.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  24:48
Just cancel it what what's wrong with canceling correct Yeah, don't make don't make people chase you. Correct. Like I if you're interested if you're not interested in a job. So Someone asks you for another interview or even makes you the offer luck. Tell them Don't blow it off. Don't. I've had I've had that happen to where this just happened actually. candidate was so excited during the interview, and we made her the offer. didn't hear anything. And I call just to make sure she got the offer letter. Couple days finally said, Yeah, got it. And then she declined. Well, I, I feel like we had it.
 
Leighann Lovely  25:35
I feel like it's turned into a world where people are just so scared of saying no to somebody. And I'm like, I don't care. It doesn't affect me.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  25:45
I really could care less. If you decide to take something else. That's fine. That's up to you. Do you just tell me? Or tell me you're not going to show up? Yes, we could probably do a whole show about this. Leann? Right. Oh, I know,
 
Leighann Lovely  25:57
we could I know, we
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  25:58
have opinions and feelings.
 
Leighann Lovely  26:01
It's, I just I feel like that's the same thing with you know, again, I'm, you know, I'm a hardcore salesperson, to on top of, you know, being a geek in the HR realm. But I hate if I'm doing a cold, I don't care if you don't want to buy my product, like and I don't say that as like a in a mean way. I would rather have you say, hey, Leanne, thanks for calling. But I am not interested in your product at all. Right? Then have you go? Okay, this sounds interesting. Call me in a week. Or just like, I'll stop calling you if you say like, I will never ever buy from you. I'll go okay. I'll just mark you off my list. And I will never call you again.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  26:47
Right? Like, just say no.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  26:50
Yes, this. Just say thanks. But no, thanks. Alright, so easy peasy. That's That's it, and then we move on.
 
Leighann Lovely  26:58
Right? Right, then I can move on with my life. And you can move on with your life. And we've agreed that you're not interested. But it's the maybe call me? I don't know. I can't. What is with the decision making? Process? Take a stand.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  27:14
Right? Because, right,
 
Leighann Lovely  27:18
Here's the line.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  27:19
Right?
 
Leighann Lovely  27:20
Don't stand on it. Choose one side or the other.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  27:24
Right. Exactly. Exactly.
 
Leighann Lovely  27:28
So you utilize some behavior assessment tool, correct? Yes. And do you utilize that across the board just for hiring? How? Tell me.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  27:41
I use them a lot in the hiring process. Because that's actually I think, the best place to introduce to accompany the use the use of behavioral assessments, because it's just giving you more information about the person you're meeting. Because when you're meeting someone, hopefully, that's the best you're seeing right? You're seeing the best dressed, the best manners, the best. Smile, everything's the best. But what we really want to know is what are we going to get every day? And so using behavior behavioral, which I use behavioral and motivators assessments, but using those types of assessments gives you information about what are you going to see every day? What are you going to see when the person's not happy? What are you going to see when they're there, their kid was giving him a hard time or their spouse was giving him their significant other was giving him a hard time that morning, they got stopped by a train they got into, you know, what are you gonna see when when life gets in the way? And that's what you want to know about your people, not where not only where they went to school and what their experiences, but what how do they approach people problems, challenges, compliance procedures, things like that. So yes, I'm a big proponent, but I do try to incorporate for my clients that really like using those tools in the recruiting process, I do try to incorporate them into the communication process management process team building process with those companies.
 
Leighann Lovely  29:21
What are some of the tools, the assessment tools that it Do you mind sharing? Which ones you Yeah,
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  29:26
so I buy them, I'll give a plug for the company that has developed the specific tools that I use, it's TTI success insights. You can only buy their tools through a distributor of which I am and I've gone through training, I'm certified. There's many tools that can be utilized. But the two most popular ones that I use are the behaviors which tells you how which is disk. So lots of people are familiar with disk, so it uses the disk methodology. So it tells you how How someone behaves. The motivators. Driving Forces Assessment tells you why, what gets them up in the morning, what causes them to action, what's important, what's interesting, what, what, what's the why behind the how. There's also I also use EQ assessments, which we don't use in recruiting because those are not validated, or at least the company that TTI success insights, their EQ assessments are not validated to use in the recruiting process. But I certainly use those with employees of the companies that I work with when, you know, there may be some some issues with that just to help them improve because EQ can be improved, whereas behaviors and motivators don't really change so much. I have competencies assessments, which kind of looks at a variety of I think there's 25, different soft skills. So I'm a big proponent of using, but like I said, the behaviors and motivators are the most popular ones that I use in recruiting, and then and team building. Right? The EQ is kind of a one on one, it's not something you necessarily share with the rest of your team.
 
Leighann Lovely  31:15
Right? And so when you use those in the recruiting, I'm assuming that it's just a, Hey, I just want to use use this so that I can better understand some of the background drivers, you know, so did they do this before you interview them? After you interview them? How does that?
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  31:33
Well, since there's a cost associated with it, what we do is we use them to, we use them, once we get down to like the final two or three people. Okay, that's the point in the process, when we're interested, you know, at the first interview, we're not sure, obviously, not sure until you're finished with the interview, if this is the right person for our team, or we think it's the right person. So once we get past that first interview is when we do the assessment for the next step in the process. And also what I also use, and again, this is a process and a tool that I've used through TTI success insights. It's called job benchmarking. And so what we do, and this is done prior to recruiting, so what we do, what we're essentially doing is giving a voice to the job, if this job could talk, this is how it will behave. This is what would be important to the job in terms of motivators driving forces, and we and key accountabilities, what are the key accountabilities of this, why does this job exist? You know, why do we have this job in our company. And we do that we we use subject matter experts to, you know, those people who kind of touched the job. And then as candidates go through the process, and they do the assessment, we can compare them or I compare them to the benchmark. And this way, and we're not looking for an exact match, because we're never going to find an exact match. But what we can say is, this is what you said you was important before you met people. And you know, here's these people that you're meeting, which of course come with, you know, education and experience and skills and everything. And here's where they're off the mark, so to speak, right? So I you know, I don't say yes, hire No, don't hire. But essentially say, you know, low risk, medium risk, high risk, right, if you hire this person based on behaviors and motivators, you know, what's, what's your risk, right to speak. So, we use that to help in the entire process along with resume, interview references background check. And so I love to do job but Job benchmarking, because then we really know who's the best fit, right job.
 
Leighann Lovely  34:17
Interesting. Very interesting. So I've talked with a lot of people who who feel that resumes are just mean it's a great way to just like grab somebody's information really quick and see, you know, at a glance if they're qualified for the position, but I think the too many people put way too much stock in somebody's resume.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  34:45
Absolutely, and
 
Leighann Lovely  34:48
I and I've heard more and more people say, like, I I literally glanced at it, and then set the appointment if they are, if I feel that they're qualified, and then Never look at it again.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  35:02
Yeah, I, I, so I'm an old fashioned recruiter, meaning that I actually read the resume. I know, and I have an applicant tracking system. I'm not that old fashioned. So you know, all my resumes go into the applicant tracking system, but I don't use like keyword searches to find because I, I, I like to see how this person progressed, you know, right, try to imagine what type of decisions maybe they made along the path of their career. But yeah, I don't really use the resume a whole lot in the interviewing process. To me the resume and remember, resumes are not legal documents. So you can put whatever you want. The application form is the legal documents, right? But the resume you will, whatever you want. And I've had, I have one client that, you know, always tells me everything that's on his mind. And he's like, they've lied, they said this on their resume, and they cannot do this. And that's why we have to interview people. I mean, not that he hired, but you know, like, I said, Yes, people will call it embellishing. I don't want to call everybody a liar out there. But people embellish, right? Because they want to get the job. This to him, so many people want the job, like you have a great company. And it's a really interesting job and they want the job. So you know, but it's up to us to really, you know, ask the right questions, and to truly determine is this the right fit? And what's being embellished and what's not? Right.
 
Leighann Lovely  36:45
And, and again, it comes back to like, if you're looking at a resume for a quick second to determine whether or not this person is qualified. You got to make your resume look really attractive. Yes. So people are trying anything and everything to make it look really pretty. And in today's world, I've had multiple people say to me, Well, you know, this person has had three jobs over the last three years. And I'm like, yeah, they're like, they're a major job jumper. And I'm like, Yeah, but prior to that, they were at the same company for 20 years, or the same company. I see that a lot. I see. Right, and, and then I have to explain to my clients, like, think about what just happened in the worlds. I am seeing more and more resumes that have that have, they were at a company for 10 years. And then all of a sudden, they have these short stents just in the last couple of years, and
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  37:48
younger people like the people in their 20s, and maybe early 30s, like I have a 28 year old daughter. So her resume is not I mean, it's she's, you know, she wasn't sure what she wanted to do when she got out of college. So she tried this, and then COVID happened in the middle to right. She tried this, and now she's and and it's funny how, you know, when someone's been at a company for like a year, it's like, especially with the millennials, like it's a long time for them. I know, it's because it's not hard to get another job these days, because the job market is there's lots of jobs, there's not as I mean, there's, there's not as many people being born, as there were it you know, the baby boomers, like there was a lot of baby boomers, right? They're all.
 
Leighann Lovely  38:41
The average, what was it, it was three points 3.5 Being born per household, and now it's like 1.3, or something per household
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  38:55
people.
 
Leighann Lovely  38:56
There's right. There's, there's, there's less people, and because of what has happened with COVID, more people are on the move. And now we're in the conversations around culture and finding the right fit. It's all you hear about when you're on any type of at any events, you go to any networking event, you go to any, you know, event of any kind and we're in you. And there's always the conversation about how to make, you know, a better culture at companies. So when these young people or these, these individuals who have been at the same company for 10 years finally do decide, well, I'm going to dip my toe in the water and see if there's something you know, or they got laid off because of COVID and they join a new company, they realize wow, this company doesn't have great culture. Everybody's on the move. And so now you have even with these people who are like nope, I'm not a job jumper or all of a sudden making Multiple moves right? On top of all of the millennials who think that working at a company for a year. And and I keep saying just millennials and the Gen Z, Gen Z, Z. Yes, it's Yeah. And the Gen z's, who are all making these moves. So you literally have, like, the longevity factor doesn't exist in more recent years. And so when you're working with clients, and they're like, Well, I just, I will only hire somebody who's been at their last company, you know, the last, you know, for five years or longer, you're missing out, you're missing you, you will never hire somebody for this role. Because something that something cease to exist.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  40:46
Longevity and high performance are not not mutually exclusive. Yes, they're certainly high performers that have longevity. But there's a lot of people that have longevity, that are just skating by and they're doing fine. And the company has one of their they're filling a spot, filling his seats, and the company doesn't want to upset the applecart or, or the company doesn't want to feel like they're not being nice. So they just keep the person I see that a lot. When I you know, if a company will say, Oh, we have no turnover. And I'm like, well, is that good? Like is that like I do have these great people? Who are they not? Why are they not leaving, right? They don't leave, they don't know what else to hire them or
 
Leighann Lovely  41:37
No turnover doesn't necessarily know turnover completely, does not necessarily mean a good thing, especially if you've had no turnover, and hire nobody within the last, you know, for the last five years, which means that you're going to be in a world of hurt in another five years, because every single person at that company is going to be coming up on retirement, it is you you have to have some amount of turnover at a company in order to stay fresh, but stay on the cutting edge of technology in order to stay up to date on what's happening in the world and get fresh new ideas. So the blood, right you have to there has to be a certain amount of turnover built in in order to be fresh, fresh, just and not to mention. You know, kind of keeping things while we're just at it fresh, and I'm just beating a dead horse. It's I just I can't imagine working at a company that has 0% turnover. Right?
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  42:52
Right. It's it's that's not a good sign. Now, a lot of people, I mean, now they're calling it quiet quitting, but I've always called it, they quit, but they still come to work every day. Yeah. So I guess that's the definition of quiet quitting. But that's, that's gone on for years that
 
Leighann Lovely  43:12
They just become very disconnected, you know,
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  43:16
but they still show up, and they still get a paycheck. And but they're, they're checked out.
 
Leighann Lovely  43:22
Right, so and I would say that there is there's probably 30% of people who have been at their company for you know, longer than 10 years are probably just, you know, they're that that robot who shows up? And I guarantee that now they are starting to think
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  43:46
And this is nothing against people. I mean, there's lots of high performers with longevity. Yes, there are who progress in the company. Yep. Which hopefully opens up spots to bring in fresh blood, as you're calling it.
 
Leighann Lovely  44:03
So we are coming to time, and I want to get to the question of the season. So if you could change something about your job or the practice that people have in your job or role, what's, what would you change?
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  44:23
So the question is, what would I change about a job and human resources?
 
Leighann Lovely  44:29
Yeah, I mean, essentially, you know, you're in HR. So is there something in the practice that people do in your role that you would change or specifically in in your job? You know, I can give, like, 20 example. We speak of HR.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  44:48
Yeah. I mean, I guess you know, what I would would change which is not something that's going to go away, but I think there's a way that a company can deal with there's so much transactional stuff that takes place in HR is I would look to, you know, outsourcing that, or investing in systems to, you know, like HRIS system, and, you know, which is a Human Resources Information System, and ATS, which is an applicant tracking system, and really an electronic size, if that's a word, your files, you know, there's, there's so many companies that I go into, here's our fun, or they hand me a manila folder, and they go, here's our files, here's our personnel files. So, you know, get those scanned in and, you know, have the appropriate software to manage those those functions. So that's, that's what what comes to my mind. Quickly. Just trying to say what you said, the, you have a bunch of things. So what would you say?
 
Leighann Lovely  46:02
I mean, in the HR in the, the the practices of, of HR, you know, again, we've we've had the rise of people leaders. But when it comes to just in general, I would love to see that some of the legal aspects of HR be, you know, delegated a little bit more to, you know, especially the contractual stuff delegated a little bit more to, you know, an attorney and that that HR person be able to spend a little bit more time hands on with actual employees, right, letting the employees know that, hey, not only am I here for, you know, to root for the company, but you know, I'm also here as a as a person, you know, to root for you. And I know that there has to be a little bit of a disconnect, because again, at the end of the day, it is, you know, the HR person is that that kind of that watchdog that guard dog for making sure that everybody everything is in compliance, but the HR person shouldn't be the that hated aspect.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  47:16
Why do people hate HR so much, because you do a whole show on that. Right?
 
Leighann Lovely  47:21
Right, the compliance aspect, you know, they all good, there comes the HR lady, and because ultimately, at the end end of the day, when it comes to firing, when it comes to having to let somebody go, the HR lady is or shouldn't say, lady, the HR individual is the one who's usually called into, carry that out. Right. And I think that a lot of HR individuals become purposefully disconnected from truly getting to know and liking all of the employees that accompany because they know what the end of the day, if the supervisor or manager comes to them and says, You've got to fire Bob Smith. Doesn't matter how much you like Bob Smith, you've got to sit him down. Or Jane Doe, you know, you've got to sit them down, and they're going to have an emotional reaction that you have to stay professional through. Right. Right. You know, you got to walk them out the door.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  48:32
Exactly. Or, actually, this is sort of it's not a funny story. But it's an interesting story of the world we live in. I was involved with a termination just recently, and you know, it was me and the manager, the manager, how it was a zoom call, he was remote. He the manager hopped off the call. And so we alerted or not not me, but other people alerted the IT department, but they cut off the zoom. I shouldn't I shouldn't be laughing because it was I didn't know I actually didn't realize that that was what could happen. I knew we were going to tell them that it was taking place at this time and we would wait till I was done. And the guy called me and and I said oh, you froze up. But he said no, my computer was cut off. I felt terrible that and I just you know profusely apologize. And that is not that. That was not the intention to get it cut off right as we were in the middle of talking. Because I'm a firm believer in Yes, we we this person doesn't fit any longer the role that they're currently in. Our organization has changed. Our expectations have changed. We have a different bus that we're driving and they should be on a different bus than I Our company busts. And, but we always want to make sure that the person walks out with their head held high. They, I always remind my client I always insist on on scripting. The person who's who's delivering the message. And remember, they're a human being, like, yeah, we hate them, or you hate them, or you don't like them anymore. But they're still a human being, they have a family, they have, they have to, you know,
 
Leighann Lovely  50:32
and if you can, it's gonna be an emotional blow for them. And you never know how people when it comes to their livelihood, how they're going to react to that emotional blow, some people get very quiet, they shut down. And they hear very little of what happens beyond We have breaking out, right? So some other other people. I mean, and I've, I've I haven't witnessed this, but I've, you know, heard the stories of oh, he stood up, he punched a hole in the wall, and we had to call security we had to call I've never explained said either, oh, my God, you know, like, I guess it's you're, you're you're talking about somebody's livelihood. And it's so HR. In essence, you know, it's hard for people to become emotionally involved with their employees, when they know that one day, they may have to take the steps and deliver that emotional mastery.
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  51:32
And I've always found that the better you treat people when you're saying goodbye, the better the situation is, in terms of you know, is there some sort of, you know, lawsuit filed? I mean, some people are litigious, right? They're going to try to do anything. But I've, in my many years of being an HR, I've only been involved in one lawsuit. I've done 1000s of terminations, and there's only been one lawsuit where I was deposed. When someone said it was wrongful termination. And we won. That's great. She would have gotten if she had just signed the severance agreement. The first time she would have gotten more right than she what she ended up getting. Yeah.
 
Leighann Lovely  52:22
So if somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  52:28
So I do have my website is get hr results.com. It's two Rs and their HR results.com. And my email address is S RR just like Susie Raymer Rodriguez s are at, get hr results.com If someone wants to call me 847-867-7307 Susie, thank
 
Leighann Lovely  52:58
you so much for this conversation. It's been awesome talking with time flew by so fast. So
 
Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  53:03
I know. I know. We could have talked I think for hours but I loved it. And I thank you so much for having me.
 
Leighann Lovely  53:10
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support. Without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, to follow us like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
hr, company, employees, resume, assessments, call, people, process, person, recruiting, interview, job, motivators, conversation, giving, behaviors, hire, clients, generation, change

Corporate Career to Business Ownership and Hiring First Employee

After climbing the corporate ladder into Executive leadership roles in Quality and Regulatory Affairs Rachel Kitzan has decided to venture down the entrepreneurship path. Rachel and her husband are opening a Rumble Boxing studio in Wisconsin later this summer, Rachel joins me to talk about the journey so far.
Contact –
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-kitzan-486182165/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/rachel.kitzan
E-mail - rkitzan@ompimail.com
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  Upon graduating from university, Rachel Kitzan built a career as a regulatory authority and leader in the dietary supplement industry. She has traveled the world auditing over 85 facilities ensuring only the highest quality raw materials were being sourced. Upon reaching the height of her career, Rachel was able to serve on the executive leadership team as the Director of Quality and Regulatory Affairs for the last eight years overseeing 45 employees and managing a multi million dollar internal innovation testing laboratory. Throughout her 25 year career she gained a desire for an entrepreneurial venture and stepped away from her corporate career in 2022. Rachel and her husband, Jason Teggatz, found Rumble Boxing and after trying this boxing inspired a workout for the first time they were hooked. They're planning to open the first Rumble Boxing studio in Wisconsin later this summer. Rachel is a wife, mother, sister and daughter to an amazing supportive family that has been by her side during her transition from the corporate world to small business ownership. She couldn't do this without them and the incredible outpouring of support from the small business community. Rachel, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really excited to have this conversation.
 
Rachel Kitzan  02:59
It is such a pleasure Lian to be invited to be on your podcast today, and I'm excited to talk about HR and our experiences with it.
 
Leighann Lovely  03:10
Excellent. Why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself?
 
Rachel Kitzan  03:15
Sure. Um, so I was born and raised in North Dakota, the southwest corner and my family moved to Wisconsin when I was a freshman so I am more of a Wisconsin night than a North Dakota person. I went to Kettle Moraine High School absolutely love the school district and actually my son who is 16 goes to the same school that I did, which is very, very exciting. Other than that, I graduated from college with a biology and chemistry degree moved into the world of laboratory doing testing on different varieties of foods, creating their nutritional labels. So Susie's cheesecakes, I'd figure out how much fat and fiber was in there. And so we would make sure that was on the label accurately for the consumers. I also had the opportunity to work in the thermal processing and canning industry. And in making Wolfgang Puck soup, San Amy's organic soup and Delmonte corn. So just a really interesting adventure for five years in that area before I stepped foot into the dietary supplement industry. And in my 1617 years, just the the last few years here in corporate. I worked for a company right in Elmira standard process for eight and a half years and had the opportunity to travel The world's auditing different facilities, making sure that there were high quality ingredients being sourced. And then also just that the facilities were, you know, holding up the dietary supplement standards for manufacturing. And then the last eight years of my career was really the highlight of my career, I was brought in as a senior executive on the team for in I was representing the quality side for Director of Quality and Regulatory Affairs and really became an authority figure on dietary supplement regulations and partnering with different industry leader groups, and also had the privilege to lead 45 people in a couple of different divisions within that that area. Both of my the companies I worked for only worked in the healthcare practitioner channel. So our supplements were not sold in the retail space, and very specific, very different philosophies, but both very great companies. And the last one I worked for was orthomolecular products, and their manufacturing site is in Stevens Point.
 
Leighann Lovely  06:18
Interesting.
 
Rachel Kitzan  06:20
That was kind of my career and my journey.
 
Leighann Lovely  06:23
So I've got first of all, this is this is a completely off the wall and it probably funny question up, how exactly do you figure out how much fat is in food like a cheesecake? Like how? I know you're laughing at me, but I'm like, I'm wildly interested by this, like, how do you figure out? How do you create those labels? And be like, Yep, this is got X amount of fat, grams of fat and grams of sugar. How does that work?
 
Rachel Kitzan  06:56
Nutrition, like nutrition, labeling regulations are complicated. So it is really interesting, when you walk up to your Cheerios box, and you see fat and fiber, there's a percent plus minus because everything's got a little bit of a different aspect to it. But the testing itself is old school testing soxhlet, you think of the glasses, and you're, you know, some experiment is happening, the, you know, behind glass and things like that. And it's just simple distillation, getting the fat out of the content and knowing the weights. It's a calculation. It is really interesting. But that's kind of the behind the scenes aspect, which was really my first step into regulation. But I didn't even at that time, I was actually just behind the regulation of labeling, Right.  That's the CFR that,
 
Leighann Lovely  07:55
I find that and this is the geek and me coming out, you know, but I find that completely and totally fascinating, because, for me, I just want to go and eat everything in my kitchen. But the reality is, is that of course, we're all for some reason, we all seem to want to eat all the fat items in our kitchen first. Like, okay, yeah, then I'll eat some vegetables. But okay, so then you go from you go from as you progress in your career to actually being, you know, very, you know, high up in, in creating the regulations is that, am I understanding that or, or being part of a team that created some of those regulations, I'm
 
Rachel Kitzan  08:39
really trying to interpret and understand the regulation and apply it appropriately to the industry. And okay, and regulation is really interesting, ultimately, in the US with FDA regulation. And I was very lucky, I was able to actually learn a lot about Canadian regulations EU, Australia, which is the Therapeutic Goods Association, so I really was able to work with multiple different countries. And the US is really intriguing because dietary supplements in the US can be launched. So there can be a vitamin D K, two product and everybody should be taking their vitamin D even in the summer, so just take your vitamin D. But in multiple other countries, it's very similar to drug type of situation where you actually have to pre register your dossier and get a licensing number before you launch a product for your consumer. However, the FDA is a little bit opposite. They do post market surveillance, meaning they're there. They're really looking at kind of the After Effects. Are there things that happen that they start to see trends with or they'll come into facilities and inspect I mean, just make sure they're complying with the regulations. So almost look at it a little bit more trust, but they're very good at making sure that the, their priority, their number one goal is consumer safety. That's it. So when we look at that, when you look at the complexity and the ability to apply different regulations in different countries, it is very, it's varied, and kind of a vast arena. And that's why you have experts in different areas, and you collaborate with other regulators.
 
Leighann Lovely  10:34
Interesting. So. Okay, so that being said, what do you is there a country that you would that you think, Well, this one's doing it better than the other? Or is it just different,
 
Rachel Kitzan  10:51
it's just different. But what I will say is, Australia, the European Union, Canada, the way that they monitor things really suppresses diversity for a business. So in the US, there is a lot more freedom to trial, diverse type of products. Not that they're unsafe. But because there's a such such a specific regulation, if you have somebody that you have a limit of maybe your vitamin D, I use that you can have. And they need something more like a higher dosage or a higher amount, we we have that ability to provide that to the general public, not necessarily, you know, through a doctor or something like that. Whereas a different country might actually look at that as more of a prescription level. Interesting. Not that it's not available, but it's just a different model and how you would obtain, right, that type of of information. And so I don't think anyone's better or different. I think some of them are less complicated than others. Right?
 
Leighann Lovely  12:08
Well, and when I think when I think of the US healthcare system, it's just ridiculously complicated in every way. But we're talking about supplements that are not necessarily prescription, they're rather over the counter.
 
