Small business Human Resources with HR expert Claudia St. John.

Episode Host: Henry Lopez is a serial entrepreneur, small business coach, and the host of this episode of The How of Business podcast show – dedicated to helping you start, run and grow your small business.

Resources:

Books mentioned in this episode:
[We receive commissions for purchases made through these links (more info)].

• Transforming Teams: Tips for Improving Collaboration and Building Trust by Claudia St. John
• The Dream Manager Hardcover by Matthew Kelly

Other Podcast Episodes:

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Transcript:

The following is a full transcript of this episode. This transcript was produced by an automated system and may contain some typos.

Henry Lopez (00:16):

Welcome to this episode of The How of Business. This is Henry Lopez and my guest today is Claudia St. John. Claudia, welcome to the show.

Claudia St. John (00:23):

Thank you so much. Happy to be here.

Henry Lopez (00:25):

Absolutely. Claudia and I have known each other for some time and we’ll chat about that in a moment, but she’s willing today to share her tips and insights on human resources, the management of human resources, everything that has to do with IT, compliance, so forth for small business owners. That’s what she does, that’s what her company does. She’s an expert in this field. And so that’s what we’re going to dive into today. You can find the how a business resources including the show notes page for this episode, and you’re going to want that because we’re going to have a special offer on her services. But find that at the show notes page as well as all the information on my coaching programs at the how of business.com. I also invite you to please consider supporting this podcast on Patreon, and I invite you to subscribe wherever you might be listening so you don’t miss any new episodes.

Henry Lopez (01:13):

Lemme tell you a little bit about Claudia and then we’ll get into the conversation. Claudia St. John is the founder and CEO of the Workplace Advisors. The Workplace Advisors is a leading HR consulting and training firm specializing in equipping businesses, including small businesses with the consulting support and the people skills they need to grow. Claudia and her team at the workplace advisors and power organizations with evidence backed insights so they can navigate the evolving landscape of talent, acquisition, engagement, and retention with confidence and foresight. Claudia is a frequent keynote speaker and regular media contributor on the topic of HR, and she wrote a great book. The book is titled Transform Teams, tips for Improving Collaboration and Building Trust. It’s a book for leaders that addresses why fundamental breakdowns happen within organizations and what they can do to correct them.

Henry Lopez (02:23):

With that said, Claudia St. John, welcome to the show.

Claudia St. John (02:26):

Thank you so much for having me.

Henry Lopez (02:28):

Why do you live there?

Claudia St. John (02:31):

I live here because of, oddly, I lived in Switzerland and when we came back it was after September 11th and Washington DC was very changed and I had two tiny little kids and we thought, why not live in the middle of nowhere? And somehow or another, I’m still in the middle of nowhere. That’s wonderful. But it’s beautiful. If anybody’s ever been to the Finger Lakes in central New York, it’s a stunning place to live and I feel very beautiful, very lucky to be here, but not in the wintertime. Not right now. So

Henry Lopez (02:58):

Do you try to get away during the winter sometimes to get some warmer weather?

Claudia St. John (03:04):

I am blessed to be a very frequent public speaker, so I’m traveling all over the place. Wonderful. So when I actually get to stay here for any length of time, I’m always happy not to be traveling, so

Henry Lopez (03:14):

Love it.

Claudia St. John (03:15):

I get my warm, warm air somewhere else.

Henry Lopez (03:18):

Exactly. Well, great. It’s nice and warm down here in Florida so you can come visit any time. I thought we would start Claudia with kind of just a high level. There’s a quote that I got, it might’ve been from your book and your website or both, and it says, quote, first, getting the right people in the door. This is about successfully navigating the human side of things, which is the key component of any small business, especially as we start to scale. I find that that is often the biggest obstacle that we hit. How do we grow? How do we attract and retain the right people? How do we keep them focused? How do we build that culture? But let me finish the quote first, getting the right people in the door, then supporting those people in the way they need, so they choose to stick around. I’d like to start with overall, what would you say is your philosophy on HR that small business owners really need to think about and maybe follow?

Claudia St. John (04:11):

Well, I have to say that it’s really changed. Back in the day, probably 10, 15, 20 years ago, I would say that employees were considered sort of dispensable. If you fill a position and somebody doesn’t work, it doesn’t work out, they’re not successful, then there’s always somebody in the line. There’s always somebody on the job board who’s applying for that job. And I think that has dramatically changed. Our labor market is much shorter and much tighter, and as a result, we have a very valuable resource in humans. My personal passion, the thing that really makes me get up in the morning and happy about what I do, is creating a workplace where people really feel engaged, where they feel safe, where they feel like they can be productive, and where they’re spending a considerable amount of their life engaged with others and happy. A happy workforce is a passion of mine. So I think to your question, my philosophy is finding the right people is all about being very clear about what the job requires and what the culture requires, and then doing everything you can to make sure they feel welcome. They feel like they belong, they feel like they’re given the resources to grow in whatever direction they want to grow. And that is not, I don’t think most business leaders view that as their job. And it is what I think a lot of business leaders should and probably will be viewing as their job going forward.

