Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back. This is another installment of Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build. In these episodes, I sit down with the people building backing. and running better workplaces. I'm your host, Curtis Forbes, and my guest today.
Speaker: is Michaela Murray. Mikayla is the founder of Progress Amplified. where she brings more than 25 years of HR experience to growing organizations. kayla spent the bulk of her career inside private equity backed in m and a heavy environments Supporting industries as varied as hospitality, data, and chemical manufacturing.
Speaker: And through all of it. She landed on a simple conviction. Humans are complex. But HR doesn't have to be. And that belief is the heart of Progress Amplified. which helps fast growing and PE backed companies build ah HR infrastructure that's simple, effective and built around the business rather than.
Speaker: the org chart. She also runs an employee. benefits brokerage serving small. employers. A firm believer in doing... over -theorizing. Michaela runs her own small business while advising others.
Speaker: on theirs. Based in the Woodlands, Texas, she's on a mission to make people operations lighter, clearer, and more human. Welcome to Behind the Build. Thanks for joining me, Michaela. Yeah, thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker: I am. I kind of really love everything about all of those things. It really resonates with me. Everything from People ops lighter, clearer, more human, using technology to make things more human.
Speaker: kind of everything all around. um and this idea of infrastructure. right around people and so many organizations lack all of that stuff, but. We have a long time to get to.
Speaker: Every one of these things. Before we dive into all the heavy stuff. Let's just kind of talk about your background. you You spent more than... Two decades in HR. not Not every... you know young person growing up you know thinks so in high school like i want to go into hr um A lot of this, right, inside private equity, back to M and &A heavy companies. What pulled you in to the people side?
Speaker: of the business. and and And maybe more importantly, what made you want to stay there? but Right. ah So when I was in high school, I had an internship and I was working at like a family owned.
Speaker: um furniture store in the town I grew up in and the The... Internship was really just like support the president, which was the owner of this.
Speaker: a furniture store and when he was gone helping a client in the meeting whatever and i was sitting around all of the questions that were coming to his office and then to me were about the handbook or time off or how do i deal with this thing or how do i manage my insurance and i think that was the first time that i kind of had exposure because in
Speaker: moments when he would come back and I would talk through kind of the questions that came. It was like, what is this? Where does this fall? because I hadn't ever had exposure to HR. um that's when i first learned kind of where that fell.
Speaker: So... in my Um, genius of a high school brain. I thought I wanted to go to art school and I learned really quickly that that wasn't going to be what I did.
Speaker: And so. When I was then picking a major, HR is what I landed on. So I feel like I'm one of the kind of OGs that actually went to school for it. And one of the few people that like.
Speaker: actually... work in whatever their degree is in. um so i did get my degree in hr both my undergrad and my master's degree And then also added in the labor relations piece because I had some exposure.
Speaker: in my college jobs to union environments and realized how valuable that could be. and Even when I'm in supporting organizations that don't have a union, kind of the background and knowledge of union environments and how they get there and how they work is definitely helpful. overall in the in the HR kind of view of things. Thanks.
Speaker: So that's how I got into it. Why do I stay in it? I think I learned pretty early in my career that that How much you enjoy your job has a lot to do with the people in the workplace and how you're treated and not always so much in the task that you're doing.
Speaker: So being able to impact that is a huge difference. And then as I grew in my profession, I also learned really quickly that if I could make managers and leaders better managers and leaders, that I'm not just impacting that one person, but everyone on their team, everyone in their community, everyone in their family. And then that spreads.
Speaker: more So you're making the organization better by focusing on making the managers and leaders better. and then it makes an impact kind of everywhere.
Speaker: Yeah. No, 100%.
Speaker: I love knowing that about you. um i I also started my... you know. journey in in the arts. um So took a little bit of a circuitous path here, realized ah in music. and I realized I'm not a night person and I also like nice things. And so, yeah, that was that was a quick end to that career. Well, not a quick end. It took me a long time to figure out it wasn't the right place. but Um,
Speaker: I love knowing that you actually started your education. um in it and and you're still here because you love it and um and i would agree that I think the best way to make that impact is to affect those people, right? because People leave, I mean, what's what's that saying, right? that with that People leave managers, right? Not organizations. And if you are...
Speaker: you know truly Changing. um you know, leadership for the better. Well, then everybody's going to want to stay, right? You made an interesting comment to me when we spoke before this.
