Let‘s Talk HR - Humanizing the Conversation

Dr. Delaine Fowler a business owner, forward thinker and keynote speaker who works to actively help prevent injury before it happens. This is one great conversation with Delaine to learn how she works with organizations to educate them about how the body moves and what can be adjusted to prevent injury. She is a wildly brilliant women and this is a conversation that you don’t want to miss.    
 
Contact - accelerate-pt.com
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  Dr. Delaine Fowler is a recognized expert in Work Health Connections, a physical therapist specializing in workplace injury. Delaine has helped 1000s of patients on their road to physical recovery. After years of treating people in her office, she could not help think there was a better way to help people before their problem ended up in surgery. After watching surgeons Chase pain from one body part to another and employees waiting for the doctors to ask the same question she realized this was not going to happen. She decided to start collaborating with companies to find out if changing the way people work might stop employees from what would in many cases be a lifetime of pain and suffering. Due to multiple surgeries only chasing symptoms she quickly discovered treating employees as individual athletes and applying her skill sets in care and coaching had a profoundly positive impact on employees based in the companies today she dedicates her focus toward preventing the strains stress and injury that cost companies millions Delaine company serves 10,000 employees by placing physical therapy and certified athletic trainers where they're needed most the workplace. Her clients include major brands like Aldi, gelled one and Dillard. Delaine is a popular keynote speaker and workplace safety thought leader known for her practical approach and industry shaping insight. Delaine thank you so much for joining me today. I'm excited to have this conversation. Family. And I'm excited to be here.
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  02:49
Thanks for having me.
 
Leighann Lovely  02:50
Yeah. So why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  02:54
Sure. My name is Delaine Fowler, I'm a physical therapist by trade. I fell in Super luckily, early on in my career into helping employees be well and feel well. So I was I got frustrated in my PT clinic, because I was seeing all these employees at the same jobs, getting the same kind of injuries and then having the same surgeries. And so one day, just a few months into my practice, I started calling companies and asking them like, Hey, can I come and look at these jobs, like super curious about what people do, and just had an opportunity to start watching how people work and what people actually do, which is really incredible. To watch how people work and how things are made and how things get done and how food gets to our table. It's just a blessing to us. And a miracle honestly, that we can all come together to make make the world go round. So that so I have been an injury prevention specialist. As a physical therapist for 19 years. I have my own practice. And we now help Bistro, I started out with my little office 15 years ago, helping about 15 people a day. And now we help about 10,000 people a day across the US with our programs.
 
Leighann Lovely  04:08
That is Wow, that's awesome. And I think when you and I originally spoke and just kind of got to know each other a little bit, the thing that really stood out with me was that you physically go in to some of these companies, when you see, you know, repeat people coming in with injuries that are similar. It just It like makes so much sense. You know, you don't see, you know, you don't see a surgeon going in and saying, Wow, I've seen this injury a million times and they all come from the same. You know, they just they don't do that. Well, they probably don't have time or they don't have time to do that. But it makes so much sense that if you see somebody or a group of people who are working at the same company, well, gee, why don't we go figure out why they all have the same, you know, shoulder injury, what are they doing to To create this same problem, right? So I want to I want to talk about that because I'm, I am wildly fascinated by this. Like, it just seems like so much makes so much sense. You know, and I know there are some of these monster sized companies out there who have, you know, clinics right on site? And I'm sure it's it probably kind of, it's because of that well, and because, you know, hey, if we can treat our employees here, why after them, but tell me a little bit about how you consult with those companies and what you what you do?
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  05:40
Sure. And it can be a myriad of things, but are are, what makes an impact with our employers is when we place an athletic trainer or physical therapist in house, with their their company, within the warehouse, or what it however they want us to structure it. And we are basically their frontline health care provider for anything musculoskeletal, and most injuries on site are going to be musculoskeletal related. Because it's kind of like in the military in the military, an army especially they'll send when you get injured, they send you to the PT and PT decides is a musculoskeletal or not. If it's not, you go to the physician right away, right, there's no you go directly. But if it is, then you stay with pte. And so we took that model and applied it in on site. So and these people, they're really not to the injury point, they're even before that they're with just the this is this is tired, this is a fatigue, this is sore. And so you really are going directly to the cause of that issue. Dealing with it very early that way we're dealing with problem when it's this small, not when it's this big. And trying to say okay, well, let's, let's see if we eyes and do all the first aid things that we can here, and then we're gonna go to where you work. Let's figure out like, Oh, are you lifting that box in an odd way? Are you grabbing those potato bags like this instead of, you know, underhanded, like you should, and then coach them into their good habits. So we have a care side and a coaching side of our business. And we'd like to all together, and we like to be that relationship driven person in house with the knowledge. You know, that's usually the problem is that you have these caring HR people, environmental, health and safety employees who want to do the best for their employees, but their knowledge base is in a different direction. And so to have a health care provider there with that knowledge base to say this is musculoskeletal, or this is the reason why this is happening, has had a tremendous impact on our clients.
 
Leighann Lovely  07:48
And that's absolutely awesome to be able to have somebody physically come in and watch and see. So do you make, you know, do you go then to management and say, Hey, I'm gonna make a recommendation? Can we? Or can we change this up and, you know, alter the way that things are being done?
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  08:10
Certainly, and, and we, we definitely put the coaching into the employee because we want the employee. Yeah, we tell our employees a lot alike, you might work at this location, this job for two years, five years, five months, 10 years. But no matter where you go after this, you're going to take your back your shoulder, your neck with you. And so let's teach you into good habits here so that you're carrying them forward, no matter where you go. Now, if it's this line design is improper. So really the way I fell in love with this job and what we do is way back forever ago, I was I was called out to a company, I was watching this lady work and she walked up to me, she said, Hey, should I moved from that line to this line a couple months ago, and ever since my wrist is killing me. I was like, okay, so Well, let's, let's watch, I'll just watch your work. And I realized after like, a few minutes, she was reaching over and pressing this button with a really weird hand posture. Like every 70 seconds. I was like, okay, so I called the maintenance guy over and said, Hey, can we move that button? Like from there to somewhere else where it's a little bit more accessible? And he's like, Yeah, I don't see why not. So I came back just a few weeks later, and the lady almost tackled me she was so happy because she her wrist pain went away. But even more important, all the people on that line had told her Thank you. They had told her thank you because she was the advocate for them so that nobody else on that line had to deal with that risk. So they were all having wrist pain, right? They're all having wrist pain. And so I was like, Oh my gosh, we went to the source, we fix the ergonomic issue. And there it is. And sometimes the ergonomic issue is about line design, but a lot of times it In the bad habits that we build up over time thinking that they're good for us, or that we're, we're getting products faster onto our pallets, or you're making a product widget faster or something. And usually it's not really true. Yeah, it's just a training issue.
 
Leighann Lovely  10:17
Interesting. And the fact that so many other people stayed silent on that for as long as they did, which is, and we, I guess, as a society, we've just, we've become silent. And we've, I guess, we've taught our employees that that's the way we want them to be. And now we're trying to unravel that behavior. Hey, you're in pain all the time? Well, okay, let's, let's talk about that. Is there something that I can do that's within reason, I mean, obviously, you can't pick up an entire machine or you can't complete, you can't reconfigure the machine completely. But if it's a reasonable accommodation, that's going to actually stop you from being in pain, which inevitably is going to make you more productive. At Why don't people bring it up. And that comes down to fear? Well, if I, if my employer is upset with me, or if I, you know, I mean, but something as simple as that, like, Hey, move this, move this button. But here's something that's I also find, so I was talking to, you know, a friend of mine, and there was a, there was a fan sitting on the floor, because it was a wildly hot day. And unfortunately, where the outlet was, made it so that the cord came across the walkway. And so as somebody was walking through, they said, You need to move, you can't have the fan sitting there. And he's like, Okay, I understand. And then he goes, however, you do realize that the way that this machine is set up, causes the vacuum, that I have to put in the machine to be completely across the walkway every day. So the little tiny cord, that is the you know, trip hazard is nothing in comparison to this vacuum that is set up. So there is often you know, things that our companies are aware of, and they still just turn a blind eye to it unless it's, oh, gee, the cords not supposed to be there. But you know, hey, my vacuum cord might pull vacuum is, you know, it's like, some companies are still very guilty of will break the rules when it satisfies us. But not you know,
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  12:50
And, and companies can't do everything all at once either. We found that many of our companies, their management teams, they you know, we've been on this Lean management system for several decades at this point. And so lean management sounds nice. But if you don't have people to take take care of the people, right, and to take care of the problems, you know, if your engineering department gets ransacked through, you know, hiring and turnover, then those lists have to do get longer and longer. And so that's what we find with our especially the find that our clients are companies that hire us. They obviously care a lot about their employees if they're putting a physical therapist or athletic trainer in there to take care of people that in and so but I agree that's that it's like, well, what's the next priority, right? And that gets put in front of some things that seem like well, why can't we just take care of this and some one work area, that those tasks may not even affect this area over here. And so you're sitting there for however long waiting on things to get done. So I can see it both ways. There are there are some companies who could care less like they're just trying to get products out the door and products in the door and but the employers we work with, we can tell that there, they really are trying hard to accommodate and trying to take care of the people especially now like you're really right, that we've come to this point where we realize that our people are our most valuable things. And if we're willing to take care of them, and just even in as many small ways as we can, and not not like just putting lipstick on a pig, like actually caring about them and saying how can we make this workplace better because they're going to spend a third of their day with us? I think those companies are the ones that are actually going to win in the end.
 
Leighann Lovely  14:43
Yeah, I completely agree. And there's an but if you truly looked at the list, right? Because look at the list of all of the different things that you could that you could do to improve your employees life. That list becomes really long, like with all of the offerings out there, you've got Training and Development you've got, you know, giving, offering extra vacation or, you know, there's companies out there that are now buying employees their lunches or providing lunches on site with huge, you know, read redo your lunch room, redo your space, physical therapy, making sure that I mean, the lists of different that and it's, it's overwhelming for, for companies to be like, Well, how am I going to implement all of this? So the awesome thing is that you are actually seeing companies starting to implement one thing at a time over a period of time. And, and they're not just saying, okay, yeah, we're going to do that they're intentionally making an effort to make their employees lives better. But it's, it's like anything else, it doesn't happen in one day, it doesn't happen in two it happens in, you know, days and months and years. And, but I have seen drastic improvements, you know, there was a time where, when I would walk into some plants, I'm like, Well, I'm not going to use the bathroom here. Because they were, you just knew, like, you walk in and you're like, oh, this place is disgusting. And now I've walked into some manufacturing companies, and I'm like, Oh, my God, I could eat off this floor. It's so clean, it's so pristine. It's, you know, they, they make a huge effort to keep the temperature from being, you know, extremely high, despite the fact that they're running these hats, you know, large machines. They've got huge fans, you know, and that's a huge that's a big deal. Especially when, you know, machinists, you know, back in the old day, you expect them to come home dirty and covered in grease. And that's, that's not, that's not the way that it is anymore. And, and trust me, I grew up my it's, you know, just saw my, my dad to see or doing work. I just thought he, you know, when I was a little when a little kid, he worked at a at a machine company, and he used to come home and he was filthy. But now those those companies you don't, that's not the way that you have to come home anymore. I mean, and there's always the exception. You know, if you've ever walked into a foundry, it's possible to keep a foundry clean. But anyways, I digress. I'm completely off on a tangent here. So tell me a little bit more. Obviously, we've talked about you going physically into these organizations. Tell me a little bit more about you know, what you your business, you know, does back at your, you know, do you do everything from sports medicine to then tell me a little bit more about that.
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  17:58
So PT clinic again, we're celebrating our 50th year anniversary today.
 
Leighann Lovely  18:03
Seriously, it's today? Yeah, today is
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  18:05
our day. So we're everybody's excited. And you know, I started my PT clinic helping about 15 people a day. And again, now we help 10,000 people a day, and we help a lot of people my clinic, I'm lucky to have a tremendous team of physical therapists who see everybody from that little kid who is on the spectrum, and their mom just wants them to walk up and down the stairs better, right. So we'll see that kind of issue all the way, you know, to our athletes and our industrial athletes are our people who get hurt on the job. And we really rehabilitate those people who have had surgeries, and all the way up to our, our 90 plus year olds who are live and kick in and say, Look, I just want to be able to, you know, swing my golf club without my shoulder hurting. And so we take a lot of pride in helping our community in Salisbury and in Concord, North Carolina, with our PT care. So it's a lot of fun. It's great to be a part of the community. You know, everybody thinks about physical therapists and all you only go there when you have like when you're an athlete or something like that. And I am really trying to change the paradigm that if it's musculoskeletal, if it's an ache or a pain, that's from your muscles or your joints, a physical therapist should be in your ring of care. You should be in the middle of that care. We love to communicate with our physicians, we love to communicate with chiropractors and acupuncturist and massage therapists, whoever is in that paradigm for you. We think physical therapists should be one of those people and so I try to get the word out as much as possible that you know, so because some people will like it. Well, my I have arthritis in my hands and like yes. But is that really why you're hurting? It could be just tissue tension, because you're getting tight. So yeah, yeah, yeah,
 
Leighann Lovely  19:58
I've come to understand stands so much more about, I see, I see a chiropractor. And I've come to understand so much more about, you know, the nervous system and understanding, you know, if you get that nervous system working properly, and you know, all of that kind of stuff, and I've seen a physical therapist multiple times throughout my, my life, I'm starting to get old now. So I can, you know, now check the box of all of the doctors that you know, I've had, and as you start to
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  20:31
get older every day, yeah.
 
Leighann Lovely  20:33
And I completely agree you, you absolutely you need to, you know, have all of those individuals communicating. Because if they're not, it's like just throwing darts at the board, and hoping that you hit the right spot. But yeah, I, I still do the recommendations of my physical therapist and my chiropractor and keep myself, you know, straight as I hunching over in my chair.
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  21:08
And so that's what I'm talking about physical therapy. Do
 
Leighann Lovely  21:12
I know sit up straight, like, oh, yeah, not my past.
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  21:16
The dreaded P word, the posture or Yeah.
 
Leighann Lovely  21:20
And my posture is terrible. Like, I'll remind myself on a regular basis, like stop like hunching over, like, yeah, it's terrible.
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  21:31
You see thing with a chair, when you sit in a chair quite a bit like I do a standing desk. So I, it took me a couple of months to train into it, to stand like I used to, I will be able to stand in the morning, but towards about two o'clock or so I'm like, not think anymore, let me sit down so I can think. But it took me about six weeks. And now I can stand and think and write and do all those things. So I like my, my standing mobility desk is like falling because I can put my feet up and I can put my feet in any way just move whatever I want. But the nice thing about chair is that you can take a towel and roll it up about this big and put it in your low back. And then that that automatically pulls you back. And so you don't even have to think about it. It's just there. So when you're driving when you're sitting in a chair, and I
 
Leighann Lovely  22:15
actually have a pillow that little, the little the little minute. However, I never actually
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  22:22
you can't get back onto it.
 
Leighann Lovely  22:23
I never actually sit back I'm always on the end of my chair. Which is terrible. Like I always am on the end of my chair, always leaning forward always. And that's my, that's my horrible, like posture thing. And then by the end of the day, I'm like, Why do my elbows hurt? Because I'm always leaning on my elbows. I'm always you know, have my, my, you know, and if the if the audience could actually see us, you know, I'm putting my chin and my hand and by the end of the day and my face hurts because I'm like, doing all these goofy. I don't know, I my husband is my husband would come in to you. And he's like, you've got that look on your face. And I'm like, what look and he's like that stupid. Look, you get what you're deep in thought. And I'm like, Ah, thanks, honey. But I have friends who I've met. I'm actually met at work. who've known me for 15 one well, one my actually one of my best friends. She She says it too. She's like, you get this work. Look. She's like, and she goes, it's like the stupidest look. And I'm like, great. That's That's fabulous.
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  23:32
When my when my middle son my nine year old is really if he's done this since he was little when he's really focusing he sticks his tongue out. Oh does see. Jordan, you know, like, Yeah,
 
Leighann Lovely  23:42
I do this thing with my lips. Apparently. Where am I pucker my lips or something? And I've had multiple people go, what are you doing with your lips? And I'm like, I don't know. Thinking, right? The game really hard. And then one day I actually saw my my grandfather doing something with his lips. And I was like, I wonder if that's what I do. He's like puckers his lips out. And I'm like, I bet you that's what I do. It looks really dumb.
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  24:16
We all have we all have our studies or kind of crazy things we do.
 
Leighann Lovely  24:19
Yeah. Yes, we do. We all have our, like resting. I'm gonna say that for the rest of your face. But yeah,
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  24:29
Yeah, I always say we're all beautifully and wonderfully made and all unique. And so we have to appreciate that uniqueness about ourselves and accept it for what it is.
 
Leighann Lovely  24:38
And now in the Zoom world and in all of the technology, I am forced to look at myself and realize the faces that I sometimes make and I'm going Oh, okay. So what are some what are some of the advice you give to people, whether they're, you know, standing all day working or sitting all day? I mean,
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  24:59
Yeah, So so for people who work from home and people who are in offices, we were we weren't built to be still, whether it's sitting or standing, we were built to move, even, they did research on astronauts, and they put them up into space and said, Okay, when they sleep because there's no gravity, they're going to move, they're not going to move. Because they won't have the weight, their joints won't want, don't, don't need to readjust, they'll be happy. But the truth is, they move all the time. And in space, and almost as much as they do on Earth, while sleeping. And so I want to, for everybody to own the fact that our bodies and our brains are very much connected, that that we have to emotionally unwind, physically unwind within that rest time while we're sleeping. And so getting good rest, it's not just good for you to for just your brain and your body, but them together. So I always encourage people, like, if you want to have a better work life, getting that sleep and unwinding in that sleep and allowing yourself to unwind in that time is really, really important and finding a quality sleep. And then from a desk point, again, I call my desk, my mobility desk is a standing desk, but I can put my feet up, I can put my feet over on my desk, I can work like this, I can work like this, I can work straight on. So I give myself a lot of options to stand, I change my shoes out, I'll take my shoes off, I'll do all those things. So it's it's good to stay mobile. You know, you can do all sorts of split stance, like, put one foot behind the other to work. And all that is really good for you throughout the day. But just standing in one place, or sitting one place all day, it really is draining on our energy sources in our middle capacity throughout the day.
 
Leighann Lovely  26:59
Interesting. So I gotta go back to this in space thing. Yeah, so even. So I always assumed that the reason that your body you know, when at rest, that the reason that your body moved is because you were putting pressure in for a long period of time on on one side of your body, or you're putting pressure on on something and that you're adjusting for what you just said, because it's an uncomfort thing, or so even in, in rest in space when there is that that concern because there is no gravity, you have no pressure point. The brain is still saying that you should move. And why do you why do you think that is?
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  27:49
I think again, I just think that our systems are built to move people are meant to move, we don't move enough. And in our in our societies today, we've devalued Exercise and Movement. And what that would what that really looks like for human beings, right? We've been using these big ol brains and saying, Well, we got to pick our brains, why do we need the rest of it? Right? This little meat pod that I'm in can just do whatever. But with why I think the astronauts move is because and why we move at night is because we're emotionally unwinding throughout the day. So I don't know if you've ever had an emotional release. I'm so lucky that as a student, as a PT student, I had this lady and she was lovely. I was trying to help her get her right shoulder. It was a phrase that she had a frozen shoulder. And we were working on it working on it. But we couldn't get that last like 20 degrees of flexion. She just could not get there. And so one day is like Okay, listen, I'm gonna stick my hand in your armpit. I'm gonna massage a muscle that's in there just to see I don't know, you know, I'm just gonna try this. Are you good with it? She's like, Yeah, we get we're having a lovely conversation laughing talking. I stuck my hand in her armpit and she lost it. Like full a full on ugly cry. And she said, I don't know why I'm crying. She's like, it doesn't hurt. She's like, I don't know why I'm crying. She cried three more times. We got the range of motion back. But in that moment, I realized that we get emotions and memories and all these things stuck somewhere. Occasionally, I wouldn't say they're all the time. But and if we're not moving enough, we're not allowing our emotional selves and our mental selves to have the full capacity of their our health. Right? We do it so so I think the astronauts move because they're they're physically manifesting their thoughts and emotions and they need to a way to escape.
 
