The One with Brian Hicks

[MUSIC] Welcome to Wolf Unleashed, the podcast where marketing meets real off. I'm Amy. >> And I'm Kat and we're the founders of Wolf Social. And we're here to talk about all things marketing, business, and balancing the chaos of work and money. >> From the latest marketing trends to our personal stories of running an agency, we've got it all covered. >> So grab a coffee, get comfy, and let's dive into the wild world of marketing. >> Hello. Today we have Brian here. >> Hi, man. >> Hi, man. >> Okay, so. >> Glad to be here. >> Yeah, I'm good. >> Let you interwoost yourself because it's always so much better. >> Whenever you just know what's all that you're talking about. >> I am Brian Hicks. I am the HR director for a company called All Weather Insulated Panels. I've worked in human resources for a little over 15 years now in a variety of different industries. And I really enjoy what I do. >> Awesome. >> Yeah. >> You are the happiest HR director that I've ever had to deal with. >> Yeah, I'm sorry. >> I tried to be because if you're not, minute you kind of lose that joy, you have to go do something else, or HR will kind of eat you up. >> I bet people do watch for that. Like, is the spark gone? We're destroying them. >> Believe it or not, some jobs are better than others. I'm in a position now where I'm kind of getting that. Well, and you also figure out what you like. So I think I started my career working for Walmart. So really, really big company. When you work for a company that big, everything, especially HR related, is already pre-programmed. So all you're doing is you're just, you're keeping the machine going. So you know, everything's got a deadline, everything's already done. You're just making sure people are completing their forms and moving on to the next thing. Where my last two roles, I've actually really enjoyed it and been way less scally because I've had a lot of ownership because they've been smaller companies. So Amy and I actually work together in my last role as well. A little bit and that was a startup from the ground up operation. So everything from the handbook to insurance selection to higher in the first employees. I got to do all that. And I think that's, I think I determined about myself that I really enjoyed getting to build it and instead of just running. >> Yeah, I'm sure that makes a huge difference too. >> So what are some of the things that you go in and look at first when you do have the opportunity to have that ownership and dig in a bit more? >> That's a really good question. So this role was unique. The one I'm in now, the previous person that had been in my role had been there for seven, eight years and ex did the organization. So I was coming in completely green. I didn't know where anything was. I didn't know where the bathroom was. I mean, I didn't know anything. And so you are truly starting from a beginning point of something that's already established, which is a little complicated. So the first thing I'm doing is I'm going in and doing a compliance needs analysis. So compliance within the HRM, I always say that that gives you permission to play. So if you're compliant and you have all your compliance stuff nailed up, you know, seal tight, you feel very comfortable with where you are from a compliance standpoint, then you get to work on the fun stuff. But we don't get to work on the fun stuff until we make sure that we're in a good shape from a compliance standpoint. So the first year that I was here, not a lot of fun stuff, a whole lot of digging through employee files, you know, understanding our compensation structure and just really making sure we were good from a legal perspective. And then from there, now we're in a place where we're getting to do some of the fun stuff and it's been exciting the last six to eight months. It's awesome. No, I think that's awesome too. I think that's an advantage. Like, I know it's completely different, but like in marketing, we kind of like it whenever. Like don't give us any insights on anything. We kind of want to go in blind because it's one of those where it's almost overwhelming if you give us too much stuff. Like, hey, here's everything. Here's how we do it. Here's all of this because then say, we're having to sift through all of your stuff of what you've been doing and some of it doesn't work. Like some of it's not what we want to use. So it's a lot better kind of starting from scratch. It is. It is. And you learn, you know, you learn, you learn so much about like where the organization is being and then you get to you get to kind of dictate, you know, where you want it to go. Yeah. And we get asked why a lot more too. Like, where is this and why does that person have it? Whereas, otherwise, it's just a it's been in a lot of times the answer is, I don't know. It's just always been there. So you go, oh, well, here we can fix these. And I'll tell you another reason that I feel like I'm not a Scali HR guy all the time is. One of the places I worked before had a really good, had a really good question that they would ask about rules. And it was, what is that? Do we have a rule just to say we have a rule? Because and when you look at especially a lot larger organizations and and just depending on what kind of culture you have, you can rule yourself to death and an organization. If you feel like you need a rule to cover every single thought that might pop in somebody's head or every single action that somebody might do and you try to rule your way through an organization, you will spend your entire life doing nothing but enforcing the rules. And not only will you spend your time enforcing the rules, you're also you're you're going to contradict yourself because there's a million different shades of gray on every kind of situation. And it just makes it makes it very difficult from an HR perspective for me to lead that way. So my philosophy from an HR perspective has always been higher the right people that share the values of the company and the share the values that you want to reflect in your organization and keep your rules to a minimum with the understanding that hey, this, you know, these five overarching things are what we care about. And as