Speaker: That like companies. you You need a senior HR leader to get in and to get out, but that messy middle doesn't really. require that kind of firepower. and And nobody has ever.
Speaker: put it to me like that before. Literally nobody has put it to me like that before. And I've been running organizations for 25 years. So... but i But I like that because...
Speaker: It's... It's true. Like it's. Every part of that is true. No one's ever articulated it like, to me at least, articulated it lightly. like that Is that part of what led you to build? Progress amplified? I'm curious about that decision.
Speaker: Sure. so Maybe yes and no, maybe subconsciously a bit. um But what actually led to me starting Progress Amplified is I um joined ah an organization that was PE backed, like before the deal closed in.
Speaker: I don't know when I was having the conversation was like October, November, December of 2020. And the deal closed. all the employees came on board january Yeah, January of 2021.
Speaker: and From January of 2021 until... April of 2023. wheezy bought sold right that business three times in that three -year period and so at the end of that it was me coming on the employees coming on all of the work that you have to do to kind of onboard and build and set up the infrastructure right then the prep to sale then
Speaker: Stabilization again. And then the lull and then the practice prep to sale, right? And the stabilization again. And what I realized in that process was. Pre -close, post -close, or any big change, there's a heavy lift on HR. That's when you need the HR strategy. That's when you need the ability to build and focus and know where the organization is going and how the people are going to help do that.
Speaker: In the maintenance section, right It is much less necessary in the PE environment. Right. In a public organization that's always trying to grow and do things, you might need an HR leader in place to help do all of that and keep it going. But in in the environment where someone's coming in to hold it for a period of, you know, anywhere from three to seven years and then they're going to sell.
Speaker: there's moments you need to pull in that senior hr support but it's not needed there every day especially in smaller organizations. So it's a big salary. It's a big equity package. It's a big cost to the business for someone who isn't.
Speaker: necessarily doing a heavy lift on a regular basis so After we sold that business for the third time and I knew kind of where my lift and low was, I said, you know, I think I can do this differently.
Speaker: And the proof of concept happened pretty quickly because The PE firm that I had worked with in that previous organization, was the same PE firm that backed my very first client, which is still around. And over the last three years I've had them as a client, we've gone from maybe five hours a week to full time to 20 hours a week to five hours a week. So in the same way, we see that kind of lift and lull where where you need them to pull and come in and say, I need help in this thing.
Speaker: You get that up and running when it's stable. I'm not necessarily there and needed. Um, That's really interesting. I i can totally see.
Speaker: Um... i can totally see that for for Maybe those who who are hearing about progress Progress Amplified for the first time. Let's. Kind of set the stage, tell everybody what.
Speaker: what we do there what you do there and um who's the client you you love working with the most not you don won't have to name names but kind of give me the idea of of who your customer is Sure. So I typically my typical client is private equity backed.
Speaker: um And I would say middle market to lower middle market organizations. So the clients I work with are typically. multila multi -location very frequently multi -state and multi -country although those aren't requirements they're typically 250 employees or less. So they have enough employee base that they have some big stuff that they might need lift with.
Speaker: But they also typically have HR staff on board that is doing the day -to -day tactical administrative maintenance pieces of HR. but they need to do an hres implementation or they're about to have a big launch or they need to do a reorganization and they need help from an ah hr perspective and that people infrastructure piece so i can come in and help that I very much am I do it with you
Speaker: So we do it together. I'm embedded in the organization. And then as things stabilize, right, like my. involvement. um tapers off and then I potentially go away right like the plan is never for me to be in an organization full -time forever
Speaker: um If that's what I wanted to do, I would have just gotten another corporate job instead of saying I can help more than one organization at a time. I can help organizations that need ah HR help and can't afford to hold. the capacity of a full -time executive.
Speaker: but help them get through the things that they need to. be available if they have questions right or have some exposure, but I don't have to sit in their staff 100 % of the time.
Speaker: Yeah. And you're right. I mean, that is such a huge expense to the business. right and and for for somebody whose involvement becomes almost more episodic than it is, right? like like any of the other C -suite.
Speaker: um And if you spend your time helping to build the C -suite, the leaders, the frontline managers to be better leaders and managers and know and understand how the infrastructure works and how to better manage people.
Speaker: They can do those things. Unless they have a big thing come up, then they can pull on you. And the day -to -day managing benefits and managing payroll and making sure all of those things happen, happen with the HR staff on a daily basis anyway.