Rachel Kitzan  12:27
Yes, I love that. You say that. Because my the last several years, my passion really has transformed from traditional medicine to functional medicine. So instead of being reactive, the US healthcare system is extremely reactive. Very great, you, you tear your ACL, you are very thankful, you can get that replacement. And we have surgeons, and we have an amazing healthcare system. But from a proactive approach, doctors are spending five minutes with patients and all they want to know is what ails you. And here's the fix, here's the quick fix. And rightfully so a lot of people just want that. So it's training and transforming really the practice of medicine in people having a vested interest in their own health and being proactive with it, right researching what they need, because every single person is different. There is not a cookie cutter system, right. And that is really an interesting aspect. When you talk about how the health care system works, and how it can align. Even with dietary supplements, for example, if somebody is taking a statin drug, that conversation doesn't talk about what your body's being depleted of, which would be your co q 10. So your supplementation would be a dietary supplement or CO q 10. If you have to be on that pharmaceutical medication. So it's really an interesting piece. And
 
Leighann Lovely  14:05
I love what you just said that the US is there reactive 100% reactive that and in order for us to be more on the you know, the side of it. And last year, last year, I I, I decided for my personal health, I said this is going to be the year of me taking care of myself, this is going to be the year where I go to a chiropractor where I make sure that I have you know my mental health under control, which has been for a long time but just you know, again, it's just one of those things. I put it on the list of things that I need to do for me when it comes to my own personal whole, whole well being right. And if you're not your own advocates, doctors are not and I'm not I'm not trying to take a shot at doctors at all because they're so overwhelmed and so overworked that unless you go in there and you say, No, I need you to help me with this, you know, so last year, I got a chiropractor, I went and got a CPAP. I thought, I thought my husband was the one with sleep apnea. And it's not he doesn't have it, I have it. And it was like, Oh,
 
Rachel Kitzan  15:22
you're not keeping me awake.
 
Leighann Lovely  15:26
She's, but it was very eye opening, when I finally was an advocate for myself and started saying, look, here's the problem. And I need you to not just brush me off, I need you to actually pay attention and listen to what I'm saying. Because there have been times where, you know, the doctors like, oh, yeah, that's because of this, just take some allergy medication, like, well, I can't breathe out of my nose at all, take some allergy medication, you'll be fine. Okay, well, that's not fixing the problem. And then I ignore it. And I ignored it for five years. And it was like, okay, unless I go in and be my own advocate, and that's, that, unfortunately, is a symptom of the US healthcare system, is that they don't have time to sit down. And, like, actually dig in. And if you have, if you are a person that, you know, unfortunately, like what my husband and I just went through, he got a new job, I just stepped into entrepreneurship. So his insurance changed. And now I have to change all my doctors, because his insurance doesn't. So now all of the history that I have with this doctor on all of my background, I now have to go and talk to a new doctor and be like, Well, I have had this and I've had this and I've had that. They don't have time to sit and go through my entire history. So when I bring up oh, I've got, you know, a problem with my ear. That's the same problem I've had for 10 years. They just assume it's an immediate problem. Yeah. And they don't look at the 10 years of the exact same issue. That could be a part of a bigger issue, right?
 
Rachel Kitzan  17:01
Yeah. And it is, it's so amazing. You're going through that journey.
 
Leighann Lovely  17:05
Right? It's you have to be an advocate for yourself. And you have to be unfortunately, you have to be the squeaky wheel. Yes,
 
Rachel Kitzan  17:13
yes. I, I agree and when not to step in, but I loved what you said about, you know, MDS, these people are highly intelligent, they go into this field to care for people right? In, they spend a lot of money, time effort, they're dedicated. And it's incredible to me, that in their 468 years of studies, and internships and all every residencies and everything they have to do, they get less than a week of training on nutrition, less than a week, that's all that stuff. They can cure all these things. And they, they're they're so but they don't have that. And when they get into actual practice, it's a numbers game. That's how they're paid. They're paid by pharmaceutical drugs, right? That is how they make money. Making money in a private practice. And spending an hour and a half with somebody doesn't make them money unless they're dedicated to functional medicine, right? Or that's they're transitioning that practice. But our healthcare system is based on everyone getting paid through insurance. So what's interesting from an HR perspective, my team 45 people, all different age brackets, what I found so alarming in the last several years is when I would have students come out of college come into my laboratory, they're still under their parent's insurance till they're 2526. And all of a sudden, they gotta pay for a high deductible plan. And they're like, well, this thing's terrible. And I'm like, Well, you have to educate yourself. Right? And you know, what, what is interesting? I have known nothing but corporate. I had to turn 47 years old to figure out I could actually advocate for my own health care plan. And what made sense for us, so being able to learn from other small business partners to say, Rachel, what are you rate? What are you and Jason going to do for your employees? And I said, I want to empower them to have the ability to create a concierge kind of benefit plan. Right corporate benefits is great, fine, however you look at it, but I cannot believe the amount of money I was spending and never using it. I actually would pay more money because I was going to my functional medicine doctor certainly didn't have a cover that right? So I just sat there. I'm like, Why do I even have this insurance? Like why? Why am I paying all this money for this? When I could have had a whole different plan. What I found is when the younger population, it steps into corporate. And for me, I didn't know anything else you always got your insurance from where you worked in this is how it is because that's your benefits. That's what they offer you take the benefits, right, right. And now being able to empower and have conversations to say, there's a lot of options for you, this might not be the right option, you're single you're, or whatever it might be, right, you may look at this direct primary care, that's only going to cost you 59 bucks a month, and it is really going to cover everything you need right now. Right? Or in maybe you want to add this in, if there's something major that would happen, but it's still only $300 a month, right? versus $1,500. And I care and dental care. And like, you know, so what I have found from an HR perspective is that whole conversation about benefits is very different. And it was super eye opening to me when I walked away, and I had to be my own advocate and figure out what's right for us.
 
Leighann Lovely  21:11
So speaking of that, let's let's shift this conversation. So you have this, you know, you have years and years in corporate America, years of an amazing background of Yes, absolutely. And unclearly in a background that really, really has, I guess paved the way for the business that you are now launching this this summer? Correct?
 
Rachel Kitzan  21:42
This summer this summer? So
 
Leighann Lovely  21:46
what was it? What was the trigger in your head? What was the moment when you went? This is what we this is what I'm going to do? You and your husband made this decision together? Is that Is that right? Or was it one of you that went then then that is is absolutely amazing. So tell me about your business. Tell me about the journey to deciding and making that decision to open up your own business.
 
Rachel Kitzan  22:14
I love this. Because what I have found in meeting so many amazing people in the last six, seven months transitioning my life my day from corporate into a small business owner, I have learned an immense amount of information. But what I have found really interesting is the parallel backgrounds of people that either transition from corporate to entrepreneurial ship. For us, my husband actually was a hot guy, electrical engineer, worked for Rockwell Collins for about a year and a half and decided that was not for him. So he worked for AC T the college testing companies and IT procurement manager for 20 some years. And eventually I started to see this shift in him of slowly kind of dying corporate was killing the poor guy. So his passion is mountain biking. He's a long distance mountain biker. He's done many, many different events, several Leadville 100, mountain biking events, at the highest elevation, there's no oxygen up there. I don't know these, these people are insane, but they do it and they love it. So he's always had a passion. He's always worked part time at a bike shop. So he actually switched. Based on my career in where we were at, we were able to sit just say why don't you stop step away from corporate. And he started working for the bicycle doctor and Dousman and head loves it just loves it.
 
Leighann Lovely  23:50
So that's, that's, you know, when you get to a point where you just in? Okay, I was watching a comedy show yesterday, and I it and I'll be brief, but I was watching a comedy show yesterday, and a guy gets on stage and he starts cracking jokes about how he's works at at Olive Garden. And you know, I would never say to anybody who works at Olive Garden, oh, did I mention I work at Olive Garden and he's going and then as he rolls up his side and he goes, You know, so I left my my career at Olive Garden. And now I'm a chemist. And, you know, at the end, they do this interview and they're like, wait a second, how do you go from being a server at Olive Garden to being a chemist and he goes, Well, I have my degree in biology and chemistry and blah, blah, blah. I love when people when people you know, highly brilliant people make the choice. And it's because it just goes to show that there is no joy up out there that anybody should be ashamed of that there is there. It all depends on the person, my girlfriend, and I promise this because the guy he wasn't, he wasn't embarrassed that he worked at Olive Garden. He was pretending in this comedy show. But he was a wildly brilliant human being with a with a bachelor's degree that shows for most of his life to be a server instead of be a chemist. Yeah. And that, and that, to me speaks volumes to people's. Yeah, I went to school, it was interesting. Now, why did you decide to now go back into your field of study? Well, because I decided I wanted my nights and weekends to myself again. So I just decided to become a chemist, well, you don't just decide to become a chemist, you have to be really intelligent. And it's, it shows that when somebody corporate America, you know, I got burned out, I'm just gonna go and work at a bike shop. Great if that's your passion. And I think everybody should be able to follow their passion. Again, my girlfriend always joke, she's like, Oh, I'm just a server. And I'm like, You're not just a server. And you know what? You don't you make a ton of money. Like, yeah, yeah, you make bank. So don't tell me that you're just a server people come in, and they pay her a ton of money in tips, because she's really good at the art of what she does, serving people serving people. That that is there, that there is an art in that. It doesn't matter what people do for a living. It matters if they have passion for what they do for a living. Because no matter what it is, if you're really, really good at your skill, you're really good and passionate about what you do. You can you can become the master at that, and people will notice.
 
Rachel Kitzan  27:06
Absolutely. It is really interesting. I'm going to borrow a statistic from Sarah Deacon. And she had mentioned the other day that research has showed 73% of people that graduate from college never work in their field, correct. In their area of study, that's I was floored by that statistic. And yet, I'm like that I don't know why that surprises me is really true.
 
Leighann Lovely  27:35
The only reason that that number is not 100% is because we're taking into account doctors, accountants, engineers, and you have to go to school to become those. And usually, if you're going to go the long haul to be a doctor and go to school for that you're going to be a doctor, or an engineer or an accountant. So if you eliminated the doctors, the engineers, the accountants from that equation, you would probably have that number be 95%. Yeah. Because any other I mean, I suppose I went to school for you know, I got my bachelor's degree in business with an emphasis in human resources. Human Resource Management. I'm not in corporate HR. That's what that degree was supposed to set me up for. I spent very little time in corporate HR, I wanted to blow my head off. It was nobody liked me. Everybody hated me. And yeah, given I entered into that, you know, corporate HR in 2006. Yeah, of course, nobody was going to like me, because the whole world was shutting down. And I was part of, you know, helping lay everybody off. And then I was getting laid off. No, of course, nobody likes me. But the right. I mean,
 
Rachel Kitzan  28:56
Yeah, well, in that's no different than me getting a biology chemistry, I actually wanted to be a vet mad or you know, how life transition. So get the degree and who knew that I would be in the field that I was. And you know, it's interesting, because we talk about kind of preemptively my husband transitioning. And that's when it kind of dawned on me as much as I was at the height of my career, one of two women on the executive team. I was working 16 hour days traveling all the time. And during that transition, 2019 2020 things just changed. Things changed. So I made the decision to go to UW Whitewater in start getting my MBA online. And I loved it. Loved it. And that's when the spark happened about two things. One, we need an exit strategy because I can't keep this up. I'm never home I missing 50% of my son In my husband's life, and I love them both, and I liked them. They're cool people, so I want to be with them. We needed to figure something out. We didn't know what that vision was. But I knew it had to be something where we had the control to do it. And so that's really what occurred in the last couple of years. And in that I was able to really go through a major health journey just like you, functional medicine, lost 55 pounds, found my passion, again, for working out in different types of ways to move and be fit in Cairo and massage and other therapies and mental spiritual, all that thing that really put me in a place to have clarity that what we wanted to do was something with health and wellness because I want to care about people. Dietary Supplements transformed the practice of medicine, it's health, it's wellness, it's having that power to you know, make sure you're getting the nutrients that you need. I really felt in the health and wellness industry is where we needed to be in when we started to present options to each other and bounce ideas off. Cycling kept coming up in so we are members at cyclebar in Lake Country, Natalie Rick's owns that studio and she's amazing. She has an amazing community. Love the look the feel the energy of everything that that type of exercise does, but I do hot yoga, I do pure barre, I do CrossFit. I do you know all these other things. And then we began the conversation rumble boxing is a franchise and it is under the same franchise umbrella as exponential as the Franchise Group. But a lot of people will be familiar with cyclebar Pure bar club Pilates yoga six row house, Rumble is kind of a newest concept that just launched its it started in 2017. But launched as an actual boutique fitness studio at the beginning of last year. Okay, it's absolutely new in that was the vision for us. I'm like, That's it. When I started talking to nap, she's like rumble so awesome. People are gonna love it here. We have nothing like this in the Midwest.
 
Leighann Lovely  32:29
So tell me explain to the best of your ability. What is this?
 
Rachel Kitzan  32:35
So rumble boxing is a boxing inspired workout 45 minute group fitness classes. And it's not an open gym. So it really is a community of people coming together, we can host 48 people in one class at a time. In there's two different sides of the workout. So 50% of your workout is doing boxing punches, classic punch, boxing punches, Boxer sit ups, and you're hitting a water filled punching bag, it's 190 pounds, it's very gentle on your joints, but you're still have traditional wraps, you still have traditional gloves. Then the other 50% of your workout is custom benches and weights and Knuckles for your strength training and your hit training. And what we do in that 45 minutes is our trainer is going to go through the fundamentals in the beginning. But then we have three minute rounds where you're doing a specific either set of punchy routine or your your strength training, and then you will swap sides, three rounds in so you even out your workout. So when you go to sign up, you're going to go to your app, a beautiful, beautiful app and you're going to be like I want to start on bags 17 today, and so that's where you'll start your workout. So our studio, the traditional aspect will have about 30 classes offered a week mostly kind of those classic timeframes early morning, maybe at the noon hour and then your evening classes as well. So we'll have you know just it's it's a it's a boxing inspired workout in a studio in the concept really is like when you walk into our studio, it's like walking into a New York nightclub. That's all high energy, lots of lights.
 
Leighann Lovely  34:39
I just, I just feel like for somebody like me, that would be like the perfect like, I don't feel like I'm working out I feel like I'm going to release all of the stress and anger. Not really anger, but like all of the stress and frustrations of you know my my five year old who never stops talking. You know, I'll be too trying to do something I'll try and do make a phone call and she's just never never, that frustration of oh my gosh, can just stop talking for two minutes, she's at that age where it's just like non stop in the house where things are exploding, my dog is chewing something up and it feels like I'd be able to go into this place and just be like, Alright, I'm just gonna beat all that stress out of, you know, out of me and get a really solid workout in and then be able to go home and finally, relax. And at the same time know that I'm, I'm working all of my body, right? I mean, this sounds like it's a full blown physical body, Wonderful.
 
Rachel Kitzan  35:40
Yes. And you're spot on, all levels can do this workout in what I love about rumble I used to in the ring box, just as training, right? Not not I didn't wasn't competitive, but that any workout you think about, no matter where it is to step in, in that door can be intimidating, a little bit, right. And it's so nice when you can walk in and you have a community of people that are all there just to enjoy that 45 minutes, right? They're either stepped away from their job, they're, you know, the kids are dropped off. And they they that's their time. Our job as owners and our studio, what we are, an extension of us is our values, which is I'm not necessarily selling memberships, I am selling an experience, I'm selling a safe place for people to come no matter where they are in their fitness journey. No matter what's happening in their day, we are going to be there to look them in the eye and let them know that they matter. And that whatever happens in their workout, that day is just fine. If they just sit under that punching bag and just sit and drink water, it's fine, it doesn't matter. Do what you want to do that day, if you feel like you're just super full of energy, and you came on the air just dripping sweat and had an amazing, that's great, you know, and not every day is going to be the same. But providing a community and a place for people to put their phones away for 45 minutes, be part of a group in honestly, nobody's watching each other. Everybody's focused on what makes sense to them. And that's what's really important to Jason and I because as we open our Brookfield location, our plan in what we're committed to is actually opening to more studios in the area. So we want to make sure that that experience somebody has the first time the 50th time, the 200th time they feel the energy, they feel that warm hug when they come into that studio. And that is what is really important to us.
 
Leighann Lovely  38:00
So you hired your first employee. Correct?
 
Rachel Kitzan  38:04
Super close. Okay, so in the middle of we're in the middle of interviewing right now. So this is great. And this is our most critical hire.
 
Leighann Lovely  38:15
So and what position is this is this for is this for a trainer is this for? Right?
 
Rachel Kitzan  38:23
This is for our general manager. So this is our, our direct extension of us as owners, and you know what that General Manager will be doing, we will partner to hire our sales associates and our trainers and everything. But this position also is something that's long term, somebody who can help us grow ours, our team, our staff, and see something in people and say they're really engaged. They really love this they want to learn they want I think they might be a great trainer, let's let's get them certified for personal training, and can see that to help us grow within our team so that when we open the second studio, somebody might be ready to be an assistant, GM, right, somebody might be ready to take some of those leadership paths and then also have that same ability to grow and lead a team and inspire a team as well. So what has been really intriguing, we've used classic, you know, we have everything else job description, classic pathway post everything. But one of out of the candidates that we have, there is only one that really has applied independently, how I have been introduced to the best candidates that we have at this point. One approached us directly and was a great is a great candidate into You have been referrals from other small business owners. And that is a new way. And what I like about that is those business owners know me, they know Jason, they know the type of character in the person that we're looking for. I just don't want somebody that can sell stuff or has been part of a gym or anything like that I I'm really looking for somebody who can grow, that we connect with that there's that trust and respect in and we know our role. And we want them to shine in their role in it is different nowadays, because it is more about character, I don't really care where somebody went to school, that I look at resumes very differently. It takes me 20 seconds to look at a resume to see if I'm engaged. And usually I'll go to their extracurricular activities, what do they care about? Is that shows who they are. And I really like to look, and then it's the conversation about really understanding their character,
 
Leighann Lovely  41:04
right? I think that way too many businesses put too much stock in a resume. A resume is a sheet of paper that somebody wrote up, and you cannot judge somebody based on a sheet of paper anymore. I think that I think that too many companies will look at a resume and automatically say, Yep, I'm not going to meet with this person. Base based on the skills that they say that they have, I think that we need to stop hiring based on skills, we need to start hiring based on character and personalities, and all of that, and then train on skill. It's it, I'm sorry, either you are going to fit into the culture of an organization or you're not, and you need to hire based on whether or not that person is going to fit into the values, the goals, the and then if you have a great person who's going to fit your organization, you can train on skill. And I think that way too many corporate America, businesses are trained or and are hiring on skill, and then thinking that they can make that person fit into their culture. And the small, the small businesses like you that are just starting up, kind of have the upper hand when it comes to getting those great referrals, where, where unfortunately, they struggle is matching those high bloated salaries in that corporate America worlds or those rich huge benefit plans, or the four weeks of vacation, and all of those other benefits. However, a business like yours, you haven't created the culture, yet you are the culture. So you get to pick and choose who is aligned with you and your husband, who is going to align with your values. And that's going to determine from this point on if that person comes in and is aligned with your values, it's going to begin building the culture that you create at your business. And you're going to have to make sure that you're continuing to monitor that and hone in on that and really keep your you know, keep an active be actively intentional to create and monitor that so that as you grow as you open it up or up another branch that that branch also has that happy positive culture. And that's where again, the smaller companies and again I'm not advocating there are people who love corporate America that they love they love you know, everything that I'm I've been in corporate America but that's where right now you you know you've got the entire world you know, for the taking, because you you're just at the threshold of beginning all of it. And as long as you do it right the first time. You're not going to be in the boat that half of Americans in when they're saying oh gosh, we have a really shitty culture nobody wants to work here. Yeah, and fixing it is horrible. Creating it right? won't necessarily it's I shouldn't say it's easy but a hell of a lot easier than fixing it when it's wrong.
 
Rachel Kitzan  44:41
Exactly. And that is it you are spot on with that. You know, I've got a when I was in corporate a few of the last people that I hired I really did something that was like, totally against like the mold so you think of quality the part workmen, four year degree, they have to be, you know, that has to happen. And I finally got to a point and I'm like, you know, hiring some of these people and they're not all what they're cracked up to be, if that's my first criteria, I'm failing, because I'm giving up these 10 Other resumes that I could have just had a conversation with. And if they're diligent, hard working, willing to learn, those values align more than some of these people, just because they don't have a degree doesn't make sense to me. So Alas, of our of the couple hires did not fall in that mold. And I, I really had to fight for that from an executive outlook. And they're like, you're, it's on you, if it doesn't work out. And let me tell you, those worked out beautifully, compared to a couple of the other aspects. So I think, I love that it's the character, it's the value to and we were talking, you know, with our values, we, you have to reiterate them, you have to live by them. We have to show up on time. We have to motivate we have to listen to our employees and find out why, while they're engaged, how do we keep them engaged? Right, Gallup and all this, you know, how do we keep those highly engaged, because they're excited to be there. But me giving them a month free workouts isn't there like I can work out here anytime. Or maybe they want a gas card, maybe they just want some clothes, because we got access to all these amazing vendors Lululemon and they just want fun stuff, right? But listening to them, because every one of them is going to have a different motivational factor that is a benefit in their eyes. And I get that opportunity. I feel very, very lucky to have that opportunity as a small business owner to do that. Right, right. There's not all this extra stuff. And we can really customize what makes sense for you as an employee, because we want to take care of you. If you're showing up, you're diligent and you're you're really taking care of our customers, we're gonna reward you for that.
 
Leighann Lovely  47:15
Well, and you already you've already hit it on the head, not by anything that any offering that you said all you all you said that was perfect was listening to what the employee wants. Simple as that. If one employee says, I don't care about gas card, but I would really love $50 To Lululemon. Okay, that's easy enough. If your next employee says, Well, man, I'm driving all the way from, you know, Watertown to Brookfield gas card would be awesome. Yeah. I mean, okay.
 
Rachel Kitzan  47:51
Sure enough, I mean, we, it was interesting. In one of the conversations, I really shocked one of the people that I was having a conversation with, because they're like, Well, you know, this is membership based. So that's going to be really critical. And I said, What's critical is our culture and our values in the community we're creating, we are going to have some people that are not desirable in our studio. A, maybe they're telling jokes that are inappropriate and making people uncomfortable. Maybe they're spitting all over our floor, I don't know, whatever it might be. But I said, What I can tell you is, we're not we know how to have the conversation to ask them to go to a different place in a different community, right? I would rather than not be in my community, because I'm gonna gain five more people versus leaves 10 Because of this one, right? And in in, that is not who we are, that is really important. They just were floored. Well, that's really interesting. And I'm like, you don't take care of that in the moment. You you let us know. And we together side by side, are going to make sure that we follow through with that, because it's important that our team is taken care of, first of all, but then that community as well. So if there is somebody something occurs, and it is some however offensive, whatever it might be, or they're just not they skip classes every week, you know, I mean, something like that, you know, there's spots being taken up. And I said, that's where we come in. We're very apt, we're there. But we're not there to step on your toes, but we're always there. We will meet regularly, we will make sure that we're always talking about how are our values doing How's everybody doing? What does everyone need? And then are we meeting everyone's expectations from both sides, right. And that conversation is those stay conversations. You have to have them on all the time, very regularly, you can't just have one once a year, I love, oh, we do an annual review or whatever it might be. It's like you got to be talking to people all the time. Right?
 
Leighann Lovely  50:10
And Rachel, you hit it on the head, we are coming to time. But I want to just say something really quick this stay conversation that you just mentioned, if more employers were figured this out sooner, having say, conversations with employees having even just sitting down with them saying, Hey, we really love you, as an employee, we value you, more people would stay at their current employer and stop moving around. So for a brand new business owner, somebody who hasn't even opened up their first location, it sounds like you are way ahead of so many other companies out there. So I'm really excited to see what comes from you, you know, in the future and, and excited to see your, you know, your gym, would it be a gym community?
 
Rachel Kitzan  50:58
Well, yes, it is. Yes, yes. Thank you so much.
 
Leighann Lovely  51:04
I have the question of the season that I want to get to really quick. This may not apply, because you know, you're so new and what you're doing, but what would you change about your job or the practice that people have in your role in your job in your job role if you could
 
Rachel Kitzan  51:22
write being a very new owner, small business owner, president and understanding what that might mean? I'm the practices in in my role that I am definitely learning is the networking practice in it is very important. And I know there are seasons within the business, when we start construction or grand opening, I'm not going to be able to make those connections. But those connections have really changed, who I am in is developing who I'm going to be as a leader in that small business world. And I don't know that I was never, you know, necessarily change anything at this point. But just recognize that that has to be added into your your suite of time. And the other thing is, making sure you set that time aside. My husband told me the most hilarious thing about a week ago, two weeks ago, and I came home and I was like, wow, that was a really long, crazy day. I loved it. There was so much to tell him. But he looks at me and he's like, I just want to say this. You know, you're the one that makes your own schedule. And I just, I just started laughing I'm like, You're totally right. Um, yeah. Okay. But it's so rewarding. And I just learned so much, but that would be my my tip is connecting. I know it's it takes energy. It takes time. It takes coordination, but it is really, it's hilarious
 
Leighann Lovely  53:07
that you know, we as entrepreneurs think hamady becoming entrepreneurs so that I can have more time to myself, which never is what happens. Now all of a sudden you enjoy, you know, diving in. And there are times where I actually am like, I can't wait to get back to my desk. And the hell was wrong with Rachel, if somebody wanted to reach out to you get in touch with you. Or, you know, do you have a website for rumble yet that they can people can start you know, checking out or when it goes live that kind of stuff? How can people go ahead and get in touch with you?
 