Henry Lopez (05:37):

Yeah, no doubt. I mentioned at the beginning that you and I have known each other for some time. We came to know each other back when I was involved with David begin in the car wash industry, which you have done a lot of work in the carwash industry and there that’s a classic industry even before Covid with a lot of turnover. It’s hourly wage employees typically younger. It’s a blue collar work environment, it’s wet, it’s outdoors, all of those things. A lot of turnover. That’s the big challenge. But I think even for David, before he came to find you, it was always like, how do we fix this?

Speaker 4 (06:11):

And

Henry Lopez (06:11):

Part of the thing we always used to talk to is that we figured out is that most people hire person accepts a job victory. That’s it. But there’s so much more to keeping than that person. Right,

Speaker 4 (06:23):

Exactly. Exactly.

Henry Lopez (06:25):

And then the other thing that was a challenge for us is both David and I came from the corporate world, corporate professionals where there’s different motivations, there’s different things that we’re looking for when I’m a corporate employee, highly paid in sales careers that both David and I had. So the motivations were different, the timeframes were different. Right,

Speaker 5 (06:42):

Right. So

Henry Lopez (06:42):

It was always a challenge. How do you motivate and how do you invest in an hourly wage employee who for all kinds of valid reasons might be with me a year at the most, and how do I nonetheless create an environment where they feel like they’re invested in? That’s not easy to do, but it can be done

Claudia St. John (06:59):

Right? Absolutely, absolutely. And we work in a number of industries beyond the car wash. We are also in auto maintenance, but in building material supplies, janitorial sectors, printing sectors, many sectors where there’s a lot of turnover and it may not be the sexiest job out there. You’re dealing with blue collar, entry level workers and really figuring out what motivates them is critical. And it hasn’t been a priority in the past, but when you look at the data, it’s shocking. When we look at our population growth projections, when we not even taking into consideration recent political conversations around immigration. When you just look at our natural childbirth in 2040, we will have more deaths than live births in the United States. We need

Henry Lopez (07:47):

More working people,

Claudia St. John (07:48):

We need more people. So these people are becoming more and more of a valuable asset, but it’s also happening at a time where we have a lot of AI available to us. And that can be useful in things as simply as how do you create flexibility within your scheduling and your shift works so that it can accommodate those people who want to work overtime and those people who want to work 32 hours a week and creating more variability that satisfies what we know everybody wants, regardless of whether they’re blue collar or CEO suite, is they want flexibility. They want to be able to work when they need to work in the way that they want to work, but they also want to be able to spend the time with their families and their lives. Covid changed that dramatically. We’ve all had that wake up call to life is too short, man, and if this doesn’t satisfy those requirements that I need to take care of myself and my kids, somebody will. I’ll just keep looking until somebody does. And that’s the work for businesses. It’s a value proposition.

Henry Lopez (08:50):

Yeah, that word flexibility, I think we’re going to come back to again, again in this conversation, and you talk about industries, you and I were talking about before we started recording a client that we have in common, which is a medical practice. And

Henry Lopez (09:02):

So you’re seeing it there. I mean, they’re having such a challenge recruiting, primarily recruiting physicians at all levels, nurses, medical assistants, physicians, and then it’s a matter of when they get them, how do they keep them? And it’s all those other things that keep people flexibility is one of those. So yeah, I want to touch on this point because I love this topic. I’ve addressed it so many times with different guests and would love to get your perspective as well. There’s been so much that has been said about people don’t want to work. I think that’s a bunch of crap. I don’t think that’s the issue. I think it’s what you’re highlighting. There are less people in the workforce and that’s diminishing. There are more and more jobs available that we simply don’t have people to fill. But also the bigger picture, if we look at, we both have children in their early adulthood, I think that they saw from us, I’m generalizing now how not to do it. Right?

Speaker 4 (10:01):

Absolutely.

Henry Lopez (10:02):

They saw in us that whole, we were the last generation, I’m older that said, I’m going to give my life to the business, to the company rather, and hopefully I’ll retire when I’m in my sixties and then be able to enjoy life. They saw the lie in that people getting laid off, parents getting laid off, and I don’t think I’m buying into that. And I think that’s part of what they’re responding to. What are your thoughts?

Claudia St. John (10:27):

Absolutely. And we think back to Covid and think, wow, well, that was a cosmic shift, but in fact, my children vividly remember the Christmas in 2009 when we couldn’t, our retirement savings plummeted and my ex-husband lost his job. I mean, they saw that trauma firsthand. The great recession we don’t even talk about anymore. Our kids remember it. I remember it. And so I think you hear a lot of people like these millennials or these Gen Zs, a lot of baby boomers will say things like, ah, these millennials, they have a terrible work ethic. And my answer to them is, guess who raised them? Exactly, exactly. We raised them to have those values because as the children and people that we love, we want them to get the jobs that are best for them, that help them have fulfilling and meaningful lives. And yet then we turn around to our own employees and say, what are you doing?

Claudia St. John (11:21):

Why are you taking PTO get back to work? It’s such a disconnect. A what we want for our friends and family. We don’t want for our employees, but the good businesses that are out there that really do care, they see that. They see the value, they see the importance of forcing people to get vacations, forcing people to take time off and be with their families, allowing for that flexibility and allowing for that trust. When you allow for that flexibility and trust, then people feel like they’re part of the team and entrusting environments, people want to be a part. People want to be there. And I think you started this whole interview by saying people spend so much time working on hiring and then they think they’re done. Well, you’re exactly right. The work has just begun. The hard part is not finding talent. Eventually you’ll hit pater and you’ll get good talent.