Speaker: One word that... I mentioned to you this when when we when we talked, I think one one word that jumps out. you know around your work is this idea of infrastructure right which you don't hear you know, a lot.
Speaker: near the people function. Right. and um You know, from your perspective, I guess. um I'm kind of curious how you define. people infrastructure? What does it actually mean?
Speaker: To you. hard systems versus soft systems. Yeah. Give me an idea. Sure. And I would say it is both. But when... I guess the way that I do HR, and if I think of HR the way you said it, great, right? Like humans are complex. HR doesn't have to be.
Speaker: You said that great. You quoted me and you said it correct, right? Like that is. Kind of my belief in now how... HR is is It's also how businesses grow. And you hear it all of the time, simple scales. And so how do we create an infrastructure that is really simple?
Speaker: that makes an organization be able to carry and grow. And when they have a thing that is different.
Speaker: You know, they can pull somebody in to be a part of it. But the the employee infrastructure is all of it. It is, you know, what is the foundation of the organization? So what is our product? Who are our clients? You know, what type of employees do we need to support that? And then what are we building on top of it? So that could be ah HR systems. That could be finance systems. That could be IT systems. Like all of those things have to play together.
Speaker: And the people are involved in all of them. So how does it all? come together to make the organization run? And where is it complicated? Can we simplify it? Where do we have processes, procedures, policies?
Speaker: that we don't need or use and how do we get rid of them so that we can have a really simple structure. to move forward Right to help everybody grow and understand it because when you create complexity that is overly complex people don't use it because they don't understand or they don't know it's there or they don't want to teach somebody else or all of it lives in one person's head and if you lose that one person How much of your business just walked out the door?
Speaker: I'm curious. like There's a big difference between. uh between these hard systems, the software, the tools, and the soft systems, the processes, the rhythms that human actually follow. You know, you just... When you when you tell somebody how to do or what to do and they they... you know, might get a little lost. Where do you see growing companies confuse?
Speaker: the two or or lean too hard on one where they need to be spending more time on the other. I think some of what happens is... Companies don't always know where it - is right so they assume they have a process because they've trained 17 people over the last
Speaker: year on how to do this thing. But what they don't realize is it's because one person is training them. and that one person is an expert in that area it doesn't mean they have a documented process Or it could mean that three different people train them, but without a documented process, they're all getting trained in a different way.
Speaker: And what happens is. the best trainer might have the best people learning the process. and the other people aren't getting the same training, they aren't taught the same process and then they might be perceived as doing it wrong.
Speaker: When really what it is, is they weren't. trained. on all of the steps like maybe someone skipped a step And when you don't have. the process documented or understanding what processes need to be documented In a perfect world, you could walk in and pick up a process and As long as there's no safety concerns with it. it's I don't know, my HR hat going.
Speaker: i really yeah but Like you should be able to pick up the process and I should be able to, without knowing much about it, walk through this process. That is the level of detail that processes should have. And they should be.
Speaker: Easy enough to update that if there's a big change you can get in and there and do that. It doesn't mean it has to be a 75 page manual. It could be a video recording of you doing the thing. It could be screenshots of the important things or the fields that are required. It could be that you do.
Speaker: In your employee onboarding, um Marketing does once a quarter kind of the whole marketing thing and anyone hired in that quarter gets to hear from marketing how marketing works or who our customer is or how we engage them.
Speaker: But it is the knowledge base that helps everybody then know and understand kind of all of it together. I think the companies that onboard really well have a program that does that. You learn your job and the organization.
Speaker: with peers that are across the organization, perhaps, right? so It is a way to make sure we're all talking the same language that makes sure we have, you know, common language and knowledge and the process we've all been through the same thing. And then it also creates kind of these cross -functional relationships in your onboarding group that says.
Speaker: oh, like I might never work with you on a day -to -day basis, but. We were non -boarding together. And so then I have a question about. Sales, I can call Joe because, you know what, I was in onboarding with Joe and he's going to know that area a whole lot better than me and it might help me understand something differently.
Speaker: And you don't have to have a thousand person organization to do that well. It, it. It makes me, I'm curious if we kind of.
Speaker: Take that thread and... sort of click into this idea of... of of Diagnoses, right? like You know, you've you've talked before about how I guess some leaders will tell you they have people problems.