long as you're working within those five overarching things, one of them being we're going to respect everybody and we're going to treat everybody with respect. And and and honestly, that's kind of the only rule you need for that that covers a whole lot of most and books. Honestly. And you know, so so that's another reason I don't spend all my time being the lawyer and that that makes my job a lot easier. Well, and it's one of those two whenever you go, you hired these people like they made it through an interview process. So there's got it. There's good in there. So don't rule them today. Right. That's after you like determined how you're the best fit for this role type thing. I don't know. Are you working on anything cool now? I am working on some cool stuff right now. I think you're always working on cool stuff. I'm working on some cool stuff. So we I'm building career ladders for our company. So basically in every function, whether it be like finance, HR, operations, quality, I mean, every aspect of the company, I want to I want somebody on their first day to be able to visually see where they are in their career as far as the the roles we have in the organization. And then what it takes from a professional career and education and training standpoint to move your way through the organization. So I want everybody on the whole day to know like if I start no matter where I'm starting the organization, I know exactly what I have to do to be a qualified candidate for X role. And if I don't like if I don't like what I'm doing, I can also now go look at the career ladders of other places in the organization. And I've got an idea of hey, are any of my skills transferable if I want to have a career change. And so just giving that visibility to the organization of where you can go, how you get there and where your place is in the organization eliminates so many questions and not only questions, but it gives everybody just a real black and white view of where my career is going to go. Like I like doing it that way because you guys are going to know this just just as well as as I do that when you are busy and you're trying to run a company, the thing that always falls to the side is the development of yourself, of the people you work with or the people who work for you. And it's so hard to squeeze in those development talks. Even though hey, it's super important, I will advocate for it forever. In fact, like we mandate it, but it's just the fact that it's just hard to do. And so the more that you can share without having to spend that actual conversation time of hey, this is, you know, you did makes the conversation much more valuable if you know where you're going. I guess is what I'm going to say. And that transparency is awesome. Yeah. It's pretty so important because yeah, actually right now retention is tough. The labor market's tough. I mean, there's a lot of opportunity out there. Graduates come into an organization, expect, you know, growth opportunity, movement. If you don't give it to them, they're going to leave you and you're going to lose two years of investment in somebody. So if you don't have a very transparent and clear, how do I get from point A to point B for your employees? You aren't risk of training somebody else's awesome talent to leave. Yeah. It's the worst possible sunk cost from an HR recruiting aside that you can have. I feel like it just eliminates too a lot of stress, like from current employees because I've, you know, enough, I've been in positions before where you go away, but we talked about this once of like here's the career projection. Why isn't it moving? And it's it and then it would feel like I feel like things are like there's more fiery hoops now than there were six months ago, things like that. So just having a black and white. You hit the nail on the head on something. that I'm so glad you said because part of that conversation Amy and part of the reason that there's that lack of clarity is because for some reason and I don't understand why there is this inability for for people to talk about like career advancement or just be honest about advancement because honestly in an organization that's smaller or medium in size the path may be there but the position just might not be there in that like hey we're not big enough yet for it you know where we are right now this is where you are kind of in line to these next roles and just being trained but you know just being transparent with with somebody I think is essential and I don't think companies do it enough in that you should get that feedback and at that point you're not sitting around disgruntled because you don't know what's going on but you've also now got the flexibility to know if I need that growth and want that growth right now I need to look elsewhere and honestly that's that's the relationship that we should have that is a hey if it's beneficial for you anymore you don't need to do it and if I can't give you the growth that you expect then I don't I don't need you sitting there being upset because you know so so let's have that conversation and create a path to help you move on to bread or brighter things and I think that conversation that is lacking a lot of times and you end up people with hurt feelings not understanding what's going on where that conversation right there could fix a lot of problems yeah and they were absolutely right it's a conversation that does not happen enough and I know even you know in previous roles that I've had whenever it's almost awkward to start it I mean now being on the opposite side of the role you go okay you know I would want like our employees to come talk to us if it was one of these of hey I want to do more how do I do please come talk to us but as an employee it's one of those of like I don't want you to feel like I'm being greedy or that I'm not happy in this role but I do want to move forward how do I how do we initiate that as you know well and so I look at talent like a long-term investment too in that if I set you free right now and we have that kind of candid relationship and in that kind of conversation from that point forward you know that if I call you in the future that's the kind of relationship we're going to