Leighann Lovely  29:50
Interesting and wow, that and that's that's an amazing story. And and I think that you're very correct in that move. meant is is not just about the simple movement that there's there's more to it that it is our brains way of expressing. Because, again, you'll see that in, in a complete crowd, for instance, who's experiencing something profound or for you go to a concert, right? All of a sudden, you see everybody at the same time jumping up and down, and you're like, why is everybody's reaction to jump up and down at a very, you know, excite exciting sound? Why isn't it? Right? And then all of a sudden, you go to, you know, a different venue where it's a very emotional song and you see everybody go very still, you know, you don't, it's, it's almost, like you said primal, it's, it's like your body is natural reaction is it follows the brains, obviously, the brain, you know, controls the body, but those, you know, you don't see somebody jumping up and down. Typically, when it's a very emotional, you know, sad or profound, you don't typically somebody jumping up and down, right?
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  31:11
So the interesting thing about so even even a person who doesn't have their sight, if they are running and win the race, they still go into victory, even if they can't see that, you know, they still so we as as human beings, we have our signs for you know, I am victorious I am this I am that, why? Why do moms, dads probably do it too. But why do moms when they have their babies on their hip? Are they doing? Rock? Right, right? I don't hold my four year old all that much anymore, but I usually keep what usually wants me to hold him while we're at church. And like, there'll be music going on. So I just find myself like so, so funny, but I don't do it. If he's not I'm not wanting,
 
Leighann Lovely  31:57
right. No, no, I, I always whenever I was holding my, my daughter, and she's five now so I can barely pick her up and hold her for any length of time.
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  32:09
Those suckers get heavy,
 
Leighann Lovely  32:11
I know, she tries to jump in my lap. And I'm like, I have to brace myself. Now. I'm like, Oh, my God. But But you're right, there is universal things that people do without, without even knowing that they're doing it. blind individual, even people who, you know, people who are deaf, they will make the same, you know, almost types of noises. And they can't even hear themselves. But they will still you know, and those who do make noises who do have some verbal, they will still make the, you know, ah, when they're excited? Yes. But they don't they don't hear that there are universal things that are ingrained in us from whatever, right, something it's the same thing again, you know, if you were to start to study animal behavior and things like that, why is it that animals that have never seen each other from across, you know, hundreds of miles of way? All do an act the same way? If they're the same species? Right? You know, then we can go into the whole psychology of how is it that the whales in the ocean seeing a new? Or is it whales or dolphins?
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  33:18
Yeah, dolphins with my kids, we're talking about how different animals in the ocean communicate? And how, like, all the whales have a different song. And every year, it's different. Yeah, that's just incredible. And yeah, people are a lot like that. So and it kind of goes back to what you were talking about why, why why do people not self advocate? Why are Why are we sitting stuck with our employers, instead of you know, speaking up and having an outlet for it, we have some incredible employers. And so if if you have a complaint about your area, or something going wrong in your area, you can record it and goes on a task list. We've solved one big problem for one of our employers in there, where we're helping prioritize those task lists in an order of physical demand. And, and and how many people it affects, right? So it could be a low physical demand, but if it's affecting 400 people, maybe that's a priority, right? So and, and so we're helping that them along and have have certainly crunched down on their tasks, but it gives the employee an outlet, even if there's somebody who, you know, doesn't like to make waves or whatever. And I think sometimes, if we've had an upbringing to where, like mom and dad are the authority, they are right teacher is authority, he or she is right, you know, in and you're lost in that versus let me find my own voice. You may end up being that employee that's like, well, I can't say anything, even though like my wrist is killing me. So I appreciate companies who will give people a way to self advocate And also we need to remember to, on the employee side, assume one of my HR friends the other day said, assume good intentions. If we just started with, let's assume good intentions, until it's proven otherwise, on both sides of that coin, and to be kind to your manager, because a lot of times first line managers like, this is the first time they're doing this, this is like their first rodeo, and trying to figure all of it out, and you want them to be the expert, because because they have the title of manager or HR person or whatever. They're still growing too. And so I, we try to talk a lot about that as consultants as well. I tried to tell our athletic trainers, who might have been athletic trainers for a long time and doing consulting with with us in our industries and say, look like you're gonna run into managers with the managers for a long time, you got ones that were just last week in the employee shoes, and now they're managers. So let's, let's give them the benefit of the doubt and help them along.
 
Leighann Lovely  36:02
Right, right. And those in those first time managers are often you know, everybody's going to run to them, they have a relationship with all the employees, everybody's going to unload on them. And they're gonna go, oh, I can't go to my manager with all of this, because you know, now they're trying to navigate what that looks like,
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  36:22
right? Yeah, my husband's. He's, he had a small management group, before he took his new job, and now he's over managers. And so that's been a new dynamic for him. It's been fun to watch him grow in saying like, how do I, it's not really about me, managing all the people under my team, it's about me helping my managers be better managers, right. And so it's kind of fun to watch his progress as he develops. And then and to take that in as myself to you. I have a I have a team of 50 people and 40 and 40 to 50 people that that work in our company. And so, yeah, it's easy for me just to pick up the phone and solve a problem that that's maybe probably not what I should be doing. And so I try to remind myself, like, let me let my manager sign. Let me let our CEO shine and do the right things.
 
Leighann Lovely  37:09
And that's amazing. So I want to point that out again, before we start to wrap up, and I asked you the question the season, you said 15 years? It is because this is not going to go out today. It is September 1 today, and you've celebrating 15 years in business. Congratulations. That's absolutely amazing. You started off with just you and how did your business start?
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  37:35
Yeah, so I had a front office person, me part time and a PT assistant part time and then I had to work another job to make ends meet. So so for about three years, I I worked part time in my business as I grew that PT assistant to a full time and kept working my other job. And then I was pregnant with my first son. And I took this leap of hiring this amazing PT and I and she was really taking a risk on us too, because she was already she had already been a manager. And I asked her and I'll never forget, I asked her in her interview, I'm like, you already have a great job, I cannot pay you what you're making. And I was like, why would you want to come work for me. And she said, Because I have a six month old at home that I see before she gets up in the morning. And after she goes to bed. Because as I managed a role she was working 1214 hours a day. And so I we I gave her her her time with her children back and gave her a steady job to work in and she gave me an amazing time. So that was 10 years ago, we just celebrated her 10 year anniversary. That's correct. And those those kinds of stories that's really it wasn't me that did it. It was all the people along the way that we're diving in to say we care about people and my you know, I can't I can't be in 22 states at one time, right? But we can find people who care about people who are we have a in our mission statement that we are a group of happy engaging passionate professionals. And so if we can show up like that every day for our clients and our employees like we're doing the right thing
 
Leighann Lovely  39:16
that that is an absolute amazing story and wow in sometimes that's that's what it takes is finding the people who who want to have that journey with you. However however selfish it may be, excuse me however selfish it may be. It becomes a an absolute beautiful story and a beautiful Oh, that sounds so cool. I was gonna say in a beautiful friendship.
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  39:46
You know, and and I I love I love people in general and I care about people a lot. So it's it's fun to work with people that are just fun to work with. Right Yeah, in and keep growing, there are a lot of people to help. Our big goal is to help 50,000 People now, right? We're helping 10,000 People now, we want to help 50,000 people, well, we have the system, do it, we have all the data show it works. And and now we just are excited to help whoever wants to open that door.
 
Leighann Lovely  40:21
That's amazing. So I'm going to ask you the question of the season. What do you think will go down in the history books? From what the world has experienced over the last three years?
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  40:33
Yes, well, I definitely don't think the world will ever be the same. And, you know, in the last three years we've had aI was happening before the last three years for sure. I've I certainly had different things that you would have to pay for that would write things for you and do things for you, a Netflix, Amazon, that's all AI. But with the Donna Donna, these more public domains that are free for people, and the start of computer learning computer model learning. I think that that in itself, the pandemic, it's going to change everything about how we all do our jobs. And I think the lesson we need to learn is that even though we all get older every day, there's no reason to stop learning, we have to keep learning because if not, we're gonna get replaced even as a physical therapist, even as an HR person, even as a podcaster. You know, is chat GPT good enough to replace the podcaster? No, because a podcaster is relaying off of what the guest is saying. And the guest is talking to so just the new jobs that are going to come out of this last three years, between the pandemic how fast we were able to create a vaccine from genetic, you know, genes and RNA, like, that's just mind boggling that we'll be able to tack attack, you know, outside sources that are at bay, you know, are keeping us at bay from a society to grow. It's just gonna be wild to watch. But I think the the lesson we have to learn is that we can't stop learning, we have to keep figuring out those next steps to keep us as a human race together. To love one another to care about one another. I, I borrow my kids from being online too much, because we have friends down the street. So I'd rather than going hang out with the friends down the street than the greater world even if they're best friends online. I'm like, Yeah, but they're not with you. Right? You need to be in their energy. You need to be with them and move with them, not sit out on the couch and and play with them. They are that's all well and good. And it can help people connect when they need to. But it's not a it's not a solution for community and care and all that. So I think that even though we have this world that's so vast now and like, Yeah, I'm calling you from your work together. I'm in North Carolina, where you are. And it's just so I think that learning how to connect and learning how to love one another even if we know our worlds are much bigger is really important.
 
Leighann Lovely  43:20
I that is an awesome, awesome answer. And I remember the first time like this was this was pokeymon go time. Okay, so this was quite a few years ago. But I remember the first time I saw a little he wasn't so little but he was he was probably about 12. He looked like he was 17 he was so tall. Such he was just a huge kid. His dad was a very large man. And I remember he and his friend were outside. And I'm like, I looked at my husband. I said, What are they doing? And he goes, I'm not really sure. And I'm like, do they have like an iPhone or an iPad? So they were outside they were they were outside playing? They must have been like, hey, go outside and play but they they had they had like a, an iPad. And they were doing this whole Pokeyman go thing and I'm like, I don't get it. Like, what? What happened to the days of kids just going outside and kicking a soccer ball around? And you know, and then we learned about this whole Pokeyman go thing happening? And then you just saw every button like, what is this? Like what is happening to the world where you can't even go outside and play without technology in your hand. I mean, and obviously this was many years ago, but this was still like to me who's 42 years old. I wrote in the summer, I rode my bike to my girlfriend's house. We then rode our bikes all over the city. We went to the beach and we went but again, we didn't have some phones. I didn't get my first cell phone until I was 18 years old 19 Sometime in that time period, and it was this, it was huge.
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  45:11
I had the break that I was not allowed to touch unless it was an emergency in my car.
 
Leighann Lovely  45:15
Yeah, my parents had a had a car phone, it was actually it was actually installed in their car. And I used to pretend that I like was talking, because I was cool. But, you know,
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  45:30
I nology it's amazing. Like, you know, technology's amazing. But it's not a replacement for connecting with one another. And it's not a it's not a replacement for not moving. Again, I think our mental health is suffering because we're not moving enough. And so I throw my kids outside as as much as possible not to get them out of my hair. I go and sit outside as much as possible. One of my friends was like, I was complaining about something she like, you need to check your vitamin D right. Now my mind would be fine, because I'm outside.
 
Leighann Lovely  46:00
Right? And that's the other thing is how like, mental health is suffering? Well, vitamin D, how many? How frequently do people sit in their homes versus sitting outside in the sun. And that is, you know, my doctor still to this day, in the winter will recommend make sure you take your vitamin D because you're not outside as as often. Well, how I mean, that's got to be weighing on the world, because we're not outside as much as we used to be. Well, anyways, we're,
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  46:33
Those are mine. Those are my three, I appreciate your your thoughts, too, because it's, it's important. Yeah, it's important for us to raise a generation of the next generation in the right way. And to help people who work really hard. I always say, during the pandemic, when I would go to some of our facilities, one of them is a grocery store. And I would go there and almost start crying saying thank you to those employees for showing up to work. Because if they didn't show up, like I'm from the south, but I cannot grow a carrot like I can't, I don't hunt, I can't shoot a gun. So So and while I probably could shoot one, but I'm not gonna hit anything. And so to to have people who are showing up to work so I can have food on my table, I can feed my children, that's really, really important. And so I just really appreciate people doing the things that make the world go round.
 
Leighann Lovely  47:24
Yep. Oh, yeah. And that brings me back to something I was going to say before, when you when we were talking about the whole thing about moving, we were back when humans first existed, that is what the body was made for. We weren't made for having these high, intelligent brains, we had them. We were capable of making tools. But our bodies were created in order to have the capacity to hunt, to gather, to be able to be on the move from the time that we woke up in the morning until the time that we went to bed. And that, you know, and we don't do that anymore. We now go to the grocery store and buy our food. So I'm gonna guess that part of the reason that our bodies are created to move is because that's what we needed to do in order to survive. Right?
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  48:13
Yeah, again, it's so primal. It's so fundamental, just to move in and to allow that instead of to fight that kind of like we talked about your lizard brain, right? The, you know, we're always talking my god fight your lizard brain. Well, maybe in this case, we don't need to fight our lizard brain, we just need to give into it and to be active. And once you crest over, oh, I am a human moving. I'm not just a human being, then then we can really get somewhere. I send my kids to a particular school. And I used to Jopling say I'm like, yeah, they move more than now I say no, they move they move more like they have more recess. They have more experiential learning where they're actually, instead of learning about the plane on screen, they're going outside and finding the plants. Right, yeah, all those things. And so I send my kids to their school because I know they move more. And that's more important to me than any book learning that they're doing during the day.
 
Leighann Lovely  49:06
Awesome. If somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  49:11
Absolutely. So they are welcome to contact us and on our website, accelerate-pt.com  And you can click on my name and email me right there. So that's the easiest way to get a hold of me. And if you want to talk to my team there, everybody's on there all the time so we can hit you back and love to chat.
 
Leighann Lovely  49:36
Awesome. This has been such an amazing conversation. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing. You know about yourself and your story. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
 
Dr. Delaine Fowler  49:49
No I, appreciate you having me on me. This was great. Super Amazing as a host, so appreciate you.
 
Leighann Lovely  49:54
Yeah. Well, thank you. You have a great day. Thank you again for listening to letste Hawk HR I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible so don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us, like us or share us have a wonderful day
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPY
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
employees, companies, physical therapist, move, managers, athletic trainers, employers, pt, people, musculoskeletal, helping, brains, sitting, put, learning, unwind, huge, years, body, job

With 30 years in corporate helping fortune 500 companies grow their brands Sara Hanaway took the leap into entrepreneurship. Now as a speaker, coach and consultant she focuses on helping people and teams embrace change improve resilience and navigate through chaos. As someone that has experience personal and professional change, Sara knows all to well to help others navigate this. Tune in as this is a conversation that you don’t want to miss.
 
Contact -Sara Hanaway
LinkedIN – linkedin.com/in/sarajhanaway
Website - sarahanaway.com
E-mail - sara@sarahanaway.com
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  From the day she died to being let go from her 22 year career at Harley Davidson to having to shut down the iconic ever rude engine brand. Our guest Sara Hanaway knows a thing or two about change customer experience leadership. Sarah has helped a fortune 500 companies grow and expand their brand planned large scale events and launched too many products and programs to count. After almost 30 years in corporate world, Sara decided after taking many deep breaths and creating way too many pros and cons lists to take a leap and leave to start her own speaking and coaching business. Sarah is passionate about shifting the conversation that businesses can make employees wellbeing a priority while at the same time producing results. She loves helping her clients and audience realize the power that they have within themselves to push through discomfort and fear to get the change they desire and excel in life and business. While she loves what she does. When she's not speaking or working with clients. She can be found writing, running, cooking, breaking out in a dance party or in her favorite role, which is being an aunt. Please welcome this awesome guest Sara Hanaway. Sara, welcome. I'm so excited to have this conversation.
 
Sara Hanaway  02:38
Thank you, Leighann. I'm really excited to be here with you today.
 
Leighann Lovely  02:41
Your bio, you know, obviously is like starts off with a bang. And so I'm sure that there's plenty of people who, you know, listen to that, you know, I died. That's a That's a crazy statement to hear. So I'm really excited to have you tell us a little bit about yourself. And your story. Like, I got to know.
 
Sara Hanaway  03:05
Yeah, it's, um, it's a pinch. It's how I start all of my presentations. When I speak to teams and organizations, I actually tell the full story of how I died. I'll give you a slight synopsis today, because it really is the foundation for everything that I use in my life and business. And so 25 years ago, a truck came into my lane. And basically the accident reconstructionist said, If my car would have been over a fraction or a millimeter, the truck would have went right over me and I wouldn't be here. So I was stopped on a guardrail. It took them about two and a half hours to get me out. They had to bring the jaws of life I went to a local hospital where they then flight for life me to freighter, which is a big hospital here in Milwaukee. And I was there and this is where it gets fuzzy. I was in ICU for at least a week, but it might have been 10 days I can't remember. I was intubated. I broke all my ribs on flailing fracture one side I had a collapsed lung so I couldn't breathe on their own. So when the pandemic hit a few years ago, when people were talking about being on machines to breathe, I'm like, you don't want to be on one. It is not fun. I remembered it and I had a lot of vivid memories. And it took me about two years to really recover from the accident fully like to feel more back normal. You can't tell about me I actually do have permanent damage. I have limited motion on my left side and I developed a heart condition because of that. So at the whopping age of 30 Something I'm sitting in a cardiologists office and all these little nice old people which I have to be careful because I'm now one of them are like what are you doing here? And I'm like, Yeah, you can't tell but I have a heart condition. and, and really what that taught me is it taught me and became the foundation of everything I used for customer experience, which was my almost 30 year career in the corporate world, but also how to thrive and roll with change, and really what resilience is all about. And so those are the things that I'm using in my new business adventure, to help other people really push through the discomfort that happens with life. Life cannot happen without change. And our biggest struggles, as we all say, this end up being our most huge triumphs, even though they're really rough to go through. So I'm trying to use all of that knowledge and help other people as well. So yes, I did code twice, I forgot the important thing. I did code twice in the Hello, helicopter. That's how I say I died. I did not know that. The the medics came and told me that in my room, I was like, I had no idea that that was not part of part of my knowledge. Right.
 
Leighann Lovely  06:00
Wow, that that is absolutely amazing. Well, I mean, not amazing that you had to go through. I mean, the recovery portion of that had to have been horrific. But the statement that just stands out to me is that the feeling of triumph, after experiencing something that is so hard, and it's so true, the harder it is to get through something, the more triumph we have, the more you know, wow moment that, that at the end of it, we go, Oh, my God, I I did that I made it through that I survived that. And for you, it truly was sort of survival.
 
Sara Hanaway  06:45
It was it was it was survival. But also at the same time, one thing I noticed is you don't notice the progress you're making when it's something that takes that long, like a year and a half after my accident, I was seeing a specialty doctor because I just didn't have stamina, and I still couldn't breathe fully in my left lung. And they did all the tests and the lung was fine. And like it didn't, it just didn't feel right. And he finally explained it to me in a way of you aren't supposed to recover that fast your body went through a trauma. And what happens when your body goes through a trauma is that it ages he goes even women who give birth, when you give birth, you're going through a trauma. And the reason every doctor says it takes a full year for you to get back into a rhythm for your body to get is because your body aged and went through a trauma it can it'll go back and it did eventually he goes, but that's why you're tired. That's why when you work an eight hour day, you're you're exhausted because you're still healing from that trauma. And it was that moment that I realized I had made so much progress, because after the accident, I was back at work full time about six or seven months afterwards. And I worked at Harley Davidson at the time. And so I went back during an anniversary, which anyone who works events, which I did, those are long hours. Thankfully, that one I did not pull 13, 14 hour days because I physically couldn't. So I literally did a shift and and that was the first time that I was back full full in full gear other than that I was working part time, and you don't realize the progress. And until someone else pointed out to you when the journey is that long. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to help coach other people is so that you can see the progress because anyone who hears my story is like what I developed a complication about a month after going home to the hospital. And so the doctors like if you do not get up and move, you are going to have to have surgery. My long was sleeping fluid. And I was like, well, that motivated me. I didn't want to have surgery. And I just started slowly doing things. And it started with easy little things like right, I walked up the steps. I rolled the exercise bike for three minutes. And then the next day it was two, and then two more minutes. So five. So those are the things that I started to learn going well, that is progress, right? And a lot of times, especially in the corporate world, in the business world, we always measured progress at the end, like ooh, the the project launch nice, go on to the next thing. And we would forget the milestones in between. And when I became a manager of people, because of my accident and knowing all those milestones that I did. I started making sure that we were paying attention to the little milestones so that when we got to the big thing the team was already like, yeah, we launched it, that's great, but they knew they were making progress along the way. So that's what I mean by setup foundation for me to like really learn how to lead and be as a human and being in this world, because you learn a lot really fast when you're not ready for it.
 
Leighann Lovely  10:06
And that's your So corr., you know, I'm flashing back to in my audience knows that I have bipolar disorder, I'm flashing back to a time in my life where I was wildly unhealthy and I never really, you don't you don't realize, as you're going through in, in projects that you're doing, you you get to the point where you're like, Yay, we're we've gotten there. And it's such a brief fleeting feeling, especially in the business world of you, you celebrate it, and then you're like, your boss or whoever is like, okay, all hands on deck to the next one. And you're like, Well, wait, wait, I don't even get to, you know, finish my drink. You know, I've got a whiskey here celebrating it. And they're like, yep, Nope, don't dump it out. Let's go. Yep. But and I look back on my history. And I'll look back at pictures of myself when I was really, really unhealthy. And when somebody who has a mental health disorder, often you can see it just in in their demeanor, the way they stand the way they look the way they. And I'll look back at pictures of myself. And I'm like, wow, I didn't realize I even looked that way. And then you look at me now. And for me, when I was really unhealthy, I was extremely thin, I was under 100 pounds. And there were times where I would look at pictures, and I go, who is that? And my parents would go, that's you? And I would look again and go, Oh my God, why didn't anybody tell me I looked so sickly. And they're like, Well, we tried. And I'm like, What do you mean, you try it? And they're like, well, we would we would tell you you need to eat, you know, you're really thin. You look really unhealthy. And you'd be like, oh, yeah, I am really thin like I and you would think it was a compliment. And I was like, oh, oh, because it was really unhealthy. It was really. And now I look back at that and go, Wow. Well, now I'm a little overweight, and I've gone the other way. Anyways, I'm happy and healthy. The point being is that in life in business and everything, you are completely correct. We don't celebrate the milestones. We celebrate the end, which makes the everything in between that much more difficult, because you're like, oh, today was a really rough day. But what did you accomplish? Yep. Like, some days, you're like, Oh, God, it was so hard. But at the end of the day, the amount of work that's that you got done, or the amount of, you know, the fact that you've completed a huge portion of a project goes unnoticed. Because management wants to see the end result, often. And they forget that within that end result there are there are so many triumphs.
 
Sara Hanaway  12:42
Yeah, and for me, one of the things that I, I learned, and I was really good at helping other people not always good for myself, so is that you can balance well being while still producing results. Because from my accident, I was getting better. I mean, I started from having to learn how to have to sit up again. You know, I had to walk again, I wasn't, I didn't have to relearn how to walk. But after not walking for 10 days, these are all things your muscles are like, Screw you, we're not doing anything, it was much nicer laying in a bed. So you have to start all over and do all of these things. Or the little things you take for granted. Like I couldn't wash my own hair for the longest time. Like my mom had to come home and wash my hair. I mean, none of us think about that when we get in the shower, and there's like a washing my hair. And it's all of a sudden, like, I still to this day, every once in a while I'm like, wow, you're washing your own hair, which sounds crazy. But because of that, I really learned that I wanted my team to have well being and that meant that I needed to help them recognize the little things or even recognize when they're having a bad day. Like, hey, you still accomplish something today, what did you accomplish? Or it would be things like you came to my office. And finally we're done being on the hamster wheel of trying to solve the problem yourself. And you pulled the help chain. Um, like, that's a really great thing that you did today. Well, but I you know, and then they'll be like, but I should have solved it. I'm like, you solve 90% of the problems 10% You bring to me, that's a good thing. These are the things that that we should do. And what happened is my team is like, Well, wait a minute, my well being matters. And I'm like, Yes, we can still produce results. And we did all of my teams. I had phenomenal growth. We did great things with it. Harley Davidson MBRP. But I balanced their well being at the same time and I was really passionate about that. But I find in a lot of corporations. It's exactly what you said. I want to see the end result and then we don't even take time to celebrate that end result. It's like great job. Okay, go and it's like no, no, no, no We take time to celebrate that as well, we have other work to do. But you can do both. And I firmly believe that is something that's missing in the corporate world, is when you focus only on the end results, and not on people as human beings. That's why we get quiet quitting. That's why we get great resignation. That's why we have disengagement. And these are all things in my new business that I'm I'm trying to work with people on, especially new managers who've never led a team. I didn't, I didn't know what I was doing. And these are all things that it's like, well, I want to be treated as a human being not as a cog in a wheel. Right.
 