Speaker: But from where you sit. It might not be that at all. Right. um How often... is... The thing they're calling a people problem.
Speaker: really a data problem or, you know, a documentation problem or a leadership problem in disguise. Yeah. From where you sit, right? I mean, you've you've worked with a lot of organizations and you've had to sit there and sort of diagnose.
Speaker: where a lot of these issues are are coming from. What do you often see? I. I don't know that I could quote you actual percentages because it changes so often, but what I would say.
Speaker: is I think... many times. Leadership problems are kind of the start of it. And it's not necessarily that it's a bad leader, but it's about consistency and accountability. And are we doing the same thing in a duplicative way like over and over again?
Speaker: And. And what I mean by that is... For example, in a union environment, it's really common to have like attendance points. And if you get so many points, it's a written warning and then it's a suspension and then it's a firing and it's very prescriptive.
Speaker: And you have one manager that if you have clocked in. More than three minutes late. Like you're getting written that. And you have one manager that isn't doing it that way.
Speaker: So then you have one manager who has lots of disciplinary problems and one manager that doesn't. But then you have a manager that. The first time wants to say like, I want to terminate this person. He's late all the time.
Speaker: but has never documented the process. And so that's the level of. As an executive team, you have to be holding all managers accountable to the same standard and doing the same thing. Because if I know lateness means I'm going to get written up regardless of who I report into, then I'm going to be much more conscious about that. If I know that the supervisor I work for is a little bit more lax on that.
Speaker: then it's not as big of a deal for me. But everybody hits their... um they're kind of like point of exhaustion or over the person who is you know habitually late and then they're like i want to terminate them because they've been doing this for the last six months And if you don't have the data to back it up, if you haven't followed the process, right? And then HR is the person who has to hold leaders accountable to that. It then starts to get like kind of messy, but it tends to be the same managers.
Speaker: The - want to give a chance, right? It's like they want to give you... a longer leash. But when they're done, they're done. and then they're frustrated that they have to follow a process.
Speaker: When the process was always there, they just chose not to follow. Yeah, yeah Wait... I guess I'm curious, like when a leader is convinced that the issue is their people, how do you...
Speaker: you know start to peel back to find out what's going on underneath like what you're talking about and then i guess i would follow it up and say like when it When it is the leader, when it is the inconsistency. right? Like you you talk about when it is the inconsistency or the lack of accountability. or follow through with some of these things.
Speaker: How? How do you hold up that mirror? How do you hold up that mirror so they can... See, you know, it's not really your, I mean, yeah. Maybe that's part of it, but... you know.
Speaker: How do you how do you do that peeling back and then? really kind of Delivering the news. Yeah. So, ah you know, a bit tongue in cheek, right? Not only do I h do HR, but I do it inside private equity. so it's it's pretty hard to hurt my feelings um and holding up the mirror is typically the time in which
Speaker: That is where it is tested. It is where the leaders will push back and they don't want to be the problem. It's HR's fault. like You're making me do this. And so this is another area where I say, you know creating better leaders is what makes organizations better.
Speaker: When we're having a termination conversation, Unless there is a leader that is incapable of it or I wouldn't trust to do it, I'm never the one delivering the termination. I can be in the room if they need support.
Speaker: But the manager who made the decision to release an employee is needs to be who is having that conversation with the employee. And that is based on respecting the employee and the one who has all of the. the details and information about it.
Speaker: and the one that the employee is having regular ongoing. conversations with, not me. They don't want to hear they're losing their job because of performance by someone who doesn't know how they're performing. They want to hear it from the decision maker and from the person who.
Speaker: should have been having these conversations over a period of time. so when you have to hold up the mirror sometimes it is saying okay do you have the documentation that proves all of this Time cards can.
Speaker: But depending on what your progressive discipline policy is or how you manage people in general, like, is there a process? from the law standpoint right like you can fire anyone for any reason at any time as long as it's not an illegal reason. right so as long as it's not a protected reason i could say i don't like the color of your shirt and so we're going in another direction and i'm going to terminate you and that's not against the law
Speaker: That's not good practice, right? And so that's not what we want to do, but it is just making sure HR is there to make sure that. managers in the organization you know don't get themselves in trouble by making a bad decision or by not looking at kind of the bigger picture of it.
Speaker: And when we want them to have the documentation, it's also, do I have the data to challenge you on it, right? Can I say? the last four people you've terminated have all been women and The men have the same...