Rachel Kitzan  53:51
Awesome. So me personally, my LinkedIn or my Facebook page is a great way to reach out to me, our rumble boxing. Brookfield sites are live. We already have members, we have members. So our founding membership is out there. We have our Facebook and Instagram which is at rumble boxing, Brookfield great way to go check us out, see what it's like we're posting there's some personal posts on there too. So just making sure to take a look at that in our website is live. So anything that you might have questions on just about the workout, what it might feel like in those emails, if you want to email through that website as well. That's a great way to reach out to us. But everything is live. We're all set to go and have really enjoyed everyone that has reached out to us so far.
 
Leighann Lovely  54:47
Awesome. Thank you again, this has been just in very educational conversation and I've really enjoyed talking with you today.
 
Rachel Kitzan  54:56
Oh, thank you so much for hosting me and I look forward Ready to having more conversations with you in the future?
 
Leighann Lovely  55:04
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible so don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us, like us or share us have a wonderful day.
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPY
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, worked, workout, conversation, dietary supplement, rumble, regulations, doctors, corporate, rachel, studio, employee, hiring, interesting, husband, years, career, business, advocate, step
 

Nigerian Recruiter and HR Manager in the Tech Industry!

This is one amazing conversation with an ambitious young professional that has made it his mission to pass on his positivity and success to Africans that are looking for an opportunity at great positions. Living in Nigeria nothing has been given to Joseph, he has worked hard for where he is and continues to do so. He helps others in the tech industry find great jobs, and declared on LinkedIN that his goal was to help 1 million Africans find jobs.  
 
Contact Joseph
LinkedIN - linkedin.com/in/josephnssien
Website - https://wecruitme.com/
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann. Lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  Today, it is my pleasure to introduce Joseph Nnnein, he is a dynamic HR manager certified from the University of Minnesota. Additionally, he is an entrepreneur with a passion for utilizing technology to drive positive change in Africa. With an extensive knowledge and experience in HR and business. He leads we recruit him a unique human resource management agency that connects esteemed brands with top African talent. He strongly believes that blockchain technology will play a pivotal role in addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing Africa today. I'm honored to have the opportunity to talk with Joseph today. Joseph, thank you so much for joining me today. I have been so excited to have this conversation with you.
 
Joseph Nssein  02:02
Wonderful. I'm so happy to be here. Because this is actually the first podcast I have been ever. So it's it's kind of like new ground. So we am so excited to you know, these new grounds. Very happy to be here. Thank you, Leanne for inviting me.
 
Leighann Lovely  02:20
Yeah, well, part of the reason that I was excited that I'm so excited to talk with you is you would actually had an amazing post on LinkedIn that that intrigued me and I started following you. But before we jump into that, why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself and where you're from?
 
Joseph Nssein  02:40
Okay, okay. Oh, a little bit about myself. So, there's a lot to talk about, well, let me just try to pinpoint where to start from. Okay, so, I'm, I'm 22. I'm from Nigeria. My name is Joseph MC, and I'm from Nigeria, we are quite on stage. So, um, it's been, you know, it's been a journey, I'm still in the university. I'm a student, actually, I'm in my third level, in the university doing computer science. But one thing about me is that I've been really like, I really have this qualities in me since I was little, I always relates very well to people. And, you know, when I went out of high school, and I went out of high school, I basically, you know, I went into the work through space that is in blockchain, technology, and all of that. And that is where I kind of like build my career. And, you know, things really kicked off. And last year, that was around November, December, I really, you know, went fully into my career as a human resource manager. That is, from my costs, I should study from the University of Minnesota. That is where I got certified as a as an HR manager. And yeah, that's just a little about me. So I've done a lot of things. I've been a community manager for several web three projects. Being a social media manager. Well, I feel like my calling for now is in human resource. And I really love interacting with people meeting new people, you know, I really love it. So that's just a little bit about me.
 
Leighann Lovely  04:27
So one of the reasons or the way that I actually found you was from a post, excuse me, from a post that you had put on LinkedIn, it was actually a little story about about yourself and your background. And I was wildly intrigued by that because you followed that up by saying that you had a love for for human resources you had a love for helping others to find you know, jobs. And, and I've forgive me for stalking cyber stalking you a little bit. But it looks like you're very plugged into your community, you are very looking very much like you're you're trying to help your community as much as you can to Yeah, you know, assist them in finding jobs. And I would love to know more about your journey in finding a passion for that, and what you're doing to assist, you know, young individuals in finding their career paths and then finding jobs.
 
Joseph Nssein  05:32
Yeah, okay. Okay, this is going to be a pretty funny and sad story at the time. So everything started for me, I think, um, when I got off of high school, so I did a lot of things, right. So the first job I ever had, I had as a school teacher, lesson school teacher after school teaching to three kids. So basically, I was taking them on, you know, just courses, English, mathematics and all these basic courses. So during the course of my Steger, I think in a month, I was being requested to come and see the person, the father of the kids. So he asked me, if I, if I had a degree in teaching, that was a degree from the Nigerian from college. I was like, No, I do have a degree. And I'm not in the university yet in Japan. Well, I'm very good at what I do. I'm very good with mathematics with English and all of that. And well, he was like, No, we need a professional. Someone says why? And yeah, that was how I lost the very best job I had. And moving further when I left the job. Not really, like when I got fired. I went into I had a bunch of friends. We were We were very close. Always. Yeah. Okay, so we had this shop, he was a shop of my friend. He is into selling wines. He was selling wines for us. So we always get out there and kind of like discuss among ourselves. Yeah, we always go there to talk about how to go into the digital space, and stuff like that. So I'm basically taught my friends teach. Okay, Carl, you and Christopher, very good friend of mine team today, we started something, they went into web three, they were doing what we called bounty hunting. And then I was just I was someone that I was, I had a vision that I'm gonna do well in programming. So that was where my focus was. But something happened that really dragged me into that path as well. They had this Christoper bought a laptop. Yeah. That was just after, I think a few months after we got, we got up out of high school. And then a few months later, Siddiqui got a new phone. That was very intriguing to me. I was like, going, I literally, I went forward to ask them that, okay, you talked about this thing, tell me more about it. I would also like to come in and also, you know, do this thing. And then that was when to get actually brought me into the entire web three space, taught me everything I needed to know. And I started I started my journey, that back then I was kind of like writing articles. That was for my boss. Her name is soft mine. So I was just writing articles for hire for starting that was around 500 words, to 1000 word article, and I think I was being paid around 509 I don't think that's even up to $1. So, um, that was what I was being paid. And in cost of time, I think during the COVID hit, and everybody went back, I was in school then I got admitted into the University of New York to study computer science. And during that period, I went back home. And in school, I was living in a one. Just one room. So the bathroom that was shared. You know the toilet was a shared toilet and you just have your one room that was the kind of room I was with my prep that somewhere. So when I went back home, I told myself that yeah, I'm never going back to that kind of life. I have to make something out of myself before I go back to school. And then I really went into writing articles for her. I could I write Around 10 articles to 15 articles baby so that I can raise around 5000 Naira to 10,000 every day. So in cost of this, I, I had a job from teacher K, my friend, he told me that the community is working on is looking for people that can make the, your community active. And it would like me to, like manage one to like, be among them. I was like, yeah, no problem, since it's gonna be a little better. That was like, every month, I'm getting like, 6000. There. It was, it was good for me that I said, No problem, I'm gonna do it. And I started it. And in cars, before a month, the owner of the community saw what I was doing. And he was like, Yeah, I was really performing well in the community. And it would love me to be able to contribute to their product. That is, anytime they have a new products are put into the market, I should review the product, give them my feedback. And then before they release it into the product. And that was our goal. My first job of $200 now was $200 a month. That was around September 2020. And going further, that was during December to January, yeah, during December to January, I got my first P, I got my first P and had two options with a B, this was the crazy part had two options for the B. So first, I wanted to get a laptop for myself. Then my mom, she did not have a phone. It was like crazy decision. My mom, she did not have a phone and I was like, What am I gonna do, it was like a crossroads. So I got my mobile phone. And I don't know, it's just everything was just like nature's blessing. And the day I got my mobile phone, I got another job with a venture that was x y ventures. It was a web three venture. That was how I got my second job, I just got a text from him to telling me that I've been doing well in the community, he's been noticing my work that he wants to do, he wants me to come to the activities in his community and the project is working on. And that was how I got my second job. And I actually got around three, four jobs from him, which was a pretty good income for me. That was how I that was just immediately after I got my mom her phone, and then I got three jobs the same day, I got myself a PC and a new mobile phone. Then moving for the moving for the I definitely I got into, I got connected to Mr. Andrew, even to a venture where basically, I began working for him. And then that was when he needed more steps to the projects most of to the company. And it told me if I knew anybody, and that was when everything started kicking off, I started referring people to jobs to him, you know, I started, you know, just I didn't even know what I was doing or basically even results I was at. So I basically started doing these little things for him recruiting people to the, to the venture to protect different people, both people, I think, things people I recruited was born from Africa, and from India, at most powers, people are actually focused on recruiting them. And time shoots so fast. From 2021, I was really doing well in the web three space, and 2022. During the everything, you know, the bear market kicked in, everything was kind of down, but I was still doing well by the grace of God. Then moving further, he got to a stage that Andrew wanted to start his own personal another company, a real estate company. And he I was asked to he asked me to bring up stuff that will work with him. So I approached the staff, they really did well. And he was so happy with the results he was getting. And he told me he told me something that was where everything just clicked in my head. He told me something he told me that. Do you wonder what a concierge service is? I said no idea. And he said a conscious of is that I could actually help people help companies recruit and find talent, especially in Africa, that a lot of companies are trying to move into Africa to like find talent in Africa. Because that was when that clicked to me when he told me that he told me I should look into it and give him feedback. And I did that was when I discovered the human resource and everything that was last year. And when I saw that I decided to you know know more about him. I watched a lot of videos on YouTube and I asked a lot of questions to people I know. Then I saw this course on Coursera that human resource costs To manage who is a specialization, I decided to take it. And I've been practicing since then. That is, and when it comes to my aspect of helping Africans, I grew up I grew towards point, African is a place that a lot of people find it very hard to grow. So my friends helped me to get started with my career. And ever since then I have always offered to help people get started in the, into the in the directory space. And in any other digital, these things are free, I don't charge, I basically help them, you know, get started, I think for the past two or three years that I've been here, I've helped almost 20 people and more, get really good things in the space, they have started up the NPR doing really well today. So I taught them from the beginning, from everything, the basics till they get the advanced knowledge. And it's really something I really, really makes me happy when I see young people grow. I mean, it was something that I had the opportunity to learn. And I said, Okay, I can't have this knowledge alone, I spread it out. And that was where we've been kicked out till I had the idea of starting the company where I can really focus on, you know, helping young people in Africa, you know, making them competitive in the job market as well, because there are a lot of young people out there with lots of talent, beautiful talent, I see them every day, but they don't have that opportunity. They don't have that stage that I had. So given them that stage to really go out there really do something of with their lives and really make an income for yourself. It's something very, it's something in me that I see that I must achieve this. That is why I don't know, that's how the whole story of how I am here to be.
 
Leighann Lovely  17:08
So now you had mentioned something you say that you don't get paid for assisting people in finding different for in finding jobs.
 
Joseph Nssein  17:20
Yeah, that is that is for? That is when I started. Yeah, that is when I started, I recruited young people, you know, and get them into the company and into different roles. I didn't, I didn't charge anything, I didn't charge anything. They were good. It was for free. But now the company is fully active, the company is really active. We will be it will be a commission based on these things from the company, not from the, you know, talents that are recruiting.
 
Leighann Lovely  17:55
So you're set up very much like a staffing company would be here in the US done, which is yes. Okay. Well, excellent. And it sounds like once you found your path, you're the passion. I mean, just listening to you talk the passion that you have is I mean, it comes from your soul. It it comes from, you know, deep within me, it just comes out in your world. Yes. That's amazing. Yeah.
 
Joseph Nssein  18:29
Thank you. Thank you. I mean, it. It's something that, you know, every time we think about the number of young people out there looking for just that one opportunity. Yeah, they're looking for that one opportunity, someone that will give them a chance and say, okay, just do it. Just try these, some of them are so lost, they don't have a portfolio. They are just I meet a lot of them every day. And they told me and some, a lot of them have sent me messages. I mean, every day, I have over 20 messages from a lot of Africans telling me that, okay, they want me to mentor them. They want me to, you know, find a way to show them how they can get started with their different digital skill. So active skill sets already. Some do know how to start from LinkedIn to Twitter, even physically in the university. I have a lot of them in the university that come to me every day and tell me they want to you know start up something with your life they want to because in Nigeria presently, there's literally no jobs in the country. That is the sad thing. The government is not helping the people when it comes in terms of jobs. So everybody so simple, that digital skill outside and it's they're finding it hard to do so. And when it comes to the problem of electricity in the country, problem of internet connection, and all of that it's just weighing down on young people, so they just need that direction. Someone to show them that part. And that is what I really look forward to, you know, building to do. So that I know from the my mission, my mission is to my mission is to raise 1 million Africans to be competitive in the job market. That is my goal. And I hit a few of their numbers, I think around 20 and get a lot to go. But yeah, we can do it, I know that I can do it. I know, I'm going to send the wrong, young people out there to be competitive in the job market. And they can come back and see in future that, okay, Joseph, NCI helped us do this. That is what I am looking out for myself, that is what I want.
 
Leighann Lovely  20:48
Well, and that's part of what intrigued me and one of your posts is that you had said, my goal is to help a million, you know, individual or African, you know, individuals Yeah, find opportunities, and to make a statement like that, and to have the passion that you have at such a young age. You know, that's, that's amazing, I commend you. But to also to also have risen. You know, through what you've gone in, don't get me wrong, I have no concept of of your life, I obviously, I'm growing up in, you know, the United States, I have no concept of what you've what your life path has been like, but to to be the voice to go out there and to continue to follow your dream, while being a bumpy one, while being you know, it's No, nobody's life is ever a straight path, right. But you continue to post you continue to, hopefully, provide hope for everybody in your community and beyond your community, which is why I was so drawn to you, because you clearly have a vision. And I love that. I absolutely. I absolutely love that. And if there's anything that I can do, you know, to help push that vision of yours forward through even the smallest soundbite out there. I'm, I'm all I'm all about that. So let me ask you this. How do you go about getting your clients? Are these companies that you go to? Or is it you had mentioned a boss? How do you? How do you know where these jobs are and available to help these individuals? You know, ended up employed out?
 
Joseph Nssein  22:48
Yeah, that's a very beautiful question. The thing, the thing with the job, one thing is that it's something I've been doing for the past two years, three years, something I've been doing. So I really, I really have the, I don't know, it's just, it's just happened sometimes. Yeah, on some I got some of the jobs is to referrals from the dependent companies I'm connected with. So especially in the web space now. So lots of them, you know, startup and my bosses are connected with different projects. So when they have opportunities, and when they have openings, they are basically going to ask me to Okay, we have these openings, can you find someone that could cover it? And that's where I go ahead and, and also, personally, I also send, I also source for jobs on LinkedIn. So see, for an example, a company should put up an ad on LinkedIn, about a rule, they have openings, I always go to them to tell them that, okay, I have, I have, I can bring somebody for the show that could really satisfy this position. And then they might go, and a lot of them always send back a reply and say, Yeah, go ahead, and you know, fine, bring someone and I would go ahead and you know, find someone and give them and on Twitter as well. Twitter is one of the beautiful networks I love using when it comes to job hunting. And also, not even hunting it myself. There's also some things that actually do as well, when I see openings that I know that okay, I don't have a talent for this, but I know someone that could benefit from this, I can always share the the job opportunity to them and tell them okay, this is how you go about applying it so that you don't mess up so that you get it right. The first time you can actually get the interview. I kind of like give them the guidelines, how to set their resume, how to write the cover letter and all of that so that when they apply, they actually learn to grow. So yeah, I have a lot of other strategies I add together to make sure that at least every month I know that It's okay, I've given job opportunities to at least two or three people for now. And maybe in the future, you know, do more for, you know, more people.
 
Leighann Lovely  25:09
Right? Well, and it's in this in your processes is pretty much, you know, the same as what, you know, we do what I have done historically, as you know, my background being in in recruitment and placement. And so it's, you know, shows that no matter where you are in the world, you know, the process is the same. What are some of the greatest challenges that you have? And actually, let me ask you this first, do you recruit mainly in the tech space? So technology? Do you? Do you mainly in the technology space?
 
Joseph Nssein  25:43
Yes. Mainly, we recruit in the technology space. But recently, recently, we've had, I've had other people reach out to me, having other people reach out to me to kind of like, you know, bring up steps for them physically, for companies physically here in Nigeria. So different companies are featured, I think some few real estate companies and other administrative companies like that, you know, reached out to me too, you know, like, get some people for their roles they have available. So, but mainly mainly mainly, majorly, it's for the technological space I have people recruited for.
 
Leighann Lovely  26:24
Awesome. And so what are some of the main challenges that you that you come up against?
 
Joseph Nssein  26:30
What you say other things, I'd venture into direct? Did I get direct
 
Leighann Lovely  26:35
challenges? Other some of the challenges that you come up against?
 
Joseph Nssein  26:40
Okay. Well, firstly, let me just start with the challenges I literally have right now. Press is. See, we, we, sometimes I, sometimes the electricity is very bad, that you cannot power your system or your phones, that it could be bad. Like, I think this past few days, we had electron shortage of electricity for about two days. And we had to run the generator of that is really, really number one challenge. And secondly, it's the internet connection, or to the place I moved away from the place I was before, please, I am right now. Please, I am right now. It's we have really good internet connection. So that was another challenge I had, and going into the aspect of job hunting, right. You will get some for the job, you will pass the interview, and which obviously each onboarding and everything be expected to. So that was another challenge that I had. And again, it has some kind of roles that are not really easy to do, I had to spend these, you know, even sometimes weeks to find the right candidate for some engineering roles. So that is like a few challenges have had.
 
Leighann Lovely  28:14
And so are the majority of these roles. Are they all remote roles where these individuals are? I mean, are any of these individuals on site?
 
Joseph Nssein  28:26
Yeah, no, oh, guys have worked for all that I have remote roles. So the particular one was for a, a blockchain engineer that had gotten used on smart contracts and below other distinct specifications for the job. So when I think it took me about three weeks before I could find the right person for that role. I had to search everybody that came up. After the interview, you see, they were lacking one thing or the other. Some did not have the complete skill sets needed. And it was just so it took me three weeks. And finally, I found that I could actually do it. And after the interview I presented is still with the company today. And he's doing absolutely well in the company today. It's crazy sometimes.
 
Leighann Lovely  29:20
Right? And as far as your clients, are they are they all in one particular area? Or are they I mean, the majority of your clients, where are they located?
 
Joseph Nssein  29:35
Okay, um, majority are in the web three space, I think, if you few, one is from the real estate industries and the jobs in the real estate, and E he has a lot of requests every time because it's a large company. So I think every day they always need subs. And that's one thing that's amazing with that I And we'll majorities from the web three web page.
 
Leighann Lovely  30:03
But I mean, are they? Are they physically located? You had mentioned, you know, finding jobs in Nigeria is there's just not the jobs there. Right. So are the clients, Nigeria? Or are they in Africa? Or are they in another country?
 
Joseph Nssein  30:20
Yeah. Most of them are in another country. Only a few in Nigeria.
 
Leighann Lovely  30:25
Interesting. So that gives you I mean, you are, you're basically an international recruiter.
 
Joseph Nssein  30:34
Yeah, you could say something like that. Yeah.
 
Leighann Lovely  30:38
I mean, that that's really that's, I mean, if you're working, you're you're placing candidates, you know, across, you know, countries rights, which is, yeah, that's a skill, that is definitely a skill, you're doing everything remote. With limited resources. If you're struggling with electricity, internet connection, that throws a whole nother challenge. And yet, it sounds like you're successful at it.
 
Joseph Nssein  31:09
Yeah. You know, you know, when I started all of these, you know, I don't, I'm someone that looks like you can pass limitations. Yeah, I do. I don't really see that as limiting to me. Because sometimes when I don't have electricity, I just, you know, find a place a cyber cafe or something like that, you know, to go, just go work there. That was what I've been doing for a while before I got myself a generator to, you know, so when I don't have the when there's no electricity, I could justify to myself. And I have a lot of experience around the web three space and working with international clients, which made it a lot easier for me to relate with different companies internationally. Yeah, so that was why everything seems so smooth. Because I hunted for lots of jobs of different companies, I think I've worked for the Chinese have worked for someone in India focus on when in the US, according to someone in the UK, and pretty much a lot remote work remotely. So it's been fun, you know, meeting different people talking with different, you know, meeting different managers, it's been fun, and with all that experience, so when I go out to look for jobs, for other people, it's really kind of smooth, I know how to relate with them. And I know how to tell the person I'm recruiting that, okay, this is how you're going to, you know, manage your job here, when you go here, this is the kind of things you do, this is the kind of things you look out for, and none of that. So keeping the person very ready for the job, so that when they go in there, when they are on boarded, they know that, okay, these are the kinds of norms that are accepted. This is the cultural thing of the company, and that they can basically position themselves very well in the company. Well, I always tell them, especially those from Nigeria, to some hiring from Nigeria that, you know, you should always be prepared, you should always have backup for everything, so that you don't get lost in your jobs, especially when it comes to internet connection. There might be a DD that some network suppliers will, you will have network for an entire day. So I always tell them to you know, have different internet service provider so that when this all goes you, you can jump on to the next and still continue working that you should just look past the limitations that are in Nigeria, because yeah, if I can do it, you can do it. If someone out there, my friends could do it. We could do it, then definitely do it. That's my circle. You know, we said taxes, we set goals for ourselves every year. And we have like a end of year meetup where all of us come back because when right now we are not in the same state anymore. I went to the University, some of them went different places in Nigeria. So at the end of the year, we all had that goal that we said, we come back together to like talk about and figure out something new for the new year. So that is how we just been you know, working together.
 
Leighann Lovely  34:20
That's amazing. That's that's absolutely amazing. I'm, I'm in awe of you. And I just I just want my audience to know that one. And I don't mean this as an insult, Joseph, you look like you're 12 I know that you said you're 22 But and Joseph has a huge smile. And when I said that, just as my audience can't see. But you know, you look you look extremely young. You clearly you know, have one drive you you clearly have true authenticity, which is why I was so completely taken by the post that you put out on LinkedIn, because in today's society, today's world, I truly believe what gret what people want to gravitate to. And the reason that people gravitate towards people like you is because you through your you through your story out there. You didn't hold back, you told you know your story about who you are, where you came from, and, and a little bit about, you know, how you came up. And I absolutely commend you for that. Excuse me. And all I can say is just continue doing what you're doing. Because you're helping people, you're helping people in your community. And that's what I would implore everybody to do is that the only thing that we can do is to try to help the people that that are in our own communities. And if more people did that we would all live in a better world. Yeah. But you know, this has been an awesome conversation. We're coming to time. And I'm going to ask you the final question of the season. I don't know if this applies, because you know, well, I'm going to ask you, the question of the season is, what would you change about your job, or the practice that people have in your role of your job? If you could change anything?
 
Joseph Nssein  36:18
Okay, if I could change anything in my job? What would that be? Right? Did I get you right? Sorry? Yeah, I think really get the last part.
 
Leighann Lovely  36:26
Yep. If you What would you change about your job, or the practice that people have in your role? Like doing your job? If you could change something about it?
 
Joseph Nssein  36:37
Okay. Okay. I do, I think, if there's anything to change it to be kind of thinking, because I don't believe though, I would say, Okay, let me just see if the change should be adding something, let me just put it like that change was to add something, I would really love to add languages, like different languages to myself, right. So that I can communicate with people in different languages. Because sometimes I think, when you when you want, especially when it comes to technical rules, and stuff like that, when you really want to communicate with someone, there is, I think, especially in Nigeria, where we have a lot of languages, lots of languages, sometimes these technical things have needs to be broken down into the language so that they can really understand what you're talking about. So that will be one thing I would really love to do. If I could, if I have the ability to change it out of working, let me speak like contract law, which is, I have to be really smooth, obvious that I can communicate with the people, I want to be very better, you know, when I go out there, and when I talk to them, I could talk to them in their language. And they would really, you know, understand what I'm trying to see. So that would be a change I would love.
 
Leighann Lovely  38:00
Don't you wish it was like a like our brains were kind of like a computer where you could just plug in that language and just know.
 
Joseph Nssein  38:09
Exactly. You just plug in the language as you can, you know, you have the thing. That will be
 
Leighann Lovely  38:18
one day that'll probably exist or something, won't it? Let's not get there. Well, Joseph, this has been, this has been such an amazing opportunity. I'm, I'm honored that you said yes to coming on and talking with me. If somebody wanted to reach out to you to learn more about you learn how they can work with you to help have you help them find a job or a company that wants to reach out to you for recruiting efforts, how would they reach out to you?
 