have and when that role does appear somewhere whether it be me working here or me working somewhere else Amy knows if I worked with you before I will get the phone and say hey do you want to come in we live in a time now where you have to look at those relationships as a long-term investment in recruiting and staffing because talent is tough to find and if you've already got those relationships built it just makes your world so much easier right and things are like we've talked people about you know um talking about LinkedIn and stuff um someone had mentioned their network and like how they look at it like it's an asset and you go it really is because and especially now with so many people getting light off to no fault of their own at all other than just economic shifts that are out of their hands um but you go you do need that network because you do want to show your value at a company so that you have these connections so that whenever and have those before you need them so that you can count on hey do you have anything stuff like that um and so I think that's really important and and it's so I don't do enough of it I don't do enough network it's all my list of things to do but to your point like it's so important to do and uh and and I need to make more time to do no no and I and I don't mean like because also like I'm not going to go on be a super extrovert all the time either um so whenever I say no I'm like with this small pool a small pool there's a local HR community group that sends me a flyer all the time to come join and I'm just I need to go I need to like make it appear to come up years and all that good stuff I just I up to your point like you know I don't know if I'm always up for that so right so could you imagine how you walk in and I'm like oh my guys I know he's following here after all those mailers he finally showed up we've been all that been one day that's awesome okay so what strategies do you use to engage your executive team because it's one thing to be talking to employees about here's how we want you we want you to communicate with us we want you to stay on sometimes it's completely different um you know a amount of work to get your leadership team to okay I also need y'all to be approachable I need you to not panic and run if they talk to you yeah and then I have a follow-up question to that just to put some more on your plate follow-up question um how do you how do you I guess utilize or encourage the communication between the leadership um well the first way is just to make sure they have a forum and this is actually a really cool project I worked on last year because the the biggest hurdle you have especially in an industrial environment is you have employees are going 24/7 so you're going around the clock so I really only see the daytime team yeah let's I have a event that I'm showing up for in the evening so I know my night shift folks but I don't see them a lot my leadership team doesn't see them a lot um now their local leadership team does but but there's it's just very hard it's hard enough to stay connected when everybody's in the office nine to five it gets really really hard when you've just got you know you're across multiple facilities in a 24/7 environment so we brought in some technology a purchased an app called Meet Roger it's a communication app that we can do uh text communication through and but not more than that uh it's it's uh we can share our company newsletter another great way we stay engaged with our folks yeah monthly newsletter new people uh people into the org meet the executive meet the team when we spend we spend a lot of time on that newsletter and and a lot of time that we could spend doing something else but I see the value and the just building that with exception with our folks and at least the things that are important that are on our top 10 things they're getting pieces of in the field and I don't know if I've answered all the questions obviously no no no that was great yeah I think the other the other thing is you have to be able to to speak the language so so I think a lot of times on the executive executive team we there's a struggle to I know we're trying to say there's this very high level philosophy how do I get this high level philosophy broken down in small enough increments to where the the people down the chain understand what we're trying to do and understand how they individually and their roles support the overarching philosophy so I think how how do you make that connection we spend a lot of time saying hey these are the things that are important for the year for us now how do we apply those things at these individual levels to you specifically operator on this machine what part do you play in the overarching philosophy and just making sure everybody you know I repetitions a big thing what's our top five things what's your part in the top five things and just really hammering those messages over and over all year long I think it's awesome a long answer no no great also like that you do the newsletter because that is one of those things that I feel like is so under you've lost by most businesses because it's so important because there's always and especially the more employees you get there's you just run more of the risk of here I'm finding out things that are important but I found out from Jim at the water cooler instead of hearing it from the person that implemented this important feature so just having it roll out so here we're going to tell you here's what it is you're gonna know it the king of every month you're gonna see the faces you're gonna hear from the people I think it's super important and even and so we're very transparent in it too so when things are not going well like that newsletter delivers hey things are not going well and this is why because we also don't want any mystery like you know well people see what are what our quarterly bonus is you know they see you know if it's good if it's bad if if it's not where we want it to be we want everybody to understand the why so that there's never this not understanding how I get paid and not understanding the things that help me make money and if you don't have very good clarity and transparency good or bad with