Chris Cooley (00:04.205)
I want thank you for joining us today on my HR buzz the podcast. I think we’ve got a really good topic today and I’ve got John Yerger, who is my business partner and over our operations side. So he’s the one that helps with a lot of the regulations and working with our clients and their HR departments. And so think he’s going to be a great resource and appreciate you joining today.

JOHN (00:27.97)
Yeah, great to be here, Chris. Thanks. I’m looking forward to talking about this today.

Chris Cooley (00:32.075)
Yeah, absolutely. you know, today we did a survey probably a week or so ago. Well, it’s a couple of weeks ago and asking clients prospects, their HR departments, what are good podcast topics so that we have some that, you know, that we want to make sure that we’re relevant and have interesting topics. And one of the recommendations, which I thought was really interesting was

What can an HR department of one do? What do they need to think about in making sure that they’re staying compliant and better perform their job? And so I thought that was a great topic. So I thought we’d talk about that today.

JOHN (01:14.722)
Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s a great topic. do. And I think, I think, you know, I don’t know what the statistics are, Chris, but I would imagine there are a lot of small businesses out there that are, that are set up just this way where they have one person that’s sort of that utility player, you know, that’s wearing a lot of hats, but they are that department, that HR department of one.

Chris Cooley (01:35.661)
Yeah, when we talk about that, you know, a lot of times I think people go HR Department of one, let’s, you know, they’ve got five employees. But we run into HR departments of one that have 100 employees. And so it really, now that role may change a little bit because when they’re in a company that has five employees, maybe they do HR and payroll and accounting and a lot of different things. And then as you go up that employee scale, they become more

JOHN (01:48.354)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Cooley (02:03.465)
of a primary HR resource, if you will. But it’s really a topic that works for a lot of different size companies.

JOHN (02:06.296)
Yeah.

JOHN (02:12.622)
It does, yeah, for sure.

Chris Cooley (02:15.777)
Yeah. And so, so as we talk about that, I mean, and you’re the one that talks to a lot of these, a lot of these groups on a day to day. I mean, what are some of those challenges that those, that those HR departments have one incurred?

JOHN (02:27.98)
Yeah. And you know, as I said before, there are a of small businesses that have that utility player. And, know, when you talked about you, when you mentioned just a second ago about, know, you may have five employees in some businesses and then you may have 50 and others. Now, what’s interesting about that, it’s not a linear progression. It’s if you have five employees, you’re still chasing the same federal and state labor laws. What do I have to comply with and how do I, know, where do I get the information to do that?

Chris Cooley (02:46.541)
in the first.

JOHN (02:56.064)
So it is interesting. So the challenges can be just almost as equal for a five department company or five employee company as a 50 employee company. So that’s some of the things that I find interesting about that, particularly in this space that we’re talking about today. So there are a number of challenges. think to start with really time management is a really big one. think balancing, just as you say, all the hiring, the payroll, the compliance, benefits, administration, employee engagement.

I mean, that can lead to burnout when you have one person who’s having to balance and juggle all of those different balls in that HR realm. And you and I’ve talked about this before, Chris, you can ask 10 people, is HR, what is HR defining? You’re going to get 10 different definitions in that. Just keeping up with compliance.

Chris Cooley (03:41.613)
Yeah.

Yeah. And to your point, I know a lot of times when we ask somebody, some people think HR is payroll. Some people think HR is benefits, et cetera. So you’re exactly right. We’ve run into that a lot.

JOHN (03:52.395)
Mm-hmm.