Leighann Lovely  15:39
And it's, and you bring up a really awesome point, the quiet quitting the, because when people when people don't feel that their manager, and I'm not saying that their managers don't notice, but the managers get so wrapped up in like we need to produce, we need to get this out the door, we need to finish this project, they often they also forget that because their managers, you know, if those if that's middle management, in that we're not talking about sea level, you know, we're middle management is also under the pressure to get this project done, get this project done, get your team to do this project. And then you know, the C suite is looking at it from a financial standpoint of, we need to get this out the door so that we can get the next thing done. And they're not the ones actually doing the work. So when it's when it's completed, their sense of of triumph is very kind of subdued, because they're like, Okay, great, the team got it done. Let's move on to the next. So they're not feeling so, you know, there's there's that missing link of Yeah, because the C suite didn't go through the pains to get it done. They don't have that sense of oh, great job, great. It's the people who are actually doing the work and the people who are actually doing the work have the pressure from the top down. And the top down, obviously, the higher up you get, the less the triumph is because they weren't in the in, you know, in the gutter is doing the work.
 
Sara Hanaway  17:10
Yeah, I think the manager level, which is where I like to focus, a lot of they get, I call it the screw, they get it from the top, and they get it from the bottom, because they're trying to support their team, and they're trying to deliver the results. And, you know, in full candor, I was not good all the time with myself, like my team would even tell me, you should practice what you preach. Because I was, you know, getting it from, you know, wanting to make sure we hit our goals, but at the same time supporting my team. And I would have to learn the lesson over and over again, even though I was really good at doing it with my team. And I knew all this from my accent, my life and my career, I would be like, I would get to the point that I would be so exhausted. And it's like, you aren't practicing what you preach. And that is not a good leadership practice. And one of my favorite stories, though, is, as I as I moved up the chain in the corporate world, and I became a leader of people, I prefer a leader of people than manager or supervisor, because I believe in a leader has power with people not power over I'm that's just my philosophy of leadership in general. And the term manager just is full of power over instead of power with. And when I became a leader, one of the things I promised myself is I wouldn't forget what it took of all the work that we do, because literally we would all say it. The C suite is up in their office. They don't do the work. They don't they they don't understand what it takes. And a couple years ago, I had someone on my team, she had just graduated college. So brand new in the role learning lots, and we were having a one on one. And I was like I'm, I'm I'm not understanding why you're struggling so much. And what why this is taking so long. And she looked right at me. And she's like, You have had 25 years to do this. You can do what I'm doing right now in your sleep because you've done it over and over. I'm on your one, Sarah, I'm on your one. And I went, Whoa, you are right. You haven't developed the innate skill to repeat this process over and over. Not the way not the way I do it. But just the process in general. She's like, so it takes me longer. So if it takes you an hour, add an hour or two for me. I was like, that's a good reminder. And then we would have dialogue. I'm like, Well, how long do you think this would take and those kinds of things because it was one of those learning moments of Yes, I can do something much quicker but someone brand new can't in my setting my expectations for her way up here wasn't a valuable one. And that's what I use as an example when I work with managers all the time. because we do that we know how to do something so much faster. And we have the, I was listening to your last episode, where you said something that I say quite often, it's just faster for me to do it myself. And it's like, that is not the right phlosophy.
 
Leighann Lovely  20:19
Right. And that's in that's as you were saying that, you know, that's what scares me about my own business. Because I'm like, there's going to come a time where I'm going to have to turn over this work. And I'm going to have to put in the time, and I'm going, you know, into that person. And I'm going to have to remind myself on a regular basis, because I'm not a control freak, by any means. However, I am a very much i, it needs to be done in this way, for this reason, kind of kind of person, like I want it done this way. But I'm going to have to start to let go of that a little bit and allow other people to find their way. And in the way that works for them. And I've been very successful at coaching other people, coaching other people at reminding them that, you know, hey, you have to, you have to allow other people to find their flavor, you have to allow other people to find their, you know, what really syncs with their brain. But the actual doing it for my own business scares the crap out of me, even though I know all of this, I'm a highly self aware person, I'm very aware of, you know, when I say something to somebody, and all of a sudden, something comes up. And I also, you know, have a tendency to say stupid stuff. And I and I know it when I say it, because I'll look and go, Oh, crap, the response to the especially with my husband, you know, I'll say it and then I go, oops, that's not going to go over well. Because I am, I'm very, you know, very self aware. And that, and that's what scares the living daylights out of me is when I hire my first person. For my own business. I know already the problems that I'm going to have, which is I'm going to start off with the micromanagement of you got to do it this way. And then I'm gonna go no, no, no, no, no, no, no, stop, Leon, stop, stop trying to micromanage they can they're this is an adult, who you give them the, this is what I need, this is the end result that I need, here are the tools to get there. I'm sure that you can figure out how to get the end result with these tools. You don't have to do it exactly like this. You know, I'm not a doctor, I don't they don't either. They don't have to cut this exact mark in order to not kill somebody, you know. They're and for me, and for many I know, there's many managers out there who are the same way like you have to do it precisely. It doesn't always have to be done the same way, as long as you're getting that same end result. And everybody always thinks that their way is the best. And not everybody is right, because not everybody can be right. Right. Right. And so, and I know that I'm that much. You know, when my husband says it all the time he goes, You always think you're right. And I'm like, Well, of course I do. Of course I do. But I'm also I'm also always willing to take feedback from anybody. I love feedback. I love people who are willing to say stop that. I don't believe that's the best way. Can we try it this way? And I'm open to that. But it has, I have to have somebody who's willing to match my, I guess my boldness, my tenacity. And there are a lot of people out there who don't match that, especially. And also in, in the in, in the women's world right now. Like, there are a lot of women who are a lot more timid than, than me, I'm not a timid woman by any means. Sarah, you are not a timid woman by any means. But there are a lot of women out there who still remained, you know, are like that. And don't get me wrong. There are a lot of men who are timid, but there are less men who are and more who are willing to stand up and say, Nope, not going to do it that way. Let's talk about how we can do it a different way. That's just, you know, and I'm happy to see that the world is changing. And I'm going off on a complete tangent, but I'm in the business world, that's just how it's been. And so I've, you know, again, I already see what my issues are going to be. And I hope that other managers out there are willing to when you work with them, that they're open to seeing that they're open to understanding they're open. So that kind of leads me into my next question with you, you know, what are some of the areas that you focus specifically on when you go in? Do you do you do start off with speech, do you start out or doing a you know, talking points do you go in And coach large teams, how do you engage and work with companies?
 
Sara Hanaway  25:04
That's a really great question. And you have so many good nuggets in what you just did. So I'm gonna go off those actually wasn't a bad tangent there, it's perfect. Um, so when I work with a company, it all starts, like most of us do with an intake form and understanding what your needs are, or your team's needs are. So there's a, there's a process behind that chatting with you. And then I share up what are the what I think are the best ways to go. But the managers I work with, or the directors or the the leaders know their team the best. So I'll give an example. I just did a presentation to a team. They're going their company's going through a merger. And their leader reached out to me because she wanted to make sure they were taking care of themselves. Because we get so bogged down in the day to day she's like, this is a big change. I know, there's worry, could you come in? And as we did the intake form, I told her, I said, Well, you know, what would be ideal is to do like a two hour workshop with your team around change. And she's the expert of her team. And she's like, my team is really quiet. And we're going to do this virtual. And change is a heavy topic. And, and so I, as much as I want to do a workshop, I don't think that'll work. Can you come in and just do a talk, I said, What if I come in and present to the team, but I do a worksheet before, so they have pre work. So a lot of the exercises we would have been doing as a group was in that pre work so that they could prime themselves for change. And we ended up having a it actually was an hour and a half, long discussion. And we had a great discussion afterwards. But it was all about how they manage through change. So my two areas of focus when I work with businesses are either on change, whether it's in this instance, how you manage through change, or if your team rolls out a lot of things that change the work that your company does. So this team actually had that as well. So ironically, their questions at the end was the other part of the content, which is, hey, I have to roll out this change to this team, what do I do so we spent some time on that, as well, because those are two different things like how you manage your own change versus how you manage it with others. And then the other big thing I really work on and that I'm very passionate with is helping managers move from doers to leaders. So as you were talking, there were two two stories that jumped into my head, when I first became a leader of a team and I had people be a doer is a producer, you get stuff done. And all the skills you use as a doer, you still need as a leader, you just have to shift how you use them. So instead of solving all the problems, you're helping your team learn to solve the problems. So you're helping your team get those critical skills that you learned when you were a doer so that they can build up their skills. But when I first started delegating, and I share this when I when I talk or coach, teams, I did not know how to delegate, I when I first delegated I did exactly what you were talking about Leon, this is how I want you to do it. This is the order Bubble bubble. That is not how you delegate, you don't tell them how to do that you give them this is the end result I need. And for me, a lot of times I couldn't articulate what the end result was because I never had to do that. Because before I just got the assignment, I figured it out in my head and not to explain it. So my team would come back to me and I'm like, well, that's not what I want. And of course, they spent hours on something they're like, that's not what you wanted. And so I had to learn how to do all that. So we spend a little bit of time on delegation, I told and I'm still not always good at it, I have to remind myself that it doesn't have to be the way I do it it, we just need to have the end result. And the other thing you said that I coach people on is feedback. So one of the things that I hear a lot, especially from HR professionals, and I get it because they're like because even the directors in the C suite don't know how to do this is how do you give people feedback. And the secret is it has to be actionable feedback. And the other secret I talk about is two things. Feedback is subjective. What Leann tells you to do, and you move to a different manager, they're going to tell you the exact opposite. Because it's subjective. Feedback is not fact i to enjoy feedback, but I have learned what to take and what to throw out. Be like, Yes, here it is. But what I find is most managers don't give actionable feedback. They'll say something like, You know what? Your I'll use an example for me If you're intimidating, okay, what does that mean? Right? What am I supposed to do with that, and this manager just said, you need to stop intimidating people. That does not help me that does not give me anything. But I am a person who likes to figure things out. Because the last thing I want to do is intimidate people. That is not how I want to come across. Well, I started observing my own behavior. And I realized what it was, in every meeting, we were in, I talked first, right? I spoke up, and then people didn't feel comfortable. So then I just learned to, I'm not going to speak right away, I'm going to let others talk. Now, when it was something controversial, the team would look at me to then bring it up because they didn't feel comfortable. And that that was not the same thing. And so then I learned, but that wasn't actionable feedback, right? That that that manager gave me, or for 10 years of my career at Harley, I had a boss who would do performance reviews, and all he would do is give me a thumbs up and go keep going. How does this help me? I mean, great. I'm assuming I'm doing a good job. But right. I'm human I, I even know. Like, I think my way is right. I know that's not the right thing. I can list out the mistakes I make, because I'm pretty critical of myself. And so we spend a lot of time on feedback exercises, and what is actionable feedback? And how do you not do the sandwich method, which is, you're really good, but no, so I actually invented something when I was at Harley, because no one taught me how to do this a process that I have carried throughout my entire career that as a matter of fact, BRP started using it and sharing it with their managers, other managers at Harley did is I created the standard form process that I use with employees. And it made it a dialogue, I actually asked them to tell me what they thought they did well on where they're where they met or exceeded expectations, because those were the words we use to see where they're at. So we could have a dialogue. So if an employee said, like, seated here, and I know the HR criteria, or the company criteria for exceeds, didn't meet, that we could have a conversation upfront going, Hey, you did great on that. But here's what exceeds means. And if you're looking to get exceeds, here's the things that we need to do. That's actionable feedback. So for me, what I do is I work with teams, so I can do workshops, I can come in and present. Or I can work individually. With a team. I like workshops, just because you can get other managers, you can hear different things, but I do a level. But that was a very long winded answer to your question. But
 
Leighann Lovely  32:45
so here's so i. So I first day on the job a long time ago, I and it probably wasn't the first day I met a new salesperson. And this was I was early in my career and she walked up to me, she introduced herself. And then she went on to say, a lot of people struggle working with me because they don't like me have a roof over what? Okay. She then proceeded to say sometimes I come off as being harsh. Sometimes I when I speak, I do not mean to. And I went Oh, okay. Now I was really early in my career. I had no idea what that meant. As I continued to work with her, I thought numerous times, wow, that was really harsh. Like, wow, that was really brief. And I went Wait a second. But she told me, she warned me of this, that there may be times where and that she's not meaning two years later, what I realized was that she was completely self aware that she sometimes rubbed people the wrong way. But that she wasn't fully sure how to change that. Or why? Because nobody had really sat down with her and been like, well, this is why you come off as being brass. You are very, she was also a very strong, very driven, very successful woman. Point blank sheet. I learned from every time I would go into it. She was a salesperson, every time I would go into a meeting with her. She would walk out practically with the sale and I was just like, wow, this woman is she was into this. She's still she's still brilliant. She's still around talking in terms of like she's not she's absolutely brilliant. She's self aware of the fact that when she's just having normal conversation that she does come off as being brass. She's and because of that when she meets new people, especially in the business world that she's going to work with on a regular basis. She lets people know like I'm not i That's not how I mean to come across and I'm actively working on trying to get better Read it. Okay, perfect. So her and I never had a problem, even when I was, you know, really young in my career, because she had told me, and I was like, all right. But other people were like, I'm not working with her. She's She's, she's mean. And I'm like, not really not mean, she's just blunt. And I realized that I might, my dad used to always say, You're horrible at politics, you're horrible at getting long at work, you're a bull in a china shop, you know, you got to get better at it. And I'm like, I don't know how. I'm just me. Because I've always just been one of those people, like, you know, I'm the person that, you know, if you're standing in a group of people, and somebody's got their fly down, I'm gonna look and go, Zip up your fly, and everybody else is like Google, like, you just embarrassed him? Well, wouldn't it be more embarrassing for him to stand with his fly open than just tell them really quick, hey, Zip up your fly. But there are people who will stand in that circle and never say it. I'm just the person who's like, I'll say what needs to be said, regardless of whether it needs to be said, like, that's just always been my personality. And so anyways, when you were speaking, you know, that was one thing that came to mind is that you can, you can have a variety of different personalities. But if you are aware of it, and you address it, and you, so you being intimidating, you know, you became aware of it, you addressed it, and you figure it out how to. And that's, I think the that's, that's the only thing that matters is that and then there are other people who were like, Well, okay, I'm aware of it, but they never actively try to make a change for it. And that's where the problem lies. Like, this woman knew it, actively tried to figure out well, how do I how do I don't know exactly what I'm doing? She's just, you know, she was just blonde. And that's where people shine? Is that when they're willing to accept that? Yes. And it has nothing to do with whether or not she really, let's say that she really wasn't an asshole. It has nothing to do whether or not she really is or isn't it has to do with the world? And how they perceive if she is because her manager may have may have thought, oh, no, she's not brass at all. She's the greatest person in the world. She's selling everything. And yes, she was. It's it only comes down to how everybody else in the world perceives the situation, which is why you said feedback is subjective. And that's also why it comes down to do you have a good management team? If you have a manager who perceives everybody as being just amazing and great, your manager who's like, yeah, just thumbs up, keep doing what you're doing? Well, that's not that's not gonna help you either. Because now you've gotten the perception that you're doing absolutely everything great. And then if somebody else comes to you and says, Yeah, you really need to stop doing this. You're gonna go, Yeah, but my manager told me that I'm doing everything awesome. So just simply saying, Hey, you're doing everything great is not doing you any favors. And there are managers out there that do that, too. But that also comes down to conflict, right? How do I give feedback, especially if that feedback is negative? And I think that's one of the one of the probably biggest conversations that's happening within organizations right now is conflict management and how to provide that feedback. Especially if it's negative.
 
Sara Hanaway  38:37
Yeah, and for me, I think words have power. Absolutely. And, and I'm not always good at it. And so I try not to say negative feedback. I try to say constructive feedback, or when I'm talking to my team or others, I'm like, What are opportunities for you? And one of the things that I tried really hard and, and this was more towards the end of my career, because I'm very driven. I can be forceful. People would describe me as tough but fair. I tone police myself, because I can hear my own tone, though. I get a little worried about that. Because sometimes my tone isn't that bad. But it's, that'll get me down a rabbit hole. So
 
Leighann Lovely  39:23
my tone to my husband yells at me all the time. He's like, why are you preaching at me? And I'm like, am I and then I'll go all right. Yeah. Sorry.
 
Sara Hanaway  39:33
Yeah. So when I wanted to set up is an environment where people felt safe making mistakes. I mean, think about it as a human being. We don't like making mistakes. We don't like walking into our boss's office saying I screwed up. screw ups happen. That's how we learn. That's how we grow. I mean, my accident taught me that yes, it was an accident, but I mean, talk about luck. lots of mistakes happening along the way as you learn my limits, like what I can and cannot do. And so I wanted my team. So I started asking a question which made them feel very uncomfortable, which was how did you fail? And so I'd ask it, the way our reviews happen was every quarter. So how did you fail this quarter? And they're like, You really want me to tell you that? I'm like, it's not going in your permanent record. And yes, I want you and all of a sudden, our it ended up not being every quarter, it ended up being they were comfortable saying, here's where I screwed up. Here's where I need help. Here's what I learned. And then we didn't repeat, though those types of and they started to self learn, which also helped then make the conversations constructive. I'm a huge fan of crucial conversations. So you start with the heart, and you start with mutual purpose. So if you're not going in with the understanding that you're doing this to help the other person grow, then you don't have mutual understanding. If you're going in with I need them to do this in order to produce results for the company. That's not mutual purpose. mutual purpose is we want to create an environment where people feel engaged, productive, and balanced. Right. Okay, yes, you still need to produce results. But so that is difficult to do. And I've also worked with people who are like, you only put all the negative in all the constructive? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, we accentuate their strengths. And then we tell them the things they need to work on. And 98% of the time, the things they need to work on, are their strengths, it's when they're not operating in their strengths, right?
 
Leighann Lovely  41:44
Well, and you said something that companies is if companies are reaching out to you, or reaching out to, you know, a training, I would hope that they have the right goal in mind. Because if, if they're reaching out to you just for Well, let's, you know, have them have the employees go through this program, and if they're only for the company, and not for the employees, then there's a there's a disconnect, and they're never going to have a long term workforce, they're going to continue to have turnover. First of all, you know, and and the other thing is, is that any company who does not understand that healthy, happy employees produce higher quality, more results, is not going to survive in today's world, there is just not there has been a massive, massive shift. And this shift was happening, it's just been, you know, as everybody knows, the shift now just got compressed into a shorter period of time, because of what happened with the pandemic. And now with mental health being talked about, and people talking about the fact that they're struggling, and so many people, we all now have a new relationship with alcohol. And so more people, you You laugh, but it's not with a pandemic. I mean, it's, it's so many people started drinking more than they used to started, you know. So there's a lot more out there, people out there going, Yeah, I need help. Like, I need to have a full life wellness, and that needs to, to, you know, start with my family and go in and go beyond that into my work. And I need to have full life wellness, and I can't be unhappy at home. And then I go to this volatile environment, I need to have an employer who actually cares about my my well being, and not working me to the point where I'm so exhausted that I'm becoming unhealthy. And it's interesting because I had spoken to, you know, spoke with somebody else and actually multiple people you speak to, you know, chiropractor, chiropractors or wellness coaches, wellness, you know, wellness facilities, people who are just on the outside of doctors, right? That work on preventative medicine, all of them, all of them say the same thing. That if you are sitting in a fight situation, especially if you're you know, at work, you're constantly stressed out, you're you are never allowing your body to heal. And you will only continue to go down because it's all connected to your nervous system. And I'm not a doctor, so I could be saying this wrong. But you know, my chiropractor says the same thing. I've spoken with somebody else who, you know, was an engineer, and it's all the same thing. If you're constantly in the fight mode, which is where you would be if you're, if you're going to a job you hate every single day, and you're miserable and you come home and you're miserable. Your body is that's where it's sitting, it's sitting in that fight survival mode, which means that you're never actually going to bed and fully healing, which means you're waking up exhausted, which means that you're going to work exhausted, which means you're not producing fully, which means it's just a negative cycle. So for an employer to not understand that healthy, happy environment, healthy, happy employees produce better quality, better results, is just it's I wouldn't understand why a company wouldn't invest in the proper things for their employees. If you would have asked me 10 years ago, I would have gone well, aren't they doing everything? Again? I mean, it's not like they're responsible for making sure that they're happy at work. Maybe
 
Sara Hanaway  45:58
Yeah, but so I think a lot of companies say, so I heard this, at both of the big companies, I worked at Hurley MBRP people our competitive advantage, but even why I worked there, I'm like, if people are your competitive advantage, then you need to invest in them. Right. And the first thing to go when you have budget cuts are things you know, or you have to apply to the stakeholders. And, you know, I worked for companies that were on the stock market. And even though they say the stakeholders, we're not making decisions that way. We're making decisions that way. I mean, I run my own business, now I'm making business decisions based on, you know, some things that I'm like, Oh, I kind of get it now, why you might have made that decision. But it's the first thing that gets cut is the people stuff, or the other thing that happens, which just happened on the talk with the team with the merger, is because you're so busy producing, you feel guilty, taking that two hours out of a team meeting, to do something else. But you know, it produces results, you know, your team feels better. But you have to get through that. And another team I talked to was my former team at Hurley that I was practicing with, they knew right when I started my company, they got to me the first group that I came to present to, so they were full on board. But the thing that they wanted help with is they're a team that constantly has a standard process, but changes get thrown at them. And that's not going to change while they're trying to fix it up the food chain, those changes are going to happen. And she wanted her team to be able to how can they react to that better, because it's gonna keep happening. And I want my team to feel good. I want my team to know it's okay. When that happens. Shut your computer down, go for a walk. I don't care what you need to do. And then come back to it. So I think we're slowly getting there where where people are realizing well being, I think I think the pandemic helped with that where we all had this moment. I forget the name now. brain, brain fog is coming into my head, but the the produce produce produce mentality, the syndrome that we have that we all have, you have to unlearn that. So to the story you were talking about, you're you're miserable at work, you keep going. That's a little what happened to me in 2020 when the pandemic hit is I loved the people I worked with. I was great at my marketing job. I enjoyed doing that. I enjoyed the challenge. But every day I went to work. I was like, what, what's going on? And my therapist said the best thing and she was like, I was like, I want to quit just like you can't quit today. I was like, but I want to quit and she's like, You can't quit today, sir, you have to do the work. And the thing that I see, and I get a lot when I when I talk about a course or a program, if you work with me one on one, I'm like, Well, this is going to take six weeks or this is going to take eight weeks and I had a woman go eight weeks. And I'm like, you have to unlearn a lot in order for the change to take. So what therapist was working with me is I was one of those people who believed that my success came from my achievements. And I had to unlearn all that. I don't believe that anymore. And I was slowly unlearning that already at that point. But I was still at this. If I'm not in a big fortune 500 company, I'm not performing all of this kind of stuff. And we had to undo all of that. And she's like, that's why you can't quit. Because if we don't solve that problem first with my therapist, and this was therapy work versus a coach work, right, completely different. And we worked on it for nine months. And then I came to her with my plan and she's like you can quit now. And the reason I shared that is it takes work correct. So even having me in for a talk is not going to solve it right takes work, right.
 