what's going on there and how their individual roles dictate you know the success and failure of those KPIs you're measuring you have to build that connection and so in the only way you can do is to be honest I'm a big proponent of radical honesty across the board I mean good bet I could does no good to share a coat things when they're not good and when things are good people need to know man things are really good and you feel that across the board like compensation promotion titles you know whatever kind of employee recognition you can do people need to know like they need to feel when it's good the other thing will step for employee recognition we do some cool stuff for employment recognition we do a monthly event in the community every month take off work paid for you know half a day day sometimes do different we did a habitat for humanity house in Benton but we donated a building product for that house and then helped put it together awesome team building we do a lot of stuff around the community that really brings the team together it's a really it's a really neat place to work say you'll do a lot of really cool stuff yeah and yeah yeah and the head is where I will work in there yeah and even like the community stuff where you go that's just really neat because then it's one of these of like it's not just a here let's go we're going to do a happy hour together you feel obligated say we're doing something for the greater good so yeah so I think that sort of stuff's really neat I like that um okay how do you handle the challenge of maintaining and foie gras whenever you are like you said delivering the good and bad news and radical honesty is super important but like there's so much to do and I'm sure you're going to be able to do that still be the aftermath of that radical honesty sometimes. - So I think first off is having those open dialogues, you have to do what you say you're gonna do. Like that personal accountability from the top down, if you do not do what you say you're gonna do, and you say it in front of God and everybody, and the first time you don't execute that, that's it. Like you lose that trust, and so that trust. And again, that's good or bad. Like whatever message we're delivering, good or bad. Like just doing what we say we're gonna do, and being upfront about it, and I think that's, that's the first piece of that. The second piece is we do a lot of polls checks, formal and informal. So we do an employee survey every two years. That's a third party. The local HR team does nothing to do with it. We just get the results. When we get those employee surveys, we take that really serious. We build action plans on our like bottom quarter, and we have to, we put out our action plan to the business, and we execute that action plan by the time we say we're going to, and then we bring everybody back together and make sure that everybody agrees that we did what we said we were gonna do. And that way, hey, we've identified the problem. We took an action, we came back together, we all collectively agree that we solved the problem. And I think just that whole process of doing it together is what keeps morale. - That's awesome. So okay, we've talked about like retention and the importance of that, and then just maintaining morale, and then what, you know, the really cool project of building those career ladders. So in that, say you have an employee that does, that here we want to grow from point A to point B, but they aren't, they don't have all the leadership skills. They don't have that development. What are some things that you recommend to them? Obviously, there's like the tangible things of continuing the education, things like that, but how do you help them with the things like just general leadership skills? Because I feel like that's something that even we struggle with sometimes on like, we're trying to convey this, but you know, how do you do that sometimes? On like here, I just need to do this thing. - And these are all good questions, Amy. These are really good questions. - Sorry. - These are questions that I wish my leaders would ask me sometimes because like I have a really good answer for that and I just feel like that's good. - Well, maybe they'll listen to this and then ask you to do that. - I'm really happy with that. (laughing) - So the very first thing that I think is really important is when you're having that discussion, again, that honesty is really important in that, I need to, first we need to determine that you are performing in your current role. Like that's a discussion that needs to happen first and a lot of times the reason this conversation doesn't happen that you want to have is because, because the supervisor manager leader is not happy with your performance anyway and instead of addressing that, they're just ignoring you. And so honestly, so the first thing like I want my supervisor to do is, hey, let's make sure you're performing. Let's make sure that if you're not performing, it's not a you problem, it's just you're in the wrong role. Like that can be the, it's sometimes, you know, right person, wrong role. - Yeah. - Once we determine all things are good, hey, everybody's performing, we're doing a good job and now you want to grow and you don't have those skillsets. So the first thing I want to do is I want to, I would recommend, I want you to seek out a mentor. I'm going to give you some guidelines. I'm going to give you some options of people that I think would be a good fit at the right level for what you're trying to, where you need to go and the skills you need to learn. And that mentorship is not going to be just a hey, we're going to go have coffee. Like we're going to, we're going to really talk about maybe the three of us. Like me included, you, your mentor, we collectively take some time and we talk about, hey, where do we think your gaps are? What are, what are some cross-functional opportunities? We can give you to work on those gaps and sometimes those gaps are strictly, you just haven't had an opportunity to flex those muscles yet. - Hi. - So if one of the things is, hey, we haven't seen you give a, give a, in front of people talk on a topic across the company, what just maybe knows that's you