JOHN (03:58.476)
Yeah. Yeah. And so, but as these guys know, these individuals who are wearing all these hats and that utility understand that it’s quite a bit more and it’s very comprehensive. The other challenge that kind of jumps out at me is compliance. That’s a big one. Obviously, that’s really important to what we offer our clients. Keeping up with labor laws, regulations. We know if federal laws don’t change that frequently, it’s a slower moving ship than your states. Your states are

tend to get a little bit more animated about labor laws and they change more frequently. And it depends on what state you’re in. So we do see a lot of that being a concern. You you’ve got limited budgets and limited resources. So how can I be creative and still be effective in recruiting, benefits administration, training the staff and getting management involved in this thing to help me manage this and be a resource with me, not just.

leaving me alone, they’ll have to share a role in some of this. But that becomes difficult when you’re dealing with financial and tight financial constraints. And then there’s lack of specialized expertise. mean, how do I know, where do I get my information in order to do that, to keep up with legal compliance requirements and still be able to provide my team the support they need? So that’s another area.

employee expectations and engagement, that’s important. In really company culture, we’ll talk a little bit about, I’m not going to get deep into that, but I think that’s one of the important things is how do I build a company that has a strong culture and career growth opportunities? mean, for me, my job is to hire and retain quality staff. So I have to demonstrate that we have the right culture and right career progression opportunities.

in our organization and that’s hard to do when you’re dealing with that as a solo HR expert. We’re going to talk about technology a little bit, Chris. I think, you know, it can be a quick decision for a very small company to say, can’t afford technology. You can’t afford it. I think it’s important to do so because that really does build tremendous efficiencies, even though there’s a cost to it.

JOHN (06:21.74)
The technology integration today is much more affordable than it was 10 years ago, five years ago, three years ago. So don’t let that scare you as a small business owner to invest in because that will make your organization much more efficient and it will also put processes in place that’ll help ensure you’re compliant. And that’s also important. So those are the areas that I think, you know, when I think about the challenges, those are the ones that really stick out early for me, Chris.

Chris Cooley (06:51.501)
Okay, well, let’s talk, we’ll kind of break these down a little bit. So one of the, in our survey, we asked, what are your biggest challenges? And the top one, actually tied for the top, was hiring and retention. And so, you know, if you’re that HR department of one, maybe, know, typically those groups may not have the,

JOHN (07:10.414)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Cooley (07:21.345)
the budget, if you will, to go out and hire headhunters and all those, to come in and help them. So what are ways that they can efficiently and cost effectively go out and find those good employees?

JOHN (07:37.676)
Yeah, I think immediately the first thing that comes to mind are those sort of leveraging those low cost job posting platforms that are out there today. The first two that come to mind automatically are LinkedIn and Indeed. I think those platforms are really, really helpful. And then you can also, depending on what industry you’re in, there could be some job boards out there that are industry specific for jobs. So that can also be leveraged too. That’s not a really expensive, you can pay.

as much as you want using these platforms to recruit. But I think there are low cost entry opportunities there that I think you can touch into a lot of good candidates to help with that recruiting side. Employees referrals can be a powerful tool as well. I mean, it really does help reduce that cost if you have a good retention program that involves recruiting.

I’m paying employees referrals for that.

Chris Cooley (08:37.121)
Yeah, no, I agree. think I know we use LinkedIn a lot. We’re we’re we’re white collar and I think LinkedIn works really well for that. And I think typically for a hire, maybe you’re in.

you know, a couple hundred, 300, 400 bucks, something like that for a hire, which isn’t that bad. I think the word of mouth is good. Yeah, and you can also do things like put a career page on your website. That way, you know, that draws some attention. And also, you know, we’ve had clients that if they run trucks.

JOHN (08:55.736)
So.

JOHN (09:06.051)
That’s true.

Chris Cooley (09:17.645)
Maybe they’re landscape company, they’re a trucking company, whatever. And you can create QR codes and put them on magnetic signs we’re hiring.

JOHN (09:21.198)
Thank

JOHN (09:26.798)
I hadn’t thought about that. Yeah.

Chris Cooley (09:27.949)
Things like that. So I think too, you can kind of go kind of grassroots if you will, and get that and get some good applicants as well. So yeah, to your point, I think there’s a lot of good ways to do that cost effectively.

JOHN (09:43.33)
Yeah, for sure.