Joseph Nssein  38:53
Okay, so you can reach out to me via my email at Joseph cn@gmail.com. Also, you could reach out to me on LinkedIn. at Joe's just search for Joseph Nssein. I could be the press profile to pop up. And then on Twitter, you can reach out to me on Twitter, my Twitter DMS are always open double underscore Big Joe. That is my Twitter name. And I think yeah, those are the three means you could reach out to me and also you could go to the website at WWE Kreutz media.com W E RS WEC, our view it and e.com You could go to the website and you can see all the contact information there and you can reach out to me and also you can reach out to Leighann, you can connect with me on LinkedIn
 
Leighann Lovely  39:52
And that will all be in the show notes. So if you are looking to reach out to Joseph you will be able to check the show notes where that will be listed and Again, Joseph, this has been an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for the opportunity to talk with you.
 
Joseph Nssein  40:05
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Really appreciate it. And I would really want to see one last thing, these quotes from I really like using it, especially to young people, they like telling them that the only the only limit to your impact is your imagination, and your commitment, something Anthony Robbins used to see. So despite anything that's happening in your life, despite anything that you're going through, just keep your brains keep your imagination on the goal that you want. That is how you conquer everything. When your brain when your mind is fixed on that being when your commitment is still on that thing and you have that consistency, you will achieve anything. So thank you very much Leighann it's so wonderful, conversing with you.
 
Leighann Lovely  40:55
So much wisdom from such a young person and well said thank you. Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPY
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
job, people, nigeria, company, joseph, recruiting, day, electricity, internet connection, web, roles, find, linkedin, africa, university, community, space, life, friends, talent

4 Steps to Success, Seasons of Life and So Much More

Traci Scherck is a business owner that focuses on building HR teams to help create best practices from the ground up. She and I had a great conversation about her 4 step process and the different seasons of life that we all go through. Traci is a podcast host, HR coach, and all-around Leader in her field.
 
Contact Traci
E-mail - traci@elevatedtalentconsulting.com
LinkedIN - linkedin.com/in/traci-scherck
Podcast - https://elevatedtalentconsulting.com/podcast-2/
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann lovely. Let's get this conversation started. 
 
Traci Scherck is the Chief Strategy Consultant and Owner of Elevate Talent Consulting. Traci is a certified HR professional. With nearly two decades of experience in employee development, and engagement, performance consulting and training facilitation. Traci began her career in retail and nonprofit organizations building inclusive teams to best serve her client base. She was responsible for building an HR department from the ground up including training and talent development programs. Each of these programs focused on culture and organizational impact. She transitioned into healthcare consulting with a long-term care center on developing and creating talent pathways into and through their organizations. Traci worked one on one with business owners and management teams to improve manager effective pneus to communication coaching motivation, conflict resolution, and performance management. Traci uses her consulting expertise to serve clients in applying behavioral concepts to hire and selection, designing and implementing talent pathways, coaching, motivation, and more. This is going to be an awesome conversation with Traci. She is a talented and brilliant woman. 
 
Traci, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really excited to have this conversation. So why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself?
 
Traci Scherck  02:45
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. Leighann. So, my name is Tracy shirk, and I love working with organizations on ensuring every employee is fulfilled in their work and meeting the business outcomes. So the background to that is, you know, really growing HR departments from the ground up for the last 20 years.
 
Leighann Lovely  03:10
Awesome. That's okay, so how did you I'm sorry, as we're having this conversation, I am trying to cool myself off because I have COVID here. So it's gonna be a fun conversation, Tracy.
 
Traci Scherck  03:27
Hey, guess what my one of a member of our team had COVID Last week, and she called me looking like you are right now Leanne, and I told her to go take a nap.
 
Leighann Lovely  03:36
Right. So I appreciate you putting up with me.
 
Traci Scherck  03:41
Oh, thank you for having us. Absolutely. And I think that's like a fun conversation. Right, right. You know, as we look at HR, you know, how do we play with this work life balance? How do we play with COVID and dogs puking behind you? And you know, all the crazy things that happen, right, like from this work from home environment? And here we are.
 
Leighann Lovely  04:04
Right? Absolutely. So why don't you How did you tell me how did you get started in your I mean, to go out on your own? How did you get started and then decide that it was time to go out on your own?
 
Traci Scherck  04:18
That is such a great question, Leighann. So I was working for a top 50 CPA firm doing HR consulting for them. So they had a consulting arm of their business. And what I found was culture is so incredibly important to being happy and fulfilled in your role at work. And what I found was it was a great organization. They were very process focused. They also were an organization that had a lot of controls in place. I mean, it was a CPA firm, right? And for who I am I especially when you have a sales role and those types of things. I needed to have more autonomy In my role, and so what I found was that I was frustrated with the culture because it wasn't a great culture fit for who I was. And so that was kind of one of those key things. And then the second thing was I saw, especially for small organizations that they really needed support in building the HR function from the ground up. So what I was doing is going in and doing what I lovingly called, butt in seat HR, versus training and elevating someone internal to the organization, which in the long term is lat is more cost effective to the organization versus an outside firm staying in the HR role for ever. And so that is what I went out to do.
 
Leighann Lovely  05:49
Interesting, and, butt in seat HR. And I love that. I love that.
 
Traci Scherck  05:57
Right? Like, your butt is in the seat, and you're doing HR all day long. Right? You know, right?
 
Leighann Lovely  06:05
No, absolutely. Absolutely. So you you're a, you're a trainer, you're a coach, you work with HR professionals to help walk through and you and I had previously spoke, you know, kind of about like a four step process that you walk them through, correct? Yeah, so for sure. Let's talk a little bit about that, and how how that approach helps them and kind of your philosophy on that.
 
Traci Scherck  06:33
Yeah, absolutely. So Leon, you just said, Hey, you've got a four step approach that you walk folks through to build their HR departments from the ground up. And I want to start from the end and work my way to the beginning here. We're going to do it backwards. But how we came up with that four step approach? And what it is, is we looked at, you know, what has employees be engaged in their work so that they produce in their meeting the business outcomes, and they're fulfilled in their role? Right? So when we looked at what are those drivers are those levers to engagement, there's really four levers to engagement, the first is fit to roll. Are we hiring individuals into the right role? Right? And so we call that hire, are we hiring them into the right roles so that we've got fit to roll? The second lever that we look at is, once they're in the role? Are we really inspiring them to perform their best. And so that has a lot to do with a manager, right? So is the manager leading them the way they need to be led? The third level that we look at is we look at the team. I don't know about you, but I've worked on some amazing teams. And I've worked on some teams where I felt like bonk, bonk, bonk on my head all day long, like, I couldn't do anything, right. And there was always this like one upmanship. And well, I did this better than you. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I cannot do this. So that team environment plays a significant role. And then the fourth lever is the organizational culture. And I kind of talked a little bit about that at the top of the podcast. So the four step process that we walk individuals through to build an HR department from the ground up, has to do with are they in the right role? Do they have a leader that is leading them the way they need to be led? Are they on the team so that they have a team that is executing a very specific strategy? And are they the right player on that team for that? And then the fourth is, do the personal values align with the organizational values? So you know, that four step is hire, inspire, design and engage?
 
Leighann Lovely  08:54
Awesome, so Okay, so now in you said, you work, you work your, your way backwards on those rights. So when you go in, the first thing that you that you work with, or you talk with, I'm assuming with an organization is making sure that you understand what their values are?
 
Traci Scherck  09:17
Right, so So absolutely. So it's understanding what their values are. And when we walk into an organization, my first question is always, what's your pain point? Right, right. So because if I understand what their pain point is, I know where to start. Right? So it may be that we need to start with hiring the right people and getting that infrastructure in place. It may be that we need to start with you know, hey, we just lost our five best employees and we don't know what we're going to do. So we need to focus on retention, it may be that it truly is values that they want to redefine their organizational values, and you know, really have those tightened up So it really depends upon what pain point they present with. And then yes, we always get into the mission vision values because it threads through absolutely everything. But it's a yet we want to ensure that we're meeting them where they're at. So we're solving that key problem that they have first.
 
Leighann Lovely  10:21
Right? Right. So since you know, this season really is is a great deal on retention and training and in hiring. What are you seeing right now, in this market? You know, I historically have always asked people like, how did COVID affect the well, we've I think we've beat that one, you know, to a pulp. Right. I think the world is now understands like COVID has, speaking of COVID, but, right. Hey, I just this is my first time, okay, I've managed to make it three years, by the way, without getting COVID. And now I'm like, Oh, this is why everybody didn't want to get this. It's horrible. It's absolutely horrible.
 
Traci Scherck  11:08
Like I said, Leighann, have you built naptimes into your day? If not, you need to for the next three weeks, right?
 
Leighann Lovely  11:14
Well hey, the last three days, the entire day has been naptime. Let me tell you, I've set alarms to get up for meetings. And then I just hit the snooze button, go oh, wait, I have to let them know. I can't make it to the meeting because naptime hasn't ended yet. Okay, anyways, I diverse, or I mean, I digress. Okay, so we've been we've, you know, we've completely and totally, you know, beat what has COVID done to the world? What, what, what is the world now doing? To try to figure out how to hire, retain, train, you know, what, what is? What is this? I hate the world I hate the phrase this new world doing, but I think it's necessary now.
 
Traci Scherck  12:03
Absolutely. And I'm smiling at this question, because I just posted a podcast today, the day that we're recording this on, you know, what the massive layoffs the impact that the massive layoffs are having on our culture? And so that kind of leads me to answer your question and saying, What are companies doing? I think a lot of companies are really starting to double down and look at their culture, and what kind of culture are they creating? And is that culture attracting the right people? And is it retaining the right people very specifically, around? Are we creating a coaching culture, especially because we have, you know, so many of our folks working from home where we no longer can have this, I see your butt is in the seats, and I see you're working? You know, now it's really focused on managing by performance and having those performance metrics in place, which leads to leading very differently, which means that we need to lead really through, how are we coaching those individuals, when we're not seeing them on a day to day basis? How are we pulling the metrics to look at that until very specifically, look at that process. And even for the clients that we have that everyone is still in person based on the type of work that they're doing and or that culture, it is still looking at the culture. So even for organizations that are saying, hey, we want you 50% in the office, it has so much to do with the culture and the collaboration.
 
Leighann Lovely  13:35
Interesting. And, and I've obviously have spoken with, with numerous companies, and you know, that cultural shift is definitely I see everybody sees this happening, but it doesn't happen overnight, which means that more and more individuals are are jumping, looking for that culture. So I guess what advice do you give to each company that you work with on that immediate? That immediate, like, how do you keep these people right now?
 
Traci Scherck  14:09
Yeah, this is such a great question. So I met with a company two weeks ago and did and worked with them on really aligning their mission, vision and values. Yet, before we walked into that workshop, I had a conversation with every employee. So this is a smaller organization, and essentially did a state interview with every employee, right? And so what we did is we just essentially said, Hey, what do you love about this organization? What do you not so much love? Right? And this went everywhere from benefits to the of course, pay comes up, right? Of course. But and then it went into again, we looked at the four areas, right? Tell me about the role that you're in. Tell me about You know how your how your manager leads, you tell me about the team you're on, tell me about the culture, mission, vision values of the organization and how that impacts the work that you do. So we literally went through those four levers in this stay interview. And what came out of it was an incredibly beautiful conversation, and very specific alignment about where the organization felt the mission vision values were versus what the lived ones were those lived behaviors, and there was a realignment, and a reigniting of the passion and commitment to the organization, which meant engagement went up, guess what happens when engagement goes up? employees stay, and productivity goes up and profitability goes up, right. And so, you know, a conversation that I just had with the same company yesterday was one of their employees had mentioned to me, you know, some frustration with her job title based on the role that she was doing, et cetera. So I went back, and I shared that with the owner of the business. And so we she goes, well, she's my number three, I want to ensure that she stays here. You know, I don't want her to be a flight risk. I said, Well, let's do an alignment conversations. So we met for an hour, this week and had this alignment conversation, which essentially says, Hey, your job title just changed. You know, employee, can you share with us what winning looks like for you in this role? And so she went through a named what winning looks like for her. And you know, then I kind of went to the owner and her supervisor and said, so Did we miss anything? And how do we measure it? So if that's what winning looks like? How do we know when you actually had it? And what we found was, is that the goals aren't necessarily measurable. And so often, we create this vagueness and this ambiguity, that we never know if we're winning or not. And so really, when you know that that advice, back to your question is, you know, do you have alignment between what the supervisor manager feels that winning is and what the employee feels that winning is? Otherwise? If you don't, you know, the suggestion would be sit down and have the conversation about what does winning look like? And I love that question, because we all want to win. And if I say what is your job, you get? Oh, no, versus what winning looks like? Well, I'm going to hit 1000 downloads this month. Right, Lian, right? I'm going to, you know, million, three new sales accounts, I'm going to XYZ and that needs to align with what your business outcome is. And I know you just started a brand new business, which I just said, Hey, you want to land three new clients in the seals business that you have? Right?
 
Leighann Lovely  18:05
Right. And that's it. You would think, and I say this, lightly, I say this, you know, you would think that every organization would go, Oh, well, da, I need to make sure that my employees know that they're valued by understanding exactly how we're going to measure them how we're going to, you know, you would think that a manager would be able to go to their employee and simply have a comment, like, are you happy? Do you understand your role? Are you you know, fulfilled? Do you feel like your job title matches? You would, you would think that this is a conversation that can happen easily within an organization. However, as you are telling me this, I'm pretending that I'm the employee having this conversation and what the feeling that I'm getting is, oh, my gosh, what are they going to think of me? If I'm complaining about my job title? What are they going to think of me? If I'm, you know, are they going to be upset? Are they going to be mad? Like, this may be insignificant to them, but wildly important to me? Because I feel XYZ, right.
 
Traci Scherck  19:26
Yeah. And let me add some clarification. This conversation came after we changed her job title and gave her the title that she wanted.
 
Leighann Lovely  19:33
Right? No, and exactly but but here's the thing is that she she had to, she had to initially tell you, she had to initially feel comfortable enough to tell you that she wanted a different job title. Right. Right. And so that and that, and if you were to ask me, Leon, what do you want your job title to be? I'd be like, I don't really care. Right now. But that's because I'm, I'm at a different level. Right? If you are, I'm going to guess that this employee was probably probably closer to being a a entry or to mid level, individual or she gets paid based on her level.
 
Traci Scherck  20:20
Yeah, she was at a manager level. Okay. Yeah.
 
Leighann Lovely  20:23
When you get to a certain level of you know, employment or you've been in, you've been in your job for, as long as I have 20 years, I just I stopped really caring about the title. Because, and again, some people are very wrapped up in titles. I don't care if I'm a Director of Client Services, or if you call me a salesperson, I really don't care. Either way, my job is the same. But some people it is wildly important. Because and that's the difference is that some people, it holds a huge, huge importance for them, especially depending on the role that they're doing, right? I'm in sales, sales, sales, sales, sales, does not matter what title you give me. Regardless, at the end of the day, I do the same thing. Right. Right. Right.
 
Traci Scherck  21:17
And I think that that's so interesting, because when we talk about, you know, that manager role or that inspire role, what we were doing in that conversation is we were inspiring her to perform, right. So we looked at not the fact that, you know, I or whoever else in the room, you know, don't care about titles, we looked at what is important to her, right? And how do we meet her where she's at where we can, and that's a really important piece is, as an organization, we cannot always meet it, nor is it equitable to meet it. Right. This was and so we did, and with that, we, you know, said, Hey, with this title change, there's also some change in responsibilities. And yes, there's a change in pay, you know, but with that, there is some change in responsibilities. You know, and one of my favorite lines that a mentor told me when I moved into my first director role was, So Tracy, you're no longer in the cheap seats, and you can't sling mud anymore, because you're the one making the decision. So what are you going to do? Right?
 
Leighann Lovely  22:27
Right. And, and again, that, again, that comes back to because of the type of job that you were in the title directly correlated with the with a job, right? And that's why for me, who is a serial salesperson, it doesn't matter what you call me. I, at the end of the day, do the same, you know, did the same thing. I was a business developer, I was a director of sales, I was at the end of the day, the job was exactly the same for me. So for me, title did not matter. So that was the point I was making. And that's companies have to realize that. And I was trying to come to a point. And it just wasn't Coralie, and just wasn't making sense, because maybe my brain is a little bit mushy today. I'm all good, right? But companies have to realize that, like, hiring somebody like you, you're able to get to the core of what's important to each individual. And I think that's we've gotten so far away from that, there was a time where HR, you know, we had multiple people in HR. And then now we've made every single role, or we've tried to make every single role a cookie cutter, right? Because we wanted to treat everybody exactly the same in order to mitigate liability. Trying to make sure that we cover ourselves on all angles. For years, that was the goal, write, write down everything that you do write down, this is the job now we can plug and play, this person doesn't work out, we shove another person and we teach them the role. And we move on and now we've got, you know, number 1856 employee, you know, in this role and you know, blah, blah, blah, right? Now, I'm not talking about right now I'm talking about this is the way that it started to go the world started to go. Now, all these employees are, you know, these plug and play employees that we can literally plug in, train them, they do the job, they go home, we realize as a society that we can't do that anymore, because they're not machines. These machines actually have feelings, emotions, desires, wants, all of these other things that come along with them. And now the world is shifting yet again. saying Wait, no, I'm not employee one eight. Five to seven or whatever, I'm LeighAnn lovely. And I have, you know, feelings and desires and wants and goals within this organization, if you want to keep me, then you have to actually know me and understand what those feelings desires and wants are, or I'm going to go over to XYZ company, where they actually listen to that, and try to meet those expectations. And so, so many companies were so used to the whole idea of let's just do the cookie cutter so that we mitigate all of this liability. And now they're realizing, Oh, we have to treat humans like humans. But what about everything else? Like? Is there going to be, you know, liability associated with this? Is there going to be everybody's going waiting? Or no, the liabilities and the old way that you're doing it? Because now you're actually discriminating against the fact that people are different. Right, right.
 
Traci Scherck  25:57
Yeah. And I think that, you know, with that specific example to it was we gave her the space to listen, and every single employee had an opportunity to share what was great and what wasn't right. And action was taken on it immediately, right? And so even for those employees that want to come and do their job, leave and never grow within the organization, guess what? That is absolutely okay. Because we still need that job to be done. And we are still listening to what they have to say, but we're not moving their cheese.
 
Leighann Lovely  26:34
Right? Right. And I used to be one of those people, I used to be the, you know, hey, don't move my cheese. I'm completely happy where I am. But you grow out of certain. And I think you and I talked about this, you and I did talk about this the Season of Life, seasons of life of you know, so and I'd love to dig a little bit more into that. Because I think that each one of us, you know, we have different points in our life where we're comfortable in a certain point. We may grow out of that without even realizing that we have and then we move on. And that's okay.
 
Traci Scherck  27:08
Yeah, for sure. And when I say seasons of life, first, I just want to pause because Leanne, I have a podcast as well. And I can always hear my listeners on my shoulder going. Move the cheese. Yes, we are both from Wisconsin. And we are both in Wisconsin and moving the cheese as a reference to changing something on someone without them knowing it. So I just don't want anyone getting lost in that.
 
Leighann Lovely  27:28
Well, no. And it's also a book. It's also a book. Is it a book? Yes. Who Moved My Cheese?
 
Traci Scherck  27:34
Oh, the mouse book for kids?
 
Leighann Lovely  27:36
Kids? No, no, this is this is. This is a book, the same author who wrote The Present. And it's a book about change. So you Oh, wow. So we learned something new. This is an amazing book. It's about a 45 minute read. I'm trying to think right now off the top of my head who the author is?
 
Traci Scherck  27:55
Well, you'll just link it in the show notes.
 
Leighann Lovely  27:57
Yes, I will. Absolutely. It's an amazing book. My dad gave it to me when I was. Actually I thought you were referencing that.
 
Traci Scherck  28:05
That's hilarious. By the way. No, I was just talking about, you know, moving somebody's cheese,
 
Leighann Lovely  28:11
right? No, that's an actual book. It was written by Spencer Johnson. It's a number one best selling his number one best selling selling author, and it's called Who Moved My Cheese. But it is about the concept of, of change. And there's four characters in there. And again, it's, you're able to identify on what kind of person you are based on these four different characters? Are you the kind of person who when change happens, gets up and is ready to go? Are you the kind of person who is like, Nope, I'm going to, I'm going to drag my feet. I'm not going to. I'm not gonna. I'm going to fight this all the way. And I absolutely used to be the person who used to fight it all the way, every step, every meter to the last moment. Now I'm the kind of person that if you change something on me, I'm like, Okay, I'm the first in line, Let's learn. Let's figure it out. Let's roll with this. I love it. But that's a work in progress, right? We all have to, we all have to figure out. And that's part of the whole season of life for me anyways, for a longest time, I hated the concept of change. It's also becoming a mother. Right? Nothing ever stays. Right, you know? Any, any one day for that matter? Right? So anyways, I get off a no, this
 
Traci Scherck  29:42
is perfect. And I loved your transition back to seasons of life because Absolutely. 100% And so when we talk about seasons of life, you know, it's looking at Where's an individual at currently, right? So you've got folks that you just talked about becoming a mom, you know, that probably shifted you into a different work role for a period of time, may or may not, but it's a season of life, right? You know, a season of life is when a parent is ill or a parent is passing and you're taking care of a parent a season of life is, you know, the honeymoon phase of a marriage a season of life is a divorce a season of life is you know, becoming empty nesters a season of life is any of those things that create a major life change for you that guess what have an impact at work as much as we try to compartmentalize things, it's all the same pot of soup. And so when we look at what those items are, as HR and as leaders, it's incredibly important to not make assumptions for someone else. Because guess what that is discrimination. And, and it can definitely be that if you say, Hey, we're not going to have Leon travel anymore, because she's pregnant. Yeah, no, not okay. But to say, hey, Leon, you know, we've got a couple options, what would you prefer, giving you the choice and knowing that you're going into a different season of life is, is looking at us as humans and saying, Hey, there's choice here. And we want you to choose that. And we also know that energy levels may not be as high today, as you have COVID. Nothing I call COVID a season of life. It's ugly, however, you know, it kind
 
Leighann Lovely  31:34
of is right now for me, and somebody's gonna have to wheel me back to the couch after this conversation. So love it. But yes, I mean, it. You're right. I mean, different points, different seasons of life definitely. Have drivers for, for all of us. Right.
 
Traci Scherck  31:58
Right. And another one I didn't mention, like, I remember when I, you know, started to get really bored in my job. So I went back and I got a master's degree, right. Like, that was a season, you know, I went and I got a coaching certification. Because, you know, guess what, there's a season that led you to go do those things. And so a lot of times, you can look at seasons and say, how is that season going to impact the career changes going forward. And as HR, we don't typically know what's happening with staff, and sometimes we do. But with that, it's just something to be cognizant of is that there are seasons that every single one of us is going through. And so if you see somebody at peak performance, and you know, six months later, you're like, okay, they're, they're still getting everything done, but like, they were hitting it out of the park, for a solid year and a half. Now, they're now you know, we're, we're doing bass hits every day, which is fine. Guess what, we can't always be on peak performance. And that's not you know, that's the machine versus saying, there's ups and downs to this. And when we can have empathy and compassion, and you know, kind of create those goals, share those goals, cheer that on, we're going to be with that individual throughout the ups and downs of those seasons.
 
Leighann Lovely  33:22
And I something that you said, you know, as HR, we can't always know what's going on with our employees. And I wish that and again, I don't I, before I say this, I want to make sure that everybody understands I'm not saying that, that we should be allowed to know, or that we should cry, or that, that this is something that I'm just I'll just say it and then I'll we can talk about it. I wish that we that we did that we that that employees had enough confidence in HR, again, to be able to approach them and say, Hey, I've got something going on at home. You know, this may, you know, XYZ is going on, I'm really struggling with this. I really want to do a great job here. I just want to give you a heads up, you know, and then for for HR to be able to say, here are some resources available to you if you need help. But we've gotten to a point where employees are so guarded by HR that they're afraid they're going to get fired that it's a hush hush, like don't let anybody at the company find out or I'm gonna get fired. I mean, that's it's the fear mentality that drives the secrecy. Completely. I mean, right. Here's an example I called my husband and I said, I just tested positive for COVID. On my end, I said you should probably inform your employer that you know, we're we have to look for different childcare because obviously, I can't wait You know, I can't have the nanny coming over to the house, we need to contain this blah, blah, blah, will test our daughter will test you, you know, providing that you guys don't have symptoms, you know, all that kind of stuff, I'll remain in the lower level and my husband goes, I'm not telling my employer and I'm like, why? Well, what if they make me not come to work for seven days? And then we, you know, blah, blah, blah? And I'm like, Well, okay, I get that. And he's like, I'm just, I'm going to test I'll do the responsible thing. I'll stay home tomorrow, but I'm not going to inform them of what's going on in my personal life. And I'm like, Okay, you're right, you have the right to do that. As long as you're doing the responsibility, things didn't, you know, testing and all that other stuff. But it's like, why is that so fearful? Why are we so afraid to give information?
 