too. So we give you the opportunity to level set. Let's see where you are, give you an opportunity to exercise the things you're trying to grow on. And from there, we're just going to, we're going to use third party training, we're going to do internal training. We're going to make sure you're paired with the right people to learn how to grow and develop. And then we're going to do some pulse checks like every six months, how are things going? What, what have we seen? And if we've seen nothing, sometimes, hey, we haven't seen anything. We've been, we've been making this investment. What are you doing, you know? And, and, and, it's just really important for everybody to be honest about what's happened. And what's going on. And, and most of the time, we can get somebody where they want to go if, if they're checking the boxes and they're doing their part. Yeah, no, that's awesome. So something else, just on things like that. So after being in executive roles, you know that you want to have that rapport with your employees where you can have those conversations and get the good feedback and actually inspire that grow and development. But there's a line of, I still, I'm still in a leadership role and I'm still trying to guide you. I want you to talk to me like a friend, but we're not friends. This is an online to go. Because I've been in positions before where, you know, you're going, cool, I'm asking you questions you're being totally honest and giving me feedback. But then it's like, oh, you gave me feedback that I wasn't expecting. And now I'm kind of mad about it. So you go, I don't want to undo the work that has happened. So how do you balance that line? OK, that's-- You can also be like hard past. What the hell is it? That's-- So on the HR side, so as I'm mentoring new HR people, this is something we talk about a lot. Because especially in my world, it's even more critical like to keep those lines very, very separate. And that's really hard because where do you spend most your time? It's been most of the time it worked. You know, my whole job is to build relationships. So some, you know, and so you know, is really hard, especially today to not have those two things bleed over, right? Jeez. There's a lot of things that I feel like I'm going to go too far on the conservative side because I'm-- No. I feel like I'm going to be-- This is where I get scally and Mr. No fun. But it's really hard. But it's one of those points such a line that you almost do have to be too conservative. Because-- Just-- OK, so I'm going to give you a good HR answer that kind of dodges the question a little. So some of what you're asking really depends on what kind of industry you're in, some of it, and kind of the size of the company too. So in a-- Like in an industry, in a manufacturing industry, like people come and go, people don't meet their KPIs, get asked to leave, people-- I mean, there's just a lot of movement, some of it performance-based, some of it just like moving across facilities. There's just a whole lot of stuff happening in that kind of situation. I usually go really conservative on, hey, you got to be really careful with those relationships, because you don't know, A, who's going to end up working for you someday, who you're going to end up working to someday, or who you might have to have a performance discussion with someday. And you-- it's everybody's going to know that you are not going to be able to gauge that performance appropriately if they know you have a personal relationship with that person. And it almost makes you not able to do that job. Not because you're not being fair, but just because the outer visibility is always going to judge those decisions, and that's really hard. Now, different kind of organization, I've worked with some smaller orgs, where hey, we're 15 people on the team. Some of us grew up together, some of us have known each other forever. Those relationships were already pre-baked. I mean, at that point, it's just a different kind of environment. It's a different-- So I do think it matters the environment you're in. And it's increasingly-- you have to be increasingly more conservative than the higher you grow in the company, because your umbrella just gets bigger. Right. No, I agree. And there's always so many variables-- There's so many variables. And I'm sure that somebody better than me can navigate that way better than I do. It's just-- Oh. It's just a really hard thing to navigate. It's a really good question, because there's articles written about it every single month in HR magazines of how to do that. And-- Yeah, no. It's just-- And I feel like it's also one of those things that would also very person to person. There are some people that can absolutely be detached. I'm one of those that I'm like, hey, we're best friends. Like, telling anything. I'll tell you anything. We're besties. It's another one itself. So I would have to be on the conservative side of-- I know I'm going-- And Amy, if the other person is equally-- is open and honest. And to where you could have a conversation say, hey, well, we just did there. That's not appropriate. And they're not going to take it the wrong way. There's not very many people like that in the world. I don't know any-- Right. [LAUGHTER] Amy, are you asking these questions because you and I have no boundaries? This is actually therapy. You have plot twists. No. We did jump all the time. And we're like, oh, no. We have zero boundaries. That's not-- It's nice to be able to have that open of a relationship of being part of it. Yeah. Oh, you're right. It's working. Yeah. Well, and we are like level playing field and whatnot. So that probably is good too. But-- Yeah. Right. I have zero hesitation calling you like 11 o'clock. I know you're in bed, but listen to this. Yeah. I've done that to you. So I will say-- Maybe not from a personal standpoint, but that feedback piece, like what you just said, you'll call it 11 o'clock sometimes, and get in tell of what you think. So I'm very clear with my team. As a supervisor, I think this is really important of-- I expect that feedback and to a point where I tell them, if you are not giving me the feedback, I wanna know when you don't agree. Like if I, because