Speaker: tardiness Is this really a problem? with tardiness or is there something else right like that is the world that you have to play and that's never a comfortable conversation to have with anybody All humans have bias. yeah Nobody wants theirs to be pointed out.
Speaker: So it's much better if you can give simple systems to manager that make it an easy process for them to manage throughout. and then you don't have to hold up the mirror as much at the end So if I have prepared you to do this really well,
Speaker: then there's less of a mirror I have to hold up at the end to challenge you. Unless you're just acting out, in which case, then you might be part of the problem. Yeah. Yeah. But if I've given you no support in tools, right, then. yeah then I have to, you know, then it's a harder conversation for me because I'm not doing the things with you that I want you to be doing with your team.
Speaker: Um, What do you think the cost is of misdiagnosing it? I mean what happens to a company that keeps treating these leadership problems or data problems as if they still are people problems.
Speaker: Well... Studies show that, and and I can't quote you exactly where it's at, but depending on what you read, it's somewhere between 130 and 150 percent of the first year salary is the cost of turnover.
Speaker: So if you're continually turning over positions, And the higher that position is, the higher that cost of turnover is, right, is where You just have to be able to show. that this is um the process. And so many times.
Speaker: um I'm gonna a little bit backtrack myself so I don't help with recruiting but as you bring employees into the organization is where you need to be spending a lot of time. Managers get really...
Speaker: Uh... eager to fill an empty seat. And it is better to hire slow and fire fast. Make sure you have the right person before you bring them in. And as soon as you know they're the wrong person. we should work to exit them out.
Speaker: And it tends to be the other way around. People want to hire really fast and then they want to take too long to exit a person who is causing problems. And all of that impacts your organization because all of the other employees know.
Speaker: When you're firing someone who is a performance problem. Even if that person is surprised, their teammates are. They know who's holding back the team. They know who is a problem in the organization. And they know the managers that will allow that behavior to happen.
Speaker: Right. Yeah. No, I think that makes a lot of sense. you i want I want to talk about the human side ah a little bit. you know you you use this tagline, which I love, humans are complex.
Speaker: you know hr doesn't It doesn't have to be. um But I'm curious, what is simple? effective HR. look like in practice? you know Practically speaking, let's sort of and unpack that line. like What do companies get wrong when they try to overbuild it?
Speaker: Sure. So I think What's really important is in any system, whether you're using an Excel spreadsheet to hold your employee data or whether you have you know the cadillac version of an hris uh the data you put in the system matters and so it being accurate and it being timely and it being complete is important.
Speaker: Because if you're making decisions on the data you have in your system and that data is bad, you're making decisions on bad data. And so. It is knowing what? absolutely is a required field and has to be completed and how the timeliness of it matters. And so making sure we have the most complete information all the time is important. I would rather.
Speaker: An HR person makes sure that all of the employee data in the system is accurate and timely. before they're doing the next task. Because anytime you're running a report to look at that data to make decisions.
Speaker: If that data is not up to date, we're making decisions on incomplete or bad data. i can I can attest to this and I second the motion ah in the space that we deal with, right? That you're... you're the The intelligence you have is really only going to be as good as the foundational data that you have to work from.
Speaker: Right. And so it doesn't always matter the system you have. Obviously, there are lots of really great tools that great systems have in place, but you
Speaker: you can still have really robust data and you can use it on pivot tables to get good readings of that data in Excel without having to have a fancy system. So I don't want everyone to believe that without having the top of the line system, I can't have good data. because that's not true as long as the data you have is complete and accurate and we're verifying that and garbage in is garbage out. So knowing and understanding how that data works.
Speaker: um Yeah, I love that. That really hits home for me. um And i the the second piece, and you touched on it a minute earlier, is kind of the cadence of meetings. so
Speaker: The first thing I want CEOs to look at is like what are all the reoccurring meetings that happen in your organization and how many of them could be Either a stand -up, combined with something else or gone completely because i do think we spend too much time in meetings talking about the things we're going to do rather than doing the things.
Speaker: uh But the meetings that I do feel are important. and teaching managers how to do them and do them well is the one -on -one meetings you have with your staff. The annual performance review should not be the only time that your staff is having conversations with you.
Speaker: And so many times managers take that one -on -one as an opportunity to sit and be giving their task list to their staff of what they want them to do. And that's not the purpose of a one -on -one meeting.