Traci Scherck  35:47
Right, right. And I think because there's been so many situations where there's been a negative response to it. Right, right. And, you know, let me just give one and for our HR professionals out there, you may kind of give me the side eye on this, and that's okay. But, but you know, somebody's coming to you with something and just saying, hey, go see EAP, what you did is you just put them into another system without having empathy around what they just shared with you. And I think one of those key things is, you know, when we do have that sharing, happening, and before, after, during all the things is, how are we creating space and holding space for those individuals in our office, and really just listening in and providing that sounding board to them not taking their stuff on? That's not what I'm saying. But really providing that space, having empathy for what's going on with them, and then shifting the conversation into, let's start to brainstorm some solutions to move you forward. And what are those key goals? And there's the coach coming out, Leighann.
 
Leighann Lovely  36:54
Right? You're right, and not every HR professional is a coach and in, you know, prepared for what happens if an employee walks in their office and says, you know, I realized, I'm an alcoholic, and I'm gonna go for treatment. You know, a lot of HR professionals, especially younger ones, or ones that haven't been around the block are like, Okay. Well, what do I do? How do I handle this? And unfortunately, over the years, we have gotten a bad rap. I mean, I've had multiple friends call me and go, What do I do? So and so just got fired? Aren't they? You know, do we have a lawsuit? And I'm like, well, first of all, probably shouldn't jump to the lawsuit. You know, let's not, let's think this through first, you know, but you know, HR, people forget that the first thing that HR has to do is protect the interests of the company. But that doesn't mean that there's not a human beings sitting in that chair too.
 
Traci Scherck  38:10
Right? There's an an both with how do I show empathy? And how do I create the protection and you can do an an both, right? Because it's in the way of your being, and in your doing, it's an and both to, to the person and the organization to how you are showing up and what you are doing in those actions.
 
Leighann Lovely  38:36
Right. But, and like I said, HR has gotten, and I trust me, I was in corporate HR. And there were times where people would see me coming, and they'd be like, okay, they I would see like, multiple people just like leaving, and I'm like, okay, nobody wants to be around the corporate HR lady. They, you know, everybody, nobody wants to, like, Hey, I'm a cool gal. Like, I swear, I, I swear I say bad words. I drink I know, I mean, maybe but this was this was like 15 years ago, that made me cool at that time. Okay, maybe not, I don't know. But I love it. Nobody wanted to be anywhere, you know, they everybody would scatter. And it was like, okay, you know, that's fine. But it's the same thing of, you know, a cop walks into a party. Everybody's like, Should we all stop drinking? Should we should we go home? Should we, you know, it's the same thing like it's the same concept, I guess. And I want to see that shift again. And I think we are starting to see that where companies are focusing a little bit more on that but for I don't know, it's time will only tell right? Well we are coming to time I just realized how late it was. So the question of the season what would you change about your job or the practice that people have in your role if you could?
 
Traci Scherck  40:14
So what would I change about my job so as the owner of a company I would not do anything with it or systems and it would all just be done for me it worked perfectly.
 
Leighann Lovely  40:27
Okay I second that I absolutely second IT systems or you know what I'm gonna even say the marketing piece. I a sales person through and through, but when it comes to marketing and creativity, I black. Okay,
 
Traci Scherck  40:46
I just wrote an email about Smurfs. Because yes, so much like the little blue men Smurfs. Yes about Smurfs The little. Okay. Now I have to tell you the story about Smurfs donor. Yes. All right. So I go into TJ Maxx, and I'm out a conditioner and I don't want to go by the Aveda conditioner. So I go on to TJ Maxx and I find this bottle wrecking conditioner. I'm like, great. smelled it? It smelled good. Fantastic, right? Like the things that we think are important is how does it smell? So I get home and you know, like I'm taking my shower, and I'm washing my hair and doing all the thing I looked down and I'm blue, this conditioner. And of course I look at the bottle now and the bottle says blue pigment in the bottle is blue. But I didn't pay attention when I bought the conditioner that the bottle was blue. How often do we do that in our HR policies and with things that we think that we know like what our handbook says, then we actually go look at it. And we're like, oh my goodness. So I buy the red conditioner. I put it in my hair. And then I'm blue. And I just keep like, you know, rinsing my hair with this redkin conditioner, and the blue goes away. But the beautiful part Hold on. I see you're like why is the conditioner blue? It's blue so that it starts to hide the gray. However, I didn't realize that I was turning blue that day.
 
Leighann Lovely  42:11
So wait a second, it actually died your skin?
 
Traci Scherck  42:15
Blue? Well, no, but just like it didn't die it but like I'm like, I'm like you look down and you know, it's like when it takes a bit to like
 
Leighann Lovely  42:23
write it. Right? Oh my god, blues.
 
Traci Scherck  42:29
But how often do so I'm going to do a marketing piece for you. Right? How often do we think we know something and tell it shows up in our face? And we're like, oh my gosh, that's not at all what I thought it was. And in HR, we see that in our policies. Right? Yeah. It's like, what are the unintended consequences of the wording of this in this way or of having the conversation in that way? So my rule here is pay attention so you don't become a smurf. That's really good marketing lesson for the day. I don't Okay.
 
Leighann Lovely  43:00
That's actually pretty good. That's pretty good. Hey, I temporarily dyed my hair purple, which stayed purple for about three washes and then turn pink. Because my hair does not and what did stay bright purple was my scalp. Which it was yes, it was a nightmare. I will never dye my hair again. I will not give the brands because they do not want to, you know, bash any brands or anything. But by the way
 
Traci Scherck  43:33
That was not bashing redkin it was just like, this is a no brand. I know I sprained my trust it. I don't have to look at it.
 
Leighann Lovely  43:40
Right, right. No, no, I'm right. But this with my hair. Um, I temporarily dyed my scalp. Bright, bright purple because I didn't read the directions clear enough saying make sure to keep it off your scalp and use a lubricant around the rest of your skin to keep it off of your skin or it will dye your skin. So the next day I went to a networking meeting with still purple dots all over the back of my ears, the back of my neck. Oh, yes, it was it was a blast. Fantastic. This is yet again. Because as an HR professional, I still didn't read the entire directions basically stating, do not get this on your skin. Oh, I also had purple thumbs. It was yes, it was just a blast. Never again. Well, it's fun.
 
Traci Scherck  44:36
I hope you now have your marketing inspiration.
 
Leighann Lovely  44:39
Yeah, yes. I'm not even going to Okay. If somebody wanted to reach out to you. How would they go about contacting you and where can they find your podcast?
 
Traci Scherck  44:50
Absolutely. So you can find me on LinkedIn. It's Tracy sharp. You can find me on our website which is elevated talent comm salting and our podcast is talent optimization with Tracy shirk.
 
Leighann Lovely  45:05
Excellent. Thank you so much again, Tracy for this awesome conversation. I really appreciate your time today.
 
Traci Scherck  45:11
And I appreciate you and all of your COVID conversation that we just had.
 
Leighann Lovely  45:19
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible so don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us, like us or share us have a wonderful day.
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPY
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
employee, traci, conversation, organization, hr, role, season, absolutely, hr professionals, conditioner, life, companies, job, hiring, people, important, culture, individuals, meeting, create

HR Generalist with 20 Years of Experience, Wildly Knowledgeable

With 20 years in HR in a number of areas Jennifer Kramer is a true HR generalist, She is now the Executive Vice President for Benefits at Presidio. She and I had a great conversation about hiring, retention, and culture shifts. Not only does Jennifer offer a wealth of knowledge, but she also is highly intelligent and I truly enjoyed an amazing conversation with her.
 
Contact Jennifer
E-mail - HR@Presidiogrp.com
Phone number - 630-524-6153
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann lovely. Let's get this conversation started. 
 
Jennifer Kramer is the Executive Vice President of employee benefits in Presidio HR. She has over 20 years of experience in operations supporting multi state for profit and nonprofit organizations. She has expertise in project management, training and development, performance management, employee and client relations, policy and procedures and conflict resolutions. consistently recognized as an innovative, results orientated and effective leader, Jennifer builds team's support by encouraging others to perform and achieve strategic business goals. Jen is no stranger to setting goals and performing her best with three marathons and 13, half marathons, finisher medals hanging around her neck. She's living her dream one mile at a time.
 
Jennifer, thank you so much for joining me today.
 
Jennifer Kramer  02:09
Well, thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure to be invited onto your show.
 
Leighann Lovely  02:14
Why don't you start off by telling telling us a little bit about yourself?
 
Jennifer Kramer  02:19
Sure, um, well, I've been in human resources. Progressive through my career for about 20 years first, as an internal, each our professional and then as I term it, an external HR professional, meaning that I provide HR services to my clients rather than one particular organization. So as an HR consultant, in a number of different areas, the full breadth of an employee lifecycle, if you want to think of it in that respect. So I would call myself a true HR generalist. So not necessarily specializing in one area or another.
 
Leighann Lovely  03:07
Okay, awesome. So, like we kind of mentioned in your bio, you just mentioned, you've been in the industry one way or another for over 20 years. And I'm assuming that in that, just like me, you've probably seen anything and everything that that goes on out there. Yes, yes. Fun times. Right.
 
Jennifer Kramer  03:30
The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the funny.
 
Leighann Lovely  03:33
Yes, yes. What, as you say, funny. I believe I interviewed somebody once over the phone. Who was in the bathtub once that was one of them. Ones? Yes. Think when? Oh, yeah. Somebody actually peed while we were on the doing an interview.
 
Jennifer Kramer  03:51
Oh just this past week. I had someone answered the phone. They were in the shower. And it was on the phone. It was not a video call. Let me be clear there especially in today's age, right, but, but nonetheless, they felt the need to answer our scheduled phone interview while they were in the shower, and then proceeded to continue on that call, even though I suggested maybe we reschedule. So yeah, it's amazing what people do.
 
Leighann Lovely  04:23
Right. I didn't want to miss the call. Let's just Yes, but I needed to still shower. Right. I know. I know. We professionals. We get the brunt of the crazies out there, don't we? Or I shouldn't. I shouldn't No, no, no, I know. Okay, well anyways. So, you and I have obviously spoke prior to this and, you know, this being about employee retention about hiring. Let's talk a little bit about some of the things that you or do to help your, you know, clients? With those types of things? How do you? How do you start working with your clients? To assist with those types of things?
 
Jennifer Kramer  05:14
In terms of hiring and retention? Yeah. Really, we take it right back to the very beginning and understanding, you know, what are what's your culture? Right? What are your? What are your needs in this position? We don't want to, we don't want to necessarily rinse and repeat in saying that, you know, you, for example, maybe someone resigned, and you're looking to replace that position? Do you? Do we need to find this exact replacement? Or have things changed over time? So let's look at, you know, what are your needs today versus where they were perhaps three years ago or five years ago when you initially hired for that role? And where are you looking to go in the future so that we're not just solving for today, but we're solving for tomorrow as well as best as we can, we don't have that crystal ball. And then when we are looking to bring somebody on what's going to be attractive to them. So we look at the whole picture, and everyone focuses in on compensation. Well, we certainly want to be competitive in the marketplace. So we talked about, you know, where the compensation philosophy, where do you want to be? Do you want to be Mitt like right in the middle in terms of your competition? Do you want to lead the market, like the market? The compensation is just one piece of it. There's, there's the full package when we talk about benefits. There's the employee benefit package in terms of medical, dental vision. But then also, what are you providing in terms of time off? Paid Time Off? Sick leave? Holidays? That's a key component these days? Do you have a flexible work environment? What's your true what are you portraying as a community as a culture? Because that's key to employees? Are you 100%? Remote? Do you offer a hybrid work environment? These are things that people are looking for. In when I talk about culture, oftentimes it's very subjective, right? We can't, we can't say, Okay, your medical plan is this and this, you have so many days of PTO, right. But culture, culture is hard to pinpoint. But it's, in my mind, it's about listening to your employees, empowering your employees. Talking to them understanding where they want to go with their careers, giving them the tools to get there, giving them maybe an assignment or a project or whatever it is, that pertains to their work, that will stretch their minds, give them those opportunities for growth, those learning opportunities, right? Being present with them, to guide them and support them, but not necessarily doing the job for them. So all of that plays into to culture. And if you can do that, in addition to the compensation, the PTO, the holidays, the work, location, and everything else that they're looking for. Then in my mind, that's what makes everything kind of stick. That's the stickiness factor at the retention in that employee.
 
Leighann Lovely  09:28
And I love that, you know, when we when we first spoke, you use that term, you have to make actuations, you know, sticky. And so that leads me into, you know, a great next question. Do you think that employees are truly leaving positions for more money these days?
 
Jennifer Kramer  09:53
Yes and no. For some people, money is very important to them, but ultimately the majority If people are not leaving for money, it all has to do with overall culture and feeling valued in that rule. So if you can convey to your employees in whatever manner makes no sense in, in your company in your industry in that role, that they're valued, that they're listened to that what they have to say, in the work that they produce, whether it's making widgets, or, you know, performing that, you know, intensive, you know, surgery, or, you know, what, whatever spectrum that's on, that the work that they're producing is valuable to you, their manager, the broader organization, and to, you know, they're bringing value and they're, they're intrinsically receiving that, overall, that's what's gonna lead them to stay with you. 25 cents down the road is not going to make or break it, they may go initially, but they're gonna if they don't feel valued for 25 cents more down the road, they're gonna come back to you. And we do see that boomerang.
 
Leighann Lovely  11:21
Right. So how do we I mean, other than, obviously, the obvious answer, fix your culture, which is I know, not an obvious
 
Jennifer Kramer  11:30
I wish I had that Pixy dust, right,
 
Leighann Lovely  11:32
Right. You know, sprinkle it over this company, sprinkle it over that company, and all of a sudden, it's magically fixed. But we all know that it's taken years years for culture to plummet. Because, right, I've got to assume that at one time, all of these businesses that and don't get me wrong, I am sure that every business that started at one time had the greatest intent of having this glorious place that people wanted to come and work out. Somewhere along the line. culture became its own animal, because with lack of direction, and Trish intention, and you have to have somebody who's actually intentionally creating culture in order to maintain that, right. So at one point, somebody who was creating and cultivating and continuing to manage that exited that company. And nobody stepped in and said, Okay, this is my intention, I'm going to continue to cultivate this ever really stepped back in and continue to cultivate that and make it beautiful. And so culture, ultimately, you know, the lack of creating and cultivating that doesn't mean that another culture doesn't take over. Correct, it becomes its own animal. Yeah. So now we have businesses, we have companies that whether it's flying under the radar, and nobody's ever said, Oh, it's a horrible place to work. Or it's very blatant, and you see these horrible reviews and nobody's gonna care. A culture exists.
 
Jennifer Kramer  13:24
I mean, cultures exist, subcultures exist,
 
Leighann Lovely  13:28
right. So now, we're in a, in a state of, how do we unravel the negativity? And then start to rebuild positivity in these in these places, you know, and when it's, you know, if it's if it's culture of 15, it may be a little bit easier, but when, you know, 150. That's going to take time. Now, if we're talking about 3000. Right. And for those of you who, you know, obviously can't see us, Jennifer right now is making a face of, yeah, that's that's going to be extremely difficult. So, we're, we're not impossible, right? Nothing is impossible. But where do we even begin? Because, right, I mean, the first thing I do or have done when I was looking for a job was what is the culture of this company? Are they a great company to work for? Or are they a horrible company to work for? And I, let me tell you, that's going to play a huge role on whether or not I want to go work for them. Even if they're willing to pay me top dollar. Am I going to be miserable every time I come home? And is that dollar worth it? Probably not.
 
Jennifer Kramer  15:05
And what's important to you may not be important to the next person. So what you value is different from what someone else values. But yes, where do you start? Well, number one is being aware and wanting to, to make a change. And that change always starts from the top. So someone in that top or top levels of the company needs to initiate that change, and you need to be open to it. And change is never easy. And to your point, you know, change within a 15 person, company Versa, 3000 or more, right, is going to take much longer. But regardless, right, you have to have the buy in, and you're never going to have 100% buy in, ever. But starting at the top understanding, you know, what is your mission? What is your vision? What are your values? And how do you organization, right, want to manifest those values going forward? What does that look like to you in your day to day work, right, and then determine who's in this with you, and who's going to choose not to stay on this route, right. And they may initially say, I'm in this, right I, I see your vision, I see your mission. I understand the values, and I'm on this route. And as you start to move that ships lowly and it becomes more and more uncomfortable. You may see those employees opt out. And that's O, K. Because although that may be a star player for you, and it may hurt to have that employee, leave your team. And it may leave a huge void. Everyone is replaceable. And this is your company, your vision, your mission, your values, and everyone needs to be moving in the same line. Right? If this is truly what you as leaders believe in in terms of where you want your culture to be, then some hard decisions are going to be need to be made along the way. And certainly not overnight. So again, if I could go back to having that magic wand of pixie dust, I would love to do this for some of the companies that I helped to support. But it is a journey, and you need to be going into that eyes wide open.
 
Leighann Lovely  18:00
Interesting. So we need buy in obviously from the top up. And so do you consult with them on? Where to start?
 
Jennifer Kramer  18:12
We do. Yeah. So certainly where to start, what the process may look like. And then we walk alongside all through that process. So every company, it's going to look different in terms of you know, Where where are they today? And where do they want to go? And what does that look like? So?
 
Leighann Lovely  18:35
So let's say it's a 50 person company. Okay. What do you typically tell them? That timeframe is going to look like?
 
Jennifer Kramer  18:48
Well, again, it depends on where they are today, right? But minimum, minimum a year, if not longer, right? Again, it doesn't happen overnight. We may make some changes, we may make some significant impact over a year. But the bottom line is it never stops. We don't hit a goal line and say we've achieved this, it is continuous improvement. And how do you leave your you can't take your eye off the ball. So you also made a point earlier about you know, someone who had their their eye on that, that culture, right, they may have left the organization. And that's where things started to unravel. Maybe they did leave the organization or maybe they just became so hauled in a different direction that they asked where they took their eye off of things. You need to have someone or some people continuously keeping their eye on this, the vision, the mission, the culture and making sure it's going in the direction, it can evolve, right? But it needs to continue to go in the direction you would like it to.
 
Leighann Lovely  20:05
And how do you track this? You know, I have all these ideas like, oh, this constant employee surveys, do we do concepts? I mean, what are we what? What are the matrix on this? Because now we're talking, you know, and when I hear culture, I think it's like, it's not a tangible thing. It's not something held on your hands. So it's like, how do I track this? Especially when you're speaking to some people who? And I say this? Let me as sometimes I was pausing and go, I don't know, am I gonna say this? Right? Some people out there don't mind walking into a volatile environment and working in that. And not necessarily because there's the one who's who creates it. But don't get me wrong. There are some people who thrive on watching others gossip and be absolutely. So if you're coming into a culture that is already completely, possibly up in arms and isn't nice, toxic, toxic, you, you now are asking these employees whom you are trying to create a positive culture, you are not going to be asking them, how do you feel the culture has gotten? And they those employees may think that while it's gotten really horrible hear, because now you're turning what they think is their haven of gossip and disarray into positivity and sunshine and rainbows. So how do we truly track this?
 
Jennifer Kramer  21:49
Well, first, let's just set the expectation that nowhere sunshine and rainbows, right?
 
Leighann Lovely  21:57
Sorry, yes, you're right. But
 
Jennifer Kramer  21:58
Yes, but we can have, we can have a good environment where you feel you feel good about, you know, working in that that environment, I don't want to say like walking into right, because we don't all walk into a brick and mortar but you you feel comfortable walking into that environment. You feel good about the work you're producing and what have you, but But to your point, how do we measure this? Right? Yes, there are several tools, certainly employee surveys, focus groups, right? Walking around. Again, I'm picturing everyone in brick and mortar, but truly just having those conversations with your team. Whether the ads, regular touch base meetings, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, you know, random conversations, you can learn a lot by just having a regular basic conversation with your team, either one to one in a team format, at the watercooler whatever that looks like, it's amazing what people will share with you. But you have to be present
 
Leighann Lovely  23:14
Right now and sit and I understand when you say it's amazing what people will share with you because for some reason, over the years, as I have no longer been in corporate HR, I have been on the sales side the business development side in a in a at a staffing at very staffing companies over the last years. It is amazing. What when when employees don't look at you as the authority, correct, what they will divulge to you. And when they don't look at you as being anybody who, when they don't look at you as a threat of this person can't harm me, this person can't fire me this person can't. Yet they also look at you as a superior as somebody who they can possibly could potentially help me. It is absolutely amazing what somebody will come in and confide in you in sometimes looking for just a confidant and sometimes looking for an underlying cry for help of something's not right here. And I have been in that position a couple of times throughout my career of employees coming in, sitting down in my office and I'm like, what, what, what can I do for you and then all of a sudden they burst out in tears and I'm going whoa, what's happening here? And, and that sometimes it was because I was the only other female in the office that Oh, isn't that true? Mm hmm. And it was like, Oh, okay. Okay. All right. And then it was do you? Are you just venting? Or do you want me to take action? Excellent question. Yes. And quite often it was. I just wanted to vent. Yeah. Which eventually came into. Okay, if you continue to come into my office, I cannot stay silent on this. Very good. Yes. Yeah. Like, I mean, this has gotten to a point of you are clearly very dissatisfied. You are clearly. I mean, you're either going to quit, or you're going to get fired. Because now. And when people don't look at you as a threat of like, your HR, your or it is amazing that they're more apt to tell you when I'm confused by is why? Why have we created such? And I know the answer to it, it's a rhetorical question. But why have we created why have we stopped employees? Even know, we tell them until we're blue in the face, this is a safe place, there will be no retribution for you. You know, coming forward, there will be why time and time again, will employees not come forward and say, Hey, this is, you know, my manager is yelling at me, despite the fact that I'm doing a good job or this is happening or whatever it might be, is transpiring.
 
Jennifer Kramer  26:55
So, although we say it, right, oftentimes, the trust isn't there. So somewhere along the way, that trust has been broken. At some, it may not have been between that particular manager and that employee. But somewhere, they have seen that, that trust between an employee and manager broken. And so they can't trust in the fact that what is been stated in that handbook stated in that policy verbally explained to them over and over. And regardless of what the law says, They don't trust in that, and they feel that it's going to come back to them in some negative aspect. And it's just better not to say anything at all. Some also feel that it's not worth their time and energy, because it's not going to go anywhere. That perhaps, you know, this person might be this person who might be bullying them or harassing them, or whatever the situation is, that they are seen as a favorite, or a protected person within the organization, and we're garlis of what happens, they're not going to get in trouble, and no action is going to be taken. So why is it that me employee who feels attacked? Why should I put myself out there, when nothing is going to happen? So that's oftentimes the mentality, especially if this person, this employee may have a disciplinary record, right? And who's going to believe them? Their mentality is who's going to believe me? If I've been written up in the past, right, against this person who has a stellar record, even though what they're doing is wrong. So you have to put yourselves in their shoes and understand, you know, where they may be coming from. Sometimes, too, it's very cultural, you know, between, you know, how they've, how they've grown up in their, their, their culture, their race, their ethnicity. Yeah, in terms of that type of culture versus culture we were just speaking of, and it's just not how they were. What they do in their culture, and so they are not comfortable in in coming forward in that respect.
 
Leighann Lovely  29:59
That's Yeah. And that's so unfortunate. And do you deal in it? Do you deal with situations like that? Or are you more on the other? I'm all the time. Oh,
 
Jennifer Kramer  30:11
we yeah, we work on? Yeah. So we'll work alongside both them, you know, managers, supervisors, owners, as, as well as employees, line employees and at all levels of the organization,
 
Leighann Lovely  30:25
right. And then it's so unfortunate that this, in today's society, you would think that we had gotten, we've gotten to a point where people, you know, through the, the me to era through all of this through that if somebody is being bullied or somebody is being an any number of things, right, that you would think people would feel comfortable to, and if not their own manager, if not, right, you know, and again, I guess I suppose this is why I have been in situations. And again, don't get me wrong. I haven't been in situations where it was, you know, imminent, imminent, where I was like, Oh, my gosh, I have to, but it, it is, it's amazing that in today's society, we are still experiencing until missions like this. Yeah. Right. So I kind of got off on a tangent here as we left, okay, because we, it just you triggered something in my brain. So getting back to the employee, you know, employee retention and training. And do you work with companies on creating training plans on how to onboard new employees?
 
Jennifer Kramer  31:40
Yes, on a regular basis? We certainly do so. So training plans, yes. And that can look very different, again, for the organization. So, you know, are we training managers? Are we training on compliance? Sexual harassment prevention? The are we training on, you know, a handbook, right? Are we training on, you know, whatever. So family medical leave, I'm just trying to come up with a number of different trainings that we've done, we will also train like newer human resource professionals in their roles. In terms of onboarding, yes, we will create new hire, onboarding, trainings, to effectively bring in a new employee in terms of not only the regular compliance New Hire paperwork package, but also what trainings do they need to be effective in their roles? Now, of course, if it's company specific rule specific, what have you, we're going to work alongside of that client, manager supervisor who has the knowledge in those specifics to develop that program, but we will work with them to do that.
 