Speaker 5 (12:20):

The

Claudia St. John (12:20):

Hard part is keeping them, the hard part is making sure that everybody within your organization is a strong link and not a weak link. And that’s the hard work right there is. I think if there’s one priority I have, and I’m already off topic, I’m already getting

Henry Lopez (12:36):

Into inclusion. Oh no, this is all great. This is all great.

Claudia St. John (12:37):

Let’s wrap this puppy up right here. If there’s one weak link in all of the businesses that we work with, and I think in all businesses everywhere, it’s that we do not train our supervisors and our managers with the essential skills. We used to call them soft skills with the essential skills needed for them to be effective in working in collaboration with others. Emotional intelligence, empathy, behavioral style, navigating conflict, positive, positive feedback, all of the things that we know are essential to good leadership and to good relationship. A lot of folks aren’t. Not all of us are lucky to come by that stuff naturally. Most of us have to be trained it, and that’s the biggest weakest link I think, in all the businesses that we work with.

Henry Lopez (13:22):

Yeah, well said. Well said. Let’s start to unpack that then. I thought what we would do, Claudia, is kind of go through the life cycle, if you will, of an employee from beginning to end. And we’re only going to touch on this, right? Sure. Hopefully we’re going to have Claudia to come back on to show as we do deeper dives on some of these topics. But we’re just going to go high level here. Let’s talk more about recruiting. What’s the state of the world right now? We’ve touched on it, we know it as employers, but what are you seeing out there in the labor market? We just touched on that and you agree it’s not going to get any less tight anytime soon. Yeah,

Claudia St. John (13:57):

No, no. It’s just going to be more tight because we’re continuing to compete with one another. And if you’re in an industry that requires an entry level, low skilled worker, they can go anywhere for another buck an hour. You are going to have to. And I think with the unemployment rate, and this is very important for business owners to know, especially in certain geographic areas, the unemployment rate is currently 4.2%. That is considered full employment economically. And that means practically that whoever you want to hire has a job.

Claudia St. John (14:28):

So your recruiting effort has to be in some way convincing others who have a job to come and work for you. That’s the mindset that you have to be in. And so being able to tell that story, being able to understand and satisfy what it is that those employees need and the reasons why they would go to you instead of to a McDonald’s or to an Amazon or at higher levels to another business, something more. It’s telling your story in an effective way to the audience that you’re trying to reach. It’s a marketing game. It’s trying to convince somebody to take a chance on you and putting all of the resources to tell that story. If you’re telling your story correctly and you’re using the right data, the right tools for hiring and selection when it comes to recruiting, we go by a rule of thirds, and that is one third of the hiring should be based on their experience.

Claudia St. John (15:22):

Have they done what you want them to do? Or if they’re new in their career and they don’t have any experience, is there any applicable trait that you’re looking for? One third is based on your gut, do you think they’d fit in or do you ’em? Would they get along well in the team? And then one third is based on behavioral assessments. We are very, very strongly strong advocates of doing behavioral testing. And I don’t really even care which one, just getting more data, as long as it’s a reputable tool that is valid for selection because there is no amount of interview technique that will help you weed out the whackadoodles without doing behavioral testing.

Henry Lopez (16:05):

And I think even to that point, I’ve come to learn over many years, you have more experience than I do that even then there are some people who they’re going to ace the interview process. And so a very thorough 90 day probationary type period I think is essential as well to making sure to see are they really a fit or not? Yes,

Claudia St. John (16:26):

Yes. And yes. And so this maybe gets us into that. If we’re looking at a life cycle, getting into the onboarding piece, we actually don’t believe in probationary periods because in the United States, for most employers and most employees, you have the right to hire a fire at will. And so if you put in place a 90 day probationary period, it kind of sets the stage that 90 days plus one, it’s smooth sailing. We can take off

Henry Lopez (16:50):

Our, in other words, somebody could still play the game, if you will, for 90 days, and then they become who they really are.

Claudia St. John (16:58):

Exactly. So I am an advocate, and not everybody in my company is, so there could be differences of opinion, but I say, do away with the probationary period. It is bring your best self now and an ongoing basis. And what we do instead is we have a six week learning objective protocol. So what are the learning objectives that are realistic for the first week, and who’s responsible for training on that and what are the outcomes that you’re expecting? And then you’ve communicated to the employee what the expectations are, which is critical for engagement. You’ve communicated to the employee who is responsible for that learning, and you’re giving them feedback every month, every week, and then the next week you come up with new learning objectives. So they are not just sort of left to sink or swim. You are figuring out very quickly because of the efforts you’re putting in to develop, are they able to do this? And I do believe in the take a long time hiring, but if you think that they’re not bringing their best selves and you’re doing everything that you know should be doing to develop them, then you should make a change and not wait 90 days doesn’t do

Henry Lopez (18:09):

Anybody. And I think that as long as we’re still doing that, then I am in agreement with you, obviously best here. But that I think is the gist of why I am an advocate of the 90 day traditionary period. It’s really that point, which is you’ve got an onboarding plan in place, you’ve got objectives, and you’re clear about that. That’s on us, right?