Chris Cooley (09:46.541)
So as we go through that, you know, another thing that I think helps a lot too is just company branding and just being a being portraying yourself as where somebody wants to work.

JOHN (09:48.814)
Thank

JOHN (10:01.41)
Yeah, that’s something that I think might be overlooked or easily overlooked when you talk about recruiting and hiring. You really do need to think about and develop your brand, your company brand. mean, there’s ways today of really showcasing that culture that you want to develop and using social media platforms. I mean, we see it today. We actually do that, Chris. We do some things through our social media, through LinkedIn.

And we do that more as a, as a informative HR sort of showcase, if you will. But there are companies out there that do some really creative things with social media to show what their company’s about. Employee testimonials, they’ll do some behind the scenes content. My wife’s company, they do, they do these little sort of scripted plays that are really not specific to the work they do, but they’re engaging and they have

thousands and thousands of views because it’s really interesting and it does showcase their culture and it kind of it kind of gets people to think you know is this a place where I would like to work you know it seems like they’re enjoying what they do they’re having fun you know those types of things so that that’s one way of getting it out there I think and we can’t discount the importance and I think even particularly now when we’re seeing a skills gap

In the workplace, we’re seeing a lot of shifts in the workplace. Professional development opportunities, I think, make a huge difference in attracting candidates. I think when you offer an opportunity for a position, but also can show and demonstrate that there are professional development opportunities that come with that, that is investing in that individual. That’s also an investment for you as an employer that you’re developing your staff. You’re bridging that skills gap.

Chris Cooley (11:30.509)
Yeah.

JOHN (11:58.902)
and getting better productivity, better performance out of your team by offering those. So people are looking for those opportunities when they’re considering jobs these days.

Chris Cooley (12:08.097)
Yeah, and I think that is important because, you I don’t know that anybody wants to go and stay level. You know, they all want to get better. And so, you know, just things like that, training, I I think that’s a great, a great opportunity as a benefit that you can provide that makes somebody want to work there more. And, know, go ahead.

JOHN (12:14.967)
Mm-hmm.

JOHN (12:29.112)
Yeah, yeah, I say now you made me think of a time where I had operations that I was responsible for that were primarily made up of entry level positions. And that’s a hard, you have hundreds of individuals that are coming in at an entry level position. Well, how do you attract them and retain them? That’s the key to that, right? You want to want to reduce that turnover and retain that group, but it’s hard to do as you say.

You come in an entry level position, you think that’s all there is available to me. There are plenty of entry level positions that maybe aren’t as demanding as maybe the one I offer. And they’re going to go find that one. That’s easy. Now, by developing professional career opportunities through working with different stakeholders in different departments and learning about what your staff are interested in and their career progression, is it sales? Is it IT? Is it accounting and finance? Well,

developing relationship with those departments and having those individuals spend time in those departments learning about the skills that are required, experiences needed, and maybe offer ways for them to gain those experiences. That’s a huge part of a career and professional development opportunity that can really attract and also just as importantly retain that staff.

Chris Cooley (13:51.521)
Yeah, and it doesn’t cost anything.

JOHN (13:53.398)
It doesn’t. It’s just a little bit of time and investment. But if you can show that and demonstrate that is a real opportunity, you will have better recruitment and better retention.

Chris Cooley (14:04.513)
Yeah. And you know, another thing, you know, talking about those things that really don’t cost anything. I know one thing we always tried to do is, you know, when someone had something they had to go to, a kids play, a school event, I don’t think we’ve ever said no. And so just things like that, flexibility, having a little bit of empathy for them that, you know, they want to go see their kid do whatever they may be doing.

It’s free, but it means a lot.