Leighann Lovely  33:10
Interesting. Do you find a lot of companies are lacking in the onboarding process.
 
Jennifer Kramer  33:20
More and more are moving towards more of an electronic onboarding process and with these tools in terms of, you know, adding that into their HR is system whether that be ADP, paycor, Paylocity, pay com, fill in the blank, right? So that has helped tremendously. But there are still quite a few organizations in which we help support that are more on a paper based onboarding. And that may be because of the nature of the workforce that they have are just because they haven't invested in that onboarding program. But the when I talk about that, that really has to do more with the, you know, do you have, you know, an application? Do you have your, your tax forms? Do you have your I nine. In those type of documents, it does not necessarily then expand into, you know, what does that first week look like for that employee? What does it look like beyond that first week, because having a very solid onboarding, the at all, as I say, goes into that stickiness factor. If that employee doesn't have a nice warm welcome, onboarding, they're going to continue to look for the next opportunity. They're not going to feel like they're valued that they belong there, that they're needed, right?
 
Leighann Lovely  34:55
So you just hit a like, button here for me. So forgive me while I interrupt you for a sec, please. I had a company once say to me, we don't. After they go through the initial paperwork, we don't circle back to them until they've made it their first week. And I say to him, Well, why? Because we want to make sure that they're going to make it their first week until we invest any more time in them. And I went,
 
Jennifer Kramer  35:22
wait, what? Oh, that's too late. I,
 
Leighann Lovely  35:27
why would you expect them to stay that first week if you're not investing any time in them? And their response was, we didn't, we haven't noticed that it has helped any better because we're just we have people coming and going so quickly. What is your philosophy on that?
 
Jennifer Kramer  35:49
If you don't invest in them from eighth, forget the first. So enter first week even, it has to start before their first day, it has to start from the the initial reach out to them from every touch point along the way. So if you reach out to that candidate, for example, to say, you know, for a phone interview, from that phone interview, to, in person interview, to extending that job offer that time period between that job offer, like let's just say for example, it's two weeks standard two weeks, you better be touching base with that person, whether it's an email of phone, call a text, what have you, throughout those two weeks, to make sure that they know that you haven't forgotten about them in those two weeks. Just a quick little note, hope your day is going well. We can't wait for you to start we're preparing your orientation. Just want to make sure you know, you have everything you need for day one quick little touch bases. You're going to lose them before they even come in that door.
 
Leighann Lovely  37:12
Very interesting. Yeah. And and I agree, I absolutely agree. But like you mentioned, even some employees who come in that door. Continue to look around, perhaps Absolutely. So in today's society, in today's world with more jobs than people. And this isn't stopping, by the way, because we have more jobs than people available to work and and that's that's just that's, that is the way it is now it is. There's just no more people. How do we combat that? I can I don't, I don't expect you to often answer if you had an answer to that you'd be a millionaire.
 
Jennifer Kramer  38:12
Right? Let me grab my my crystal ball and my pixie dust and we'll just resolve this right now. But but it is it is being diligent about you know, finding that talent, making them feel valued and and then having a good environment while you have that employee. Now, on the flip side, just because you have a warm body in that spot does not make that person valuable to you. So think about if you have a person working for you, and they're just underperforming not performing, if they're toxic, if they're are contributing to a poor environment, if they're bringing down your culture and not living up to the culture you want. Is it better to let that person go and have a vacancy or to continue to have that person in that role and spread that you know, toxic environment and you as the manager owner when you know decision maker you need to decide what's better. And knowing that there may not be an easy backfill for that person, you might be without someone for a while.
 
Leighann Lovely  39:40
Right. And I think that is why so many companies have ended up where they are. Right because and unfortunately it is the small to midsize company it is who can't pay the top dollar like the monster companies out there. They're the ones We're struggling to get individuals who are willing to take the lower paying position. And right now you know, I have obviously coming from the staffing industry coming from an industry where you talk to all of these individuals who are, who will tell you upfront, it's, it's not about the money, it's I want to find a better environment. But then when it comes to negotiation, it comes down to well, this other company is offering me $5,000 more a year. You know, I think I might take that and you look at him, and you go, Well, wait a second. But you know, that company, you know, has a really bad reputation for their culture. Yeah. But okay, wait, let's go back to what you originally told me in the initial conversation we ever had. Because when it comes down to the core Money talks, and that person will end up taking that job. And the last their six months, and then they call you back and they say, back on the market, why are you back in the market? Oh, that was a horrible company to work for. And then when you ask them, Well, what would you like, what is the minimum that you need to make, they'll say, the dollar amount that they were making at that other company, and then you go, Wait a second. Just because you made $5,000, more a year for six months, does not mean that that is what you were valued at, in this market. They paid a premium for you to steal you away from another offer. And then that person doesn't understand why they can't get a job. And then they get disgruntled and they get upset with you. And then they don't want to work with you because you're a horrible recruiter who How dare you you try to lowball them. And then your hand I again, I'm I'm now getting into this, you know, cycle of where we are in this world. But out of nowhere, some company will go, Yep, no knob, I'll pay that for them. And yet, it's another company that has a horrible culture. That's willing to snap them up. And then they go, and they work there for six months. And eventually, when they do come back to you, and you find them a really awesome company that really wants to interview them, the company will come back and go, Why is this person a job jumper? Oh, I hear the story. regularly, and you go. What I want to say is because they didn't take my advice, when they had a really awesome job offer a year and a half ago. And so they've been going through the cycle of chasing the money. And now they finally gotten smart about it. And realized, Oh, I could have had a very sweet job at a very well paying job at a really good company. But they'll never admit that. And then who gets the bad rap? The recruiter,
 
Jennifer Kramer  43:14
The recruiter. Yes, you're not doing your job.
 
Leighann Lovely  43:20
You're not doing your job. You're not finding me producing you're not you're not finding me a company. That's a good company. All these companies right, you know are horrible. And Bob. Sorry, I digress. I digress. Can you tell that I'm little COVID brain today? Okay, anyways, getting back at it. Sure. We are starting to we're coming to time. So I want to I want to ask you the question of the season. Okay. You have been in your industry working in HR for nearly 20 years. So if you could change a practice about your job or something about your job or the practice that people do in your role? What would you change?
 
Jennifer Kramer  44:07
I like the question of the season. Oftentimes in human resources, right, we need to we absolutely not oftentimes we do need to abide by compliance. There are many HR professionals who look at the practice in terms of black and white, right? Well, we deal with people if people are not black and white. We are individuals with very unique needs and unique situations. So I feel we need to be somewhat flexible within the guardrails of the laws and compliance it's given to us. So sometimes we need to play in that gray area, given the situation that we're handed, and treat it with some compassion, we're not dealing with robots, we're dealing with people. And sometimes you just need to step into their shoes for a moment. Now, I see that, but I also am very, very much aware that with compliance, we need to apply things. equitably, uniformly. But these are individuals with unique beads. So take that into consideration. It's not black and white.
 
Leighann Lovely  45:42
I love that. I love it. And I agree with it. And you know, and I go back to, you know, the days of creating jobs that were cookie cutter, and everybody has to do the same and the plug and play the idea that we could just take somebody with this skill set and plug them in this job, and they were gonna be able to do it. Those days are gone. They are Yeah. And we just we need to get on on. We need to get on board with that and realize that we have to hire people with common sense.
 
Jennifer Kramer  46:21
Very hard to teach common sense, right.
 
Leighann Lovely  46:25
And unfortunately, colleges are not, are not allowing people to raise up with common sense. They're saying, hey, oh, study this, come back, not study, go memorize this, come back and pass this test. That needs to change. We need to allow people to, you know, to troubleshoot on their own sometimes even flounder.
 
Jennifer Kramer  46:53
Yes, it's okay to fail as long as you learn from it. Yes.
 
Leighann Lovely  46:58
And that's and that's what we need to to start teaching our children again. Stop allowing them to win the board game every time. They will cry about it. They will throw fits, because I have a five year old who cries about it and throws fits. But she's old enough to understand that she can't win every time. Plain and simple. I stopped rigging the game for her to win every time because she's never going to learn anything if she wins the game. Every now I will tell you that every time we play Crazy Eights for some reason she wins every frickin time. It's her skill. I know it's mad skill. But we've we don't you never learn anything. Anything I think you know all of those shows. Although those cop shows whenever it's the whenever it's the dad, the rich dad bailing out the rich kid every single time. They're spoiled brats, right? Well, I'm gonna get out of this because Daddy's gonna come to my rescue until one day Daddy can't come to the rescue, or mommy, or stepdad or your stepdad or grandpa, whatever. Right? Right. We have to stop bailing our kids out so that our kids can grow up with brains that are actually functioning fully and troubleshooting issues and problems. That's what's going to create a strong word. I'm sorry, I digress again.
 
Jennifer Kramer  48:25
That's okay.
 
Leighann Lovely  48:27
See, I mean, and that's that that is what creates a strong human beings the ability to fail and still succeed through failure.
 
Jennifer Kramer  48:41
Yeah, absolutely. Again, learning, learning and growing from those mistakes. If you don't fail, you can't learn,
 
Leighann Lovely  48:47
right? I have fallen more and more times than I possibly that I will ever admit. How about that?
 
Jennifer Kramer  48:55
I tell my daughter, I make mistakes every day. Every single day. Some of them are small, some of them are big.
 
Leighann Lovely  49:03
Just don't gotta keep going. Just don't make mistakes on your taxes. Okay. Um, if somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?
 
Jennifer Kramer  49:13
Sure. Um, a couple of different ways. One, you can reach me at H R @ Presidio group. That's g rp.com. You can also call me but I'm on the phone all day. So that one is a little bit more challenging, but certainly feel free to call me at 630-524-6153.
 
Leighann Lovely  49:48
Excellent. That'll be in the show notes. Jennifer, I really appreciate you coming on today and talking with me. It's been a great conversation.
 
Jennifer Kramer  49:55
Well, thank you. I appreciate it.
 
Leighann Lovely  49:56
You have an awesome day.
 
Jennifer Kramer  49:58
Thanks, you too.
 
Leighann Lovely  49:59
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible so don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us, like us or share us have a wonderful day.
 
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
employees, culture, work, company, people, person, valued, terms, creating, compliance, job, training, organization, years, hr, day, continue, week, manager, presidio

Non-Profit vs For-Profit really not all that different

I have always thought that non-profits and for-profits are so vastly different. In talking with this amazing guest not only did I learn that I was wrong, I learned that there is not much difference when it comes to hiring with a couple of key exceptions. Nancy Major an expert in all things non-profit brings so much valuable insight to this great episode about hiring and understanding non-profit organizations, with 30 years in the non-profit sector and experience managing teams up to 200 at times she is a wealth of knowledge. Nancy is an Author, a Speaker, Certified Coach and so much more, this is a conversation you will want to tune into!
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  Today I am joined by an amazing a guest with a beautiful background and experience. Nancy Major, a best selling Christian author, speaker certified coach, Nancy specializes in helping women overcome sexual shame and trauma. Nancy is also an award winning nonprofit leader and consultant with more than 30 years of experience. Nancy, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really excited to talk with you and to learn what is going on in your world today.
 
Nancy Major  01:44
Hey, Leighann, it is so great to be on your show. I've been looking forward to this for a long time. So glad that we could finally make it happen.
 
Leighann Lovely  01:51
Yeah. So why don't you start off by telling me a little bit about yourself, and you know what's going on?
 
Nancy Major  01:58
Well, I actually have about 30 years of experience working in the nonprofit and business sectors. I am an award winning business leader. And I have managed teams that were upward into 200. Staff members, as well as some really small teams. So it's kind of been all over the map. I've worked in very large nonprofits, and in very small nonprofits, and I've owned my own businesses and work for private companies as well.
 
Leighann Lovely  02:29
That is a wow, that's amazing. That is a very broad, you know, Knowledge Base experience based, which is why I was so thrilled that you accepted my invitation to come on and talk with me today. So nonprofit space, is something that I've yet to be able to, you know, kind of dive into with somebody. So I'm excited that you've joined me. Tell me a little bit. Well, first, you're an author. Yes. So tell me about you. Tell me about that. Tell me about your book.
 
Nancy Major  03:04
So I wrote a memoir, it's called A Wretch Like Me, a Modern Day, Mary Magdalene Saved By Grace. And it is my personal story. And part of my journey of healing and recovery from a period of time in my life that was really a deep secret. And it was something that I kept hidden for many, many years. And I feel by the grace of God, I was saved from that. And given an opportunity to actually be able to write a book to be a roadmap of help and healing for others who maybe are hiding in silence and feeling in bondage to shame or past trauma. And I kind of have a firsthand account of that myself. And so this was really a way to help people in a in a different arena.
 
Leighann Lovely  04:02
And that's awesome. We need more people who are willing to share and talk about things that are, I guess, hard in order to help others come forward and heal, and to move past those traumas in their life. It's amazing. The community and understanding and empathy of others is one of the greatest tools that we have as humans, which is why I love what's happening in today's world with more and more people sharing. Because it is I in my personal opinion, the greatest and the quickest path to to healing.
 
Nancy Major  04:45
I have 100% I couldn't agree with you more. I think that coming up alongside each other, we lift each other higher, and we have a greater chance of actually recovering from some One of the most traumatic things that could ever happen to us. And without one another, I don't know how we recover. Yeah.
 
Leighann Lovely  05:10
Couldn't have said that better. So, so I commend you, I thank you for, you know, sharing those things. And that's, you know, part of the rise is and the reason that I started this podcast was because of my own personal journey, and it is now obviously turned into so much more and because my personal journey was also part of the human resource side of being discriminated against, and people not understanding me because I wanted to be professional and, and, well, when you suffer from bipolar disorder, it's sometimes difficult to present all the time. And so anyways, getting back to where we were. So this is now tied into your story of what you're doing now. You, right, you recently went out on your own. So tell me a little bit about about that, and what you're doing what your journey looks like now.
 
Nancy Major  06:06
I'm so excited, because it kind of touches on what we were just saying about community about mentoring and about helping to come up alongside someone else, who is maybe walking through a difficult journey and a difficult path. So what I did is my book kind of launched into a business called miracles manifested, because I truly believe that that is my life experience is that it's been one miracle after another, that has become manifest in my own life. And so I wanted to be able to use that as a way to help others. So my practice is really specializing in helping women overcome sexual shame and trauma, because it is probably some of the more taboo darker side that a lot of people who don't want to talk about, it's really in this, you know, darkness. And I think that shame lives and exists, because it stays in darkness. And when we bring it into the light, we can actually heal it. And for me, that was really important about this business. So I coach women and work with them through a Christian practice of mentorship and coaching and help them really develop tools, practical, tangible tools, things I've learned through my own journey of recovery. And I have a special certification in this particular kind of work. And I'm really excited to be able to offer that I'm also a professional speaker. And I work with different groups, different organizations that maybe have a women's group or a Bible study or domestic violence, shelter, or even a prison ministry, wherever people are hurting. And it's a dark place. And you know this a lot as well, Leanne, it is so easy to get hopeless and feel. So despaired. And that is really what I wanted to make a difference in.
 
Leighann Lovely  08:08
That's amazing. And you coming up in a non and not for profit space where you've worked in, in a not for profit, where it was very similar. You've done some work with organizations that have similar values, similar backgrounds, that really just kind of, I feel like it's kind of serendipitous, and it actually kind of just created this beautiful path for you to eventually find yourself here. Yeah,
 
Nancy Major  08:37
I kind of feel like the same thing. I feel like God gave me this really wonderful opportunity to sort of practice right. So really, for 30 years, I've had a lot of different experiences for causes that were near and dear to my heart. And he really gave me just tremendous opportunities to learn different skills and different abilities to really hone in on some of the gifts and talents I would need in this new work. And so my nonprofit experience has really parlayed beautifully into what I'm doing today, and I am still a nonprofit consultant. So I do work with a lot of small and medium sized nonprofits. When they're working through strategic planning, board development, staffing, wink wink, because we both know that that is an ongoing when you're dealing with human beings, right? So you're dealing with people and whether it's in a for profit space or nonprofit space, a cause you really care about a cause you could care less about a product regardless of which space it's in. It's still about the people, right? So at the bottom, at the bottom of it all it's all about the people and that's a big part of my experience with the nonprofit space.
 
Leighann Lovely  09:55
So let's hone in on that. Obviously you know that this season and And this season is about, you know, really the focusing on the hiring, the retention, the training. And there's a lot of staffing companies out there that will not touch non for nonprofit organizations, just because, you know, when when I think especially, you know, when I think of nonprofit and for profit businesses, I think, Wow, there's so drastically different. Right. I mean, that's just the first thing that you would think, right. It's a natural thing that I think and, and I've had, I've been approached by other, you know, other nonprofits. I know many people in that space. And I've always said it, I'm not sure that I can help. But you and I, you know, we, prior to hitting the record button, we talked a little bit about this. So let's start off with the, you know, a simple question, how drastically different is it when it comes to the, I don't know, the the, the inner core of a nonprofit versus a for profit, the day to day business?
 
Nancy Major  11:04
Yeah, that's a really great question I get asked this a lot. There are a lot of people who believe it's vastly different. And really, there's one central difference in a for profit, all of the profits made from that business can be used, however, the owner or shareholders of that company, see fit, whichever way that they want to spend the money, it's up to them to do that, in a nonprofit space, all proceeds that are generated, because believe it or not, nonprofits need to be profitable, otherwise, they are not sustainable. And they can't actually hire good people retain good people invest in their people, invest in trainings, provide better services, etc. It just means that all of the profits made within a nonprofit, have to go in, into back into the organization's mission. So that is mission delivery, Mission knowledge, Mission expansion. So let's think of it in this way, if you're a humane society, and you start out and you are serving, you maybe are able to handle 50 animals in the course of your business. But the need is for 1000. And you're currently only serving 50. And you want to grow into that 1000 Number, the nonprofit space just is that everything that's made within that business is going to grow to serve more animals in a case of like a humane society. That's that's really the only difference. It's it's that is the core differentiator between a for profit and nonprofit.
 
Leighann Lovely  12:47
Interesting. And you would think as me being a, an intelligent person, I you know, I say this, I believe that I am an intelligent person, maybe I'm not. But you would think that I would have a better understanding of that. And now I do I now I truly do have a better, you know, because I think oh, people who work at nonprofits must be, you know, this is a horrible thing. They must be so poor, you know, they don't make any money, which is not true, which is not true. Right? Not at all. Because it has, it has nothing to do with what they make, it just has to do with how the how the business itself operates and what they're allowed to do with their money.
 
Nancy Major  13:32
Correct. And whether it's taxable or not, right. So it has a tax exempt status, that for profit businesses don't. But all the other elements of running a nonprofit, really are very similar. Except I would say the the other big difference is usually it is in support of a cause or a mission, that is to better society, it's to better a community to better a population of people. So it just depends on what their causes. But, you know, I think most companies if you really boil that down, all companies should strive anyway to make a difference more than make a buck. Right? And and if you're a decent company, that's really why you're in business is you want to make a difference in whatever way shape or form that takes. And in the nonprofit field, it's supposed to be right 100% That way that it is operating, it was founded, to make a difference in the lives of those that live work and play in any specific community.
 
Leighann Lovely  14:36
Interesting. So when it comes to, you know, hiring and training and retention, it shouldn't operate too much different than because we're not talking about you know, at a for profit versus a nonprofit, offering people $5 Difference itself salaries, we're talking about scope, we're talking about still being able to hire people at the market value, fair value. And we're talking about still being able to have adequate training, because it's still running as a business.
 
Nancy Major  15:16
Right? That is the ideal, the ideal scenario is that you are hiring people and gaining talent, because talent is what will make make your mission successful will make it grow. It's the same as any other business in that sense, right. So it's all about the people. The difference in some of the smaller nonprofits that I've seen is that hitting that market value rate is very painful is very difficult, because it is all based on money. So that's really true. The same in a for profit, though, if you're a small, independent or smaller business, you may not be able to pay somebody, you know, six figures for a position that a larger company easily could pay with Goldstar benefits. So many of the nonprofits that I've worked with, didn't offer benefits, for example, any kind of health insurance, retirement plans, any sort of benefits at all, they were lucky if they were able to offer vacation time. So paid vacation time. And that's changed, I would say the market, you know, the marketplace has driven some changes that are beneficial and are making it more clear that this is really hard work, it's it's not an easy thing to make a difference in the lives of the most vulnerable populations that exist in our communities. Nonprofits often are serving a gap where no one else is doing the work. We don't have the government programs doing it or capable of doing it or being able to expend the dollars to do it, but the needs still is there. So take, for example, child abuse prevention. Let's just take that as a topic, right. So we know that child protective services is so overworked at the government level, how many times you read about or see the newspaper reports that are just tragic that these caseworkers have triple and quadruple the numbers of cases that what any one person should be able to handle. So we know then that there's an overflow of the problem? Well, who's going to step in, who's going to stand in the gap, these children require services, it's critical to us as community members that children are being served, someone has to stand in the gap. So thus, a nonprofit gets formed to be a stand in the gapper, right, we're going to take on this cause and serve, let's say x percent of that overflow, we can't serve all the need, but you're going to step in to try and take some of that overflow. And that's how a lot of the nonprofit's I'm familiar with anyway, that's how many of them got formed is because they are standing in the gap where other services aren't able to keep up. And so we also in the nonprofit space, have the advantage of being able to raise donations and do fund freezing, which is other people who then care about said cause can donate dollars that often are tax write offs, so to speak, or at least you know, I'm not a tax attorneys. So don't ask me. But that's the way it was anyway, that they were deductible, you could make a donation to set organization because you care about that cause. And that is a way that nonprofits very often are able to function a little bit more nimble, and flexible and fluid because the donations they receive allow them to turn the corner sharper, right? If they need to go left, they go left if they need to go right they go right. And they can do that on a dime, versus a government entity, let's say or school system or a hospital system or some other huge corporation where you have layers and layers of bureaucracy and red tape. In a smaller nonprofit, you have the ability to be much more agile and flexible and fluid and you can change and evolve rapidly, which is so needed in Human Services, organizations that are serving, like I said, the most vulnerable of different populations.
 
Leighann Lovely  19:38
Interesting. So with the fundraising function, the those dollars that those organizations raise, those are not tax if I'm understanding this right, that is those are non taxable dollars to that organization that they turn around and reinvest directly by back into their business to continue to push their mission forward.
 
Nancy Major  20:04
Exactly, exactly, exactly, you hit it right on the head. Awesome. That's how it works.
 
Leighann Lovely  20:10
And then, and then then organization in, you know, would hopefully continue to grow and serve whatever population or whatever mission they write are serving,
 
Nancy Major  20:22
Right. And they either provide services, let's say on a wider so so they have basically two goals, right? Much like most companies, they either want to expand their footprint where they're reaching out to more people, they're able to provide their service to more people, or they're going deeper, where the services themselves become more and more and more deeper in into specific topic. Like if it's child abuse prevention, let's say you really want to train schools, or churches or hospital settings or companies for how to be aware of child abuse, how to prevent it, how do you make sure that you have safety protocols and policies in place that are instrumental? Well, if a nonprofit doesn't go deeper into that into those subject matters, right, it can't really provide the breadth and depth of services that are actually needed. So it just depends. I mean, it depends on the goals of that particular nonprofit. But that's typically it's one of two goals or both that they want to go wide, or they want to go deeper. They want to, they want to devote
 
Leighann Lovely  21:30
Interesting. So you've you've managed and you've run and you you have a very specific area of expertise. Yes, you you're exceptional at helping nonprofits really hone in on their mission and grow from conception in that first kind of year to years, correct?
 
Nancy Major  22:01
Correct. I would say that's true. So really getting specific about their mission, really understanding the story around the cause. And it has a lot to do with that. Because there are so many different opinions that can enter into a conversation. Different people can have different opinions about the mission, but what's the real story? And when you really think about marketing a business, this goes back to the similarities, right? In any kind of business, you really have to hone in on what value proposition do you bring to the market? Well, the same thing is true in a nonprofit language. What value proposition do you bring to the market? What's your story? What's your deal? What is your mission doing to better this community or this region? Or this country? Or blah, blah, blah, whatever it is? What is it specifically, that's going to touch the hearts and minds of people to move their hand to write a check or give you money? Right, right. So this story moves the hand. Right? Right. It's the story. So if I tell you, Oh, this causes to combat this chromosomal gene malformation in, you know, an infant in this range of age, and this particular sex, you know, and this, whatever, you know what I'm saying, right, it gets really, really complicated. Versus, hey, we have babies that are dying by these numbers. And here's, here's what we're trying to do. To stop that or prevent that you see what I mean? I'm just cutting right to the chase, you're getting right in there with this is what it's about. So it's simplifying the message, boiling it down. So anyone anywhere can understand what it is that this nonprofit is trying to achieve. And that's really my specialty is really understanding, taking a complicated story, and boiling it down into the most basic template for anyone to understand. And then really training staff really going in hard on really trying to help the team understand that message so that we're all saying the same thing. So that this mission is clear, no matter who's hearing it, and no matter who's saying it. It's repeatable. It's memorable, and people want to give to it.
 