Leighann Lovely  50:09
And we get so set in what our own brain believes to be true. Because of years and years and years and years of, of habit, and the idea that you can only be happy if you are this prestigious person working at a prestigious company doing this prestigious job. That is, that is the mind set of many people. But happiness, I've come to realize is doing the thing that I want to do, and being healthy and happy with my family. And that is for me to the thing that I want to do is for me to design. Yep, that looks different to absolutely everybody, if I want to go work at a fortune 500 company, and that's my passion. Great. But if my passion is working at Kwik Trip, great, I'll go work at Kwik Trip, my passion is owning my own business, and all the stress that goes with it. Great for whoever. But it all starts with being healthy in in the head first. And body, which and I think so many people get lost in the idea that there's this cookie cutter, perfect person or perfect, like design of what success is. Like there is there isn't success is different for absolutely everybody. And you will hear and talk to people who have millions and millions of dollars who have gotten to the top tippy, tippy top of owning, you know, billion dollar companies. And they'll go I thought once I had gotten here, I would understand what true success is. And it was just emptiness. And it's like, yeah, because true success has nothing to do with the letters you climb. And so many people are now realizing that because it doesn't, it's all it's it's all about your happiness and not accomplishments. And we're coming to time, I wish that we could continue to talk about this. But we we are absolutely coming to time. So I'm going to ask you the question of the season. Do you have any final thoughts on that, though, before I cut you off?
 
Sara Hanaway  52:30
Yeah. So I would just say to that, that's what I do. When I the chunk of working individual coaching with people is helping him change the stories that they have in their head, figuring out what is actual fact. And what are just stories that you've learned or done, and then rewriting that story of what you want to define. And then giving them the skills when everybody else in the stories they hear is the exact opposite. And you said it brilliantly. What might work for you, Leanne isn't going to work for me, because when I left BRP, one of the things I said as I said, I don't know if I want this pace anymore. And the president of the company is like I love this pace. I said that's great. And that's great for you just might not be great for me anymore. And there's nothing wrong with that. And Keven agreed, he's like, I concur. There's nothing wrong with that. So you have to figure out for you, right? What's you? And that's what I help people do.
 
Leighann Lovely  53:29
And that's absolutely awesome. Because it is truly the lies that we tell herself, that we need to learn how to stop telling in order to find success and having somebody help us do that. It's so much less lonely. Yes. So the question of the season, what do you think will go down in the history books from what the world has experienced over the last three plus years?
 
Sara Hanaway  53:56
I'm going to answer this in what I hope will happen. I'm a grounded optimist, which just means that through my life experience, I know we can get through a lot. And we'll come around the other side. What I'm seeing right now is the pendulum swinging all the way the other way. And what I mean by that is when change is about to happen transfer more transformational change, which is what happened when we went through the pandemic, when we all learned we could work from home. We could process some people prospered and some didn't. Some people are still better in the office, some work, all of that. But when you go through transformational change, you get forces that hit each other. And that's what we're seeing now. We're seeing, we're seeing the little bit of a generational shift, but we're also seeing people who've always done work the way they've always done work being questioned and not understanding why everybody else It doesn't work that way, even though we just did it for two and a half plus years. And it's because that is a transformational change in their mind. So I think we are on the cusp of another transformational change, I think what will happen in the history books, my hope is a couple of things. One, we all learn to slow down. And that we will continue to focus on that slow down and continue to see what works for ourselves, and our well being, too. I think mental health is going to take an uptick and be more prominent. I'm very proud of you for sharing your story. I used to not talk about my accident. And I do now because I think and I used to not tell people I'm in therapy, I tell everyone on therapy, because I think mental health is important, I hope and pray that our insurances get better. So more people, I have two friends who can't get into a counselor right now, because there's we're at a loss for them, right. So I think that'll go on up tip, I think we'll see more and more people talking about mental health, and balancing this need to produce and well being. And I think that we're going to continue to see quiet coding, until people really put the walk with the talk, which is if you really believe people are your asset, then you need to invest in people, you have to invest in people as much as you invest in your product. So that's my hope, for that we'll start seeing will continue to see this shift that it will continue. And the pendulum will slowly come back and we'll find some sort of balance. I think it'll swing the other way. And then, and we'll find balance. But that's my hope over the next three years is that's what we learned. We learned that there are multiple ways that people can work. And there's multiple ways that we can produce in society, and that we all need to be healthy and well, in order to be active participants in this world we live in.
 
Leighann Lovely  57:10
That was amazing. Extremely, I got goosebumps, because I 100%. Agree. Very well said, if somebody wanted to, excuse me, if somebody wanted to reach out to Sarah, how would they go about doing that to learn more about, you know, how to engage you for your services, and that kind of stuff.
 
Sara Hanaway  57:31
You can reach out to me at Sarah hanaway.com That's my website and there's contact information. There's also all my social media handles. Most of them are like Sarah hanaway official. So you can find me on the social media as well, but my website is the best place.
 
Leighann Lovely  57:48
Excellent. Sarah, this has been such an awesome conversation. I appreciate it so much.
 
Sara Hanaway  57:53
I loved every minute of it. You made it so easy and fun. It was just it was great.
 
Leighann Lovely  57:58
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPY
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, work, managers, learn, team, change, talk, actionable feedback, years, happen, day, business, produce, company, triumph, pandemic, realize, sarah, end result, feedback

Lisa Carlin is a Strategic Execution Specialists whom works within organizations to help mentor her clients through transformational change. She has a 96% success rate with the clients that she works with. She has a global reach with the clients that she works with and has a true desire and passion to help those that she works with. Lisa has an amazing background and understanding for people, this is a great addition to Let’s Talk HR.  
 
Contact Lisa –
LinkedIN - linkedin.com/in/lisacarlin
Website – futurebuildersgroup.com
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  Lisa Carlin is a strategic execution specialists and co founder of future builders group, a network of organizational development specialists. Lisa started her career with McKinsey and a center since 1999. She has worked directly with prestigious global clients to Australian corporations, global and high tech ventures. She works with leaders to turbocharge their transformation, projects and change. Lisa has an impressive track record, having successfully delivered and mentored clients through over 50 transformation programs. With an outstanding 96% success rate, far surpassing the average success rate reported in research, her passion now lies in scaling up implementation success, which led her to establish a membership Academy for professionals to implement business culture and digital transformation. Lisa also volunteers as the chair of an education not for profit organization. Lisa, thank you so much for joining me today. This is such a treat.
 
Lisa Carlin  02:25
Thank you, Leighann, for having me here. I'm really excited to chat to you today.
 
Leighann Lovely  02:29
So you are coming to me from a 15 hour difference in in time because you are halfway around the world writes, why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself where you're from and what you do.
 
Lisa Carlin  02:45
Sure Leighann Aussies, like to like to joke with the with the eanx that were in the future, we're ahead. Because it's, it's Thursday morning here when it's a Wednesday afternoon for you. And so. So, there you go. So I actually started out in Cape Town, South Africa. So at the bottom of southernmost tip of Africa, that's where I grew up. And I grew up in the apartheid era. And that has actually sort of framed that guilt that's associated with being a white, South African and apartheid age, has actually framed who I am, and and what I do. So because I was part of a in my teenage years, and then through to university, part of a multicultural organization. And we used to, you know, for me, it's all about the respect of people. And that's what we didn't have in society in respect of different people. And then that organization was banned by their Patek government when they declared a state of emergency on anything that they're considered disruptive to the regime. And so that whole experience of, you know, I remember going to university and, and opening up the newsletter. And one of my colleagues, Paul, who was one of our friends in the in the group was arrested. And at the time you were arrested without a trial. And without any, you could be detained indefinitely. And we never found out what happened to him. And to this day, I don't know what happened to him. And, you know, it was just like, all of a sudden, these people who were there were just gone. And so, and Paul was a person of color, which made it even worse, you know? So, so for me, I have a very strong value about respectful people and giving people a voice. And that's what it's all about what I do. So I moved. I worked for Accenture for a while I then worked, went to the US and worked for McKinsey. I came to Australia, I'm gonna cut a very long story short, and I do love it here, and the lifestyle in Sydney, and the weather. And, and I studied here again and then I, I, in 1989 started my own business. And I've, I've put all the learnings I've had together into implementing change and executing strategies in organizations through like large scale programs of improving sales, improving customer service, improving, you know, performance in business, all of those sorts of things. And in the last few years, I've started doing more mentoring more and more over the years doing more and more mentoring of the executives and the leaders and the teams rather than doing the work on the ground myself. And because what I'm trying to do is, is create a massive improvement in the success rates of transformation. And, and I believe it can be done in this Win Win kind of way. So the problem is that, you know, you look at McKinsey's research, and they say 70% of, of transformations fail, and when I use the word transformation very loosely, so it could be any kind of change in organizations, and, and Harvard Business Review last year cited that 78% of these organizational initiatives fail. And so I know, it's crazy.
 
Leighann Lovely  06:38
Why. So why do you think that is?
 
Lisa Carlin  06:44
So I've looked at the reasons and they give lots, you know, the different studies will show lots of reasons, and they'll show reasons, like, you know, disagreement, you know, at the executive level around what should be done, they'll, they'll show reasons, like I said, boils down to people, they'll show reasons, like, ran over budget, hugely under done in the timeframe. But when you boil a lot of those reasons down, they're all to people, right? Because they're all because of people because if you don't implement something within budget, it's because it's because of people, if you don't implement something within time, it's because people aren't reaching agreements on things. And that's what I found to be the biggest issue. So I read the research, and I've experienced it on the ground. And I can see that it's because people are not on the same page about things. And so, so this is where my passion is, is around. And I've done over 50 transformations, I've got to clear failures. And so that's 96% in the success rate, so I feel very proud of that. And I want to spread this, and that's what my mission is now because it's a win win win, right? It's a win for the organization in terms of my approach, it's because they're getting the performance lift from these initiatives. It's a win for the people who are delivering the change, because their careers just, you know, multiply out amazingly after this and flourish. And it's a win for the rest of the people in the organization because it gives them a voice. And because that is the way that i i Is that is my approach is just is around that is around giving people in the organization, a voice which creates that momentum for these initiatives, and then you don't land up with being stuck. Right.
 
Leighann Lovely  08:37
That's amazing. And so, let me there's a lot for me to touch on here. So let me start with one. Where were you started? Where you grew up? That Wow. I mean, there's there's so much that I could so many questions that I could ask about that. How long were you? How long were you there? And when did you move? Your next move was to the US or? Yes, yes. Okay. And at what age did you move to the US?
 
Lisa Carlin  09:14
So I moved to the US in my 20s 1994 which was an interesting year because that was the year Mandela came to power.
 
Leighann Lovely  09:24
So wow, so you had your entire childhood growing up in an environment that was very almost unknown difficult and, and lost friends to unknown places. While we I mean, being arrested for and just scooped up and never to be seen again? Because it might in my right.
 
Lisa Carlin  09:56
Yeah, like I I remember clearly where I was. I was and I was sitting in the university cafeteria. And I opened the newsletter. And then Paul's face was, and yeah, and I never saw him again. So, and then I had this pressure from my family to not be involved in any, anything that could be considered anti apartheid because feminists, you know, you've got blacklisted and they will, you know, right, people were arrested. So they I remember, my mother was so concerned at one stage, she went to go talk to my school principal, to try and unravel me from and I wasn't doing anything violent, or all we were doing, it was a multicultural, it was a cultural focus,
 
Leighann Lovely  10:47
right? Yeah. So that obviously has, like you said, shaped your beliefs and the desire to help and change the way that people view and see. Society, I mean, the making things more inclusive and accepting, and I'm not trying to talk for you. But I can only imagine what it would be. I don't want to say what it would be like, because I can't imagine what it would be like, but I can only imagine the influence in which that would have on not only a young person, but also somebody who is now you know, in, in university growing up and trying to make their way and trying to understand what is transpiring that has now shaped, you know, as you're in your 20s, now, shaping your view of the world and now entering into the US going into a completely different culture. And trying to make your way through through that, right. I mean, in the US has a completely different world, we're chaotic in a completely different way. I mean, I guess you could say, right, it's,
 
Lisa Carlin  12:09
Yeah, and I had an amazing experience there. And working for McKinsey was just, you know, just an amazing experience. And just such a huge, a huge culture shock, you know, right and going from, you know, yeah, just, you know, some days you'd see there would be a riot or one of those armored vehicles would be enter the, you know, the white suburbs, because we grew up in different, you know, I couldn't even the friends that I met, at one stage, I was doing Junior Achievement, which is American Junior program, entrepreneurial program for high school students, and, again, multiracial. So very few things growing up that you could do that were multiracial, and I love diversity of people, I find that fascinating. And so I guess, to go for anything, where we, you know, I could just learn and meet different people. And we couldn't go to restaurants and to movies or the beach or anything like that together, because they will segregated. And so they had kind of fought through, well, let's keep all these people of different colors separately. And it was really hard, and even visiting each other's houses were difficult, because we all lived in different areas very far from each other. So it made it all quite different. And then going from that, to the US where everything is just, yeah, just just interesting. It's just, it's so different. It's so different. And yeah, and you know, the whole consulting lifestyle is so different, you know, you get on a corporate plane and you go out or even, you know, regular plane and you go off for the day to do your work somewhere and then fly and fly it. No, it's a very, it's quite a it's an exciting life, but in a different way.
 
Leighann Lovely  13:56
Correct? Yeah. And again, you can say chaos in a different way. You go from one place where it's completely segregated, struggling to navigate how to I mean, you can't you can't show any political affiliation. You can't, or you know, God forbid, talk about that in public. And then you come to the US where you have people and this is in what year
 
Lisa Carlin  14:23
in the 90s
 
Leighann Lovely  14:24
in the 90s. Okay, so it's not as crazy, you know, not as crazy then. Well, you probably equally deemed as crazy then as it is now, because every year I suppose we say that, Oh, this is the craziest year, you know, but it really wasn't quite as crazy then as it is now, probably just in a different way. But yeah, absolute culture shock. Now you have, I mean, we are still some cities are extremely segregated. Others are not at all what city did you did you move to again?
 
Lisa Carlin  14:56
Well, here's the thing. It was Atlanta. So that's a whole interesting story in it. So, okay, yeah, yeah. So it was still then fairly conservative. And so yeah, yeah. And in fact, more conservative than the environment that I grew up in, funnily enough, because I grew up in a very liberal family and a very liberal community. Right. So that was again, a shock
 
Leighann Lovely  15:20
Very interesting. Very interesting. Okay. So now, all right, so I've focused on that now you have now lived in the US, you've had some great experiences at some amazing companies, and then you make your way to Australia. When did you do that? And why and you talk about the weather. I wish that I knew what the weather there felt like I've never been, but when did you make that move? And, you know, you opened your business, you said the year 1999? Yes. Okay. So you are now the co founder and director of future builders group, where you facilitate workshop, mentor CEOs, and much more, you opened that business in 1999. And did you open it after you had arrived to Australia,
 
Lisa Carlin  16:15
I did my MBA, I worked for a year and a half for a culture change organization. And then I started working on my own. So it was all very, it was quick two years in the US to two years MBA full time that, so, so what, and then I worked on my own. And then 10 years ago, we found that the future builders brand as a whole, there's so many as you nollie, and so many independent consultants out there, and it gets kind of lonely sometimes, especially when you've been in a big consultancy, and you know, what the resources are like, and that, you know, and the learning that you can have from other people. So we created the future builders brand, which is an umbrella for a group of independent law parties. It's a boutique organization for independent organizational development specialists, basically. So and that's been lovely, and I've got amazing colleagues. So the whole idea is that we can do work that we enjoy doing, and not worry about having to get people utilized on to jobs, because, you know, there's no permanent employees. So the objectives are more aligned with the clients, you know, you're there to do the client work, right. So that's, that's what we did. And then I've been working at this. And now I just feel like, I want to make more of an impact. It's not enough just to do one or two or three or four jobs a year with clients or mentor, you know, small handful. I want to make more of an impact. And that's why I founded turbocharge your transformation, membership.
 
Leighann Lovely  17:51
So tell me in something you said, entrepreneurship is the loneliest place in the world. By by all means, you didn't say that. But you had made a comment about entrepreneurship can be can be lonely. And I just want to say that for my audience. entrepreneurship can be the loneliest place in the world, because you are or you're on your own. So having a group something like you would just kind of said, it's okay to be an independent, but find your people work with your people. And I love I love that I you know, it's a group of you said independence that we're in now, tell me about this most recent turbo charge, say that again, turbocharge your transformation, turbocharged transformation, I want to say so sorry, go ahead. I said, I want to hear about this.
 
Lisa Carlin  18:41
So I was actually quite excited. Because last week, when I typed in turbocharger transformation, we came up top in the Google search. That's how that happened. So it's an online academy. And there's, you know, since COVID, that's probably been the biggest change in terms of people just moving to do things digitally, that they didn't do before. So things like shopping and hybrid work and online learning. And so And the amazing thing is that the world has become a smaller place. So the entrepreneurs listening to this, you know, you can have, you know, build relationships with people across the ocean, like Leanne and I are talking today. It's so it's so easy. And it's so interesting, because you learn, it just gives you different ideas and perspective on things. And, you know, we now have a worldwide marketplace where things were many things. So that global, you know, global cohorts become more important. So what this Learning Academy is, is it's for professionals who are delivering projects, and any kind of change. And so, you know, small businesses will be doing that because they focused on growth, so they need to change so The terminology is a bit different, because entrepreneurs will think about, you know, how am I going to get growth in this business? How am I going to get my startup established? How am I going to, you know, build my audience and my my customers and get product market fit. And then and then go from there. larger organizations who've got that fit, who are more much more mature at different stages. And I've got a model that sort of looks at the pathway for for success for transformation success. And the top of the five at the top of the triangle is this unicorn middle piece, which is, you know, the Nirvana where we all want to get to where everything's in perfect fit, right. And so and so people will be at different stages there. But they're all having to implement projects to deliver this growth. And that's what the turbocharger transformation is about, is about how do you turbocharged those projects, those initiatives to be able to implement things faster? And more successfully? And it's all yeah, sorry, go? Have you seen that I'm gonna keep talking over and not even give you a chance to write the word and because I'm so excited,
 
Leighann Lovely  21:07
And this is what we You had mentioned before, when I when I asked you why, why do other programs, programs not succeed, and you said people, and the people are the ones who are getting away of the amount of time it takes, possibly the amount of money that it takes. So you've implemented a program that will allow it to work faster, more efficiently, so that we're not wasting time on decision making on? And that's what it sounds like, am I correct?
 
Lisa Carlin  21:41
Exactly. So it's all through a cultural behavioral lens. So it's, it's like a mixture between a project management program and a change management program and a behavioral program? Because
 
Leighann Lovely  21:57
So do you do some type of like assessments upfront to look at the behavioral piece first to understand or is that something that's built in?
 
Lisa Carlin  22:08
So I have an assessment called the transformation success score. And that's actually free. And it's on my website, in fact, right at the bottom of our homepage, so WWW dot future builders group.com. And the transformation success score measures the confidence measures your confidence against a number of different dimensions of execution. Right? So how do you do the design of what you what you know, of what you plan in, which is basically a strategic lens? How do you plan out things? You know, how do you influence people, you know, like leaders, or if you're in a large businesses will be how do you influence your leaders, in a in a, if you're in a smaller business, you might have a board of directors that you've got to influence whoever you know, influence your people. So it's all of those sorts of insights measures that, and then you get a percentage score. And then you can do it along the along the way on the program. So you know, after sort of a few months, or six months, and it's all about confidence, it's self assessment, and it measures your confidence, because that is that most, that is the biggest factor that is going to determine people's effectiveness, everything else, you know, you can learn all of these things. And that's what this program teaches. And then it's how confident are you to, to do these things. And I believe measurement is so important, because then it just gives you absolute clarity. So at the beginning, and then along the way, and it's a membership. So it's not one of these one hit wonders, where you go off and do a learning program, and then you forget everything afterwards. It's a membership. So you come in. So every month is a different topic. Our topic this month is turbocharged with AI. And last month, that was culture friendly implementation. So every month is different. And then we have a masterclass
 
Leighann Lovely  23:58
and up, do people get to write, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna start putting my finger up. So do people get to, like, choose like, yes, I want to participate in this one? Or is it just here are the topics that we're going to cover throughout, you know, the next 12 months or you know, are there different? And again, every single one that you listed there is is wildly one interesting and important. Ai right now is on everybody's mind. Anywhere everywhere you go, it doesn't matter. You walk into a room and you hear somebody talking about oh, AI GP chat or whatever it might be, you know, AI, you know, I have an AI tool that I use in my business. So that's wildly important. So how do you guess how do you get are these live trainings are these how do they go through the program?
 