Speaker: That could be an email. to say, here's the things that are outstanding. What's the status? That could be an email. The one -on -one meeting with your staff is their meeting. They should own it. It's their ability to be having conversations with you about what the roadblocks are, about what their challenges are. about what their career goals are. That is where you know and understand who that human is in the seat.
Speaker: and then you're able to use that data to run your organization to run your department to know about the bigger org and if managers are never having those conversations with their staff We don't know about the people in this in in their team. That doesn't have to be weekly. For every organization, it might not need to be weekly, but it is.
Speaker: more frequent than once a year in a performance review. you know, the This kind of... segues into, I think ah ah maybe a...
Speaker: slightly provocative topic here right if you're if you're up for it right this idea this idea that You know, if a company has genuinely good Leadership.
Speaker: It might not need. That much HR. at all. So. um Yep. Provocative for obvious reasons, right? Is is that ah is that a hill you'd you'd stand on? where Where does that leave the HR function?
Speaker: so The HR function is necessary. does It doesn't have to be a C -level executive that holds that. roller title.
Speaker: No. Right. So there are tactical aspects of HR. There is the paperwork. There is the data collection. There is the onboarding, the benefits. All of that exists. But anybody can be trained to do that. A manager can be trained to onboard their team. And if you have the right systems and structure in place, they can do it.
Speaker: So... ah HR is there to help guide, the organization and do I agree you might not need it if you have really good systems and tools in place? hundred percent And that is part of why the business that I started is fractional, because perhaps you get to a place where then you need help and you just want to pull someone in to help with this section. Maybe it's an investigation. Maybe it's an implementation of a new tool. Maybe it's a new program that you want to push out.
Speaker: and you need kind of the heavy lift from someone who knows and understands that. But it doesn't have to be in HR. person. So...
Speaker: It really is the maturity of the organization and the level of accountability and structure that they put in place and hold people to those standards. I think an organization without HR has very known standards. And the leaders hold everyone accountable to the same standards. And then you're able to have some of that happen without.
Speaker: Perhaps a person sitting in... HR or with that title. But it usually would mean a CEO or CFO is kind of wearing that hat. There is, you do have to have someone that cares about the people piece and wants to make it work properly. but if the if the objectives are very clear and the process and procedures are well documented and everybody's holding the standard.
Speaker: I think it's easier to have a non - hr titled person doing that Well, you... you so a lot of your clients are fast -growing pe backed you know when when a founder when an operator is wearing tin hats is is... is managing some of this you know, role? What's the one piece of HR infrastructure?
Speaker: that you'd tell them to get right first. the piece of hr infrastructure that has to be absolutely right first and i would argue sometimes that not just right, but as close to perfect as possible. is how you pay employees and the benefits that exist for them. because if you want them to keep
Speaker: Coming to work and showing up and doing a job like that has to be right. And someone who's doing a great job and selling an amazing product, but is always complaining because their check is wrong is not going to stick around. So you do have to.
Speaker: You know, that would be the the customer service to employees piece. has to be absolutely right first you can't have someone always getting that wrong once those things are working well It is then the... the education of the leaders in how they're treating people. How are they talking to their employees? How are they learning about them and getting the information they need out of them? And then what are we doing with that once we have it?
Speaker: Um, So... I mean, Progress Amplified runs a benefits brokerage for smaller... we do you know and employers which puts you close to the comp and total rewards conversation. um How?
Speaker: How do you see benefits fitting into the bigger picture of how a company shows its value to its people, right? You mentioned that, I mean, that... just the the mechanics of it being a a timely and efficient thing.
Speaker: Maybe. can't necessarily be the only thing that gets them to keep showing up every day. Yeah, definitely not. And I would say there's kind of two pieces of the benefits. part so The reason that Progress Amplified got into the benefits brokerage space is because we're a small employer. and when we needed help to offer benefits to our employees. All of the big brokers that I was used to working with in you know large organizations.
Speaker: ah If they were willing to help me, the level of service they were going to give me was little to none. And I have found that that is not uncommon to other small businesses. So we got into that business more as a passion project than anything else, because I feel like the small employers, you know, the the main street organizations is what the. country is built on and they need just as much insurance and care and help with all of that as
Speaker: the fortune 100 companies do and so we wanted to be able to provide that to small employers who need it. Regardless of your size, where the benefits piece kind of rolls into the bigger piece is.