I, first off, I think I'm right 100% of the time. I'm easily persuaded that I'm not. I'm easily persuaded that I'm not, but my initial gut says I'm right, I think I'm right, and we're just gonna go with it until somebody puts the brakes on and says, "Hey, have you thought about X?" And so just making sure that the people that work for you feel comfortable to say, "Hey, have you thought about X?" And being open to that challenge is super important, and it makes me a better supervisor. - Oh yeah, sure. And I feel like feedback like that is kind of like whenever, just, if you're talking to somebody and this never fails, I always talking to somebody out about, get to my car open, I've got my scary regret. I'm like, "Andy, why did you not tell me that I had something on my face?" And he's like, "I don't want an embarrass, you're like, "Oh my God, it would have been five seconds of embarrassment, burst me talking to him for 30 minutes like this." So I feel like feedbacks the same way. If something's bothering you, I'd rather you tell me now, then let me keep pissing you off for days, weeks, months. Let's just rip the bandaid now. So, I'm weird like that. - Yep, me too. - I don't know, I agree though. I also want people to give me feedback immediately, because especially if they're like, "Hey, we have an issue, let's set a meeting, I'm like, "Oh no, what you're telling me right now?" - Someone told me, if I get, "Hey, can we talk in a minute?" I'm like, "We can talk right now." Or am I, "I don't know why." - I read an article that said, if you and your subject line aren't putting, like good discussion, good talk, or something, that's the fact that you are like the worst person ever, because to me too, like if I say we need to talk, that's, you know, it could be something absolutely nothing, but if you can't talk right then in that second, I'm gonna be sick for 13 hours before. - Yeah, I don't know if they can get into positive discussion. - I will call immediately, and that's what you can call that. - I know what you're saying, if you don't answer, really upset. - Yeah, if you don't answer, that's it. It's over, I'm gonna call the police. (laughs) So, I think you sent me a message one day that was like, "Hey, did you make this?" And I was like, "I did." Is it okay? - Oh no, it was good. Yeah, no, I should have been more clear. I should have been more clear. - Like I'm fine, I'm just, I'm just the extreme like worst case scenario that you're, it's terrible. Okay, so how do you measure the success of your ITR initiatives and things that you're implementing? - So at the beginning of the year, we do a goal setting where we basically outline like our project work for the year, and our project work has to align with the overarching goal of the year across the organization. So basically we're taking the big philosophy for the year. We're figuring out what our piece in HR is, and then we're putting KPIs to it. And we do a monthly KPI review where we're looking, keep a performance indicator, in case anybody doesn't know. We're making sure that we're hitting our numbers, we're making sure that, I mean, every project that we have for the year in January, we know what the expected completion date is for it. If we're off track, we're honest about it, and we have to, we give an explanation of why we're off track, sometimes it's fine. Sometimes we're off track because like priorities change, but we just have to be able to speak to it. And then at the end of the year, we take an honest look with the rest of the organization, and we collectively as an organization, determine did HR have a good year this year? Yes or no, kind of based on those KPIs and the rest of what we accomplished for the year. And again, like real open and honest conversation, if it if no, like that's what we want to hear, and that's what we will hear. And if yes, then hey, that's, we had a good year and onto the next one. So. - Yeah, that's awesome. I thought a lot of stuff, even in marketing, I know it's completely different, but being able to track that and then stop at some point, be like, oh, it's not going well. So how do we correct shit beforehand? Because you're right, at yes, no or otherwise, you're going, it's going to come out whether or not you were successful. Like you can't, you can only hide it for so long if it's not going well. So. - Sometimes our success is based off somebody else not being successful. So like, and that's, and that's okay. It's just again, we all need to say it out loud. We have to leave everybody, when we leave the room, everybody has to understand like where we went and where we losing. And that only works and you can only have that kind of relationship if everybody has a good enough bond together to understand that, hey, we are all doing everything we can and we understand why somebody's not successful. There's always a reason. If you have the right person in the role and they're not having success, I mean, they're underlying factors while they're not having success. And we just need to know what they are and make sure we're addressing them. And you're taking small bites out of the elephant and it never stops. And it's always continuous improvement. And it just, it never stops. - Yeah, no, that's perfect. Oh. All right, what is the weirdest talent that you have that most people don't know about? I would have 100% said the telemarketing for this, but maybe there's something else out there. - Man, a weird talent, that's hard. - That would be hard for me to answer because I'm like, wait, hang on, let me start with a talent for our-- - I'm not gonna be able to store that. - I can do all the things I'm bad at. Like I'm not handy. Like I can't really build stuff. Like I'm really bad at that kind of stuff. So not so like no talent there at all. (laughing) Man, it's not really weird. I play a lot of instruments. So I play the guitar. I play the saxophone in school. - Yeah. - So I do that when I have spare time. Man, I don't know if I have a weird talent though. - I mean, it's not a bad thing if you don't have any. - I don't have any. - Do I have a weird talent? - No. Okay, so this is completely random. And I don't know if it's really a talent, but it is weird. So whenever