Leighann Lovely  24:30
So what do you think is the most difficult aspects of doing that? I mean, is it training the team? Is it getting the message is it hiring that team? What I mean, yeah, all made that sound like it was oh, yeah, yeah, I can do that in my sleep. Like you just like yep, that's what I do. That's, um, I can do it in my sleep.
 
Nancy Major  24:57
It's probably a lot like you. Yeah, I'm like It's just familiarity, right? So the more and more you do something, the better and better you get at it, the more you can recognize different things, you recognize red flags, you sort of get better at your gut instinct about people's personalities, what their passion is. And so you lead with passion. To me, Passion is everything passionate about the mission, especially when you're hiring nonprofit staff. If the person that you're hiring could care less about the mission of the organization, what are the chances that no matter what job you give them, that they're actually really going to be there for the right reason. And we need people to be there for the right reason, specifically in nonprofit work, I would say this hands down, passion Trumps anything, right? Anything all day long, because Lian, if you care about, name it, whatever that is you care about, it's so much that it moves you to tears, it moves you to write a check, it moves you to go to an organization's Gala, you want to go and pack bags for this, you want to pack a backpack, whatever it is, right? Whatever your deal is that you really care about. That's the kind of person that any nonprofit, we could take a person who has a completely different background in skills and talent, and we can teach them what we need them to know that we can't teach them passion for the mission. So first hire for the passion about the mission. And when you go into an interview, this is one of the things I've done a lot is telling me, tell me about our mission, I want to hear it from them, right, I need to hear it as the interviewer, I need to hear it from them, I've got to be able to pick up on why they care about this mission. And so much so that they want to work at this cause. So I think that's really important. I think that's true in in any line of work. But I think it's especially true when you're trying to make a huge difference in vulnerable populations of whether it's children, animals, people, you know, whatever that particular cause is, right? So you're hiring for passion, and then really, it's the investment, it's the investment from whether you're a business owner, or you're the leader of a nonprofit, or you're the leader of this department, or division, or whatever it may be in a nonprofit, this is same exact truth. It's the investment in the training, it's the investment in the person you hire. Because if you just bring them in, they're super passionate, they're gone home, they're all excited, yay, I started my new job, I'm so excited, I can't wait to get started. And then you just dump them out there on the street, go at it, figure it out, we're so busy, we don't have any time to tell you what, what we actually need you to do, or how to do it, or what the what the tools are that we have or how to use the tools, or we need you to research find out what tools we actually need for you to do the job that we've hired you to do. Maybe that's as simple as this. But sometimes I think people just hire really great people, and then they just leave them on their own. And they don't reinvest in them. And so
 
Leighann Lovely  28:15
I'm gonna, I'm gonna interrupt you here for a second. So as you're speaking, I'm hearing the similarities in hiring for a for profit versus a non for profit. But I'm also hearing the differences. I can hire a salesperson who is not necessarily wildly passionate about selling. You know, whatever the staffing services, for instance, and I can, I can find something in them, that drives them. Typically, in the for profit space, if somebody is really driven by money, I can figure out a way to trigger that person to do a really great job, through the idea of here's what you're capable of making, if you sell XYZ, if you do it this way. And if they're a really highly money driven person, at the end of the day, I could figure out how to pull that passion out of them, so that it translates to what they're selling. In the for profit space. Sure. And there's there's different ways that you can tweak that. And eventually they can become passionate about their project or their their product and they can and they can figure out how to sell it well and they can figure out how to talk. The thing that you do have to no matter what in any sales role is you have to you have to be passionate about people you have to like people you have to like to build relationships. And the thing that that irks me every time I talk to salespeople is when they say yeah, I hate I hate I hate people and I look at him and I go wait a second you're in the business of, of people you sell to people like so. And I'm always I'm always, that's the one thing, you have to have a passion and a love for sale. The difference that I'm finding in an in a nonprofit setting is that you really do have to have a passion for your cause, that you need to wake up and be truly passionate about the cause that you're representing. It's not something you can fake.
 
Nancy Major  30:26
Right? It's not, you can't just hire a robot to do it. That's true.
 
Leighann Lovely  30:31
Right? It's, it's not something that you can fake. And that is, the one true difference that I'm, that I'm, that I'm hearing here is that. And that is definitely a, I'm gonna guess the reason that finding amazing people in the nonprofit space is much more difficult than finding just a simple salesperson, or person to go out and raise capital for, or raise awareness for that cause. Because the language is going to be wildly different than me calling up and saying, Hey, I see that you have a job opening. And I'd really love to talk to you about how I can assist you, it's going to be wildly different than calling up and saying, Hey, I'm representing this cause. And, you know, we would love to see if you're interested in investing some dollars in that, because at the end of the day, there's, there's no, they're not buying. They're not getting anything. They're just giving money.
 
Nancy Major  31:47
They're contributing to something bigger than themselves, they get to be the hero in the story. And that's how that pitch is different. Yes, then a for profit. And I would say to you, I would challenge you on this a little bit, LeAnn that it is somewhat similar, because your best salespeople actually really care about helping a client a prospect, a prospective client through solving a problem, right, they've got a problem. And this company over here provides x service or x product that is supposedly going to solve this problem. That's the thing, right, and if you have passionate salespeople, they really care about helping this client over here solve their problem, if they're really good at what they do in sales, they care, right? They care about providing the solution, and they they love that idea of being able to help people. I think if people are just 100%, money motivated all the way around, whether it's nonprofit, or for profit, I think that's you're gonna find people like that. But I think that's like a hamster wheel. You're just chasing around a wheel. And the carrot is is only going to be you know, you can do that for only so long. And then money isn't enough. In my in my aspiration is not enough. I think you need more in life to be a whole unhappy person. Something they that gets you out of bed out of bed in the morning is probably a little bit bigger than money in my mind, and
 
Leighann Lovely  33:26
I just, I was just like, yeah, they're like, I wasn't saying that. You know, the only thing that they're passionate about is money. But I know a lot of salespeople pull out your passion. Correct? Yep. Right. And after you figure it out, because again, when I started in sales, my motivator was, I want to make a lot of money. And it's through figuring out that Yep. Okay, this is a this is an industry I can do that. I figured out wow, I have so many loves for like, I really figured out that I love you know, the HR Well, I knew that I loved that, but I but I do enjoy I love being the consultants, and and finding solutions and helping and on so many fronts, but I love sales. Like I love everything about sales. I love helping others understand sales I love and I'm intrigued by how there are similarities and yet that's different. There are some differences. Right? And it's, again, you know, I'm on a tangent here, but so I just I you know, I have this podcast because I get to talk to awesome people, and they teach me things.
 
Nancy Major  34:48
Right. It's fascinating. You're different. Yeah,
 
Leighann Lovely  34:52
yeah. So okay. Where were we before I rudely interrupted
 
Nancy Major  34:57
Oh, retention? Yeah, it's talking about retention. And so you have to invest in the people that you hire, and you've got to really make sure that they have the right tools to that's really important. What resources do they need to do the job? What are the tools that you have. So if you want somebody to design, for example, some really kick butt marketing materials for this cause, but you have absolutely zero tools for them to do the designing. Or to come up with that, or to put something together, that's probably going to be a little bit of a mess you're going to have to find, and then this is the cool part. In nonprofits, there are so many different opportunities through college campuses, and internships, and young people like that are in high school, where the parents of these teens, sometimes they all might, you know, my son, or my daughter is really awesome at building websites, let's say they're really wanting to go into that in school. And they may be able to help your nonprofit by bringing in someone who's got a gift in that area. And does that make sense? Where maybe you might be a little more intimidated by doing that in a for profit, or you wouldn't even think to do that, right. But the nonprofit field is, they're just well, well known for being extraordinarily scrappy. I mean, extraordinarily scrappy. They'll use just about anything to get it done.
 
Leighann Lovely  36:24
Right, when it makes sense. And, but not only does it make sense, it also is giving opportunity in a way that others wouldn't have, like I'm a college student who I can now use that as a, as a, on my, on my portfolio when I'm going and looking for a job. And that is that's amazing for that individual to be able to say, Well, when I was in college, I built this website, and then I'll maintain and or I've helped you marketing material for them. And that's, I wish more companies would do that. Yes. Yeah, I wish.
 
Nancy Major  37:05
I'm with you on that. Because I think videography, you think about all these the social media platforms and managing social media, which is super time consuming and tricky for a lot of people to be able to get their arms around. And we have a younger generation. And we have students out there that are super excited about that. You have so many opportunities in the nonprofit realm to really hone in on and and allow others that we may be winning, think of to give them different opportunities. I even had some Boy Scouts and Girl Scout troops that were competing for different levels of awards. And they built some of the most incredibly creative things that were super necessary at these nonprofits that I was at. And they got to, you know, wear the badge of honor, because they won the award, they got the experience, they got the number of volunteer hours, they needed, whatever that might be. And the nonprofit was able to get what they needed. So there's so many synergies, you know, with these different organizations, like if you think of the Boys and Girls Club, and you mix them with the Humane Society, right. So the collaborative opportunities, right, that is also, I would say, gives us a little bit of a difference between for profit and competition.
 
Leighann Lovely  38:30
Right. Right. And, and I'm gonna guess that that for profit organizations wouldn't even consider or think of that, because they're not in that space. And I'm also going to say that maybe, maybe for profits would have to get a special permission. I don't know. I don't know. I guess it would seem, I don't know. But it's, it's awesome. Right, like if a for profit company were to come out and say, Hey, we have a great app. Well, no, I don't. We have a great opportunity. Yeah, they have internships. Right. But, but a lot of a lot of people will say if you don't for a for profit, if they don't pay the internships, a lot of those companies will be like, Well, come on, just pay them a little bit of money because they are for profit. When it's a nonprofit, you don't think like, well, how dare you not pay? Because there's a there's a true cause? Yeah. Or is it? You know, they're, I mean, you're because you're, you're working, you're all working in synergy towards something greater than you. Right? So I guess there's I guess, when that would be the, that's the difference. Yeah. That is the difference. And that just dawned on me. Because when it is a for profit, you kind of go come on if you're going to ask for free help.
 
Nancy Major  39:49
Yeah, but when it's the profit
 
Leighann Lovely  39:53
when you're gonna pocket. Exactly. Yeah. And that I think that we I think we just solved that. Add is why. That's why there's a difference. Because, however with like the website thing, yeah, why not reach out to a college students say, hey, help us out with this, and we'll we'll throw you.
 
Nancy Major  40:13
Like, whatever the price is, you know, whatever this amount comes out to be.
 
Leighann Lovely  40:19
Correct well, but we'll give you a little extra. And and here's the thing, it doesn't have to be perfect, you can, you can always have an internal person, do a little bit of tweaking to it, you can always have it updated. And instead of getting a $5,000 bill from a professional, you've now got that $5,000 bill down to $1,000. And you can take to college student, you know, $1,000. And now you're, you're still better off than you were. And yeah, I mean, yeah,
 
Nancy Major  40:47
There's so many ways to do service projects and ways to think about collaborations. And I think that there is an abundance mindset. In a nonprofit, like you have to you have to have an abundance mindset. You can't have a scarcity mindset, right? So we all boats rise, right? And instead of this, I'm going to eat you for lunch. Right? Like you can't, you just can't survive in the nonprofit space with that mentality. I think that, you know, it's it is fiercely competitive when it comes to the dollars you're trying to raise, of course, because there's a bazillion causes. Right? Just think about it. I mean, think about that. Put churches in the mix. Right? They're nonprofits, right? Then you think about some of the hospitals. There are many hospitals that are nonprofit. Yep. Now you've got them. You've got schools, let's add schools in the mix. So you've got churches, schools, hospitals that are considered nonprofits, those that are and you add them into the organizational, the community organizations that you know of that exist, to think about competition is pretty fierce,
 
Leighann Lovely  42:05
Which is weird, just because I don't think of schools as being non profit yet. unwritten. Here's a funny story. So my school, my daughter's school, they're like, hey, buy a t shirt, you know, spirit wear, and I was like, Oh, I gotta buy her a t shirt. And they have a Venmo account where you can just send the money that way. And I was like, well, I'll just, I'll just buy it. And I'll Venmo the money. But I didn't put what the money was for. So then when the t shirt never came, I'm like, Why did I never get the t shirt? Well, because Mommy, mommy brain and doing a million things. Never know, I never actually ordered the ticket. So there, you know, there's my, and what are you going to do? It's a nonprofit, you're not going to call them and be like, Hey, can you tracked on the $20 that I sent via Venmo that I never marked was for the t shirt that I was supposed to get for my daughter? I'm like, Oh, my God. I mean, it is. You forget, so every time I go there, and they have some type of fundraiser going on or whatever, you know, I, yeah, I kick them. Don't even think about it, I just kick them 40 bucks and for whatever, you know, flight by, you know, tickets for this, you know, fundraiser, put your you know, and I go in, and I like half the time. I'm like, I don't even feel like putting these tickets and I'll just buy $40. Right. And you don't you don't even think about the fact that yeah, this is a fundraiser to get all of the supplies that they need for the school.
 
Nancy Major  43:33
Right. And that was the only probably get X amount of funding. And this is above and beyond what this funding allows. Many nonprofits operate the same.
 
Leighann Lovely  43:41
Right? Right. And it goes to the you know, the school district for them specifically so they can buy, you know, and then I regularly get like notification of, hey, we're, we need more supplies for this, you know, donate and then last specifically for the supplies. And I was like, Okay, well, I'll go and drop off that a lot of times it's for like this. They do cooking classes on on Wednesdays and you go out just drop off cooking supplies stuff. And it's I don't even think about the fact that they're doing that because they're non profit. And they rely on the on the parents. Right? Because because you don't pay for her to go to school. I'm not paying for her to go to school.
 
Nancy Major  44:25
Well you do through your tax. Right. So much dollars, you know, like it's in and a lot of nonprofits do receive federal funding for state or county funding up to a certain dollar amount, but it's so limited. So let's say let's say a homeless shelter is providing homeless housing for the homeless and they get a state stipend up to $1 amount for that spot. Right for that human being they get X amount of dollars per day, whatever that might be. Right. But let's say it cost them four times that actual reimbursement. You see what I mean? So that they can receive this funding. But it doesn't mean it's going to cover all their expenses. In fact, like 99.9% of the time, it does not cover what it actually costs. Right? She's a drop in the bucket. And that's true in almost all all things. Yeah. So that, but it is a highly competitive market. And so when you think about fundraising, that's why you go back to the right kind of staff, the passion for the cause the investment in training.
 
Leighann Lovely  45:38
So Nancy, we are coming to time. So I have the question of the season. It's relevant to some people, others it's not, but what would you change about your job or the practice that people have in your job? Or your role? If you could?
 
Nancy Major  45:57
I think that I would help board members understand that the person that they hired to do the job, they hired for a reason, and they have expertise and skills and abilities, and that maybe a little bit more trust going in, going into that. I think both ways. I think that goes a long ways.
 
Leighann Lovely  46:21
Awesome. Now, if somebody wanted to reach out, contact you, how would they go about doing that? What's the best way?
 
Nancy Major  46:29
Sure. So I have a website and it is miraclesmanifested.com or Nancy major.net. Whichever one you want to use Nancy major dotnet might be it's the same they all kind of connect together. So Nancy at Nancymajor.net or just through my website is fine to Nancy major dotnet.
 
Leighann Lovely  46:49
And can they find your book there?
 
Nancy Major  46:52
Yes, they can, A Wretch Like Me A Modern Day, Mary Magdalene Saved By Grace, it's available on Amazon as well.
 
Leighann Lovely  46:58
Excellent. Nancy, this has been such an amazing conversation. I really appreciate your time. I've learned so much from you just in the short period of time. So like I said, I really appreciate it.
 
Nancy Major  47:10
It's been awesome. Thank you so much, man for having me on as a guest today. Yeah, I appreciate it. Look forward to keep it in touch.
 
Leighann Lovely  47:17
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support. Without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, to follow us, like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
 
Contact Nancy
 
Website - https://nancymajor.net/ or miraclesmanifested.com
 
Book by Nancy Major – A Wretch Like Me – available on Amazon  
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPY
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
nonprofit, people, profit, business, mission, nancy, money, companies, organization, difference, services, hiring, person, helping, dollars, serving, passion, true, find, tools
 

Running Teams, Managing People, Building Culture!

This is one conversation that you will not want to miss, Erin Marcus is a brilliant businesswoman that has years of experience in the corporate world that eventually lead to running her own business. She helps businesses and individuals get out of their own way to start running their businesses and stop letting their businesses from running them. She is a Founder, CEO, and Speaker for Conquer Your Business. She helps companies figure out what needs to do done next.   
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann. Lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  I have one badass guest today. Erin Marcus, she is a speaker. She is the Founder and CEO of Conquer Your Business. She helps entrepreneurs and small business owners get the financial and emotional freedom. They need to build a business and a life they are proud of by learning how to be in charge and take action and get results. She has been mentoring, training and teaching and coaching for more than 20 years. She loves helping people take action. They didn't think possible, do things they didn't think they could do and succeed beyond what they dared to dream. I'm so excited for this conversation. She's just an amazing woman. I've seen her speak. She is hilarious, she is brilliant. And yeah, let's without further ado, let's get this conversation started.  Welcome, Erin. I am so excited to have you here as we start with round two on the beginning of this as we're having a little audio problem here. But again, I'm so excited to have this conversation with you. I've seen you speak and you are one badass business owner and Yeah, welcome.
 
Erin Marcus  02:25
So excited to be here. All good on the technology front. It this is just how we live now. It's perfectly fine.
 
Leighann Lovely  02:32
So why don't you? Why don't you give us a little introduction of yourself?
 
Erin Marcus  02:36
Sure. Awesome. So the short answer for the relevant for your audience, right. So I had a big fancy corporate career, I absolutely loved it. I was very lucky in two different places to have amazing mentors and amazing opportunities. C suite level in a extremely large insurance brokerage firm, and got to the point in my career, where I felt like I needed to do something that was mine. So after trying to pay all the other people on my team to go tell our boss I was leaving, because it was just so monumentally upsetting to me at the time, I finally left there, too, and went into the franchise world I talk about, I probably couldn't be doing what I'm doing now. One, I needed to learn more things. But also, I didn't make a full leap. I went into a franchise system, which is a system right. Instead of creating my own thing, I had my franchise for six years, I got to the top 10 out of 200 offices in about 18 months. And the franchise owner would then ask me to train new franchise owners speak at their meetings speak at their conventions, I did a lot of marketing and processes that I would just give to the home office to distribute to the rest of the system. Because my background was business. My background was business and I was at a C suite level and corporate half my job there was helping our accounts develop their business. Then when I got into the franchise, I found that I loved helping the system build the business even more than I loved what we were doing. So finally, after playing in that world for 20 years, I just took it on completely and started conquer your business where what we really focus on now is my favorite thing to do. And only took me 20 plus years, but my favorite thing to do, which is to help driven entrepreneurs, create the scale and branding strategies they need to get to that multiple six figure seven figure business.
 
Leighann Lovely  04:54
That's awesome. That's awesome and you know it nothing ever starts in a day. We find our way over time. And it's you know, so that I mean, that's, that's brilliant, and who wouldn't want to hire somebody who's followed that, you know, success path and able to help, especially new entrepreneurs who are trying to really blindly finding their way.
 
Erin Marcus  05:20
Yeah, and I think truthfully, that's one of my differentiators is, I hate and I have a, I had a really hard time calling myself a coach. Because there were way too many coaches out there, who I felt had never done what they're trying to teach. And I didn't want to throw my hat in that ring, little judgy of me, and it's not like they come from a really good place of wanting to help people. It's not a malicious intent. But there's a disconnect. And at the same time, truthfully, three quarters of what I do is consulting. I'm like, Dude, this is what you got to do. That's consulting coaching. The coaching part comes in, when we hit a terror barrier, where we, when we hit impostor syndrome, the coaching part of my business comes in, when we put together a plan that consciously the business owner wants, but subconsciously, we've got to break through some fears in order to do it. And to me that, oh, my god, like that is the magic. The plans not hard for me, like I can't help but do it. I see people's businesses and my brain just goes rearranging their ducks, and putting a different umbrella over it. I can't not do that. But the plan doesn't matter if the person can't do the plan. So the amazing, amazing experiences I get to have is when I work with someone on a conscious level, the business planning and all the cool things. And then they go and they make their breakthroughs and make it happen for themselves.
 
Leighann Lovely  06:57
And that's, that's half the battle, right? I mean, we we as people understand, you know, on paper what needs to happen, but often getting there emotionally and mentally. And I and I specifically say emotionally, because our decisions are, are driven on an emotional level, most of the time.
 
Erin Marcus  07:17
Every single, every single decision we made, every single decision we make is based on emotion and then justified with logic. One of the things I do teach is sales. And I laugh all the time about every single decision, buying decisions, especially, they're made with emotion, and then justified with logic. And one of the examples I use is my car. I have a Mini Cooper. It has a turbo engine. It has lights inside, I can change colors, not like two options, like seven options, like every color of the rainbow. It has a sunroof, that's the entire, like, width length of the car. Where am I going in the Chicago suburbs that I need a turbo engine? Where am I going that even if I wanted to, I could use a turbo engine. Know between you and me like this thing does 100 miles an hour 60
 
Leighann Lovely  08:17
I'm not I'm not sure you understand the concept of a podcast. This is not just between you and me.
 
Erin Marcus  08:23
But that those are all emotional decisions, right? And then I justify it with logic by saying I got a great deal on it, it gets great gas mileage, right? I can park that sucker anywhere. Because it's like, the size of a purse, right? I got all sorts of logical reasons I can justify having a bright blue car that drives more like a jet. It changes colors.
 
Leighann Lovely  08:54
It's the same, you know, I'm going to go on a diet, but then, you know, three days in, I'm going to have a cookie. And I can justify that and you know, emotionally I just really want this cookie because it tastes good. It makes me feel good.
 
Erin Marcus  09:07
Addicted to it where our wants have us in, right our habits habits in a rut. And it's so hard to break out of those ruts.
 
Leighann Lovely  09:14
And logically, I'm going to I'm going to be able to justify this because I did really good for the last three days. That I mean, that is what we as humans do.
 
Erin Marcus  09:24
It's just how it works. The way that I describe that for people is give yourself a break. But don't let yourself off the hook. Like give yourself a break in these types of situations. Whether you're on a diet, whether you're trying to go to the gym, whether you're trying to not be a jerk to your spouse who you know, is doesn't you know, on the receiving end of a bad day have you like whether you're trying to grow your business and you're not doing the thing that you know you need to do? Give yourself a break because what you're up against isn't neuroscience and X amount of years of subconscious programming. However, don't let yourself off the hook. Because that doesn't mean you shouldn't do something about it.
 
Leighann Lovely  10:12
Absolutely. And I think that, especially and I, and I don't want to, well, no, I do, I'm going to,
 
Erin Marcus  10:20
Because here we go, right?
 
Leighann Lovely  10:24
It's very much in the older generation. Because they were not as younger kids taught emotional intelligence, right? So they have this, this, this is the way it is black and white. I don't allow emotions to come in. They hold themselves to a very hard standard black and white, this is it. The younger generation, they're lucky, they're being taught emotional intelligence, they're being taught, yes, it's okay to feel this way or that way. But, and as you know, obviously, I'm teaching my daughter from a young age emotional intelligence, it's okay to be mad about it. It's not okay to do X, Y, Z, or I still need to do whatever.
 
Erin Marcus  11:08
Right. And I think that's where we've seen the pendulum swing a little bit too far. Where I, you know, I know my truth has become an excuse for being a jerk. And those are two different things, totally different things. Right, you should feel your feelings, you don't have a right to infringe upon mine. Right. And it's just a pendulum. I mean, it really is. And we all figure out how to succeed and maneuver if it's important enough to us. And I don't get, I laugh, because if you watch any of the online jokes and headlines and things about what one generation says about the next, you can go back 50 years, and it's verbatim. It's the exact so this is just the process like this is, I don't know, we need something to talk about. So we make up and our brains have a negative bias. Just in general, that's how brains work. Its job is to keep you alive. So it looks out for risks, it takes everything as a negative, that's a job. So our brains have this negative bias to interpret things as negative. And we've got to fill 24 hour news. And we've got to fill 8 million channels, and we've got to meet the you know, and then you layer on top of that we've got to meet the financial requirements of advertising run platforms. Right? And it just is what it is.
 
Leighann Lovely  12:43
Well, and it's in it's funny that you seem to talk about the generations and how it goes, because I have people all the time asked me they're like, Well, isn't it the worst it's ever been isn't you know, is exact same? And that's what I said, you know, and I'm just out to dinner, you know, with a girlfriend of mine. And, you know, this, we were at a at a, like a bar restaurant thing. And we happen to be sitting up at the bar and this gentleman who was I believe he was slightly intoxicated, intruding in our conversation, which is absolutely fine. I don't care. I'm one of those. Bar, what did you think was gonna happen? Right? And he made the comment, he's like, Well, the world is the worst it's ever been. I said, No, it's not. I said, it's just different than what you know, from when we were younger.
 