Speaker: So many organizations offer employee benefits, but don't teach them how to use them or how they work. And so then to them, it's just a number on their paycheck that they have to pay.
Speaker: if they get sick. And then if they get sick they might mess up. what kind of doctor they go to or how it gets billed. And they're frustrated with the process because there is no education on what is a really complex process. Right. And so making sure that employees know.
Speaker: how their benefits work, where to go to if they need help. um how to use them properly and how much it's going to cost you to go to the urgent care versus the ER versus a primary care physician and what to expect when that happens.
Speaker: is where a lot of employers get it wrong. And it's not the role of the broker. It really is the role of... the company to teach their team. um But how many HR people don't know it, right? like I got my you know quote unquote seat at the table in corporate.
Speaker: because i paid attention to benefits spend and how it works because it's typically the second largest cost behind salaries in an organization it's usually a big dollar And so if I want the CEO and CFO to talk to me about.
Speaker: this leadership development thing that I want to do, but I'm not willing to talk to them about the big budget item and how I'm going to avoid big increases or make a difference there, then.
Speaker: you know i'm being silly so i learned the benefits piece really well i know and understand it really well. Yeah, that's smart. And... Making sure the employees know that is important. And here's an example. i i would say. Everyone will tell you Cobra is so expensive.
Speaker: Cobra is no more expensive than the benefits you have when you're inside an organization well two percent typically it's two percent more expensive The difference is The company is paying the rest of that for you when you're employed. And so when you're no longer employed, they offer you your benefits for a period of time post employment. at 100 % of your cost.
Speaker: It's not an... it's not a higher cost it's just no longer being supplemented by your employer and it And employees don't know or understand that. They don't always get to see the full cost of insurance. And I think That's a big loss for employers not sharing. And here's why. You get an hourly worker who's willing to go across the street to work for this other organization for a 25 cent or 50 cent raise.
Speaker: They don't know or understand the cost or value of their benefits, and they could go there and make more money an hour and have less money on their paycheck because of the way benefits work.
Speaker: And so making sure your employees know and understand the value that you're giving them is important. And you can do that really simply. um I know when I was first starting in ah HR, the like total compensation statements made a big.
Speaker: like wave and splash and everybody was getting them. Lots of organizations don't do it anymore. And it is a lost. opportunity to show employees like their cost to the organization or the value the company is putting into them.
Speaker: outside of just your salary. And where is that in bonuses, short -term or long -term incentives? Where is that in benefits? And are we paying 50 % of the cost, 70%, 90%, 100 %?
Speaker: What's the retirement? How are we contributing there? And then letting employees see that the total benefits that they're getting from an organization. beyond just their salary. I mean, I've long advocated for that kind of transparency and it would make a world of difference and there's no reason not to do that.
Speaker: Correct. you know There's no reason not to do that. i I want to make sure we have enough time to talk about some some future of work things. Sure. Um,
Speaker: let's look at ah so So the mood around AI, right? wait We have to talk about it because it's part of every conversation. know it has Whiplashed. you know. Quickly from everyone's losing their job to... Companies that...
Speaker: cut and then have regrets about that um from your vantage point. What are leaders getting wrong about what AI can do? do for the people function.
Speaker: or what it can't do necessarily so you know for the people function specifically Yeah, so I would say Inside the people function. Can it duplicate a format, for example, for a job description? If I say it needs to have all of these things and I can sit and give some information, you know, could AI like whip out a job description pretty quickly if I give it all the right data? 100 % yes, it could do that.
Speaker: Right. But how much of an HR practitioner's day are they spending on writing job descriptions? Like that is not what they're doing every day. the ai tools that exist inside of hris systems are really helpful and they do give you future information like they can make some predictions on who they think might leave next they can show you from a reporting perspective really easily like where compensation might be out of alignment
Speaker: they can help you follow a process you know they can give you the tools around some of that but They can't have the conversations with the staff. They can't.
Speaker: tell you what's going on in your organization. And I think. AI is a very powerful tool to help people be able to stop doing the repetitive um Kind of like.
Speaker: thoughtless tasks that are necessary right like we have to process the information But they can't have the conversation with an employee. They can't sit down with the person whose spouse was just diagnosed with terminal cancer and be able to.