Lisa Carlin  25:00
Great questions. So every month is a different topic. And you can attend live zoom sessions, and they timed for the US audience as well as Australia. So it's, so if you're in Europe zone, it people would then they would participate asynchronously. Right? Okay. Because if all the sessions are recorded, so you have a one hour masterclass? Well, first you get your playbook. So every hour every month is a playbook. And it's an editable PowerPoint. So I give out my IP for people to use, they, they'll always templates in there that they can use straight away for planning their projects for, you know, checklists for things awkward, like easy to use one pages, it's all in PowerPoint, one page templates. And then, and then, so they get that two weeks before the master class, they do the master class, then they've got two weeks to try out the templates and have a think, right, and they can watch the recording again, if they want, and they can send me their questions. Or they can then come to a group coaching session that I have on zoom the fortnight later and ask their questions, and I just do it in a group setting.
 
Leighann Lovely  26:09
That's awesome. And I'm thinking, you know, the difference, you know, in time, so you're out? Yeah, I was gonna make a bad joke. So are you up at two o'clock in the morning with the US people? No, I'm bad. I'm sorry. I just I love I love this, this whole time difference thing, it's insane that you are literally in the future. Okay, bad joke. So, so each so one month that everybody has one month to digest all of this information, and then move on to the next topic. And then they have a month to go through and digest the next information. And they're able to, I'm assuming that you get emailed in, you know, email questions you get, you know, from other time zones, and, and that type of thing.
 
Lisa Carlin  26:58
Exactly. So that the reason why I ask people to email me questions, if they want to, is because they may not be able to make the session, right? Or, because some of these things are quite sensitive that people are doing and they don't want people to know other people to know that they're, you know, outsiders to know their strategies, or the fact that they're having a problem influencing their boss to go forward on a particular project. And they want to know, techniques, you know, practicals are very practical. So they give me the question. So one girl, one woman's gave me a question about because I've got a free newsletter as well. It's also called turbocharge your transformation, and it's on LinkedIn. And I get people to do the same, I get them send me questions, because and then in the newsletter, there was the Scott woman, and I called her Lucy, but it wasn't Lucy. And Lucy was having trouble with, you know, all the stakeholders in a very siloed culture. And so I could give the advice, I gave her advice to her in the newsletter. And I can do that I do that with the with the group coaching sessions. And nobody knows who's asked the question, right. And so when I change the name of the person, or you know, I just don't give that too much. People don't know who's and that the amazing thing is you look at it that Leone listen, and it could be you,
 
Leighann Lovely  28:14
right? What, if one person is asking a question, it is likely that somebody else in the world has that same question or is experiencing the same thing, because it's typically something that is happening at somebody else's organization is happening somewhere else, or has happened, or is going to happen? At another organization. That's the whole concept of learning together, trans transforming together, or, you know, shifting our, our cultural beliefs, and, you know, kind of trying to learn how to do best practices together. And then then providing feedback to the people who are training. Those of us who need to shift our thinking, right, the only way that the only way that anything changes is for people to want to admit that they're wrong, or to admit that they need help. And then be willing to listen and hear the advice of other people. You know, I can go and you hear this all the time, I could go to a conference, I can go to a summit I can go to every single day of my life, but if I'm not willing to hear what is being said, it will do me absolutely no good. And unfortunately, there are so many people who go there that will walk in that door and gain absolutely nothing or gain it for a day. And forget it after that and never look back at notes. Never reference it back. and never try to grow beyond that for a day. And I think that we're finally meeting people like you and coaches out there. And that are making an attempt to get the masses to realize that the only way we grow is through active listening and, and intentional action and change.
 
Lisa Carlin  30:30
Absolutely. And then try and trying it out. And that's what they do they try it out, they actually, yeah, they do that they make that change and try these things. Right. And that's the magic of it. Because imagine if you've got to the one of the sessions is a session on planning. But for people who've done project management training, it's still from a very different approach, because this is methodology agnostic. So it's like, you know, it's, it's, it's the psychology of how you go about planning and what you do with your plan. And it's a one page template. So yeah, it's, you know, it's so exciting, because people can try it out straight away. And you asked a really, do you want to ask another question before? You ask, you asked me a really interesting question about what happens, which I didn't answer fully, which is what happens, you know, if they if they're not as interested in that month's topic, or what happens with the month before? So you're a fractional sales leader? And that's what you know, I know you do so. So you probably, you'd look at me, what might my I love mentors, I believe everyone should have a mentor in what they do. I mean, all the Olympic athletes do people need mentors and what they're doing, I was like, you say, entrepreneurship is lonely, and, and business is lonely, and being in a big corporate is even lonelier. So my I have a sales mentor. And my sales mentor said to me, Lisa, when somebody joins, so if they join in, in in August, they should only get the August session, and then they get the sessions after that you don't want to give away all your IP, of all the things that came before because it's only 99 US dollars a month this membership, right? So for $99, you're getting all of the sessions before. And I thought about it, and I thought, Well, my purpose is not with this is not money. First, my purpose with this is to make a difference in the world to the implementation success rates. I mean, they are, you know, 70 plus percent failure is unacceptable. Yeah. And with startups and smaller business, it's like 90% Plus, so it's unacceptable. And that is my mission. So I have decided against all advice to keep the rest of the IP on the site and available. So if you come in on one month, we were doing AI and for some reason you are really, really don't want to do AI. And this is, you know, it's easy for the most non techie people. But anyway, then you can and your score in planning is really low, you can then go to the planning session, and start there, there's no order each set, each topic is independent of the others.
 
Leighann Lovely  33:14
And as a sales professional, you are giving away the house by doing this, and I'm sure that your sales coaches told you that, that you know, when they enter in you, you charge them for going forward, not for everything they missed. But again, it's your what I will say to every person I have ever worked with, ultimately, it's your baby, it's your business, you have to do at the end of the day, what you need to do to sleep at nights. But if I put my coaching hat on, I can only help you be as successful as you will allow me to help you be if that makes sense. Absolutely. So, you know, if if somebody comes and says I want to make a million dollars, well, okay, then I'm going to be a hard line. This is how you're going to do it. You can't give, give away your products. I would say absolutely don't do that. They're going to have to stay until that product comes up through the, you know, to the next session. But it's your baby. It's your passion. It's your product, and what whatever goals you have are 100% yours and yours alone. And that's that's the difference between being an employee and being an entrepreneur, you get to call the shots. And the reason that most entrepreneurs start their business is not because they're like I want to Be A Millionaire. There are plenty of them out there that want that started because they want to be a millionaire. But most of them have a passion and have a desire to not work for somebody else, so that they have the ability to call their shots and make decisions that somebody else keeps shoving down their throat. There's, there's my
 
Lisa Carlin  35:25
and that's why I, you know, the clients that I mentor, I, I sometimes run sessions for them and their team, instead of a mentoring session, I'll say, come bring your team in. And we'll do purpose, right, we'll cover we'll have an hour and a half. And we'll develop a purpose statement because some of them don't have it really clear. And I think that should guide you know, whether you're a, you know, a 20 person business or a 10 person business, or 1000 person business or 120,000 person business, and I've worked for all you know, that range. If you've got a purpose statement that can guide, what you're doing, then it's authentic, because yeah, and that's why businesses have some businesses like Canva that are so mission based, it's amazing. Space, right. That's why Yeah.
 
Leighann Lovely  36:16
And I would say that the majority of businesses that started with a, a true purpose and passion are the businesses that have grown and thrived. The ones that started with here, I have this product that I'm not passionate about it, but I just want to go in and sell it are the ones that really struggled because they don't, they don't understand how to explain the ROI to the people, when you have a passion, a purpose, it's so much easier to be authentic. And explain here is how this is going to help you. This is why it's going to be able to make an impact on you, your business, your life. And you clearly you clearly have you have that, which means that when you talk about it, I can see you light up, I can see the smile. And that in itself is huge. Because people people know authenticity from a mile away.
 
Lisa Carlin  37:30
It's amazing how much energy is going Emilian like I feel, you know, more energized, and I work longer hours at the moment than I have in my entire life. And I'm loving it.
 
Leighann Lovely  37:44
And and if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life.
 
Lisa Carlin  37:49
Because I don't feel like I'm working Correct. Yeah.
 
Leighann Lovely  37:54
Right. Yeah. Right. And, and that's, that is why that is why people like you and me do what we do and hundreds of 1000s of other people out there, because are you really working? Or are you just, you know, fulfilling, fulfilling your bucket, you know, filling up your cup. And, you know, I talked about a previous guest of mine talked about, you know, filling up that cup, if you're doing something every day that you have to constantly be battling to keep that cup full, you're probably not doing something that you should be doing. You have to, and if what you're doing is already fulfilling that and you're finding balance and you're finding that fulfillment in it, then you're in the right place. And you You mean you do you have a an amazing, it sounds like an amazing business product, people around, you know, you're the co founder. So you you have you know, a partner that I'm assuming is just as passionate.
 
Lisa Carlin  39:07
So I'm the co founder of future builders, which is our community, right? And then within it, I am the founder of this. So I've got as a result, I've actually got an amazing group of colleagues around me who are just, you know, are there to help and support and mentor me so I don't feel like I'm on my own at all.
 
Leighann Lovely  39:31
That's great. And
 
Lisa Carlin  39:33
I can't explain to you the the excitement that I get when these initiatives that we build the momentum in organizations, it is just and now I can do it on scale, because I can teach other people those skills and I can tell you a story a story about that. If you want to know which one do you want to cover next I, okay, well, this is an example of a business that was actually not doing well at all. And it was in a division of a big organization. And the executive manager was not happy about how the performance was going. And so he asked me to go in and bring a team and, and help them. And that meant the manager of the unit, and the team. And when I got there, I saw reports that three other consultancies had done. And they all said roughly the same thing of what this team should do. But none of the things were implemented. And the teams were the team, the manager, and the managers, second in line, were very defensive, and did not were not happy with me being there. They felt like they were over consulted, they'd had three consulting teams, you know, they just did not want a fourth. And we had very unfriendly, quite hostile people. And what we did was we we worked with them to come up with an agenda, looking at what the consultants had recommended before, which were all interestingly, very similar. And what they thought about it, and what they thought the priorities were. And we we formed a joint team, and we use the design thinking principle of CO design or working with them together in a team, blended external folks and internal folks. And the engagement and appreciation was amazing, that, you know, we were lifting their skills and how to do a diagnosis of underperformance. And they were all and some of them were at very clerical levels as well. So it was just for them. They've never been exposed to this before. It's great. Now I tell you, Leanne, we things were going really well. So what I did, we had a progress review with it with the managers Manager, which is the executive who got me in upset head office. So I took the entire team, to that meeting, right through to the clerical people. We all got on the train together. And it was like, it's like, it's like the train system in Sydney is like the subway in New York, right? So we all got on. And we took the train up to head office where people hardly ever went into the boardroom. And I, you know, given everybody a cameo role to say, you know, contribute in some way. So it was slick, and it was tight. It wasn't like a, you know, a discussion that went on forever. So, they were so nervous on the train, because they'd never done this before. And that, you know, they hardly ever had any contact with the managers, the executive, the executive, the executive that I asked if these folks when I asked him, if these folks could come I was a little bit mystified that I would bring so many people to a meeting, right, but was great. He said, No problem. Sure. Yeah. It was amazing. I can't explain to you the, the buzz, you know, that interaction and the ownership that people had in what they were doing. They were empowered and on from there, they were empowered, and it was an amazing success. You know, the, the project was an amazing success. And these people, you know, went on to have the confidence and skills to do other things. And our relationships with these people still stay on today. And that's the amazing thing. I mean, if you would have thought,
 
Leighann Lovely  44:06
well, when you when you give people who think they have no voice of voice for the first time, it is it is remarkable. What they will finally that mean, they will finally sing, they will finally come out of their shell and, and it's it's amazing what you can do when you when you empower somebody to do something that they already have in them. I've watched it with with other people I've had given to me before, I mean, early on in my career when I was very green and you know, having somebody who you know have authorities say well yeah, I want to hear you I want to hear what you think and you just go what why I mean I'm I'm just the but when you enable Tell them, it's it's amazing how they will come out of their shell and then want to do better. Because now they have been seen. That's all they want, they want to be seen and heard, and that you're lighting a fire under them have passion for a cause that they feel they are part of. Up until that point, it was just a place they showed up to. Exactly. It's wildly and
 
Lisa Carlin  45:30
yeah, they felt sometimes people feel quite powerless in organizations.
 
Leighann Lovely  45:37
It's it happens. It happens way more frequently than then businesses are willing to acknowledge that that employees just feel like they don't have a voice. And when they do step forward and say, Well, I've got a problem. And then it never goes anywhere and they never hear back. It reinforces that they don't have a voice. And that happens not on purpose. But because managers are often especially middle managers, who are given the complaints, go to their managers, and then their managers never get back to them. And then what are they supposed to do? And the upper management has no idea how, how much that is influencing that first tier, the middle management can see it. And they're struggling in the middle going, well. What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed? And they'll go back to their employer. Oh, sorry, I never heard back. And then that that first year is going well. Okay, so I'm not important. So yeah, it just it and it's a cycle that continues. And, Lisa, I would love to continue this conversation. We are coming to time already. So I have the question of the season. I've been asking everybody, I hope you had a glance at this. What do you think will go down in the history books from what the world has experienced over the last three years?
 
Lisa Carlin  47:10
So Leighann, I think it's all about digital and online. The you know, the changes that we've seen from the pandemic about people realizing they can work from home and be even more productive in some cases, but certainly as productive and moving to hybrid work, and doing things more in a more digital way, including, you know, online learning and upskilling themselves and shopping online and you know, doing more, more things online than ever before. It's just It's apparently that the tech experts say that we have through through just one year of COVID. We've done a 10 years, we've had 10 years of progress. And you know why I think that is interesting. It's interesting, because the technology was always there. Right? And it was the behavior of people and the adoption of people that wasn't you know, that has changed. That's what's made the difference? Yeah, it's cultural. It's a cultural, massive global cultural shift.
 
Leighann Lovely  48:13
Absolutely. I totally agree. If somebody wanted to reach out, how would they go about getting in contact with you.
 
Lisa Carlin  48:21
I would love to hear from folks. You can get ahold of me directly through LinkedIn, and also through our future builders group.com website. So thank you for asking the end. Perfect. And
 
Leighann Lovely  48:34
that will be on the show notes. So you can check the show notes. If you are looking to reach out to Lisa, I really appreciate you joined. Joining me today. This has been such an amazing conversation. I wish that we had more time to dive in to other you know, conversation or other topics. But again, thank you so much for joining me and you have a wonderful rest of your Thursday. Thank you, Leanne. Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
transformation, grew, people, organization, business, work, amazing, sessions, month, mentor, program, day, lisa, success rate, initiatives, year, question, world, learning, builders

After learning so much in her amazing career at CVS Health through managing and hiring others Jennifer pivoted her career. Jennifer Chavez advocate of women, especially veteran women, owns her own recruitment firm where she helps them transition from military life to civilian life by finding positions at companies that are veteran-ready. This is an amazing story and an amazing women.
 
Contact Jennifer –
Phone Number - 623-387-8995
E-mail - jchavez@grnmoonvalley.com
Website – grnmoonvalley.com/
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  I have a great guest joining me today Jennifer Chavez. Jennifer is the president and Managing Director of Global recruiters network of Moonee Valley. Global recruiters of Moon Valley's expertise includes recruitment of executive and professionals across the United States in the our B M, healthcare services and Senior Living industries in management, financial operations, sales and project management roles as well as expertise in public speaking, consulting, and training services. As a senior health executive at CVS Health for more than 23 years across multiple sectors of the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry. She was responsible for leading client teams of all sizes and achieved significant success through developing and sourcing high performing talent. Serving as a volunteer Jennifer founded the Phoenix chapter of Next up formerly network of Executive Women, led their logistics team and recruited and developed volunteers for the last 10 years. Jennifer also grew up working in the restaurant business and is the wife of a chef. She is also the granddaughter, daughter, niece and mother of military veterans, and has served as a champion for attracting hiring and retaining women and veterans throughout her career. As a result of her work across these disciplines, Jennifer understands how critical matching exceptional talent to amazing employers is. Her goal is to leverage her knowledge, expertise and deep network to help candidates and companies achieve similar success with creating and retaining high performing teams. Whether you're a company that needs help finding the right person for a tough to fill role, or you're a candidate looking to find the right home, GRN Moon valleys is a maker of matches TM across the expertise to make a meaningful and lasting talent connection. GRN Moon Valley is a maker of matches. TM has the expertise to make a meaningful and lasting talent connection. Jennifer, welcome to the show. I'm excited to have you.
 
Jennifer Chavez  03:30
Thanks so much, man. I appreciate you having me.
 
Leighann Lovely  03:32
Yeah, so why don't we jump right in? Why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself?
 
Jennifer Chavez  03:36
Sure, absolutely. So first of all, kind of start with one of the unique things about me. And that's that I'm a second generation Phoenix native. And I actually have two boys that are third generation natives. So they're 17 and 24. They keep me busy. My husband who is a chef. I've been married to almost 30 years, and we're huge foodies. So that's something we like to do in our spare time. And he's originally from California. So we've have a place in the California mountains and we also have a place and of course the Arizona desert and we go between them. So I'm really lucky I consider myself lucky. Yeah,
 
Leighann Lovely  04:15
well that's amazing because what Arizona summers are what temperatures do you guys get to
 
Jennifer Chavez  04:20
when Oh 120 121 I think it's the high gets a little crazy in summertime. So once in a while
 
Leighann Lovely  04:32
it's so crazy you know obviously being Milwaukee you know Wisconsin whether we all summer comes in we're all like Oh let's spend every second outside. And for you guys summer comes in you're like oh my god don't go outside. You know you're
 
Jennifer Chavez  04:48
It's the rest of the year when everyone else is inside that we're out.
 
Leighann Lovely  04:53
Right right you guys are you have absolutely beautiful of course. Of course. You know I remember And I have an aunt who lives in Arizona. And I would come in the I would go visit her in the in the winter and she'd be outside wearing big fun of her. She, there was one year where my entire family who's not from Arizona, we went and visited her right. And we're all outside wearing T shirts and shorts. And she had, she had a fur coat on. I'm like, What are you doing? And she's like, it's so, so cold. I'm like, it's like 70 degrees. And she's like, I know, it's so cold. I'm like, Oh, my God. But you get a little too acclimated
 
Jennifer Chavez  05:41
maybe, right,
 
Leighann Lovely  05:43
you get you get acclimated to your, you know, I'm sure that if you came and spent, you know, a week in in the tundra, when we are in the deep, deep freeze, you'd be like, get me out of here.
 
Jennifer Chavez  05:58
Well, I have family from Minnesota. So I look then in the deep freeze in the tundra, but I try not to do it too often.
 
Leighann Lovely  06:05
Right? You go outside and instantly your nose hairs freeze, because did I just say that? But it's a real thing. It really, it's you walk outside just the small amount of moisture in your nose and nasal passages. And you're instantly like, oh, oh, it's too cold must go inside must cover every piece of skin that is exposed. But yeah, no. And that's awesome. So you get to go to California during the during the summer, I'm assuming?
 
Jennifer Chavez  06:39
Yes, absolutely.
 
Leighann Lovely  06:41
So Jennifer, why don't we go back to what you do for a living? We now know where you live? Where are you? You know, go back and forth between California and Arizona. Let's talk about you know, what do you do? What's your business?
 
Jennifer Chavez  06:58
Sure. Yeah, thanks for asking me. And so after 23 years, stellar career at CVS Health, I had a career pivot and had to really, you know, evaluate things and take some moments to soul search and figure out what did I want to do, and I and I did that. And I really decided to bet on myself. And I bought a recruiting franchise. And really, this is the culmination of what I've done over 23 years, I have been a leader at a fortune four company. I have interviewed, hired, trained, recruited, mentored, led 1000s and 1000s of people, and I have so much passion for just helping people achieve and be their best. And so all of the aspects that come along with recruiting is really just everything that I absolutely love to do. So that's what I decided just bet on myself and make that happen. And it's been amazing. And I've met so many wonderful, amazing people, and I get to help people in a meaningful way every day. So that's great.
 
Leighann Lovely  08:02
That's awesome. That is, that is absolutely awesome. It is. It is scary, though, to take that leap. So how did you finally decide? How did you finally decide? I'm going to I'm going to do this, and I'm going to, you know, wholeheartedly throw myself into entrepreneurship.
 
Jennifer Chavez  08:25
Right? Well, I guess the best way to say it is that, you know, sometimes things happen for a reason. And I truly believe that. And I think that had after my career pivot. And I really was genuinely trying to say, what do I want to do in career 2.0 and explore that? You know, after 23 years, I really never saw myself being in that position. So I definitely was having a bit of an identity crisis and trying to figure that out. Like, I've done this for almost 25 years, oh, my gosh, what do I do next? And so when I really took that moment to, to invest in myself, and really soul search and think about what that is, it kind of came to me through two ways. First of all, when I was doing that, and working towards those things, and considering them, I was super excited. And there was a lot of it was scary, but it was also fun. And when I thought about, you know, doing some of the things that I had done, you know, previously, it really just didn't feel like the right thing to do. So some of it was instinct, but very honestly, had I really gotten an excellent, great job and the time period when I was searching, I probably would have gone back. I mean, honestly, it was fear. Fear was really like I've done this for so long, you know, on somebody else's dime, doing it on my own Can I do it? And I really had to dig deep and my resources of myself and say, I know I can do this. I've got this. I've done it for them. I can do it for other people. And I had a lot of great encouragement from some wonderful friends and mentors, who said, This is what you're born to do. You were meant to do this, this is absolutely your life's path, you need to be helping people in this way. So a confluence of those three things is really what led me to that decision. And I really feel like God probably had a hand in that. Sometimes your prayers are answered by them not being answered.
 