Claudia St. John (18:28):

Yes, that’s on us.

Henry Lopez (18:30):

But then if an employee isn’t a fit, they really don’t have the skills they said they did, or it’s just not going to work out. We need to make a decisive move quickly rather than let it fester and continue to think we’re going to save that person or

Speaker 4 (18:42):

Exactly. It’s

Henry Lopez (18:43):

Eventually going to work out. Alright. I want to go back though to the recruiting. They have a job. So one of the things that tells me, first of all, your point is critical as well is again, this is where we miss it As salespeople, we don’t invest nearly the same amount of effort obviously in selling a prospective employee as we do in selling a customer, but we should look at it very similarly. It is a marketing slash sales campaign. But as far as the fact that they have a job, and this is mostly I think applies in the more white collar professional ranks. That’s got to be, I think why a recruiter is so beneficial in reaching out to those people that have a job. Right?

Claudia St. John (19:24):

I mean, I would say at this point in time, 80 to 85% of the positions we’re filling right now are from active sourcing because the

Henry Lopez (19:34):

People to define active sourcing,

Claudia St. John (19:37):

In the olden days, we used to call it headhunting, which we don’t do anymore for good reason.

Henry Lopez (19:42):

I still call it headhunting, but we won’t call it that.

Claudia St. John (19:45):

Some of us are a little bit long in the tooth. But yes. So active sourcing is essentially going out and finding talent who are passively engaged and they’re not necessarily looking for a job and knocking on their door, picking up the phone, calling them, texting them, reaching out to them on social media. It’s a very laborious process. And yet oftentimes we’ll have clients, we’ll say, well, this person hasn’t had a job in six months. Why haven’t they had a job? If nobody else is hiring them, we don’t want them. So by definition, you’re led into these situations where you’re looking for somebody who actively has a job. So yes, recruiting, I think recruiting is essential and I think it’s going to be even more essential as time goes forward because unless you’re looking at Jesse’s very, very entry level, as I said, we speak for janitorial companies. I mean the 400% turnover

Claudia St. John (20:40):

In that industry, they have to hire four times for one position throughout the course of a year. Most of us don’t have to deal that, but we really have to work very hard at going out and finding that talent. And in this day and age, it’s also finding people who maybe not, there’s three criteria that businesses have to play with when looking to hire. If they’re having a hard time filling a position, it’s either number one, because they’re looking for the level of experience is not available, or number two, the compensation to match that experience is a mismatch. Or number three, they’re in a geographic area where that labor doesn’t exist in abundance. So if we’re going to fiddle with a recruiting project, it’s usually we have to go back and look at the pay, or we have to go back and look at the experience, or we have to go back and look at the geographic footprint that we’re playing with. Those are the only variables really. When you’re recruiting, those are the things can, those are the only real variables you can play with.

Henry Lopez (21:39):

And so you touched on then often what I’m seeing as well is these people, not only are they gainfully employed, but they’re honestly probably pretty well compensated. So it’s these other factors like flexibility. What else stands out as to what people are looking for that would entice ’em to say, maybe I will come talk to you about switching over?

Claudia St. John (22:00):

I think it depends on the level of position. I think for younger workers, people who are newer in their career, they’re looking for opportunities.

Claudia St. John (22:08):

They want a career path. And a career path is something that you can create for folks, even if you’re in a tiny organization or a large one. So I think younger folks are looking for a career path and they’re looking to understand how they can grow. As you deal with more aging workers, folks who are a little bit older, they’re looking for stability, they’re looking for security, and they’re looking for flexibility. We know that the things that employees at all levels are looking for, number one is that they’re looking for flexibility. Number two is that they’re looking for opportunities to learn and grow. Number three, that they’re looking for adequate compensation. They’re not looking for the top compensation. Very few employees are actually motivated by top dollar, but if they’re dissatisfied in any other way, they will leave for a buck more. So compensation is what will have them leave, but it’s not what will keep them there.

Henry Lopez (23:02):

Yeah, I mean, as often what I’ve heard is I may not be getting top dollar, but you know what? I really love working here and they really take care of me and then they invest in me. But conversely, it’s like, yeah, they’re not taking care of me, so I might as well go get that extra dollar.

Claudia St. John (23:16):

Yeah, that’s exactly it. If compensation is too low, it is a demotivator. But compensation that’s adequate or above is not a motivator. It has a shelf life of about six to eight weeks when you give somebody a raise. But they stay for the culture, they stay for the relationships, they stay for the opportunity, they stay for the growth. And I think all of us, I know I have stayed in jobs well past their due date because of the people that I was working with, because of the relationships, because of the client, because it was meaningful work. And meaningful work basically means the job is aligned with my values. The job lets me do what I do best every day, and I care about the people that I serve both internally and externally. That’s the definition of meaningful work, and that’s what we’re all looking for.

Henry Lopez (24:01):

Yeah. Are having an impact. Am I doing meaningful work? Exactly. Alright. As we talking about hiring and onboarding, is there anything that comes to mind there from a compliance perspective that you see that sometimes small business owners tend to make a mistake on or be exposed to?