Erin Marcus  13:24
The difference is, we all now are immersed in it, the pervasiveness of being surrounded by the negativity is worse than it's ever been. And because of the platform's actions that are happening, same actions, right. But the immersion in the negative messaging, like we didn't used to know, all this stuff was happening, we only knew our little world. And so what you're watching is a mixture of being aware of everybody's negative experiences. And not enough positive experiences to counter it, because it's just not what people cover. But the other thing that's happening is you're losing community. Right, you're losing sense of community, and the nuclear family would use to support people through this.
 
Leighann Lovely  14:24
Right. But there's also positives that are happening. And there's, there's always a balance. The unfortunate thing is that in the news, you only hear that negative, right? The things that are happening that are positive are we're seeing an actual, like, a light coming on. EQ and we also seeing awareness on things like neurodiversity, and mental health and all of these, you know, an addiction, drug addiction and all of not just drug any addiction. All of these things are now becoming you No, not because a lot of times less stigmatized, and people are starting to understand that these are not simply, you know, this guy doesn't simply just go out and get drunk every night because he chooses to want to be drunk.
 
Erin Marcus  15:14
It is actually a key, right? Our education around the why's of all of it. Why is this happened? How does it happen? Why does it happen? How does it happen? Has it just increased dramatically, and are the same platforms that immerse us in all this negative are the same platforms that share the information that allows solutions as well. And the trick is really like is to be selective and to be careful. I know for me, I'm not a negative person, I don't usually feel bad, I don't usually feel scared. I don't usually feel angry on a regular basis. So I know, if I'm starting to feel those feelings as default. I got to step away from it. Right? I have to step away from it. Because, again, it's just the way our brains work. When you are completely immersed in surrounded by a certain type of message, you might start out not believing it, but you will start to believe it. Right, just because that's how it works.
 
Leighann Lovely  16:24
Yep. I completely agree with that. I knew at a young age, that if I watch tear jerker movies, that was, right, they they affected me for four days sometimes and I'm like, I can't watch. I can't watch this stuff. Because for whatever reason, it just that in that could be my brain chemistry of that stuff. Brings me to I started,
 
Erin Marcus  16:50
I got my MBA when I was 37. I was still in my corporate job and getting an MBA at the same time. So I was like, busy, and it was hard. It was hard. And so there was a lot of books and studying and my role in corporate was not like a nine to five punch in punch out situation. So around that time, I noticed, I only watched for entertainment lowbrow, non emotional, right? That never went away? I never went back to heavy drama. Yep. I mean, I don't watch heavy drama. I don't want the anxiety of the cliffhangers. Now senseless violence totally for Marvel, right?
 
Leighann Lovely  17:45
I'm a complete horror, like B movie horror buffs. Like, just completely, you know, the movie ends, everybody died. And I walk away. And I'm like, Yeah, that was like, Oh, my God, what's wrong with me?
 
Erin Marcus  17:58
Like I moved to I don't watch any I'm totally all over Marvel NCIS those type of stuff? I'm not. And it's not like those don't have anxiety situations. But what I won't do is watch anything that the basis of the entertainment is people being mean to people for entertainment sake. So a lot of the reality TV, I just why are we glamorizing being a jerk to other men? Right? Like if we're good and evil is different than just being a jerk to other humans. So I do,
 
Leighann Lovely  18:33
Neither do I. So I know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna kind of switch gears switch gears here, because we could just rant about, you know, all of this stuff for the next two hours. So I do have, you know, with your background, you know, I wanted to kind of re focus here. And I think this is a brilliant question for somebody with your background. You know, we kind of touched on this when we were talking previously. But I am of the belief and an actually, it's not really a belief. I believe that this is a fact. Entrepreneurs have an internal battle when they become entrepreneurs right there. It's the sales production, sales production. Entrepreneurs don't become entrepreneurs to become salespeople. Yet, in order to become an entrepreneur, you have to do sales. We agree on this. However, there's also an external battle that happens at businesses, you have your production and you have your sales. They often very much like the internal battle of an entrepreneur, there happens to be often a external battle that is happening at those companies of production and sales. And what I would love to learn from you today because you have done this created awesome teams that work cohesive Have we together? And this plays a great deal into being able to retain employees on both sides? Absolutely. And I would love to hear your take and how, how you're able to marry those together in order to create those teams, because it's a problem.
 
Erin Marcus  20:19
It's a problem. And I'll tell you what, the fact that we just had this random conversation isn't so random. Because what you're seeing out just in the United States and culture in general, is mirrored in companies. There's only one way to solve this problem. It's what is the culture of your company? This is a cultural problem. Meaning is the culture of your company, one that allows outrage, which, by the way, worst like this to me, as I pontificate about my opinions, because we know I have them. This is the problem right now, people's default emotion is outrage, which inherently removes any opportunity for empathy, any opportunity for learning about another opinion, any opportunity, like outrage, everybody is outraged over everybody else's behavior. There's no middle ground, there's no conversation, everyone else is wrong. outrage. You're doing this to me on purpose. Right? Those are the feelings we have when we are outraged. And in with any company. If you allow that culture in your walls, you you're screwed. You are creating an us versus them mentality in your company, department versus Department. Who wants to be in that environment? Now, here's the thing. The difference is, and I'll just go use my background as an example. Because this was my job. We used to call what like, I was a one person department. I was a one person department I was I finally got an assistant. And then I got a second person. It's very exciting. But you know, 70 people in the company, and here's me in my department, what did I do? I manage the gap. I managed the gap. My job was yes to go out and create relationships. But I wasn't the only one doing it. The senior partners in the in the business would do what we would call a sales conversation, meaning the first touch point of do we want to work together? And then they would say, Okay, well Aaron knows how this actually works. And then I would come in and figure out how do we actually make it go? How do we get them to sign on the dotted line? How do we close the deal and implement it. And if we were going to close the deal and implement it, what I had to do was get the operations desk on in line with it, our sales team support in line with it, the Commission people, the people who paid the bills, and paid all these different people, everyone had to be pointing in the same direction. Or it didn't work. Because we worked in opposition to each other. And when you work in opposition to each other, you lose business, right? And so the truth of the matter is, whether you're talking about a government, or you're talking about an entrepreneur, or you're talking about a large business, culture starts at the top, period, hard stop, end of story, culture starts at the top. And if you have a culture that allows this department to blame that department. That's it. Like, this is going to be the like, I feel like the dumbest way to answer this question. Don't do that. Right. Don't do that.
 
Leighann Lovely  24:24
You know, I feel like some of the most complicated questions have the simplest answers.
 
Erin Marcus  24:28
Yeah, stop doing that. In here, so and you know, it's one of those things, it's easier to say, than do so why why is it easier to save and do it? To me, there's two parts to that. Number one, people's brains work differently. So the brain function of someone in it and the way that someone thinks who's in a process oriented part of your business where they like, process paperwork, process applications, that was our business, or maybe they're on the line? Right? Maybe they're in Mani Factoring and you're there on the line there on the floor. And the sales team and marketing team, these people think very differently from each other, their personalities are usually very different from each other. Right, you have to intentionally bring them together, left to their own devices, they will not agree with each other. Because for no other reason, then their brains work differently. Right. So you have to be very intentional, intentional, new word intentional about creating opportunities for them to understand each other for them to appreciate each other. Truthfully, and this is coming from a salesperson, we're arrogant jerks. We walk in there with like, dude, if I didn't just close this deal, none of you would have jobs like that's not helping. Right? And at the same time, if the people who fulfill the work, hate the salespeople, well, that's not helpful, because the sales person just, you know, the extrovert salesperson just went and made happy and made promises. And now the team fulfilling those promises. Is us against that, like, it just doesn't work, right? It doesn't work. So you have to understand that just from a personality profile way our brains work, we're going to be different. And then the other thing I think that contributes to the problem is the fact that internally, in a large company, this is hard to do, if you really think about it, it's a competitive environment. Because the concept of abundance doesn't fit in the corporate mold. Because in the entrepreneurial world, we say, it's not a pie, there's enough for everybody. But within a large company, that's not actually true. There's a finite number of a finite amount of money, how much is each department getting? This pits them against each other? Instead of collaborating on a team? If there's seven people on a team, and there's an opening for a promotion, only one person gets it. So now you're asking seven people to be a cohesive team, when maybe three of them want that promotion? How does like you're asking a lot of people. So it's inherently competitive. We're even if we do all like each other, and support each other underneath, we know, if you get a piece, a bigger piece of the pie, I get less, like, how many times do you see in corporate where, okay, the bucket of money for raises this year, is $10,000 Go divided up amongst your team. One person gets more one person gets less, you want to add in now, the people doing the same job aren't getting paid the same amount of money, or at least not getting paid based on experience. They're getting, like there's so much that goes into creating a scarcity mentality, a competitive, unfair feeling. And now add in the people in different departments think and work differently than each other. I mean, listening to me go on and on and on. It's amazing. Anything that gets done, right, like, we should be, maybe we should just be very proud of ourselves for accomplishing anything instead of disappointed that sometimes it's hard, right?
 
Leighann Lovely  28:47
It's amazing to hear you break all that down. Because, you know, I've been told that I'm not very good at playing the corporate game.
 
Erin Marcus  28:55
I suck at the corporate game, right? I did very well in corporate you know how to play the corporate game. Do a really good job. Right?
 
Leighann Lovely  29:02
Right. I might and I always default to my dad because my dad is always the son of reason for me. And every time I would get like upset or I would go and I would talk to him before I talk to anybody else because if I didn't I would say something really really stupid to my boss, because I would be like all riled up and I play over there my dad would go You did not say that to your boss, right?  Oh, I can tell you story.  I know. I you know,
 
Erin Marcus  29:27
And you get screaming matches where the rest office and my boss and I I mean, we still are very close relationship.
 
Leighann Lovely  29:35
And you get to a certain level in which you can start saying certain things to your boss as long as it's not in front of somebody else. You get to that certain point, right. But there is that there's the corporate there's the politics that go along with it. There's humans right along with all of the other crap app that you have to try to balance out with your, you know, co workers with getting your work done with, you know, the possibility and I've had this said, You, you and I'd have this, you know, again, we talk I've been told as a salesperson at a company outright by the team who's supposed to be fulfilling what I bring in, that they you know, why hate salespeople?
 
Erin Marcus  30:23
Well, so well. And here's the other thing. Okay, so let's add to that, let's add to the subconscious programming, that every person in that department has against salespeople. Because every cartoon that they've watched, every movie that they've seen, has a very, very negative story about sales. So why wouldn't they hit you? They have no reason not to write unless the top very, very intentionally while they are managing all the other things that they have to take care of. does something about it,
 
Leighann Lovely  31:02
Right reconditions re, you know, gets everybody's mindset and reminds them that sales is not the enemy. They are the ones bringing in the orders. But that makes that makes it sound like the salespeople are that much more arrogant.
 
Erin Marcus  31:21
Right? Exactly. And we are I was, oh my God, come on, like, well, and here's the thing, even if we don't mean it that way, the exuberance of closing a deal. A big, big, big deal can absolutely be interpreted by others as arrogance. Again, we're going back to different brain, different functions, right? Different different workings just appearing here.
 
Leighann Lovely  31:55
And here's the strange thing. If you asked me today, LeighAnn, what was the biggest deal you've ever closed? I can't tell you, Oh, I can tell you. So I can't tell you because my brain by the time I hit the they just signed seal, you're done. I was I was often going, Okay, you guys take care of this, I'll maintain the relationship with the client. But I don't really care about that. I just want to get the next sale because
 
Erin Marcus  32:20
I travel. That's a very true salesperson.
 
Leighann Lovely  32:23
I truly did not care about and I hate that question. People ask me, What is the biggest deal you've ever done? Well, I mean, I could sit here and think about it, it was I negotiated a national contract with, you know, a large company it was, but I can't even tell you the details anymore. Because I was I was already done. I signed it.
 
Erin Marcus  32:42
And that's very, you know, in going back to the idea of culture, and it's, you know, is there a culture of mutual respect? Is there a culture of openness? Is there going back to this idea of outrage you none of this works if outrage has any space in your business enough. In my company that I was in, we hired another salesperson, I was more of an account manager, relationship manager than a cold salesperson, I did some of that he was way better at it than I did. So we adjusted what we're doing. And he was a true salesperson. He honestly didn't care if you said yes or no, just don't waste his time. So he could move on. And that's who I used to. It was like a pinball, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. But we liked each other, and we respected each other. And I understood his personality, and he understood mine. And I, like I said, I my primary role was to manage the gap, meaning it was my job, truthfully, to protect the rest of the team from him. But he knew that, and they knew that, which meant which mean we were all fine. There was no judging. It was just this is who each individual is, this is. And so when things would get out of hand, one of the team would come to me and like, and I'm like, and I would just go up to him and like, Dude, you're killing me. rein it in. And if you want for a short period of time, big deal and
 
Leighann Lovely  34:15
and it's interesting, too, because salespeople like that, they often they don't see anything. They don't see anything else. And that's where I'm I don't I don't care if you say yes or no, until I know you. I don't have any skin in the game. Like, just give me an answer, respond to me and say, Hey, I appreciate you reaching out. I'm not interested because then I won't waste my time reaching out to you anymore. Just give me how many
 
Erin Marcus  34:40
people are. Yeah, and the truth is so many people are so afraid of sales, that they can't even fathom that. Right. They can't even fathom somebody who feels and thinks that way. So they literally just don't know what to do with it. Right?
 
Leighann Lovely  34:55
They're afraid so they don't respond. Well. If I respond, she's gonna think that I'm interested. Don't. It's like My husband and I.
 
Erin Marcus  35:01
Well there are other team members that like how could that crazy lady over there not care if
 
Leighann Lovely  35:09
There is so much business to be had that I would rather just get the Yes? Or the no and move on. Right?
 
Erin Marcus  35:16
One of the great one of the great sales training or sales pieces of advice that I ever got is the worst answer you could give me as maybe, yes. Oh, because it means I didn't do my job. It means I didn't do my job of connecting the dots for you, knowing that we were or were not a good fit, explaining our value understanding your problems. Someone who says maybe, or someone who's very ambivalent about your offer, and your conversation means I didn't do my job.
 
Leighann Lovely  35:50
Right. So you say you don't understand my offering. So you're
 
Erin Marcus  35:54
and I didn't understand their problem. You know, I mean, it's very,
 
Leighann Lovely  35:58
and I'm okay with the yes, I'm interested, but call me in six months.
 
Erin Marcus  36:05
Let me figure this out. I still have to sit with this a minute. That's totally Absolutely. Again, different brains process differently. Not everyone makes a decision in a minute and a half, that's different than someone who walks away, unsure of any of it.
 
Leighann Lovely  36:24
So if a company is struggling with, you know, the whole team dynamic, what would you what would be the
 
Erin Marcus  36:35
if you could we use? Yeah, we used to? It's culture, it's so how do you build culture? How do you build culture number one rate, you get to know people on a personal basis. The fact of the matter is nobody can really, really, really manage my talking like call center version, but nobody can really manage well, more than five people. If you're really going to have an intimate culture, asking somebody to manage a team of 50 people, without any additional layer of at least some you know, they don't have to be promoted, they could just be in charge of their team. Because you can't get that many people together and have that deep conversation, right? So from the top down is the culture one where we're all in this together, we're all moving in the same direction. Everybody's everybody's role is equally appreciated, that we have 000 tolerance for mistreatment of other team members, right? Zero tolerance for mistreatment of other team members, because every single person is respected for their contribution, right?
 
Leighann Lovely  37:57
And making sure that sales is not siloing themselves.
 
Erin Marcus  38:03
I mean, anybody, right? Like you, this is not just how do you solve sales against the rest of the company? This is how you solve anybody against the rest of it. Like? What is that culture and culture is not a once a year teambuilding event. Because if you have a nice, cheap rubber chicken dinner at the banquet hall, and the rest of the time, nobody intervenes, when people are harassing people or being jerks to people, people aren't doing here's the other thing, like holding people to expectations of doing their job is positive for the culture. Because when people don't, when you have team members who aren't doing their job, and everyone knows they're not doing their job, and nobody does anything about it, you'll kill morale faster than anything else, right? Why should I work so hard when that person gets the same promotions and accolades and benefits and doesn't do anything? Right? Yeah, people will leave that company. It's appreciate, you know, your biggest, biggest, biggest, biggest asset, are the humans in your business. Are you treating them as if each and every single one of them? Are you treating them as if they're the biggest asset in your business? I'll give you perfect. So before I went to the insurance company, I was in commercial real estate. I was in the marketing department of a international commercial real estate company and I worked in the Chicago suburban office side of things meaning big fancy office buildings in the suburbs of Chicago. And again, international company, and this was during the.com. Boom. So things were not money, money, money. The agents were making more as day traders than they were even making in their deals that they were doing. It was just a Crazy, crazy, crazy environment. And there was a true story because I knew who had happened to that a broker, a real estate broker on really, really high end agent in the New York office punched his administrative assistant,
 
Leighann Lovely  40:18
oh my God.
 
Erin Marcus  40:19
Now, it was a male, not a female, which doesn't make it okay, but doesn't make it quite as terrifying, right? That's a different level, right? So it was a male agent and a male administrative assistant punched the guy. Because of the outrage over I don't even remember, it was some kind of deals, some paperwork didn't get set properly. And now someone had to go clean up the mess. And they gotten one argument over who made the mistake, and the agent punched him. And nothing happened. Because the agent brought in millions and millions and millions of dollars. Oh, my God, what do you think that does to morale? What do you think? Why are you surprised that everyone hates salespeople? Right? When it's okay for a salesperson to punch somebody, right? Because they're making money. And now, all that's doing is reinforcing every negative impression that everyone else has of sales. Its culture, culture solves these problems. And if you're if you know, the horrible truth about being a leader, the horrible truth about being a leader is it's really, really easy to see if you're good at it or not. Just look around you. Are your people performing? Are your people getting along with each other? Are they committed to the business? That is a direct reflection of your leadership.
 
Leighann Lovely  41:43
And that's, excuse me, that is another shining thing that would be a whole nother episode,
 
Erin Marcus  41:52
I would like to do another. We're gonna rename this listen to Aaron rant about yet another time. It's,
 
Leighann Lovely  41:59
it's the the mistake that that multiple companies make. I have a really awesome salesperson, I'm just gonna promote them to be the sales manager.
 
Erin Marcus  42:09
That's two different jobs. Right, God, I will tell you a lot. My ex husband, my ex husband is a fantastic, fantastic, fantastic salesman. And they have, we're still in touch with youth, either. We've been divorced for, I don't know, 20 years. But he's a wonderful man. And he's a wonderful salesperson. And his company has tried to promote him to sales manager in a variety of ways. For decades, and we keep in touch, and I'm just constantly going, do they not know you, you don't like people? Like you don't have patience for anybody? Why are they Trump, he's a fantastic salesman, he is so good at serving his clients and making sure they have what they need, and going the extra mile. And he should not be in charge of a cat. And I teased him about this all the time, because he has no patience for people who don't do exactly what he does.
 
Leighann Lovely  43:14
And that is completely true.
 
Erin Marcus  43:16
It's fine. If you're listening to this, you know.
 
Leighann Lovely  43:21
And I've been in the same position, Lee, and we want you to mentor the other salespeople, we want them to do what you're doing
 
Erin Marcus  43:27
Most of you and you can't tell them what you're doing, because you're doing so instinctively that you don't know how you're doing. Right.
 
Leighann Lovely  43:33
Right. And then I'll ask, you know, okay, why I can explain to them, you know, the processes that I go through, but that's not gonna make them become or do what I do their job.
 
Erin Marcus  43:48
And I think a lot of people need to realize that about themselves. Because going back to the fact that I'm a business coach and consultant, and the fact that I was extremely hesitant to use the label coach, because I watched so many coaches, not for any malicious reason, but not be able, like, they can tell people what to do, they can't tell people how to do it. That's what I know how to do. You said that to me earlier, you're breaking it down. Like I don't know why my brain works this way. My old mentor said, yeah, it's fantastic. But don't be so impressed with yourself. You didn't make this happen. It's just how my brain works. If you're going to have a leader in charge of teaching people how to do stuff, they can't just know what has to happen they have to be able to break it down and then apply it to different people. Or it doesn't work right. Otherwise just do this one thing within the entrepreneurial world right all those institutions out there that don't work.
 
Leighann Lovely  44:50
And I know mean, for me, I know exactly like I time block like exactly what I do how I do it, but it doesn't mean that somebody else is going to be able to sit in my chair and follow that exact process and be successful at it.
 
Erin Marcus  45:05
Odds are they can't because their brain works differently. Correct? What's their version of it?
 
Leighann Lovely  45:10
Right? Well, we are we are coming to time. No figure. I know. And just getting in the talking, I know. All right. All right. So I have a question of the season. And it's, I love this question, because I get a variety of different answers. And obviously, because everybody's in a different situation. But if you could change, or what would you change rather about your job or the practice that people have in your role, if you could?
 
Erin Marcus  45:44
The thing that I don't like about what I do, are the mood swings. I'm not a highly, I'm a high, I don't know, if you notice I'm very high energy person. But I'm not a highly emotional person. I, the mood swings make me crazy. I don't care if something's hard. I don't expect everything. That's not what I mean, I don't, it's the entrepreneurial roller coaster of this is great. It's all falling apart. Like, I don't like it. It's not that I've learned that I have to be able to handle it. But I find it sucking my energy and knocking me off of my focus. And throwing a wrench in my plans. I don't know I can come up with a bunch more phrases. But that's what I don't like about it is the emotional. And that's really what I screwed up. When I first left corporate and got into the entrepreneurial world, because I knew what to do. I knew what to do. I've grown businesses. I knew how to grow my business. I knew I knew what I knew that I knew I could do what I knew how to do for my clients. What I didn't expect was so much of my success being tied to who I was being not what I was doing and what I was thinking about, not what I was doing.
 
Leighann Lovely  47:17
Well, and somebody said to me not long ago, had I known what I know, now, I would not have started my own business 100%. So thank God, I didn't know. And that's exactly how they finished that line. Thank God, I didn't know, sign up for this. Right. And as an early as a very new entrepreneur, I do not ask the question. Well, what do I not know? Because I want to continue down this path and figure it out for myself, because I don't want to be scared away from it. And I'm already starting for him. It's too long. I'm already in it.
 
Erin Marcus  48:00
You're off the cliff, you're you've jumped off the cliff, you are falling down the Cliff. Cliff. I mean, that's physically impossible.
 
Leighann Lovely  48:07
Where's my parachute?
 
Erin Marcus  48:09
Yeah, that doesn't work either. That's not how this works. Right.
 
Leighann Lovely  48:13
But, and that's and that's the beauty of it, though, is that you you can't know what you don't know. And would we do things in life? If we knew all the information? And often the answer is no. Because the end, it's the same way that our brain works is that 10 years from now, will you remember how painful it was in the beginning? Or are you going
 
Erin Marcus  48:42
And no I laugh about it? I could tell you stories for days, I used to get lost in my car in my neighborhood. In my first business, I would go and have consultations in people's homes. So I would use the GPS to get to their house, because I had to know exactly where it was. But I kind of knew where I was. So I knew how to get home. And so I wouldn't use GPS to get home. And then I'd be driving and then all of a sudden I wouldn't. Which is terrifying. By the way. All of a sudden, I would be like, Wait, where am I? Why am I here? Like I wasn't lost? I knew where I was. But I certainly wasn't where I thought I was going. You stood like just get lost.
 
Leighann Lovely  49:23
You're so deep in thought that you just you know, yeah. Hey, I'm just letting you know what, there was one day that I was so deep in thought that I went the wrong way. When I was trying to drop my daughter off somewhere and I looked at her and I went we're going to be late because mommy just went to the wrong place. And my daughter now reminds me she's five. My daughter now reminds me Mommy, are you going to the right place?
 
Erin Marcus  49:50
One of my favorite favorite stories was of a mentor I had at the real estate business and she tells a story of when car phones like when we first I call them car phones, because that's what they were at the time. Yep. Because it hooked to your car. When that first was a thing, and she had it, and her business partner had one, and they were in this very heated conversation, so she was driving home about a client, she was driving home on autopilot. And in this heated conversation, and then she just kind of stopped talking went, Oh, my God. It wasn't, she drove to the wrong house. She drove to the house that she used to share with her ex husband, who is now remarried to another woman, and she pulled into the driveway. She was on such autopilot that she like went back eight years in her life. And she went home, just to not the current home, right? She tells a story of going oh my god, I gotta get out here before.
 
Leighann Lovely  50:55
Right? Well, Aaron, this has been such an amazing conversation. If somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?
 
Erin Marcus  51:03
The easiest way to do this is just find me through my website, ConquerYourbusiness.com. If you go to conqueryourbusiness.com you'll see my podcast, you'll be able to contact me you'll find me on all the socials. One easy place to go conqueryourbusiness.com
 
Leighann Lovely  51:18
And that, of course will be in the show notes. But again, Erin, thank you so much for your time.
 
Erin Marcus  51:22
You are awesome. Thank you. Thank you.
 
Leighann Lovely  51:24
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support. Without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
 
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, business, salesperson, sales, brains, company, culture, job, salespeople, corporate, outrage, conversation, happen, negative, started, jerk, entrepreneurs, deal, coaching, person