Leighann Lovely  10:27
That's amazing. So tell me a little bit about well, actually, before we get into that, when you and I first spoke, I know that one of your passions, you know, first of all, you and I connected on so many different levels. It was just an amazing, you know, first meeting first con, you know, conversation. But you had mentioned that you really focus on helping women, women, that trends transition into the civilian world. Yeah, I want to talk about that, because it's, it's so amazing, because the majority of the people who I have worked with who understand one, veterans, right, and then understand the staffing and hiring world have come to truly understand the difficulty that that exists with translating, you know, a military job. Yes, into this the civilian world? Because, you know, when you talk about an MOS, yeah, job title there. Yes, it doesn't exist. Right? It doesn't know. And so, so many people get overlooked. Fes Yes, for for jobs.
 
Jennifer Chavez  11:52
Absolutely. And I will tell you that this really came to my attention very clearly. Because my son is in the military, and he's a veteran now. But when he was in the military, at the very same time, my company at the time, CVS, was doing training for their leaders, they we had great diversity and inclusion programs. And military was a huge focus. And I was part of our colleague, resource group that supported military, I have a lot of military family members. And before I even knew my son was considering a military career, that was a whole left field decision for him that I wasn't expecting, but I was supportive of him doing it. And, you know, it's been a pretty amazing learning experience for me as an Army mom. And really, you know, at the same time getting all of that training and understanding very clearly as a hiring leader at a very big company, what the huge gap was, and why I didn't really understand why those things were difficult to translate until I had experienced it myself. And so that really kind of clicked for me at the time, like, wow, there is really a lot of experience that get in the military, that it's really hard to translate into the civilian world, and sometimes hard for people to understand, if you haven't experienced it, the resiliency and the discipline and the you know, so many wonderful leadership qualities that are just absolutely, that's the whole military program is, you know, that is all the training and everything that everybody gets for the entire military. And you might have a specialty your MOS and things like that, that you learn a particular job. But that, and there's value in that too. But there's so much of you know, what the military teaches that is just really awesome for business, how to be on time every day. Start there. It's an I talk to people every day. So I talked to both individuals, candidates, and I talked to clients. And so it's, they really need each other women and veterans and those two things coming together. It's just one of those things that I'm I can see the need. And I love helping people and I can help bridge that gap and bring people together. And when I do, it's amazing. And you know, so I'm just super passionate about it. And I definitely seek out and promote and try to help as many people that I can.
 
Leighann Lovely  14:32
Yeah, and, you know, something that you said in there, you know, how to be on time, how to, how to show up and, and show up in a manner that is appropriate to work. Right. You know, you can't just you can't just stumble in the door. You know, right, tired and non productive and expect to before your day. Right, ready for your day? You know, and I'm flashing back to the days where I was in my 20s were like, Yeah, well, I'm here. Why? Why? I'm, what do you mean? I'm in trouble I showed up today. It's like, Well, you look like you rolled out of bed and you can barely keep your head, uh, you know, up off your desk, that's not exactly showing up. You know, you're physically here. Right. And that brings me, you know, to a, you know, a while ago, I was I was working with an organization that helped men and women who were transitioning out of jail, or out of band. And that was one of the things that they were teaching was how to set an alarm clock. So that they could get out of Secretary Smith. Yeah, it is. But for somebody who's been in prison for, say, five years,
 
Jennifer Chavez  16:03
they're institutionalized. They everything is controlled for them. Correct.
 
Leighann Lovely  16:07
So if you have a military, you know, somebody who's in the military, the idea of being late for them is not it's not an option. Right? It's that's not that's not even.
 
Jennifer Chavez  16:22
You can't on time as expected,
 
Leighann Lovely  16:25
correct. There is no being late. Yeah. And punishment for being late in the military is it's a big deal. Severe. Correct. So the core values just instilled in a military personnel are through the roof compared to other individuals. But there is a learning curve when it comes to working with somebody who is transitioning from military to civilian world, because the majority of unless you're in a high ranking position, all of the job duties, all of they are handed out, you are told here is your job here is the end result here, there is no there is no in between for that person to make decisions. And that is that is what is difficult for companies to understand.
 
Jennifer Chavez  17:29
Right? Right. Chain of Command following orders and not using judgment. Yes, there are times when the in their jobs when they need to use judgment. But from an assignment perspective, they don't want them to they just want them to do exactly what they're told. Right. And so it is it definitely those nuances are really important. And that's so thank you so much for understanding that and for bringing it up and highlighting it. And we're going to be doing a training session in September. And it's going to be actually on September 27. And it is sponsored by myself, as well as my partner in crime, Lieutenant Colonel Kathy galatz. She is a Vanguard veteran, and leads women who lead that I'm a part of, and she's just amazing. But she's invited me to come help share my recruiting expertise with the audience and really help train people on onboarding, hiring retaining veterans. And part of that is exactly what you talked about. It's what is the culture onboarding and ongoing process that you have to assimilate veterans into a civilian kind of environment and helping them make that transition successfully. And they are very adaptable, and they can definitely learn, but they just need a little bit of help to make that transition. And so companies who really make the effort to do that can reap so many great rewards from it. And so I'm super excited about it, and will provide additional details on how to get tickets to the event. But I just so passionate about being able to deliver this information to companies and individuals
 
Leighann Lovely  19:17
now is this is this event live or is it virtual? How?
 
Jennifer Chavez  19:22
That's a great question. It's actually both we're gonna do it in person at the Mac sex Entrepreneurial Center in Tempe, Arizona, and they have generously donated the space for us to be able to provide that. And also we are going to be doing that from an online presence as well so people can attend online. So it really opens up the ability for people to be able to attend. So if you want some in person networking, come join us in person if you'd like to be able to attend online. We will be doing that too. So right September 20. statements from eight to 11.
 
Leighann Lovely  20:01
Yeah, that's and that's awesome. Because, again, you know, the the failure rate of veterans transitioning into roles is so high and that, and I, I've asked so many people, why is that? Why is it and, and I get I get different answers. But one of the answers that always stands out is because it comes down to the feet fear, it comes down to the company ends up fearing that they don't want to. They're afraid of offending. Right, that veteran like, well, I don't want to go to them and tell them, you know, you're supposed to be doing it this way. Because, you know, they served in the army they should or not, aren't they served in the military? You know, like, I feel like if I'm, it's almost like, well, just because they served doesn't, right, they understand your job, you have to train them, just like any other person. And in some cases even more, because they've lived in an environment where there was no black. No, there was no gray, it was black. And it was white. Right? Here are your instructions, follow them to a tee, do not color outside the lines. Right period. You're asking them to make independent decisions. And that is not the lifestyle they have ever lived. Right? So now you, you know, and and companies are like, Well, yeah, but if I go there and say, Well, you got to do it differently. Am I going to offend this veteran who is, you know, such an amazing human for doing what they've done, and they should know better? And know, you're not going to offend? do offend the other employees when you go and say, Hey, do this different?
 
Jennifer Chavez  22:00
Right. You know, it's so interesting about that comment. And I've had a little bit of an aha moment, as I've been working with Kathy, and part of the what we'll deliver to the attendees at the event, is a checklist that kind of helps, like, what are some of those things that you can do real practical solutions to put things in place? But I guess, you know, from that standpoint, you know, when you are asking anybody to your point, to do something at your company, what I learned when I read through the checklist was, these are just best practices for any person. And so what works for any human being works for a military person, you have rules, you have guidelines, you have expectations, you communicate them to your team, and then you help them achieve their goals and expectations by being a great leader and helping them with resources. So that's really all it is. And I think it's just a lot of people don't know, and because they don't understand, I think it does lead to that fear. So I think you're right on.
 
Leighann Lovely  23:01
Right. But that's not unique to veterans. No, it is, it isn't. I mean, I think that the majority of our decision making comes down to a couple of things fear, unknown, you know, the unknown, uncommon, uncomfortableness, which all really falls into the same bucket. It all comes down to emotions on how is this going to make me feel? Am I going to make somebody else feel? I mean, that that's what it is where people so it all comes down, it all boils down to emotion. And then of course, there's another bucket, which is the money bucket. How much is this going to cost me? And can I afford it? Yes. I mean, there's not a whole ton of buckets on when it comes to decision making. There's right? I mean, it's pretty simple.
 
Jennifer Chavez  23:54
What I find fascinating about the human brain that I think a lot of people don't understand, everyone thinks that you when you make decisions that your mate using logic, decision base is always emotion. And so we just have to know that and know that we're emotional creatures. And you know, you have to manage your emotions and you have to manage emotions in the workplace. And everybody's responsible for doing that for themselves. But as a leader, you have an extra responsibility to help people. And so all that's normal, that's just part of being human. So we just have to help each other out. Right?
 
Leighann Lovely  24:27
Yeah, absolutely. You know, as a sales professional on top of, you know, my audience knows that I have now transitioned into being an entrepreneur, myself sales professional. I tell people constantly, people do not buy on logic, as much as you try to explain to them this is a really logic like, this is a logical decision. It's going to help your business. You're talking to a wall, you might as well be, you know, If they don't like you, they're not going to buy from you. They buy on emotion, justify on logic. Right? Exactly. And of story, it's same with, you know, you go to a clothing store, if you put something on that makes you feel beautiful. You are going to justify why you're spending that money. Even if you don't have it. When you get up to that register, you're going to find a way to justify it. Well, I, I need it or I, I, you know, I have to have this because, you know, then you go home and your husband or your wife is like, what are you doing? Well, I had to buy it because yeah, no, you didn't. Right. It's it's an emotional, why do you think that they put all of the you know, candy and the, you know, the quick, emotional? Oh, chocolate, that'll make me feel happy. At the restaurant, anyways. Okay, I digress. And I do all the time.
 
Jennifer Chavez  26:06
That's part of life. It's fun. Right? Take side side roads.
 
Leighann Lovely  26:10
So you had mentioned another organization that you're part of lead? What is the name of it? Women who lead women who lead? Yeah, so tell me. Tell me about that. More? Yeah.
 
Jennifer Chavez  26:27
Yeah. So women who lead is sponsored by Vanguard veteran, my friend, Kathy galettes. And what its mission is, is really to equip civilians, to support veterans, and specifically women in particular. And so this is a monthly meeting, it is free, and it is virtual, that really has different individuals that can come on and share some of the information that they have, from their perspective, to share with the audience. And as long as it supports the mission. There's all kinds of different topics that we talked about. So I'm actually going to be presenting on September 13, that women who lead and I'm going to talk about leading yourself through transitions. And so it's really it's for everybody, but really, it is also specifically some tips and tricks in there, for helping civilians on how they can support military individuals who are going through transition, whether they're coming out of the military, maybe their military spouse who's experiencing a transition, or you know, any number of other types of transitions and careers that people go through. But it's really just a great group of people that get together and share ideas and information about how to best help and support that community and get connected with other people who are like minded and additional resources. And so anyway, it's I can also share the information about how to get connected with that if anybody would like to, you know, check out the content and attend. It's free, and it's virtual. And it's also in person. So if you're in the Phoenix area, they have a monthly networking opportunity there as well.
 
Leighann Lovely  28:08
That's great. That's absolutely awesome. And it's in in you said it's also virtual, so anybody can join online. And that's yes, that's great. Yes,
 
Jennifer Chavez  28:18
all you have to do is register, and they send you the link to dial in from zoom and the information to attend in person. So it's your choice.
 
Leighann Lovely  28:28
Well, that's great. That's absolutely awesome. Yes. So I want to refocus. When you and I talked, you had mentioned something that I find Well, I find wildly fascinating because again sales and it's not just sales that you have to do this and there's many different fields that you have to do this in but for me, it's you know, sales and I I'm like a dog with a bone when it comes to this kind of stuff. But you had mentioned to me that you love to negotiate.
 
Jennifer Chavez  28:59
Yes,
 
Leighann Lovely  29:00
I have. I love like a negotiation battle with you. Because it's, you know, it gets my heart pumping like okay, how can I and again, not like an in a in a I was gonna say violent you know, I don't think there's violent negotiation but like in that in that sport way of like, okay, how can I you know, do that? Yeah, sure that competitive nature how can I do the best for my client if I'm negotiating on behalf of my client and in the recruiting industry? Obviously my background in recruiting one of the things I always used to explain to my candidates when when working with them was hey, you know, tell me what your what your base level like I can make it if I'm making this much money, what is your I would love to make you know this much is that's really a great number. What is your absolute like, this would make my life fabulous, I could go on and extra vacations. And then I would say, look, the more money you make, the more money I make. Right? But I also have to do right by my clients, right? And make sure that I'm not pricing you out of the market. And they're like, Oh, okay. And when you explain that to them, all the sudden they're like, Oh, so you're not the enemy. You're not going to try to undercut me? No, of course, I'm not going to try to undercut you. I want you to make as much as you possibly can. But you also can't price yourself out of the market so that they immediately go to the other candidate and say, Yeah, their way. They're asking for way too much. Absolutely. And then it was like, I'm ready to go. So tell me about your negotiation. Itch.
 
Jennifer Chavez  30:52
Yes. So I have always loved to negotiate. My parents taught me from an early age to negotiate. I'll explain a little My mom was a yard sale queen, and she absolutely loved yard saleing. And she would take me with her, I was very little. And I remember the first negotiation I ever did was at a yard sale. And I had $2 of allowance money that I had to spend. And I had seen two things that I wanted, there was a book and there was this cute little yellow sundress with a little jacket. And I just wanted that dress so bad. But I didn't have enough money for both so and went to my mom. And I was like, Well, you know, shout him to her. And she goes, Well, you have your allowance money. How much does it cost? And how much do you have? And so I was like, not enough. She's like, Well, why don't you go? She goes, the lady over there is running the yard. So why don't you go talk to her? And just ask her maybe if she would take us for it. Like, oh, how much should I offer her? She goes, Well, how much do you have? Anyway, I went and I talked to the woman. And so I tried to negotiate with her. And I ended up getting not only the dress, but the book for my $2. So I learned an important lesson that day, right? But it was she made it you know, fun. And it was an opportunity for me to learn in a pretty safe environment. But I kept practicing. And, you know, my dad was also used car salesman saw my first car and negotiated on my own with his assistants. So I'm just I've had that training and background. So that's kind of what spurred me to really just, I just do without thinking about it all the time. I negotiate everything, whenever I can, just because I love it right. And it's fun. Most people think it's more like going to the dentist. And so what I've learned is that 20% of women don't negotiate anything ever. Because they even feel that talking about it or even bring it up is just not something they're comfortable doing. And so I just have a super passion for helping people understand. All negotiating is is talking to someone and coming to an agreement mutually for something that you both want, right?
 
Leighann Lovely  33:16
You know, it's so funny, because let me see, I was I think I was 22. And I was driving down the highway, my car had been totaled, and then rebuilt at almost totaled. The front end had been been rebuilt. And and I knew it wasn't gonna last, but the insurance company wouldn't total it out. So I'm driving down the highway and my timing belt just broke. And instead of dropping out the bottom of the car, for some reason, it went up into the car. And if anybody knows anything about vehicles as they're listening to this, what happened was the car completely seized and the engine just basically. I mean, everything just started, you know, water squirting out and I'm like the car is done. There is no coming back. And to try to go back to an insurance company like this was probably a year and a half later, to try to go back and say, Well, this was from the original accident would have been a nightmare. I didn't have the funds to go and fight it. I didn't have right. Well, right down the street from me, probably about a mile and a half down the street. was a was a Ford shop and I was driving a Ford. I owed $263 in note $223.63 on that car. I quickly looked up how much I owed on the correct. So I called the dealership and I said can you come and tow my car to your dealership? And they said yeah, we can do that. And I'm like, thank you. They gave me because it was like right down the road and they were available they like they're like we're not going to charge you for it. And I was like, excellent. Basically, they said, We're not going to charge you for it. If you're gonna get it fixed, you're great. I get there. And I said, You know what, I'm not going to fix it, I'm going to junk it. And actually, I'm not going to junk it. The sales guy came up to me and I said, I'd like to talk to you about buying a car, and he goes, Okay, and I said, I'll do it today. But you have to give me $223 $223.63 For my car, and he goes, that's a really specific number. I said, Uh huh. And he goes, Why so specific? I said, because it's exactly what I owe for a car that will not drive sitting on your lot right now. And he goes, Oh, okay. He goes, What do you mean, it won't drive? I said, the engine is cease. Right? I said, it is undriveable. And it will never drive again. Right? I'm like, you basically have an engine block that is done. And he's like, how do I know that? And I'm like, because I've had this happen before. I've had a lot of crappy cars. Oh, no. And he's like, Well, we're gonna have the guys look at it and see what we can do. And I'm like, what you can do is strip it and sell it for parts or use it for parts, right? And he goes, Well, I don't know if if they're gonna, if if they'll pay you that for your car. That doesn't work. And I'm like, well, then I'll walk and I'll go buy a car somewhere else. And he goes, really? Over 200. Nice. Yep. over that.
 
Jennifer Chavez  36:30
And he feels principle of nothing.
 
Leighann Lovely  36:32
Exactly. It comes down to the principle of it. And I said, But in the meantime, I'm going to go look on your lot. And I'm going to find a car that I want. And I'm going to drive away with it today. If you agree to my terms. I found a car. I think they came down about to two or $3,000 on the sticker price. It was a brand new car. I mean, remember, this is years ago. And he goes, Okay, you know, we're going to offer you the $223.63 for your car. I got my finance manager to agree to it. I'm doing quotes right now, because the whole finance manager crap is just irritating. So, um, so you know, now we're negotiating the price of the new car. And I'm like, Well, I'm not going to pay the sticker price, you know, blah, blah, blah, and we go over that we go over that we sit down, he goes, Wow, you are really, really, really asking for a lot. And I said, I am not asking for a lot. So we get to the whole negotiation parties like Okay, so are you ready to sign in? I said, I actually not yet. I said, I know that you can throw in some free oil changes. And he goes, what? And I'm like, hot. Come on. This is not my first time. I know. I'm young. But this is not my first time buying your car. I said I bought this new car, like three years ago. And I'm like so and I had worked at a dealership. By the way. I had worked at a car dealership. Oh my goodness. So he goes, Okay, fine. We'll throw in some free car washes. And I said, Okay, so for a year to cover on my car, what not car washes, oil changes, right for a year, he covered all my oil changes, got a whole bunch of tickets for that so I can bring it back and get my oil changes. And then as I'm signing all the papers, he goes, God I feel like you're you're just basically robbing me blind. And I said no, robbing you blind would say I would be robbing you blind, I would tell you that you need to take the Ford shirt off that you're wearing. So I can walk up this walk out with some swag from Ford. And he started laughing. And he goes, I do have some swag. So I walked out of there with a brand new car. They paid off my other car. And he gave me some swag and oil changes.
 
Jennifer Chavez  38:40
Oh my gosh, that's awesome. I'm going after my own heart. Right.
 
Leighann Lovely  38:44
And I've been I was only like, 20 I don't know what year is that? That had to have been like 2223. And I remember when I got home, my dad goes, you bought a new car? And I'm like, yeah, and he goes, Well, you should have let me come there. And I said, Oh, no. Dad, and I told my dad that story. He was like, Oh my God.
 
Jennifer Chavez  39:04
That's an awesome story. And I love it. And you
 
Leighann Lovely  39:07
know, every time I've ever bought a car from now on, you know, I've always I've always because, you know they do so many run arounds and and all you have to do to you know to them is hey, I'm walking. I'm gonna go across the street and buy a car over there. But you just have
 
Jennifer Chavez  39:25
to actually pick up your feet and leave and then they come running after you.
 
Leighann Lovely  39:29
Correct. And I've done it. I've walked out the door and I don't need this car. Well nowadays. Right? You might, but I mean back then it was I can go across the street. I can drive 15 minutes down in given that I've always had a really high credit score, that there's other people that don't have the luxury of having. But yes, that was that was my My first real hardcore like negotiating for. And again, I had inside knowledge, I know how much commission they make on new cars versus, you know, used cars which used cars way more commission at that time. You know, it was just
 
Jennifer Chavez  40:19
so had all the secret sauce
 
Leighann Lovely  40:21
I've never been, I've never been a woman who was who was shy to be like, No, I'm gonna see what I can get from, you know out of this.
 
Jennifer Chavez  40:31
And so if you can imagine Lian, every woman in the world doing what you and I just talked about negotiating their own car deals, not taking it when people give them a price, you know, try to negotiate down whenever you can. And I mean, everybody is, you know, some things are negotiable. And some things aren't. But it doesn't hurt to try. But I can say it was no, my dad's favorite saying that he always taught me and this is going to be the name of my book is find out what they won't take.
 
Leighann Lovely  41:03
Yeah, it's everything. Well, obviously, you can't walk into a store and be like, hey, I'll give you $25 for a $50 item. But you know, the price is the price, but everybody will pay a price for something. And there's always a way to bring a price down. If somebody is willing, or somebody wants to sell something. It's just, you just got to find the common ground. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. I am 100%. with you on that. Well, we are no, we've got a little bit more time. So tell me about let me see. So you've got quite a few different groups that you support. Tell me about steps and WSN.
 
Jennifer Chavez  41:58
Yeah, so those were the two initial groups, the women's leadership groups at CVS stops was started on the retail side of the business. And WSN was the women's success network. And that was on the pharmacy benefit management side of the business. And I was a leader in both and I was responsible for bringing both groups together as one to have one integrated women's support network. So anyway, I've always just felt super passionate about helping other women, I have had a lot of super strong, wonderful female mentors in my life, that have given me lots of great career advice and help along the way. And so I've always been very passionate about giving back. And being a part of those two organizations then led me to start network of executive women, which is something that I started in the Phoenix region with a couple of other really great ladies that worked for other major companies in the Phoenix area. And we started it and I led it for 10 years as a logistics officer. And I was a speaker for them and mentor. And so it just it led me to a lot of really amazing things, just you know, kind of following my passion and trying to help mentor other female leaders and help them grow in their careers. So longtime passion,
 
Leighann Lovely  43:24
and what are the main types of roles that you place people in?
 
Jennifer Chavez  43:30
Yes, so that's a great question. My focus is largely I have a few different areas of expertise. So healthcare and Pharmacy Benefits Management biopharma is really my my main one, I spent 23 years and in that area, certified pharmacy technician and all kinds of experience there. But also, when I started this went into senior living. And that's really the same skill sets and same profile for hiring for a lot of individuals in the healthcare industry in its healthcare, Jason. So I placed a lot of people in those areas. And then also my clients have been franchise owners. And so that kind of has led me and I'm a franchise, female franchise, entrepreneur myself. So that's really also led me to really understanding how franchises work and really being able to specialize and help them from a recruiting perspective. Because usually, especially when you're first starting, you are both working on the business and in the business as an individual owner. And then you may grow over time. Some people start off with more than that, but there's a pretty specific challenge to that. And so because I really understand that and can help people in a lot of different ways from a recruiting perspective, that's been really successful for me too. So those are my main three areas. And then I'll just throw in there that my husband is a shop and the general manager for his entire career, and we're a significant foodie, so I've spent a lot of time in the restaurant business have no expertise there, too.
 