I pick the boys up from school, they're in this rap phase. Did you know that? I don't know why. But a lot of times they can't listen to it because it's all like cuss words. And so whenever it gets to that, like I'll come up with like, we're gonna freestyle. We're gonna make this as like two-to-to-turn. - That's a big step. - And the boys think it's fascinating. They're like, how can you do this? How can you just make up words and it fits? I'm like, I was a gangster. Watch out. I don't know. So according to the boys, that's all the talent. They just discovered Eminem and I'm like, oh, okay, well. - So there's the party. - So I get really intense on really menial tasks. So like power washing, from power washing something, like I will spend hours and hours making sure that it's just like completely power washing. So maybe that's it. I get really obsessive about really my nude, not important things. That's my word talent. - Like now, it's not hell. If I could have fake wrapping is my weird talent, then that can be the worst. Wait, what's your's cat? What you do, a good accent, that's your weird talent. - It's not even that weird though. Which yeah, I can do brutish and Australian and I can clap with one hand. - Clap with one hand. This is a part of the trick we're gonna say one day. - She said that she can do a British accent and others, but one night, what was it, the conference at Indianapolis? She was like, what was it? - Yeah, I went to, she was like, I can do this. What was it? It was Scottish or something. I was like, no, I was saying I couldn't do it. I can't, I don't want British-bound Scottish. That's all. - Can't do Scottish or Irish. I can only do Australian and British. And I have like keywords that I have to say before I get into the mode, right? So like if it's Australian, I have to say Bunti Beach before I go into it. So great. - Yeah. - Okay, bring it in, bring it in. We'll go with another HR question. What is your strategy for retaining top talent in a competitive market? Because you know a lot of conversations are throw money at the problem. Or it's make sure you have a great culture. But neither one of those seem to really stick 100%. So is there a trick that you have? - Love this question, Amy. We're doing this right now. Like right now today is like what I was doing. Exactly what you're talking about. So twice a year we go through a nine box exercise. After those that don't know what a nine box is, it's broken up in quadrants of three. Top tier, middle tier, bottom tier. Twice a year we go through our talent and we identify that Q1, Q2, Q3 level talent. We consider that core talent. Like that's what I consider core talent. That talent right there, we don't leave. We don't let leave. I mean under reasonable circumstances, unless it's something just absolutely outrageous. Like that talent, we make sure that we have a good plan for and that they understand what the plan is. So a lot of times I've been in those boxes and nobody told me I was in that box. And so I didn't know what I was waiting for and I applied for another job and left. I've had that happen. And when I turned in my notice, it was this look of shock of well, but we had this plan for you. It's like well, you should have told me that six months ago, instead of just keeping that to yourself. And so making sure that those individuals know, look, we are, you are somebody we value at the highest level. This is what we think your path looks like. These are the opportunities we're going to make sure you get in the training you get to help you get there. Make sure they're aligned with that path. And then we have a lot of conversation about it all year long all the time. And we make sure that they understand that if there's something that we value them enough to where if there's something that they are looking at the organization and they don't think that's the right thing or we are not making a right decision or they are just personally not happy with what they're doing. Like come talk to us and maybe we move you into something else and give you an opportunity somewhere else. And we will be flexible with that top level talent to make sure that we're retaining you. And like that's my philosophy. Right. No. And that's a huge deal because you're right. Some people let their unicorns for your business. So let's not try to find another one. So when you do find the unicorns, so yes, you don't want to let them get away at all. How do you replicate that in real time in the job? Because something else that I see happen quite a bit, and then we've heard others talk about is, you've got your unicorn, you are pouring into them the most, not the most, pouring into them quite a bit. But then something comes along and say, situation where they have to leave. My spouse has taken her all across the country, like they're in a position where no matter how much you want me and value me, I still have to leave. But you now all of this core information is in them. How do you make sure that that doesn't leave? So you never allow that to happen. And the way that you never allow it to happen is we have a succession discussion every six months with that non-box discussion. And all of those Q1 people, we have to know, do I have an internal successor? Yes or no? If no, do I have somebody on the outside that I have in mind for that role? Yes or no? And we just go through, and maybe at the end of that, yes or no trail, it's, I don't have anybody. And if the answer's I don't have anybody, we're going to create a role, and we're going to bring somebody in to be that internal successor, because you cannot be caught flat-footed in this kind of market, because you're already running your labor tight, which means you are, everybody's already doing probably 10% more than they physically have time for, probably. And so if I lose somebody, and you don't have an internal successor, that you're just, you're going to sit there and you're going to split that 100% of work amongst four or five more people, and then you're going to burn them out, and you're going to lose them too. And then you are in this domino cascade effect of losing talent. So that initial investment of maybe adding that extra salary, is probably going to save