JOHN (14:36.782)
It does. And that’s one of the things that I think we value here. We know it’s important to understand. And when we ask how you’re doing, how an employee’s doing, really mean that. Really, really. We can talk about that throughout our discussion today. And I may want to talk a little bit more about that later. But I think, that showing that true empathy and interest in them and when you ask how they’re doing really mean it.

and really understand what their situation is and show some empathy and work-life balance and those types of things that show that as long as the productivity is there, the job’s getting done, I’m willing to work with where I can work with the individuals to make sure that we honor that and respect that as well because that makes a much more productive and a very satisfied employee. It’s more than just

the paycheck. It’s got to be more of a value proposition.

Chris Cooley (15:36.301)
That’s right. No, I agree. And so, you know, that’s some ways from the recruiting and hiring retention. You know, one of the other things that you mentioned was compliance.

JOHN (15:39.4)
you

Chris Cooley (15:50.253)
And I know, you know, I talked to a prospect today and she was like, I’m an accountant. She said, I don’t know anything about HR. That’s not what I do. That’s not what I was trained for, but that’s what I have to do. And I think a lot of people run into that, especially in these HR departments of one, right? Because as we talked about earlier, they probably do five different things. I mean, what are some ways that you can get compliant, that you can stay compliant or just stay abreast of those things?

JOHN (16:04.12)
Yeah. Yeah.

JOHN (16:19.97)
Yeah, you know, and I’ll be the first person to say that it can be absolutely overwhelming. There’s so much to keep up with. And, you know, early on when we started this thing to really understand how do we do this? How do we how do we access information, synthesize that information and apply that in a practical way? That is the most difficult thing in this space to do. And I think that’s overlooked a lot. Again, it’s not payroll and benefits.

Chris Cooley (16:25.101)
Mm-hmm.

JOHN (16:49.134)
Compliance is huge. even now, it becomes more and more important. As our cultures change, as our societies change, that compliance is becoming more and more of a huge component of HR. It always has been, but it seems now that that’s more and more. Because I think we’re going to see continued enforcement and maybe more enforcement than we’ve seen in years past.

So that’s important to not, don’t rest on your laurels thinking I’m okay, cause nothing’s happened. That doesn’t mean it can’t. You have to, you have to be prepared. So keeping up with compliance and staying informed is important for those one man, HR shops, one person, HR shops, subscribe to newsletters, get involved in associations and organizations in your local area. There are chapters and associations that you can go to that have events, educational events, trade shows.

doesn’t cost a lot of money. can attend these things and network and really, really open yourself up to other HR professionals who are willing to help. My experience with HR professionals is they are eager to help. They want to share the information they have for anybody who’s interested in listening, because I think there’s a lot of good information out there. And internally use tools to help you stay compliant. I’m a big fan of checklists. I don’t think I can get through

the day without having a control on how to do what we do. So a checklist of how I operate when it comes to wage laws, when it comes to workplace safety or policies or onboarding practices and termination practices. Use a checklist because that helps you stay consistent and that’ll keep you compliant. There’s a lot of information that you’ll need to understand in order to do that effectively. So if you subscribe to newsletters, take the time to read them.

Not all the information there is consumable for you as that individual in your circumstance, but there could be some really good information in those that you do need to understand.

Chris Cooley (18:57.591)
Yeah, absolutely. then also, you know, there’s folks like us, right? Which, you know, thank goodness, because now we can pay house notes and car notes.

JOHN (19:08.11)
That’s right. And I tell you, it really is satisfying to work with small businesses and help them understand that there are resources out there. And we’re an example of that. it’s interesting to see how the light comes on and the eyes really become clear in that relationship when they start understanding the importance of the things that we’re talking about.

and the things that we continue to push to our clients and to potential clients that these things do matter to your business.

Chris Cooley (19:45.505)
Yeah, and then having a resource that you can talk to about that, whatever you read or whatever information that you receive and be able to understand application. I think it’s really important.

JOHN (19:48.867)
Mm-hmm.

JOHN (19:56.536)
Yeah.