Claudia St. John (24:16):

Sure. I think that on the hiring process, it’s probably one of the most legally vulnerable places that employers exist. That and in terminations, those are really the most dangerous times from a legal compliance standpoint. I would encourage every employer to have everybody who’s part of the hiring process go out and Google or reach out to me to get the prohibited and allowable interview questions. There are questions you just cannot ask. It’s illegal to ask them. And in all instances, it’s illegal to ask them because it is a reflection of something that might be a protected class. So for example, we all know you can’t ask what race or religion you are, but asking something like do you own a car? Car ownership is not required for a position. It’s a reliable source of transportation.

Henry Lopez (25:06):

I can ask. Let me ask about that because that’s something that we always, a lot of the companies that I’ve owned, we’ve always asked that question, do you have reliable transportation?

Claudia St. John (25:16):

And that’s, I

Henry Lopez (25:16):

Can ask it that way. Correct.

Claudia St. John (25:18):

That you can ask. That’s

Henry Lopez (25:19):

An example.

Claudia St. John (25:20):

Most all of the questions you can ask there is another way of asking. The one exception really is, and we don’t really have Appliable law on it, is as we sort of encounter more transgender workplace, a lot of clients will call me and say, I don’t person. I don’t know what this person’s gender is. And the answer to that is, well, what difference does it make? Are they able to serve the job? Are they able to do what’s required? But

Henry Lopez (25:47):

Isn’t it okay and legal for me to ask, how would you like for me to address

Claudia St. John (25:53):

You?

Henry Lopez (25:53):

That’s perfectly okay.

Claudia St. John (25:55):

Right? Absolutely.

Henry Lopez (25:55):

Just right at the beginning, if I’m confused, there’s nothing wrong with me saying, Claudia, how would you like for me to address you? What pronouns would you

Claudia St. John (26:03):

Like me to? What pronouns would you like? That’s why we have that language. Exactly. What pronouns do you prefer? And that’s sort of the legal compliance. The other thing on a hiring standpoint, on your application, a lot of states have different laws. Some of them, if you’re in New York state for example, you have to post the salary range in certain states. You cannot have a box that requests whether or not they’ve been convicted of a crime. That’s called ban the box. There are a lot of odd, not odd, but there are a lot of compliance questions in the hiring process that have been pushed to the state level because the federal government not having been in gridlock for almost a decade now, they’re not doing anything. So states are moving ahead with some of these things. So if you are working in a multi-state location, you really want to make sure that your employment application and your hiring process is compliant. I was

Henry Lopez (27:04):

I going to say, a lot of these things are in the application and if nothing else, we should have a professional like you or whoever we’re using to review that application that way

Claudia St. John (27:14):

And recognize that it’s going to be different state by state by

Henry Lopez (27:17):

State. State by state. Yeah.

Claudia St. John (27:18):

Yes.

Henry Lopez (27:19):

Okay. Alright. Let’s just talk a little bit more, we’ll come back to termination and I want to get your thoughts there on compliance issues, but let’s kind of talk a little bit more in development. As you were talking about, you helped us with this as well. Thinking back to the car wash stays. Dave and I have now been out of the industry. Well, we sold the car washes back in 2019, I think it was. Seems like forever ago now. One of the challenges we had is how do we make an employee at that level who we knew again if they stayed with us for a year was great. Just where these people are in their lives, they’re young people, they’re in transition, they maybe going to junior college and then going off or starting their lives. So they’re not going to be with us for five years. Right?

Speaker 5 (28:01):

Right.

Henry Lopez (28:02):

I mean some of them will the higher level ones, but by and large they won’t for obvious reasons. So how do we invest in them? How do we give them a career path? And what we ended up there is that part of it is investing in developing their skills that they can take with them after they leave us. Exactly. It could be mechanical skills, could be soft skills, could be any combination thereof, right? I mean, we even got to the point where we were exploring getting ’em welding classes or mechanical classes. Is that how you’re seeing? Especially when we’re hiring blue collar workers as to how I can provide them a career path.

Claudia St. John (28:41):

Absolutely. And what you all were doing back in the car wash days five or six years ago, is exactly what we’re hoping people will do today. And you asked me if I had a good book to recommend, and the book that I would recommend is called The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly. And this is a book about a janitorial company that had, again, 400% turnover.

Henry Lopez (29:03):

Incredible.

Claudia St. John (29:04):

And what the premise of that is, and it’s similar to the premise that you’ve just presented, which is if you invest in employees in their passion, in their growth, in their dreams, whatever that is, you may not have them forever, but who you have for the time that you have them will be so grateful and appreciative to you. And you get 3, 4, 5, 10, 20 people who feel that way about you. That’s culture. You’ve created a culture in doing that, A culture where you’re feeling valued, where your opportunities to learn and grow, whether it’s within the carwash or whether it’s within whatever company you’re in or not, it’s that you matter. But by investing in employees and saying, let’s figure out where you want to go and as this book does, what are your dreams? Even if those dreams are things totally unrelated to work.

Henry Lopez (29:58):

Exactly.

Claudia St. John (29:59):

If you support them and encourage them, they will love you and people will want to work for you. That is how you create culture.