Leighann Lovely  45:02
Awesome. So we are coming to time, I want to ask you the question of the season. What what do you think will go down in the history books, from what has what the world has experienced over the last three years?
 
Jennifer Chavez  45:18
Well, LeAnn, I absolutely love that question. And I think the answer is AI, artificial intelligence. And, I mean, there's a lot of things that have been really impactful, right. But I've just seen so much energy about artificial intelligence, especially recently, and I'm dabbling into it myself, as you mentioned, from a sales perspective, you know, that's what I do all day. And so there's, especially for recruiting and sales, there's really a lot of applicability of some of the capabilities that artificial intelligence has. And I know a lot of people, there's a lot of fear and things out there too. But I think it's probably like any other tool that we have, we will learn more about it, it will, you know, mold and shape over time, but I just really feel like, you know, the, I've been using it for applications even like, Okay, write me up a press release chat. GPT. What does that look like, I'm I'm not a press release expert. I don't know what the format is and how to write them. I call it my virtual assistant. So, you know, just to do things that, you know, maybe we would have spent a lot of time doing that aren't value added. So we can move up the ladder and be more strategic in the way that we spend our time. And I really feel like that has a lot of help for business. And I don't think, you know, I know, there's a lot of worry out there about it replacing people. But I'm sure everyone thought, you know, probably when the internet came out, or you know, when monster.com came out, you know, that everything, you know, humans were no longer going to be needed. But what I've learned over time is just that, you know, technology is really what you make it and I think that you know, you can use it for good or you could use it for not, but it does really help us it has a lot of influence. So for me, history books, that's that's my vote.
 
Leighann Lovely  47:12
Absolutely. So if somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?
 
Jennifer Chavez  47:17
If they want to reach me, my phone number is 623-387-8995. That's probably one of the easiest and most direct ways to reach me. I also have my email address is my first initial and my last name. So J Chavez Cha V as in Victor E z at G R n. And that stands for Global recruiters network. So grn Moon valley.com. So J Chava. Is at grn valley.com.
 
Leighann Lovely  47:45
Perfect. Jennifer, this has been such an amazing conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me.
 
Jennifer Chavez  47:52
Absolutely. Man, you've been a wonderful host and thank you so much for kindly inviting me and allowing me to share my message.
 
Leighann Lovely  48:00
Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us, like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPY
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
car, military, people, negotiate, feel, transition, absolutely, working, companies, veterans, jennifer, years, led, expertise, talk, grn, sales, arizona, spent, recruiting

Planning an event is hard, they are meant to be fun, educational, festive, and so many other things. What we don’t think about, is that planning an event is not just about all the detail of who will speak, how many chairs you need, it is also about how to keep your attendees as safe as possible if and when things come up. This week's guest shines a light on what an event hall is responsible for and what the host is responsible for. Tune in, because I was shocked!  
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both, because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely, let's get this conversation started.  I have Sarah Davis joining us today. She is the CEO of event safety plus, where they focus in mitigating safety concerns before they happen at events and ensuring a proper response should they occur. They work with people to organize events, large and small, determine risk factors and create easy to execute safety plans. This is going to be an awesome opportunity to learn about how to make sure that the events that we all put on are safe and have the great plans that need to be put in place are in place. So I'm excited to jump into this conversation with her today. Sarah, thank you so much for joining me today.
 
Sarah Davis  02:01
It is wonderful to be here. Thank you for having me.
 
Leighann Lovely  02:03
So you, you have such an amazing, interesting business. So I'm excited to talk with you. Why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself?
 
Sarah Davis  02:16
Sure. So I am the CEO of event safety plus, and we work with event planners, anyone planning an event to mitigate safety concerns before they happen. And create safety plans for those events are goals that everyone should be able to attend things safely. But me personally, I live outside of Chicago, I lived here since before COVID. So I haven't really explored much, which is funny. But we'll we'll do that eventually right born and raised in Michigan. And we started this company about a year ago now because we were at an event where an active shooter happened, it was a parade and with our background, my partner and I our background in emergency services and emergency management, we saw some things that with a little bit of extra planning could have been way different and less impactful on the community. And we we knew that we could make a difference. And we knew we can make a change with those things. So we started the company.
 
Leighann Lovely  03:24
So and first. Wow. I mean for being at an event. That's such a scary, I mean, even even being blocks away and hearing that you're hearing gunshots or hearing any type of it's just such an amazing ly amazingly terrifying. situation I've been, and I was in my home when this happened, but when gunshots ring out and you just immediately you know that that fear factor because you have no idea where it's coming from where it's pointed. So, I mean, first of all, that's it's amazing that that idea, you know, at that point came up for you. And to that you've you've taken on, you know, a position, an opportunity to say, hey, let's create something that can actually help mitigate, you know, risk in situations like this. And I'm assuming that this is not or that there is not a whole ton of companies out there that do what you do.
 
Sarah Davis  04:38
No, no, there are a few companies that give you some tools to kind of do it yourself and make a plan and offer you know, some 30 minutes courses, things like that. But But the bigger thing is that people that plan events are creative. They're planners, they want to you know make the event beautiful Well, they want everybody to have fun, right? And a lot of event planners or people that plan events, because that everybody that plans that event has that title. They're not trained in what risk factors and what safety factors can happen at their event. And we're talking just little things. I'm not even talking big things like an active shooter or a tornado, we're talking, what would happen if somebody had a heart attack at your event? Does somebody know how to use the AED machine? Or do CPR? Or are you yelling for somebody who knows CPR in the crowd, it would be so much easier if the event planners or the coordinators had those skill sets to make sure that people can be taken care of. Those are just some small things that factor into the reason we started this.
 
Leighann Lovely  05:53
So explain to me, obviously, it's not something that many people think about it large or small, I mean, there's there potentially could be risk at a very, you know, a 20 person event versus a 350 person event, obviously, risk goes up, the larger the event is, more people you have, you know, higher risk that somebody could have a heart attack or slice the risk on a garbage can that has a whatever, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So explain to me, when you, you know, when you first start talking to people, you know, what is the responsibility of, for instance, like a hall? Or of the location that they're going to, versus the responsibility of the person who's planning the actual event? Where is there? You know, whose responsibility is is what and where that fall?
 
Sarah Davis  06:57
Sure, and that's a an amazing question. Because a lot of people think, if they rent out, say, a hall for a work event, or something like that, and it's attached to a hotel, just, I'm living groundwork here, you know, and the fire alarm goes off, it's your responsibility, not the hotels to get your people out safely, they are not going to come down to the hall and help you get out, they're all getting out of the hotel. And they hope you do too. They they wish you no ill will, right. They're not like, you know, hoping you don't get out. They all but they are not coming down to help you evacuate your people, you need to evacuate the hall yourself, you need to know where those exits are. And you need to have a plan to get everybody out. And this is where a lot of times, if you've ever rented a spot, and people that are listening, probably have done this to where you get in there and all the tables are lined up in a specific manner, right, or all the circle tables are in a specific location. And then you know what you want to do breakouts, you want to do this. So you start moving the tables, and somebody from the hotel walks by and he's like, No, you can't do that. Because if the fire alarm goes off, and the tables aren't where they put them, they can't guarantee it, that you meet the fire code to be able to get out of that room. And that's their, that's their responsibility to make sure that you need the fire code to get out of the room. But if you mess it up, it's not on your plate to to make sure people have the paths to get out. And if you move all those tables, they may not. So back to your original question. It's the event planner, or the host of the event, it's their responsibility to know the hazards that can come into play, and have a proper plan should they occur.
 
Leighann Lovely  08:45
That's wildly interesting. And here's why. Because I'm going to guess the majority of the people that you speak with it, especially when it comes to hey, I'm going to rent out this small hall and I'm going to have a 25 person birthday party. Yeah. And they I'm going to guess that they say, well, it would be the hotel's responsibility to make sure that if something were to go wrong, that they're going to help us out.
 
Sarah Davis  09:14
No, right. And I know it isn't, it's their responsibility to make sure that the fire alarm and the sprinklers are working, and that there is a path for you to get out. But 98% of the time, they don't provide even an exit strategy for you unless you ask. So if you do ask most hotels and conference centers say these are our 10 exits, right? This is the closest one to you. And they have something to the effect of what you see on the back of hotel room doors, where it's like if the smoke alarm goes off, follow this and you'll get to your nearest exit, right. They would have that for conference rooms too, but they're not coming to help you.
 
Leighann Lovely  09:56
Right. And and what is the first thing that you know when I I go to an event or when I've helped set up an event, the one of the first things that people do is start going, Okay, where are we going to move these tables to make it effective for us to do XYZ? And up and that, I mean, it happens. If I can't read or write, I can't think of a place that I've gone that when I'm helping setup, that's like one of the first things that people do.
 
Sarah Davis  10:24
Yeah, yeah. And that is something that you should not do that I do not recommend doing. Right? Because you can throw off your exit strategy should need to exit. Interesting. Most people go into these events, though, with the mentality of that's never going to happen to me. And so that that is something that we have encountered a lot too.
 
Leighann Lovely  10:49
Right. So, now let's talk a little bit more about injury or, you know, like saying outdoor events. So, you know, we have some of these? Well, I have a couple of events coming up that, you know, one is is an outdoor, very large event. So let's, let's, let's talk about what is the responsibility of, say, the grounds when it comes to somebody slips, falls, bangs their head, and now they need emergency support of some kind to be taken to the nearest hospital? Or what is the responsibility of the person who's putting on the event versus the responsibility of the grounds to make sure that there is a safe, quick way to get them off the grounds or emergency care?
 
Sarah Davis  11:39
Sure, sure. So there's two answers to that. It depends on where you're renting outside, and what you've agreed to beforehand. So if you're renting a outdoor venue, and they're providing grounds crew, for you, in some sort of safety measures, right, like they're providing people to park cars and stuff like that, because some places want cars parked under a certain spot, and whatever, they may have an opportunity for you to say, will you help us if safety concerns happen? Okay, but go ahead.
 
Leighann Lovely  12:16
And I'm just gonna, is that a question you have to ask?
 
Sarah Davis  12:19
Yes. 100%? That is a question you have to ask, when you're signing that agreement, whatever that agreement ends up being. But 98% of the time, when you do an outdoor event, you're doing it in a park or a fairgrounds, or, you know, pick a location, they may have people that are changing the trash for you. And sometimes they don't even have that it might be your responsibility. But 90% of the time, they are not providing people that will help in those situations, they are not going to provide you medical services or transportation for your people out of the location to the hospital, none of that. So your choices, I have a medical tenant with, you know, maybe a nurse that is there to help with immediate concerns. And I call 911 If something were to happen, or you just call 911 and waves, and I think get into why that's not always the best scenario,
 
Leighann Lovely  13:20
right? Depending on the city that you're in, depending on the location, you're sad, it's response time can be 12 minutes or two minutes, depending on how populated the city is. Or exactly, or it can be 21 minutes
 
Sarah Davis  13:34
Or how remotes how remote you are. Yeah. So if you're in an area that has, you know, volunteer fire department, it could be 20 to 30 minutes before somebody can get there.
 
Leighann Lovely  13:45
Right? So if you're dealing with a heart attack, that's the difference between life and death.
 
Sarah Davis  13:51
Yep.
 
Leighann Lovely  13:53
Processing. Yeah, every interest.
 
Sarah Davis  13:56
It can be scary, it can be scary. And this is where sometimes what I do, and the stories that I tell can get a little scary. And that's why what we do is so important, because we want people to go to events to have fun. We saw all of the planning, and all of the safety concerns can be done beforehand. And, you know, pre planned for and all of that. So if something does happen, it can be taken care of quickly, and the fun can continue to happen. Right? And I know you're gonna say it's hard to have fun if somebody has a heart attack. So take that out of the situation for a hot second. But let's take a sprained ankle, right. If you're at a large wedding venue and someone's sprained their ankle in the middle of the dance floor, you want to have a plan to move them get them somewhere safe. You know, do we need to call 911? Do we need to just wrap it, you don't leave them in the middle of the dance floor and have people dance around them? slightly funny but not appropriate. Right?
 
Leighann Lovely  14:55
Sorry, I know. I'm laughing because it's it's ridiculous. Uh, that somebody would do that. But then you take into account that, in most, you know, most, a lot of these places you have a lot of intoxicated people and Right. Right. So and it's interesting because now as you're, as you're bringing these things up, I'm going through my my rolodex in my head of wow, I've been at a baseball game, where a a friend gots a ring, crunched in a door, and then that ring was actually bent and started pinching off the circulation to her finger, where, you know, immediately we had to go to, you know, at the stadium, they had a full blown nurse's station, and ended up having to do it. Right. So we immediately called one of the attendants, what do we do? Where do we go, they had a full blown Medical Center on the first floor had to go down, they ended up having to actually cut the ring off, right? You know, and in that situation, if that wasn't the I mean, it would have been get out of the stadium, go to the emergency room.
 
Sarah Davis  16:11
And that would have been go to your car, get out of the parking lot, go to the emergency room, that could have been a 30 to 40 minute adventure correct in order to get it cut it off. Whereas in this case, it was probably seven done in 15 minutes.
 
Leighann Lovely  16:25
And in less than that. And sure, sure, finger was perfectly fine. She was actually able to enjoy the rest of the day, other than the fact that she just lost a ring. But, you know, that could have been rather lose a ring but the finger? Correct? Correct. I mean, you 30 to 40 minutes of having no circulation to your finger that could have done damage that could have done nerve damage that could have done multiple. And then, you know, again, as you're talking at, you know, I've I've now that I'm thinking about it, a lot of the fairs, especially, you know, going it's, you know, we're experiencing summer, there's little tents that I always that I've seen it quite a few of them where they have, you know, these two people sitting in there's like a little Medical Center, you know.
 
Sarah Davis  17:09
Yeah, so I mean those people are probably CPR certified, they have, you know, band aids for kids, they have some ace bandages in case, but they can triage the situation, right, you can come to them with a cut bleeding and they wash it off, they're like, Go, it's just a surface thing, you know, go back out and have fun, right? They can triage things. And that's a key, that's a key to Planning Fairs, do some fairs, I should say, do really well with that, right? They have a really good plan for medical care, because especially if there's going to be animals, different things, you never know what an animal is going to do to somebody. Right, right. I lived in the country, I've seen cows kill people, so you never know. So they always have a plan for that. However, a lot of fairs don't have a good evacuation plan. Because they try to limit the entrances and exits, so that they can limit the amount of people it's how they make money. Right, right. And so there's limited and entries and exits for people to leave should something happen. And a lot of fears and counter weather, right. So if there's a lightning storm or a tornado coming in, and everybody needs to get to their cars, it can be a bottleneck. And that causes people to be injured in the bottleneck. But it also might not allow them to get home in a quick enough manner.
 
Leighann Lovely  18:30
Well, and we all heard, what year was it the story of the doors that opened the back backwards. This was many, many years ago, but it was a concert hall of some kind. Oh, I remember that, you know, shooting happened inside and when everybody tried to flee the doors opened
 
Sarah Davis  18:47
doors backwards, back, right? Instead of out correct. The legal in every state, but
 
Leighann Lovely  18:54
right getting into that, right. And I think that actually, I mean, this was many, many, many, many years ago, like really set the bar of if somebody walks into your facility, and those doors are opening the wrong way. Like you're immediately shut down like you cannot like that is just the stupidest thing in the world. And that was one of the I mean, that hit like it. I don't want to say international that hit National, absolute national news, because I think like hundreds of people died from trampling on each other. Trying to get out. So yeah,
 
Sarah Davis  19:32
because you know, the first few people couldn't open the doors at all. So where's everybody else gonna go? They're gonna start pushing. Correct. Yeah.
 
Leighann Lovely  19:39
And just continue to push and push.
 
Sarah Davis  19:43
And there are still some cities that filat I don't know what the term is, but like grandfathered in, so that you don't know they're older buildings, they, they don't have to be brought up to code because they're historic or whatever. And so there are Some places like that, that aren't allowed to be event venues anymore, even use them for other things. But they can't be event venues because of those concerns,
 
Leighann Lovely  20:11
right. Which is, I mean, that seems like it's a no brainer. If you can't have certain can't have a certain amount of people in one area, if all of a sudden, there's going to be a mob trying to get out. And what I have seen it a lot of these larger venues or events is that they, you know, is having some of these entrances, they don't have real they don't have real walls per se, to get in. It's more like fences that can easily call down. Like if, if everybody needs to get out there fences that can actually be dropped so that people can come that a large amount of people can get out. And I've seen more and more places doing that. Because again, if people need to flee, the last thing that you want is people trampling each other killing each other while they're fleeing. I mean,
 
Sarah Davis  21:07
exactly. And some of those simple things can be pre planned for, right. In we we go through that, like, with the trampling thing, a lot of a lot of places, like you said, are coming up with the fence thing, the different options for easy exit, exits, and things like that. But it's honestly things that don't happen often that people don't plan for, and they can turn into a problem. I'm going to use a quick example here that just happened is about six months ago, there was a tornado here, around me and there was an indoor event, it was an indoor concert, a smaller venue, you know, kind of a local band type thing. Well, the people that had planned the event were on site, right? They just had like ticket takers and that sort of thing. And so a tornado watch warning, all of it came for a few hours beforehand, they're like this is happening. You need to you know, evacuate, everybody needs to record, no one had the authority to cancel the event. So the roof gets torn off people perished that day, all because no one had the authority to cancel the event. And that's one of the keys to some of these events is is canceling when you're supposed to and not putting your life and other people's life in danger. So weather is a big factor.
 
Leighann Lovely  22:33
Yeah. And that's scary. And you're right, if nobody at the actual event has the ability to cancel, everybody's looking at each other going well, what are we supposed to do? And that's interesting, I think you and I had talked about that when we initially met because I was at an event in a fully glass. It was you know, it was indoors, and all the walls were all glass. And as the tornado warnings, I remember the person who was running the event goes, guys, we have to get up. We're all going into the bathroom. And we're all like what, okay, and we ended up at and it was good. I mean, it was great, because there was no question it was with, you know, it was a chamber event that I was at, and it was just, everybody stand up. We're we're evacuating this room and is not safe. There wasn't a matter of whose authority we just all went, Okay. I mean, I took my lunch, right? And we all pout, we know, although there was not very many men, it was it was quite a few more women. We all went into the bathroom. Eventually the men were like, well, can we come in there? And we're like, yeah, why not? And we continued to have our meetings standing up all in the women's bathroom, because it lasted a long time. And it was like, well, we might as well. At least talk while we're on here. Correct. You know, and so I mean, and it got hot, and it and we ended up making a joke of it. And it, it was great. It was fine. And when it was over, we all went back into the other room finished our meeting, and it was something to talk about.
 
Sarah Davis  24:05
But I want to take a group photo in there. We did. We did. Okay, wonderful. Yeah, so make me feel better. And
 
Leighann Lovely  24:11
it was posted on LinkedIn, you know, wonderful meeting in the women's bathroom and blah, blah, blah. And you know, and it and it ended up being, you know, a talking point. But the point being is that, you know, somebody you know, was monitoring the weather events process, correct and eventually got to the point where it was like, Guys, this is not a safe room. We're, you know, on two full walls were was all glass. It's like this is not the room on a lovely sunny day.
 
Sarah Davis  24:40
It's the best room ever on a stormy tornado day. Not necessarily the best.
 
Leighann Lovely  24:46
Yeah, I don't want to go home with glass punctures throughout my entire body or not go home at all. Exactly. So. So give me an example of a how you make sure that event planners can be better prepared. But in situations that have, you know, gone wrong, because they didn't have somebody like you, and I know that you've kind of given me some examples, but, you know, even just like the simple, almost almost funny stuff that, that you've come across, where people are just like, oh, well, I didn't know that. I mean, just the.
 
Sarah Davis  25:19
Sure, sure. So first and foremost, is all about having conversations about, you know, where their event is, how many people they're expecting, what their setup is, we talk about all that stuff up front, so we can get an idea of what they're going to be going through. And, you know, we don't plan for hurricanes in North Dakota, right, we're not gonna plan for you know, I don't know, earthquakes in Michigan, I mean, maybe because there's technically a fault line somewhere there. But we're not going to write because on the average, that's not gonna happen. So we talked about the all hazards that impact there, but people do like there are funny things that happen that people just don't think about. And I'll give an example. This is 10 years ago, I was at an event and I show up, and there's 10, like those 12 by 12, white, like pop up tents that people put tables under. And they're all in a row. And people are going to each one of them picking up something and put it in a bag like it's a, you know, an event where you're filling up a bag with tchotchkes, and we were there for probably 30 minutes when all of a sudden this bright sunny day, had a gust of wind that blew every single tent. Nobody got hurt, but four cars had smashed windows. And I seriously to this day, I have a picture of it somewhere. I still laugh every time I see it, because literally they all just went because whoever set them up was like, oh, it's bright and sunny, and there's no wind, I don't have to attach them to the ground. Right?
 
Leighann Lovely  27:02
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, if our audience could see as I'm putting my hand in my, or my head in my hand going, oh my god, you gotta be kidding me. Like, come on.
 
Sarah Davis  27:13
Those are the little things that we can remind people of in their plan. You're like, Okay, you're gonna have you know, 10 tents at your event, make sure that they are secured. Right. As you know, you're going to have a bouncy house, can we not be in the news with the kid flying out of the bouncy house because it got lifted up by the wind, right? And we laugh about it when kids aren't injured. Sometimes the kid could fall out. If the kid stays. It's funny. But if the kid pops out that it can it can be not funny. Right? And so, yeah, there's a lot of certain things like that, that happen that do tend to make people think, well, nobody got hurt, and how often can that happen? So why should I plan for it? And that's the wrong mentality to have, with those 10 tents when they were thrown into cars. All that would have taken was one kid to be in the wrong spot, right? And instead of that car window, it was a kid's head, right? And those are the reasons we plan for these things. And those are the reasons we get cool photographs in bathrooms, right? When people plan accordingly because everybody's safe. That's why I have a cool picture of tents, literally impaling cars, because no one was in was injured. And that's what I want.
 