JOHN (19:59.938)
Well, that’s one of the most challenging aspects of it, to be quite honest with you. And it’s not something that you can just decide you want to do is read some HR digest. And by the time you’re reading it, you understand it doesn’t work that way. There’s a whole process of information, a processing of information. And you have to synthesize that you really have to digest that information, break it down, understand it fully in a way to

Chris Cooley (20:09.515)
Yeah, yeah.

JOHN (20:27.798)
as you say, practically apply that information in a way that is understandable, is useful, that is logistically movable and actionable. there’s information is not enough. It’s understanding it and then being able to apply.

Chris Cooley (20:46.401)
Yeah, no, absolutely. And then, you know, it’s those those just articles and those kind of things and just keeping up with the daily routine. But what you know, also there’s handbooks and there’s policies. I mean, what’s the recommendation on on those items, making sure that they stay up to date? I mean, how do they do that? What’s the best way to do that?

JOHN (21:13.674)
It’s not an easy task to do that. I’ll be honest with you, most…

Most handbooks I see are woefully incomplete and so dated that it’s, I honestly tell them to throw it in the garbage, that it’s not redeemable, it’s not workable, it’s not something you can bring back to life and apply in a current way, in a practical way. Handbooks are difficult because the complexities of them are really,

how do you take federal and state statutes and laws and distill them down into readable policies that all of your employees can understand in a glance, understand what’s expected of them, and also what they can expect from you as an employer. Those are not things that you can just sit down and write. There’s a lot of work that goes into that. So a lot of employers have attorneys write their handbooks. Now that can be really costly.

Chris Cooley (22:19.117)
Mm-hmm.

JOHN (22:20.044)
that is we know legal time is expensive time. But there are tools out there that they can use. I would not recommend going alone and not have someone who understands law and application of law, federal and state labor laws to work with you on that. I’m not pitching us so much, Chris, but we do that. And there’s a reason we do that is because we understand that. So we do help with

Chris Cooley (22:42.369)
Yeah. Yeah.

JOHN (22:48.31)
either reviewing handbooks to make sure if we need to add, modify, edit handbooks to make sure that they do comport with current federal, state, and labor laws. That’s something that we can assist with. And I don’t know, know, the frequency of training employees, you know, that’s something else that can be done to really help.

keep employees informed about compliance. What sort of training are you offering when you can? And you can do pocket training, can do department training, you don’t have to pull everybody off the clock to do it. You can be creative and efficient with that. But there are things that you can do with training. And then sending out updates, maybe some compliance updates to keep your team, keep your managers, keep your staff informed of what’s going on. So there are creative, efficient,

but very constructive ways of getting information out there. those are the three areas, employee handbooks, training, and sending out information via email or whatever form is most effective for you.

Chris Cooley (23:53.453)
Yeah. And, you know, circling back to the handbook, I know one of the things that we run into a lot when you say maybe don’t go it alone is providing when we provide our handbook to a client, they may go, it’s too long. It’s too long. I don’t need all that. I want you to go in and take out these policies. The problem is oftentimes they may not know which ones are required and which ones are more best practice. And so

JOHN (24:09.027)
Yeah.

JOHN (24:21.058)
Yeah.

Chris Cooley (24:22.989)
And so at that point, they’re going in and they’re deleting or taking out policies that are really required. You really have to have them in there. So it is good to have that second source to kind of go through that with them.

JOHN (24:36.142)
think so because we’re using a system or a tool that writes that for you. When you’re reading it, it’s really hard to know because the way it’s written in such a layman way. Is this informing me of my legal rights and responsibilities or is this just good practices? Option out of it’s hard to know which it is. Some things can be written in a way that seemed like best practices, but they lay out the legal.

Chris Cooley (24:52.46)
Yeah.