Henry Lopez (30:07):

Well said. And I think that that’s, again, one of those disconnects sometimes for us as employers, as business owners especially about come from the corporate world where even to this day in the corporate world, I don’t want to know what you might want to do next. I want to know how you’re going to continue to improve in this job. How are you going to deliver value here? But again, it’s a different timeframe. Often it’s also that throwback to, you need to work here. I don’t care about what you might do after it. It’s a mind shift. It really is. As to how we think about our employees one way or the other.

Claudia St. John (30:42):

Yes. Especially it’s one thing if you’re talking about banking on Wall Street, there’s always going to be somebody there who’s going to be willing to raise up their hand and take your seat.

Speaker 5 (30:51):

That’s right.

Claudia St. John (30:52):

That’s a different environment. It’s a high burnout, high reward. That’s a tough space. But when we’re talking about restaurants, when we’re talking about health aids, when we’re talking about truck drivers, when we’re talking about welders, these are people who, their lives matter to them, their goals matter to them. But getting there may not be as easy as it is for somebody on Wall Street. Figuring out your path may not be that easy. And so really they look to their employers to identify in them opportunities, skills, growth, to see in them the things that make them great. Because for them, they may not see that any other place. So you’re actually uniquely as employers, you’re uniquely in a position to see the potential of somebody and nurture the potential in somebody that they might not have known or seen in themselves. They will never forget you for it, and they probably will take a long, long time to leave you because of that level of appreciation.

Henry Lopez (31:56):

Agreed. And David saw this again and again. People would come back one or two years later. He owned his car washes for 15 years I think it was. So he had plenty of time for people to come back. And you know what, I really now appreciate what it was like working here. Right, exactly. I Really appreciate it. Similarly, David and I had the frozen yogurt stores that we owned for 10 years and we sold, and there we applied a lot of what you simply don’t see with that level of employee in a way of training. And we invested an incredible amount relative to any other kind of, because we kind of fell in that fast food, if you will, sector where, again, hourly wage employees, minimum wage, we’re talking about young people in transition, but we invested a tremendous amount even where they had to take a certification test before they were ready to be a yoga barista, as we called it. We were person.

Henry Lopez (32:51):

I love that. And so it all sounds corny and tacky, but it worked. It worked. And what employees would tell us, first of all, that was part of our recruitment process. In other words, we were screening out people who didn’t want to be part of that, right?

Claudia St. John (33:04):

Yeah. Who didn’t buy in.

Henry Lopez (33:05):

Who didn’t buy in. And so we were right up front, we would share what we call our customer service manifesto. This is who we are, this is how we behave. And then we invested in them to be able to do it. And

Henry Lopez (33:18):

Was what employees would always tell us is what you see in a lot of comparable places is what is one of my biggest pet peeve, Claudia, is I go to the fast food place, go to order food, and it’s the first time that person is using the POS system.

Henry Lopez (33:32):

It has become acceptable that you’re training people on my time, as you can tell, my head’s starting to. So it’s those kinds of things, but what the employee respects and appreciates is you’re investing in them.

Claudia St. John (33:46):

Yes, yes. And gosh, Henry, I could talk to you about this for days and days, one of the most important things that I think an employer can do is to look at their core values. And the core values are not just simply words on a plaque or words on a coaster or on a mug. They are really the values that exist within the organization for everybody in the organization. I don’t let, if I’m doing a core value exercise, I don’t let the owners have veto power over the core values. It comes up, what are your personal values? And then what are those values that you as people share? And when you get that, you have a transformation where everybody feels like they matter,

Claudia St. John (34:30):

Where everybody is a part of the whole. And that is infectious. And it’s infectious from a customer standpoint, from an employee standpoint. So I love that you guys did it that way. I don’t think I knew you in the yogurt days. I think I

Claudia St. John (34:47):

I knew you in the car wash days, right?

Henry Lopez (34:49):

Well, we were doing that in parallel, but it was mostly the car wash that we needed help with because the turnover was so significant there and challenges that we had. Alright, let’s start to wrap it up here. What other items come up from a compliance perspective that you see business owners anywhere in the life cycle from hiring to termination? What else stands out that people should be very careful with and aware about?

Claudia St. John (35:11):

Well, obviously the onboarding or the hiring is a critical place. And of course the firing or termination is the most dangerous place in terms of from risk. And that stems usually from an employee who is surprised when employees are surprised by the way that they’ve been terminated and shocked. They go through a state of grief and while they’re in a state of grief, they go through denial and anger and resentment and all of the feelings that happen when somebody goes through a trauma. So what I like to say is, if they are going to be surprised by this, then you haven’t done it. Right.

Henry Lopez (35:49):

No shame on us. If they’re surprised,

Claudia St. John (35:51):

If they’re surprised, then you haven’t done it. Right. But it’s interesting. I mean, there are the one-offs, right?

Henry Lopez (35:57):

Yeah. No, there are. Exactly.

Claudia St. John (35:59):

You show up high, you’re going to lose your job.

Henry Lopez (36:01):

Sorry, that’s how that goes. Exactly. For an incident that’s egregious. Yeah, exactly. But ongoing, I just had this conversation with a client of mine, and he might recognize himself in talking about this, but we sometimes the business owner is want to avoid the confrontation, therefore we never have the real conversation, nor do we have the writeup. And then when actually when it comes to where we can’t stand it anymore, we go to terminate them and the employee’s like, well, wait a second. I thought I was doing great. Yeah.