you losing five folks and having to replace five folks. And the cost of that compared to adding that role, that's a hard conversation for leaders to understand sometimes, because that doesn't feel like real money, but that recruiting cost and that recruiting time is real money. And all the value of having somebody in that seat that's not getting any work done is real money. And so that investment in one more person can save you 10 times, full, 10 fold, you know, the risk of losing more folks, because you did not have an internal successor. And that's really cool that y'all do that, because that's something that not a lot of companies do. Let's make sure we do have these successors, because-- - It's my favorite, it's my favorite. - Yeah. - It's my favorite to do. Like I love this part. At the end of the year, we build a talent book for our executive team that basically takes all the non-boxes across all the departments. For the Q12 and three level talent, we build individual profiles for them, picture, where they went to school, what the career aspirations are, what languages do they speak? You know, just a huge profile for those people. That way, when we're having these-- when we have an opening, we've got a book we're going through, like who do we have that fits this role that's interested that speaks Spanish, and we need them to be bilingual. So we're on the forefront of knowing our talent internally, like knowing who we have. And a lot of times that saves us from having to go outside, because we have somebody that's in front of us that we know about. So many organizations just miss great talent, because they're not looking. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, really. Also, this is a good segue. OK, this will be a last question, and you can get on your vacation. OK, so if you had to give a TED talk on anything, what would it be? It doesn't have to be related to your career, but-- I think it would be a little related to my career, in that I believe that, especially in a working environment, there is a stigma around just talking to someone like a person. And maybe it's because supervisors feel like they need to have that wall in that barrier. But I feel like so many things go unstated and unsaid that if they were just said and stated, you would not have unspoken expectations. And when you have those unspoken expectations, and they don't give a met, the person doesn't know that they didn't perform, and you're just resentful. So many leaders and supervisors have a hard enough time having the difficult conversation at the end that they just don't do that at all throughout the whole employee supervisor relationship. And I just think it's very similar kind of your marketing philosophy of, hey, we don't have to be stuffy. Like it doesn't have to be stuffy. Leadership doesn't have to be stuffy. We can have a conversation that's very clear and candid, like two people without all the buzzwords and without all the business speak. And I think that's the connection that's missing in the workplace is just that lack of, hey, I'm a human being, you're a human being. And we talk to each other like human beings versus I have to give you all the business speak. And so to me, that I think that's what my TED talk would be. Hope that he comes to TED talk one day. That would be really clear. I would love to. Little draw edition, by the way. So we're submitting it. Yeah, we're just going your volume of half. No, I think that's cool though. And on the unspoken thing, so we spoke with a woman last week that was talking about, she'd been light off and it was just a difficult time for. And I think on the unspoken things, I've like, feedback and constructive criticism. I think something else that doesn't get said a lot between leaders where you are working with these people every day is good things, like not just to build morale, but like, hey, we're having to make a tough decision. You're getting light off. That sucks. There's nothing-- it's not your fault. You actually do these things really, really great just so that people can go into the workforce and be like, OK, good. I have feedback that I know I did these really well. So now I feel a little more confident trying to find my next role. Or even like, well, they're still on the job. Just say, oh, I didn't realize I was good at that. Someone else told me. Thank you. So I think the unspoken truths on both side, the good and the bad, make a huge difference in morale. I'm going to attack two things on what you said. And they can get me off. No, I'm not going to get you off. I know, like, I just-- I like to talk. So on what you said, I'm really passionate about this piece. And that downsizing conversation-- I mean, if you do what I do long enough, you have to have it a lot. And every time that I've had to have that conversation, I always make it very clear that this is not your fault. And if you need a reference, when you need a reference, here is my phone number. Here, I will look at a resume for you. I will give you a glowing reference when called and just make sure you said leaving. And because, again, that relationship is important, because I made that relationship, it may benefit both of us later down the line. And I want that person to know, like, hey, I appreciate what they did while they were here. And like, understand, this is a bad beat. And we're going to help you all we can to move on to the next thing. And I think that's super, super important. And often makes that a little easier to have to handle on a really hard day. Yeah, absolutely. Because yeah, it's one of those inevitably, no matter how well it's presented, you still, I mean, you kind of take it. Yeah. I had it happen to me. It's not me, too, where you just go, oh, man, nicest conversation ever. But like, you still suck today. I'll get over it. But when I get an interview, this person will be there to answer the phone, send a reference. That means something to people. Yeah. I've had people do that for me, too. And just really, I think, again, that's that human connection piece of, you know, that's important. Oh, that's a heartwarming way to end it right there. Thank you. Yeah. I'm a human connection piece. Yeah. [MUSIC PLAYING] (upbeat music)