JOHN (25:02.994)
for that employer and what that employee can expect based on that state statute or that state law. So if you just start ripping out content to kind of save pages, you may be taking compliance components out of your handbook that could expose you. And that’s why we really encourage getting someone who understands the labor laws and understands the practical use of those handbooks.

in a way that makes certain that, and I’m actually dealing with that right now with a client who wants to reduce the size. They don’t like the size of their handbook that we recommended because it’s twice the size of the one they had before. And so that’s a walk that we’ll take and at least explaining how and why that’s the case. And there things that can be reduced and taken out, but we just got to be careful.

Chris Cooley (25:48.172)
Right.

Chris Cooley (26:00.845)
Yeah, and to your point, it’s not like we’re sending an encyclopedia over. It’s just a little more than what they’re used to. But also what happens is a lot of it depends on their states that they’re in. Because if you get a California, then it’s just going to be longer because there’s more states. If you’re in Texas, it’s probably going to be a lot smaller. a lot of it depends on where they are and the state they’re in and what those requirements are.

JOHN (26:05.23)
All

JOHN (26:17.345)
Yeah. Yeah.

JOHN (26:29.07)
Exactly.

Chris Cooley (26:31.245)
So, okay, so we’ve talked a little bit about the recruiting, the hiring, the compliance. Let’s talk about efficiencies. So we always want to make our job easier, right? So we can get more output with the same effort, more output. So what are some ideas from an efficiency perspective?

JOHN (26:50.03)
This is automation. mean, that’s the first thing that comes to mind when we talk about efficiencies. There’s an immediate sort of reflexive reaction and I get it that if automation means technology, technology means I got to pay for licenses. That’s true. Automation can build efficiencies for your organization. It can help streamline payroll.

Chris Cooley (27:10.733)
Mm-hmm.

JOHN (27:17.612)
performance tracking, benefits administration, onboarding processes. Not only does it streamline it, but it helps keep you operating in a way that does build compliance steps through that whole process. That’s kind of the other side of that too, that we have to think about. It’s not just efficiencies, but having good quality processes and controls through automation and technologies.

Chris Cooley (27:32.109)
Mm-hmm.

JOHN (27:47.714)
can walk you through and guide you through and keep those guardrails up where you are on a compliant track, right? You are onboarding in a compliant way. Your payroll processes and records are managed in a way that makes sure that you are managing your overtime correctly, that your classifications for your employees are set correctly. So all of those things are important, not just from an efficiency standpoint, but also from…

standpoint. So those are the ones, those are the things that really help. I think it’s also developing really good relationships with your other department managers. Let them know they have a stake in this too, and get their involvement. It’s okay to get them to be part of that relationship where you can sort of distribute that workload a little bit. It’s important to them as well. So being a department one in HR,

is not an island because what you do affects every department, every single organization. And so I don’t think it would be difficult to get the buy-in from your stakeholders and those other departments to pitch in and take a little bit of that workload with you.

Chris Cooley (28:58.177)
Yeah, I agree. And when we talk automation, it’s kind of understanding where your inefficiencies are, where that comes from, and then addressing it. And if you’ve got four onboards a year, maybe you automate that through a different way than spending a lot of money for an onboarding system. There’s a ton of form management systems and those kind of things.

JOHN (29:07.234)
Mm-hmm.

JOHN (29:26.54)
Yeah, no point, Chris. There is. there’s what you got to do is figure out how to get it done, get it done efficiently, get it done consistently. Consistency is that other part. you fall, when you’re off the automation track, it’s easy for that to become loose and inconsistent. But to your point, there are tools that you can use outside of the technology solution that will help that control.

Chris Cooley (29:35.479)
Mm-hmm.

JOHN (29:54.862)
keep you in that process where there’s consistency through forms, automated forms, PDF fillable forms, those types of things. That’s sort of the other goal there is consistency and efficiency. Those go hand in hand.

Chris Cooley (30:11.309)
Yeah, one thing too, you can lean on vendors. So like for benefits, know, see if your broker has a benefit administration system. And so a lot of times they’ll give those to groups as part of their service. You can use that to, you know, they can use that to enroll in their coverages, manage that whole process. And it doesn’t cost you anything. It’s kind of built into that commission that that broker gets from

JOHN (30:15.534)
Mm-hmm

Chris Cooley (30:39.767)
from providing you that insurance. And so a lot of times, it’s just asking the questions and seeing if you can get access to that.