Claudia St. John (36:29):

All

Henry Lopez (36:29):

The time’s on us, time that’s on us.

Claudia St. John (36:31):

That is honest. And I have to tell you, and I love our clients, I love our clients. We have so many wonderful clients, and yet this is a common mistake they all make. And this is at the managerial level, at the supervisory level on up. They’re all optimists. They all hope, oh, this is going to get better.

Henry Lopez (36:49):

He’s going to turn around, she’s going to get better. He’s going to turn around.

Claudia St. John (36:51):

Or I did the hard work, right? I had the conversation that was hard enough. I had the conversation, but then I never write it down. They don’t think it’s going to happen again. Or they just, they ignore. They ignore, they ignore. They try not to deal with it, and then all of a sudden it’s too much and then they want them gone. That’s not the way to do it. The way

Henry Lopez (37:10):

To do it. It’s a disservice to the company, to the culture, to the employee and to yourself. Yeah.

Claudia St. John (37:14):

Well, and not only to that employee, to all the employees around all the employees, absolutely. Everyone, if they’re surprised you’re doing it wrong, I think is the first thing. The first thing that I would say, and I am a firm believer in creating the most care and consideration to the people that we’re letting go. Even if we’re so mad at them, we don’t ever want to lay eyes on them again. That’s a trauma that they’re going through. And if anybody has ever lost their job, I did once in my career and it was, I’m still not over it. It happened

Henry Lopez (37:49):

To me twice and I’m still not over

Claudia St. John (37:51):

It still not over it. And it in the nineties, mind, Jesus, it’s been a while.

Claudia St. John (37:54):

I was in the nineties too. Still not over it. So I think understanding, and this I think is the biggest point that I have right now. These are tough times, and we don’t have any idea what’s going on in people’s lives when we’re at the grocery store, when we’re driving in our cars, when somebody shows up, ticked off at work, we don’t know what their life is like. And if we can just pause for a moment and just have empathy and just say, you know what? Don’t need to be the first person in line. I don’t need to get that milk. I can get the one behind it. Just the levels of incivility in the workplace. SHRM has done another article on incivility. They now have a report on incivility in the workplace. I would just want employers to treat employees, their worst employee with respect. And because all your employees will see that. And if I could coach supervisors one thing, it’s to have that level of empathy and also to learn that gift of positive feedback. We do not. We are good at corrective feedback. We’re amazing at insignificant feedback, but positive feedback grows, nurtures and creates thriving environments. And most supervisors and managers just don’t do it.

Henry Lopez (39:18):

It’s a skill that they probably haven’t developed. Nobody has helped them with that.

Claudia St. John (39:22):

And it’s developable, as is active listening, as is having empathy or showing empathy. All of these essential skills are developable. We just don’t do it. We just haven’t spent the time to do it. And that’s a great disservice for all of us, I think.

Henry Lopez (39:39):

So perfect segue into what it is that you do. So give us a summary of you will, of the services that you offer, Claudia.

Claudia St. John (39:46):

So we are, as the name says, we’re workplace advisors. We work with small to mid-size businesses, businesses of all size. But typically the businesses that work with us, whoever’s doing HR typically isn’t an HR person. So it may be an office manager or a payroll person or even the owner themselves. And we have five different areas that we specify that we work. One is the HR support. So we do policies and procedures and handbooks and really help our businesses with that compliance, which is really risk mitigation and making sure that they’re following the regulations and laws. And we’re also there to offer that, what do I do with this situation? I just got this leave request. What do I do with that? We are that phone a friend. So compliance, we also are full service recruiters and headhunters. So we do a lot of sourcing, a lot of hiring.

Claudia St. John (40:40):

That’s probably our biggest practice. We have a compensation practice. If you’re looking to hire somebody, especially at a more senior level in a geographic area you may not be familiar with, we can help with that. Or establishing pay scales or bonus or incentive programs, things of that sort. We have an employee training and development program. We have executive coach that does work with emerging and existing leaders to help develop and strengthen the behaviors that they need. We do workshop trainings. We come into businesses and help them communicate more effectively, develop stronger ties as a team. And finally, we have a full range of behavioral testing that we strongly, I think if your listeners get nothing out of this other than one thing, it is to do behavioral testing on your hires and your promotions because that is transformative. And I’ll give you a quick example of that. When I started this company after three years, we were in recruiting and I looked and 30% of the positions we had placed were gone. After one year, all we did is put in the disc and we got up to 84%.

Henry Lopez (41:48):

Interesting.

Claudia St. John (41:48):

And now we’re up at 93, 90 4%. So that’s just a simple tool, an affordable tool that all businesses should be considering if they’re doing hiring. Just nobody’s a good enough interviewer to figure that stuff out.

Henry Lopez (42:02):

Excellent, excellent. So Claudia St. John and the Workplace Advisors is now one of my very few select trusted service providers.