Speaker: have empathy and talk them through the process and let them know what it looks like. And then be able to pivot and have the right conversation. or prepare the leadership for what could happen in this employees you know pretty immediate future.
Speaker: And we might see them in and out. They might have to go on leave. Or if it's a terminal illness and we see that spouse die, what how are we then going to care for that person?
Speaker: to keep them in the organization and to keep them as whole as we possibly can. in what is the course of life, right? Like everybody has. Every organization has an employee that gets sick, has an employee...
Speaker: that's family member or spouse passes away or they themselves or their spouse have a baby. Like life happens outside of work every single day. So how are we helping our employees to manage? all of the life that happens outside of work.
Speaker: in a way that is the least disruptive inside of work that we can. And I think that's a... That's a human thing that AI is not going to be able to help do. But the day -to -day, like writing a job description, help formatting a policy, help doing some of those, and AI is a great thing to do. But the people stuff, it can't it can't do.
Speaker: Let it analyze data. Let it create a spreadsheet or a document. but yeah Well. He he. Here's one that I spend a lot of time thinking about. If if AI absorbs a lot of entry -level work,
Speaker: which for a lot of organizations it's doing. Where does that next generation of leaders come from? Right? you're You're essentially outsourcing. the the very Rolls that grow.
Speaker: management. So how does somebody grow into managing the work? If they've never had to learn. to do it themselves. I mean, give me your take on that. I spent a lot of time thinking about it and talking about it, but I'm really curious your perspective. Yeah, I 100 % agree with you there. And I would say that is definitely a challenge the world is going to face in the next three to five years as we see some of this happen.
Speaker: But I think what we're also learning is even when you have AI in place, doing things, there has to be a human who can intervene and still knows and understands the process to be managing the AI, right? It can't just be off running completely on its own in so many.
Speaker: situations. and from a infrastructure but not necessarily a people infrastructure just an overall infrastructure Everywhere has...
Speaker: ah issues that happen for example you know in the houston area we have hurricanes a couple years ago we had an ice storm that meant people go without power for days if i don't have power AI can't do this thing for me.
Speaker: So you still have to have a human who knows how to make the widgets so that if for some reason the power's out. the widgets still happen or they know. where the process broke.
Speaker: in order to fix it so Getting AI to do the repetitive tasks is great, but it doesn't take away the need to know how.
Speaker: to do it. Yeah. um And to have people know how to do it. And someone can't teach AI how to do it if they don't know how to do it. Yep. Yeah, I think about that a lot too. And I mean, you have to be able to train.
Speaker: you know. the ai that's going to be doing this and i think um People who are further along in their career. uh so my age probably same as you like we've all had a manager who didn't know how to do our job And how frustrating is that? And if none of the current staff level employees, early career people learn how to do the job and then they're managing people like.
Speaker: How frustrated is that staff going to be that you're telling me how to do my job when you don't know how to do my job? It doesn't mean you need to know the details, but you do need to know You know at ah at least a high level what the process is and how it works yeah 100 No, i buy I agree a thousand percent.
Speaker: um Michaela, wrap us up a little bit. if ah if if If a business leader, and I always love to ask this question. A business leader came to you. you know, whether it's an owner or an operator or, you know.
Speaker: Somebody running a PE firm. and They tell you, I you know think I have a people problem. I want to do right by my you know my team. What is that single most important piece of advice that you're going to give them before they go higher or they fire or they buy their way? you know out of it maybe you're on an elevator to the top floor and before the doors open and they walk right out of there What is it that you tell them when you have a minute?
Speaker: I think you have to understand. how you got to the problem right so because that helps you understand if it is actually a people problem if it is a person problem if it is a process problem right so you're ready to fire this person how'd you get there and it's asking you know like how did we get there is this a pattern or is this new have you asked these questions is something going on in their personal life like when did this come up
Speaker: Has it always been this way? Making sure that we understand how we got to the problem helps us understand if it's a people problem or not Fat.
Speaker: and So I think being curious and remaining curious, wanting to know and understand the people in the role and the roles they're doing. is a really important part of work.
Speaker: And. You know, wanting to know the people who work for you is an important. part of being a leader. Michaela, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for being here. This was a really fun conversation. I appreciate that.
Speaker: Happy to. a Big thanks to everyone watching and listening to Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. Visit MustardHub .com to learn more about us, AI predictive foresight.
Speaker: and how it powers behavioral workforce intelligence for the global workforce. Until next time.