JOHN (30:47.638)
No, you’re right. You’re absolutely on point. There are relationships you can develop with your benefits broker. In some cases, they’ll help you do a lot of the lifting with enrollments. They’ll show up physically and help with that. So that’s another efficiency. But if they have a license to some technology that you can leverage, that’s really cost effective for you.

Chris Cooley (31:00.852)
Mm-hmm.

JOHN (31:13.868)
So that and then TPAs, they’re also third party administrators out there who have that sort of opportunity too. So definitely if you’re in that role that we’re talking about today, explore those relationships and see what you can leverage if you haven’t already.

Chris Cooley (31:31.597)
Now, I know, used to, you know, in a prior life before we started this, that’s what we did a lot of things, you know, I relied on those brokers, our commercial insurance, we get safety posters from them, you know, just things like that. And just, just be cognizant of there’s ways and resources out there for sure.

JOHN (31:55.49)
Yeah, then more and more those partners are adding resources to their portfolio to use a small business owner and an HR professional that you can really help. And if you ask, they don’t have it, ask them to research and see if they can bring that to you. It’s okay to ask for them, ask that, I really do think, because again, they may find that there are other clients out there, other employers out there who need a similar solution. So,

it would benefit them too in the long run. So that’s sort of the reciprocity of that. So I do think definitely explore that with your benefits broker or any third party administrator, even your payroll company for that.

Chris Cooley (32:37.803)
Yeah. No, that’s good. you know, the other thing is we’re kind of talking about, we talked about a little bit, but benefits and retention tools. And so how do you know, how does that person, you know, what are some good ways that they can go about employee retention? Because what we know is that employee you have to replace them is so expensive.

JOHN (32:49.974)
you

JOHN (33:04.94)
Yeah.

Chris Cooley (33:06.305)
So you want to keep them as long as you can if they’re a good employee.

JOHN (33:09.282)
Yeah, you know, I feel a little bit more comfortable saying that maybe most employers today recognize that a good day’s work and a paycheck is not enough, that it has to be a little bit more. And I think as we start seeing, not to get deep into that rabbit trail of now we’re dealing in a multi-generational workforce and we’re dealing with

Chris Cooley (33:26.816)
Mm-hmm.

JOHN (33:38.988)
needs that might shift and evolve a little bit in terms of what the workplace or workforce expects in their employment beyond just a paycheck and a good day’s work. So it’s worth your time and effort to look at employee recognition programs, any professional development opportunities like we talked to, spoke about earlier.

Regular check-ins and when I say regular check-ins, that’s just not a gratuitous slap on the back. How you doing everything? Good. Great. No, I understand you, you know, your husband or wife had a birthday last week. Did y’all have a good celebration? Or understand that you have a new niece or a grandchild. These things take a minute to really understand and show that.

those check-ins are not just gratuitous, that you really are engaged with them in their life and the things that really matter to them outside of work. know, recognition goes a long way, I think, to public recognition. We have programs here that we use occasionally, they’re limited. Recognition programs can’t be just diluted to the point where they really don’t mean anything anymore.

be judicious, have a metric or some sort of measure of why and how that recognition needs to happen. Mentoring is important. I think one of the things that I reflect on in my work past and history over the years is some of the best experiences I had in my career was under good mentorship. So that’s not just an immediate benefit to you.

in that individual, that’s a lasting investment that I think will stay with that individual. And hopefully what it’ll do is it’ll keep them with you. They don’t want to work with you longer. They want to be part of that culture. They develop deep relationships through mentoring programs. Those are important. Flexible work arrangements. I think where that opportunity exists and you maintain productivity and expectations from your clients and your

Chris Cooley (35:33.314)
Okay.