Henry Lopez (42:10):

Yeah, thank you. And what that means is that this is someone, as we’ve mentioned already in this conversation that I’ve known for some time, I’ve used her services so I can vouch for the integrity and the quality of it. And so in particular, an offer that we have for our listeners is your HR support plan, which is at a very affordable price point for small business owners. But tell us briefly about that and then the special offer.

Claudia St. John (42:37):

Sure. So it’s our HR support plan. It’s $139 a month. It’s a year long commitment, but it’s billed in monthly installments. And essentially that’s your core anchor HR support program. So for that, we will do all of your employee handbooks, your policies, your procedures, any of the written documentation, your employment application, all of that is included for free. We’ll answer any of your compliance questions that you have with any topic with your employee, any challenges that you would have. That also is for free. There’s no limit on how many times you email or call us. And there’s only 12 of us. So we’re a dedicated team. You’re not going to get some call center, you’re going to get one of us. And then we’ll track on a monthly basis any legislative changes that happen throughout the course of the year, federally or locally or on a state level. So that’s the core 1 39 a month. And then it also offers you deep discounts on all of our other services that would fall outside of that compliance. So recruiting or compensation.

Henry Lopez (43:39):

And then we have a special offer.

Claudia St. John (43:40):

We do.

Henry Lopez (43:41):

A code that you’re going to make available.

Claudia St. John (43:44):

We do. So for listeners of the how of business, if they come to our website, which is the workplace advisors.com, you’ll see a button for our HR support plan. And if you click there when you sign up, if you put in HOB for the how of business, when you sign up, you’ll get the first month free.

Henry Lopez (44:08):

Excellent.

Claudia St. John (44:09):

So it’ll be a 12 month program, but you’ll only have to pay for 11 months of it,

Henry Lopez (44:13):

Which is tremendous. And what I like about it, again, and that’s the thing I look for when I select trusted service partners, is it geared towards affordable for

Speaker 5 (44:21):

Developed

Henry Lopez (44:22):

For small businesses who’s listening here and what I am. So love this opportunity. Again, if you’re not a place where you can write that down, just go to the show notes page for this episode at thehowbusiness.com. I’ll have a link there to the site and that promo code, HOB, so you can take advantage of that tremendous opportunity there to work with her team if they want to learn more visiting the website. How else do you think they should learn more if they’re not quite ready, they want to learn more about who you are and what you offer?

Claudia St. John (44:55):

I definitely encourage them to go to the website. We also have an insights page, and that will link to our blog and our YouTube channel. And we do quite a lot of content. We put a lot of content out there that’s publicly available. So even if they have some questions, they can usually find some of the answers they’re looking for there. If they also go to the workplace advisors.com/services, that will also give you all of our services and our pricing, and you’ll see all of the price points there, which as you say, they are affordable by design because we’re committed to serving our small business supporters.

Henry Lopez (45:31):

Fantastic. Alright, we’ll wrap it up. You kind of highlighted already if nothing else to take away, including behavioral testing and the hiring process. But overall, generally, we’ve had a broad ranging conversation. At a high level, what’s a key takeaway for a small business owner as it relates to hiring and retaining our talent?

Claudia St. John (45:53):

I think it’s the realization that the whole question of when are they going to come back and when are they going to start working hard again? They’re back and they’re working hard. So I think it’s the realization that the workforce of tomorrow is a very different one than the workforce of today. And unfortunately, business owners are the ones that are going to, and leaders are the ones that are going to have to make that change and that shift to value their employees more. And if I had $1, I mean, I know I said that if I changed one thing, it would do to be doing behavioral assessments, but if I had $1 of your listeners money to spend, I would spend it on training frontline supervisors and managers because people don’t quit their jobs, they quit their supervisors and their managers, and those are the people we have not taught how to give positive feedback, how to actively listen, how to have empathy, how to understand different behavioral styles, how to navigate conflict. All of those are skill sets that in the absence of having them, your supervisor and some managers are probably struggling. Those are hard. If you don’t know how to have those conversations,

Claudia St. John (46:57):

Those are hard conversations to have

Henry Lopez (46:59):

Such a great takeaway. That’s where I would invest my time. And then if we look and see that, not in all cases, but if we have people of my generation in those positions, even worse perhaps. So yeah, that’s a great takeaway. I think that for me, the thing that’s also including all of those things is that mindset of accepting this is the way it’s going to be. Probably your ideal next hire is already working somewhere else, so how do we attract them and show them and convince them that this is a great fit for them? That’s a tremendously different mind shift than what it used to be. Alright, tell us again where to go online to learn more.

Claudia St. John (47:40):

Yes, come to the workplace advisors.com. That’s the workplace advisors.com. And if they go slash services, you’ll see a link to all of our menu pricing. If you respond at [email protected], that will get me or one of my team and we’ll respond to that right away. And we’re just really excited to have the opportunity to work with your listeners. They’re obviously, I like this potential client base already because they’re listening to you, which means that they want to know how they can be good, effective business owners and they want to do it right. Those are the clients we want to have, the ones that want to do it right. You bet.

Henry Lopez (48:20):

Agreed. Claudia, thank you so much for taking the time to be with me today for the special offer to our listeners, and I look forward to having you back on the show again soon. But thanks for the time today.

Claudia St. John (48:31):

You too. And I can’t wait to come back. Take care. Thank you.