JOHN (35:52.962)
whatever that your measure is and your work product, show a little bit of leeway there, offer some flexibility, whether it’s kids’ school programs, whether it’s needing to take care of a sick parent. These things improve satisfaction and retention, I really believe. So it’s okay to give a little, because I think you’ll get it back, way back in return and more so.

Chris Cooley (36:21.229)
That’s right. No, I agree. you know, circling back a little bit on, you know, talking about these kind of recognition programs. You know, one thing too, and to your point, I think is a great point, is it’s hard to manage them because the special programs can’t become the expected programs. And I know we’ve had that here before, right? Where we would go out and we would do some things

And then all of sudden it was no longer a benefit or bonus or it was more of, now it’s just expected and part of the deal. Yeah, yeah. it’s, in that really, kind of got to manage that based on your people, right? In your workforce and those things and try to figure out how to vary that or how often to do those things. But yeah, it’s really, really.

JOHN (36:58.798)
it became an entitlement.

is

Chris Cooley (37:18.645)
It’s tough to make sure that they don’t become that entitlement. And I know I talked to a guy early in my career and, you know, he made this thing we were talking about, just trying to make employees happy and just trying to, just trying to do the best we can to have a good workforce. And I know one thing he said is he said, you’ll never do it. He said, because I could, he had a plan and he said, I can stand outside that plan and I can hand everybody that walks out a hundred dollar bill.

somebody’s gonna be mad. Somebody’s gonna be mad because I was here 15 years, I got 100, they started yesterday and they got 100. Why is that? And so you’re never gonna make everybody happy, it’s just doing the best you can.

JOHN (38:06.006)
Yeah, no, I’m with you. Yeah, and in blanket sort of a little here. It’s like here’s your slice of cake. It’s going to fall flat. That’s as gracious as that is. And that’s not it. That’s an expensive thing to do. But but it doesn’t hit what you expect to hit. You’re going to have people unhappy. So when you talk about recognition, be specific.

Chris Cooley (38:14.188)
Yeah.

JOHN (38:33.902)
In our recognition programs, we have this little token, this Core Value Care Award. It’s just a brass coin that has our three core values stamped on it. Somebody gets this because they met one of those core values in a way that was above and beyond. It’s kind of unusual. It was something that was meaningful. And then a handwritten letter from

the two principles of the company, thanking them for what they did, not just thanking them, but thanking them for what they did and being specific. This is what you did. This is what we see and recognize as you going above and beyond and meeting our core values, one of our core values. that, you know, that goes a long way and it doesn’t cost a lot. It really doesn’t. And, but if you thank them and don’t just thank them, but tell them why.

Chris Cooley (39:24.781)
Yeah.

JOHN (39:32.894)
they’re getting that recognition and what they did. Boy, that stays with them. so, you know, don’t just throw them out there. Be specific and use your metric that you’ve established to determine, that rises to that level of recognition.

Chris Cooley (39:52.119)
Yeah, no, I think that’s a great point. And, you know, it is so important just to give that feedback and that appreciation. People want to be appreciated.

JOHN (39:54.52)
Yeah.

JOHN (40:01.238)
Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Chris Cooley (40:05.357)
Well, good. Well, I really appreciate you joining us today. I think it’s a great topic. I wish I could take credit for it, but I can’t. Somebody suggested, I guess I could. Nobody else knows that it was suggested.

JOHN (40:17.068)
Yeah, I think it’s a great thing. But we’re appreciative. I think it’s great to get feedback from our clients and from you small business owners out there who want to hear specific topics. And if we can put it together, we will and get it out there for you. So we’re grateful for that opportunity. So we appreciate it.

Chris Cooley (40:41.185)
Yeah, no, and I appreciate you joining us today. It’s been good and we’ll definitely do it again. yeah, and again, if anybody has any other topics, you’re welcome to reach out for sure and we’d love to put them together. So thank you for joining us and we’ll talk to you next time.