Leighann Lovely  28:35
And it's funny that you bring that up, because every time you know, I every once in a while we'll go to like, you know, like a street days type thing. And I you know, I have some crafts that I sell. And every time I get irritated that I have to bring those sandbags to secure my tent, and I'm like, it's a beautiful day. Why do I have to do this, but they will make you take your tent down? If you have not brought the sandbags to secure your tent, and I'm always like, but
 
Sarah Davis  29:01
they've seen something like what I just described happen,
 
Leighann Lovely  29:04
correct? Somebody Yep, it's 10 flew into and you're, you know, you're on the street windows all behind you have all the businesses, I'm sure that they've seen it go through somebody's business window, or maybe worse, hurt somebody.
 
Sarah Davis  29:18
And possibly they're liable and not you which makes them have you adhere to those rules, right? Which, which is the the other thing, right, like, you know, once you sign on the dotted line when you're renting out a location or using a park or whatever that liability is now on you. And so when you go to those vendor fairs, the vendor organizer is the one that's liable for everything that happens right? So I mean, unless you purposely like hit somebody on something but if if an accident happens they're liable for it and an accident would be your tent moving
 
Leighann Lovely  29:53
right. So very interesting. I that is something again, that it's it's just not I thought about, like, it's just not one of those things that when you're going through all of the details, you're not thinking, Oh, this could happen, or oh, this could happen. Now, here's here's an interesting one. And this is not an event, but I witnessed something wildly interesting. Because again, I'm a very pragmatic, practical person. We go to the dog park, and we bring our five year old daughter, okay? Yes. Now, when we walk in there, we explained to our daughter, if dogs are growling, if they're barking, or if a whole clump of them get close to you, you slowly walk away and you get as close to mommy and daddy as possible. In some cases, we pick her up, because Sure, there isn't. Yeah, there. And we explain this to her as we walk in, right, we're, we're mitigating the risk factor of the of the fact that we are bringing our five year old daughter into a risky situation. But knowing that the majority of dogs that go to the dog park are dog friendly, and typically do not go after each other. So the other day, we're in there, and his dog was really excited to see our daughter and ran up and just stopped too, too short. And my daughter just went, boom, right on her butt. And, and the owner. The owner comes running over, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And my daughter's crying now because she was hurt. Because she was started. She started. We picked her up and I said it's not a problem. We brought our five year old to a dog park where we know some dogs get excited. It's not your it's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. Now. We witnessed another situation where a woman wearing shorts that basically were underwear got scratched by another woman's dock. And she went ballistic. Completely ballistic on this other woman How dare your dog scratch me How dare your dogs? And I'm like,
 
Sarah Davis  32:06
You came to the park in booty shorts and expected what that you weren't gonna get scratched your own dog could have scratched you.
 
Leighann Lovely  32:16
Right? Right. You're you're wearing like you're not you have no protection on knowing that there's going to be dogs jumping on each other, jumping on your dog jumping all around. I just witnessed my daughter getting knocked over by a dog that was not non threatening. This dog was not threatening by any means just excited, too excited, just really excited and sweetest pie dog like, you know, we were petting her and my daughter after the little mini trauma that she experienced was petting and giggling with it. But this woman was I mean, just out of her mind angry that How dare her dog scratch her by accident, by the way. I mean, this was a jump up. And so I on a regular basis. Having a kid, I'm constantly looking around to mitigate, you know, the risk around her. But even percent, even being somebody who is constantly, you know, looking at risk versus reward. You know, in my own life, there is no way that I could possibly put all of the things that you're talking about into? I guess, you know, it's not my area of expertise. So right for me, it doesn't make any sense why somebody would that doesn't have experience wouldn't reach out to somebody like you, at least for like, Hey, Sarah, do you have a checklist? Do you have? I mean, do you go through? So do you tear your program on how engaged you you are going to be with people?
 
Sarah Davis  34:01
We do? So are what you're talking about, right? There would be our like, kind of first or, you know, whatever tier, we have a one hour spot you can you can get on a call with us. And literally just ask us any questions about safety that we can get done in an hour. You can we can provide you with a list of things that you should be, you know the basics of anywhere in the country that you should be looking at around safety, well, then you can get on this call and ask us whatever you want to ask us in any way shape or form. And then we go up from there because some people want an actual written out plan where they can go to a tab, you know, thing a happened, what do I do? Right? And and that's wonderful. A lot of people do want that. And that's something that we can provide an update, you know, yearly at their event or quarterly whenever they're about that happens. And then finally, our third option is where we actually come we do all those two first things, but then we're on site for your event to ensure that if something pops up that, you know, it's not in the book, or you don't want to handle it, and it is in the book or whatever, we will handle it on site.
 
Leighann Lovely  35:22
Awesome. And what is your background? Where did you know you run this business with? Your,
 
Sarah Davis  35:28
my partner, your partner life and my partner in the business?
 
Leighann Lovely  35:31
Okay, and what how did you you would send that you started this business because of you were at a, you know, event, but what got you like started? Obviously, you had a background had a background in this, right? Sure.
 
Sarah Davis  35:50
Yeah, a little bit, my partner has a lot more, my experience is more on the event side of things. And his is more on the emergency management side. So my background, my degree is in psychology, so I understand humans, I have a lot of experience in event planning around nonprofits, and then a lot of the nonprofit's I've worked with provided emergency services during emergency situations. And then more recently, I do have experience with emergency management with the Red Cross. And then my partner, his degree is in emergency management with innumerable experiences, and that roll off. So yeah,
 
Leighann Lovely  36:32
so you guys are right, exactly where you need to be.
 
Sarah Davis  36:36
I like to think so. Yeah, we have all the experience that we need. And we're, you know, we're willing to give that to people, we want it to help people make their events safer. We're not trying to get keep the information by any shape of the imagination. And like I said, you know, we we do this hands on, there are other companies out there that I, I will refer people to also, to get checklists, and some training, some online things, there are great companies out there. But if you're looking for that one on one approach, where you can actually ask questions, and be engaged in the process, and learn, then then that's where you, that's where you come to us, we make sure that we walk you through the process, and you will feel comfortable at your event and safe at your event.
 
Leighann Lovely  37:24
What do you think is the number one thing that you have come across when it comes to, you know, the threat?
 
Sarah Davis  37:35
So I'm gonna say it's two different things. So an actual threat, that's an all hazards concept that people don't think about is the weather, they don't really think about how that impacts an event. And I don't even mean necessarily injuries or your your actual attendees. But if you don't plan ahead, you might lose. You know, items, like when you're unloading things from a car, or you're trying to bring in your catering, right, things like that can all be impacted by the weather if you don't have a plan for it. Right. And I think whether is the lease plan for item, that, because people just think, Oh, well, if it's a tornado, I'll get in the bathroom, if you know, if it's a rainstorm, I'll run real quick, right? But you know, they don't really think about the impact of it. And that's something that we can we can all learn more on. And we can all plan a little bit better for. But I think the biggest barrier that people have, when planning is honestly the thought in their head. And I mentioned this maybe once or twice so far is people think it'll never happen to them. Yeah, or, more often I hear it well. I mean, the fire department signed off on capacity, and I'll just call 911. That's all we got to do, right? No, no, that is not all you have to do. And, and that, to me is kind of scary. When people are in that mentality. It's kind of like telling somebody they need therapy. You can't just go look somebody in the head and be like, you need therapy. They're gonna clam up and be like, No, right? That's not me. I'm, I'm perfectly fine, right? We all need therapy. We all need therapy, right? But you can't just go flick somebody in the head and be like, you need therapy. Right? Right. So it's the same thing with talking about safety at events. You can't just walk up to an event and be like, Wow, do you realize the unsafe things I see here, right. And so you have to go about it a little bit differently and educate through you know, social media, some different ways to get people to understand that they need the services and word of mouth. Word of mouth is a big key,
 
Leighann Lovely  39:53
right? Yeah. We are on a default setting of it'll never happen. And to me, you know, and a lot of events, you know, will say, we are having this event rain or you know, rain or shine, it's it's going to happen. And then, you know, you get out there and you're like, Wow, this is really not just rain, this is, you know, sideways, sideways, gusts of sheets of water that are hitting and pelting me in the face. And you realize maybe this wasn't such a good idea.
 
Sarah Davis  40:27
Right? Right. And in, those are the things that, you know, it'll make you second guessed going next year, versus if they would just say, you know, hey, our event is getting moved by a week, or we're canceling it, because of the weather because we want you to be safe, dry and happy. I'll go back the next year. If I go to an event where I'm a drowned rat, by the end, I'm gonna second guess, going next year, right?
 
Leighann Lovely  40:53
second guessing whether or not I want to sign up because it cost me you know, 100 bucks to go and I lose that money if I don't because it's rain or shine, shine or sun or water. I don't. Right. Right. Right. And that's it. Yeah. And in, in the state of well, and here's the other thing, people think, well, you know, I can call emergency services, but we here just recently experienced, you know, a storm in which calling Emergency Services wasn't an option, because we had trees down, like on every block. Sure. And they they were being called by everybody. Which means that there wasn't enough emergency services. I mean, it shut off. It took a month for them to clean up. It took two days for them to get the power back on this little tap was this last year? Yeah, yeah, I think it was last year, I was sitting in a pocket I live in in Franklin, Wisconsin, I was sitting in a pocket where we had no power for two days.
 
Sarah Davis  42:08
So, you know, if you're calling 911, every three hours wasn't gonna help? No. I mean, no, they can only have so many people working on electricity at any given point, correct?
 
Leighann Lovely  42:22
No, we were we were lucky that people were prepared. You know, and we didn't have you know, around. And I'm not talking about an event, I'm just talking about a huge individual, you know, individual huge. But if you were at an event during that time period, there was so much chaos happening all over the place that emergency services would not have helped at that point, because
 
Sarah Davis  42:49
you were not the priority. And event was not the priority when there were individuals, old young, whatever, there's, there's a triage impact of what happens when people call 911, right? People think it's when when large scale events happen, people think well, I called first they're gonna come to me first live in some fantasy world, go ahead. Well, you don't have power for two days, you could live in your fantasy, right? It doesn't work like that. They're going to help the older people, they're going to help the younger people, they're going to help the people that need to get out of their home, not the people that can stay there for a little bit without electricity. And, yeah, and also, I mean, we lived for centuries, upon centuries without electricity and running water in the house. You know, we need to start thinking about planning ahead and making sure that you have a few key elements in your house. So include, you don't have to cook. You know what I mean? Some food, well, sometimes gas doesn't get cut off. But sometimes that can throw a wrench in it too, when there's trees down and things like that. It can impact gas lines, and but you know, have water have, you know, bottles of water someplace that are easily accessible and things like that it can really make a difference.
 
Leighann Lovely  44:09
Yeah. Yep. Well, Sarah, this has been an awesome conversation. We're coming to time. So I want to ask you the question of the season. What do you Yes? I'm asking everybody this this season. What do you think will go down in the history book books from what the world has experienced over the last three years?
 
Sarah Davis  44:31
Okay. So I'm assuming we're beyond just talking about COVID and how we react to pandemics because I think the world learned a few lessons on that. But I'm going to say something that will go down in the history books from what we experienced over the last three years is that we we don't You need to have eight to five jobs to be successful in the world. And, and by that, I mean, so many people switched their their thought processes over, over COVID. But we started working remotely hybrid from home at night when the kids were asleep because we had to do school with them during the day. You know, a variety of things happened. And while a lot of people are trying to get us to go back into the, the office atmosphere, I don't think it's ever going to happen thoroughly. Again, I think we learned our lesson, that productivity does not mean clapping. And from eight to five.
 
Leighann Lovely  45:47
Awesome. Awesome. Excellent. So if somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?
 
Sarah Davis  45:54
Sure. So event safety plus.com. If you want to get to me directly, it's event safety plus.com backslash Sarah Sarah with an H. And that'll get you to all of my links. And then obviously, the website there, you can sign up for our services and send out that first consultation call.
 
Leighann Lovely  46:14
Excellent. Sarah, this has been such an amazing eye opening and education, educational conversation. I really appreciate you coming on and joining me today.
 
Sarah Davis  46:23
It was fun. And you were right. The Time flew. So I love it. Thank you. Yeah, you have a
 
Leighann Lovely  46:30
great day. You too. Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support. Without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, to follow us like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPY
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, event, plan, happen, talking, event planners, exits, tornado, year, experience, kid, emergency services, dog, call, responsibility, coming, tables, situation, started, cars

Andrea Herran is an amazing business owner, that works to simply HR for her clients so they can say focused on what matters to them, their business. Join us as we talk about how much human resources has changed and continues to evolve as a profession.
 
Contact Andrea
LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/focushr
Website – http://FocusHR.biz
Phone number – (773)531-8199
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann lovely. Let's get this conversation started. 
 
Andrea Herran is the Founder and CEO of Focus HR. Andrea developed a passion for Human Resources and Leadership from the beginning of her career. One thing she noticed in her corporate leadership roles was that she could really you see the good, bad and the ugly from her managers and employees. Overcoming the bad and ugly was a challenge she would take on, and discovering how to take the good to great, made a lasting impression on Andrea. She brings those insights to her audiences, her clients, and her own team each day.
Andrea has over 30 years of professional HR experience. Early in her career she was fortunate enough to work both inside and outside the USA, in four different countries the US, Argentina, Mexico and South Africa. She enjoys sharing her business strategies, adventures, and experiences with audiences around the globe.
Andrea is a sought-after international speaker, top HR, Leadership and growth consultant, and exceptional author. After 30 years of helping businesses grow, and expand their teams successfully, she is now renowned for her ability to bring out the excellence in every team. With degrees in business and psychology and vast experience working with companies with less than 100 employees. Andrea has worked with teams in the United States, Mexico, and South America and much more.
“Your company will grow as fast as you and your people do. To create a competitive advantage, invest in your people now” says Herran.
She and her team help companies build a culture-driven company that the best and brightest want to be a part of and stay in forever.
Andrea’s forthcoming book is called The People Success Code for CEO’s: 9 Secrets to rapid growth, a winning culture, and uncomplicating the people side of business.
Welcome Andrea, I am so excited to have you join me today.
 
Andrea Herran  03:21
Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited. Yeah.
 
Leighann Lovely  03:23
Why don't you start off by telling everyone a little bit about yourself and your background?
 
Andrea Herran  03:29
Oh, sure. I'm Andrea Herran owner of Focus HR, I have been doing human resources now for 35 years.
 
Leighann Lovely  03:42
You don't look old enough to have been doing human resources for 35 years. By the way.
 
Andrea Herran  03:47
Thank you so much. I love that. I'm a mom of two teenage boys. So that keeps me young. I started focus HR about 17 years ago. And for work life balance. That was my main thing you know, and I wanted to keep doing human resources. And as I've grown and added to my team, for me, it's been really important that my team also has that work life balance, and it's worked out. Great. So as you can tell, I do run my company based on my values and so forth. I also recommend that to all businesses to do that because it makes life a lot easier. And like I said entrepreneur for 17 years, I am the daughter of an entrepreneur, I am the granddaughter of entrepreneurs and the great great granddaughter of an entrepreneur, so it's actually my great great grandmother that gives up the entrepreneurial spirit in my family. Oh wow.
 
Leighann Lovely  04:53
very forward thinking. Woman in the family.
 
Andrea Herran  04:58
Yes, especially in the 1920s and 30s right. Yeah,
 
Leighann Lovely  05:02
yes, that's and that's when you say great, great, great, great grandmother? Or great, great, great, great
 
Andrea Herran  05:09
grandmother. Okay. Well,
 
Leighann Lovely  05:11
yeah, definitely a very forward thinking woman at that time, because that typically wasn't something that a woman would have done at that at that time. So that's, that's absolutely awesome. So your, your business focus HR is, you and I have spoken about it before it focuses really you have kind of three main buckets of things that you do. Is that correct?
 
Andrea Herran  05:32
Yep, three buckets. Typically, for businesses that have less than 100 employees. One is like a helpline, you know, for the folks that just want to, like, ask questions, get answers, you know, oh, my god, I can't believe Fred did this. You know, Wilma did that, you know, how do I handle it? I heard something on the news. You know, I heard about a new law or regulation being passed, what does this mean for me to projects, you know, I need a handbook, I need a performance management system, I need an audit, I don't even know if what I'm doing is the right thing or not, you know, it's, I actually get that quite a bit. And then lastly, is, you know, what, just let us take care of HR for you, we will handle it, we will work with you, you know, on strategy, and so forth. But we will implement, we will be the contact for your managers for your employees. So they always have someone to reach out to and we will handle it all. And so in this is how I came up with the name, focus, HR, let us focus on the HR so you can focus on the business.
 
Leighann Lovely  06:41
And that's awesome. Because there are so many, you know, and again, not to self promote myself, but it is it's the reason I came up with my business, because business owners don't go into business to be HR professionals, right? And yeah, and they don't have, they don't have the knowledge to know how. There's, there's a lot of complex things in HR. So outsource it, to make it not complex, and to make sure that you're getting everything done that needs to be done, right. crossing your T's dotting your eyes, so that you're not missing anything so that even and people don't realize this after you've hired on your first employee, you need to have an employee handbook. Yep. And a lot of people go why I have one employee. Yeah, you have one employee.
 
Andrea Herran  07:35
Exactly. And you know, in our tagline is uncomplicated, the people side of business. And then you talk about that one employee, people, I only have one employee, what they forget is that once you get that first employee, you know, it's not too far. Typically, it's not too much longer, that you get a second or a third or a fourth. And we actually, when people know they're about to hire, that's when I actually like to do the handbook. Because we've talked about all now like working on handbooks, that's so much, you know, because I think they need this big document. But it's the conversations that we have in order to make it work for that. You know, what do you want to do about holidays? How do you want to handle vacation time off PTO, and 401k benefits? You know, we go through all of this stuff, you know, I'm not going to go into all the details, because nobody likes that.
 
Leighann Lovely  08:35
I do actually. Which makes me yes,
 
Andrea Herran  08:38
There's a few of us that gets a little crazy about that. But by having that conversation before you didn't hire your first employee. Because inevitably, what happens is when you're recruiting and you're interviewing people, guess what they're going to ask you, right? What's your time off policy? Which holidays? Do you observe? Are they paid? Are they unpaid? already? You know, how? What about benefits? Instead of saying, Mm hmm. Right? You've actually thought about it. And by having thought about it ahead of time and having a policy that's at least a baseline people automatically see you as more established, more professional and more put together. But in reality could be totally different.
 
Leighann Lovely  09:24
They won't know that you're completely a mess. So and again, a lot of you know especially first time entrepreneurs, me, first time entrepreneur really, you know, get those are things that you don't you don't realize, you know, right now you're just winging it. You're trying to just make everything work. You're just trying to put all the pieces together frantically trying to, you know, get everything going. And so working with somebody like you that goes, Wait a second, you're going to hire somebody, well, they're going to ask these questions. They're going to want to know they're going to want to come into they don't Want to work for a business, that's unless it's a good friend that you're hiring there, they want to work for a business that they're going to be confident is going to be there in a year, they're going to be confident is going to be able to pay the bills, they're going to be confident that knows their vacation policy, are they going to be paid for the Fourth of July? Are they going to be paid for Christmas? Those are things that a lot of entrepreneurs that when they're in the, you know, the, just the, I'm trying to come up with in
 
Andrea Herran  10:30
the month of it, the muck of it, that red, it doesn't come into,
 
Leighann Lovely  10:33
right, because they're not being paid for holidays, they're not getting, you know, vague, they. So working with somebody like you to, you know, basically help get them focused on those important things is is extremely important to a successful hire. Now, absolutely.
 
Andrea Herran  10:56
And I've been down the road myself, because I started by myself wearing all the hats doing everything, you know, now I'm grateful I've got a team of seven that support me. And so I understand that the decisions the you know, but can I afford it? Or what does that mean? And how do I do that? And something that people forget, you know, sometimes as entrepreneurs is like, Oh, can we try making so much and then I can hire somebody? Yes, that's great. But what they also forget, is what it means to them to let go while they let go, how they handle that off, off to somebody else. And how they make sure that they haven't totally lost control. But actually find that that psychological change for many is harder,
 
Leighann Lovely  11:52
right?
 
Andrea Herran  11:53
Oh, process procedures, I get that, you know, step we've got to do this, we got to do that, you know, it's something definitive, it's black and white, right? The letting go of what I used to do and give it to somebody else to do. How do I deal with that? And we will talk through that we will go through that. What do you need to know, you know, what would make you feel comfortable besides an update every five minutes,
 
Leighann Lovely  12:15
right? Oh, I'm already fearing that I haven't even gotten close to a point in which I'm going to be able to hire somebody and I'm always I'm already going, Oh, my God, well, nobody else can do it. Like I can do it. Not that I'm even that amaze. I'm not I'm not putting myself on a pedestal. I'm just like, Well, how do I train somebody to do this? Oh, gosh, Leanne, get off your pedestal get off your you know, nobody is everybody's replaceable. I remind myself that on a regular basis, regularly that nothing that I do cannot be done by somebody else. But a lot of us get to a point where it's like, it's just easier to do it myself than it is to try to. And that's such the such a backwards thinking. So backwards. Because I'm, I'm, I'm more than happy to say hey, somebody come in and do my book, somebody come and do my, because I don't know how to do it. Which means that there are multiple other things that I could just simply say, hey, come in and do this. Because every there are multiple people out there that are better, or, you know, much better at all of the different tasks that I do. I just happened to you know, yeah. So very good point. Very good point.
 
Andrea Herran  13:33
Okay, so it's figuring out how to train them, you know, and onboarding, you know, and what that does is that goes back to onboarding. And people think of onboarding as this like this one time, one hour event when somebody starts, and it's like, well, yeah, if you just count paperwork, but paperwork is you got to get it done. Because the paperwork mostly is needed to get them paid, right? You know, it's getting them in the payroll system, and all that kind of stuff. But onboarding, the first few weeks of somebody's employment, will set the pace for how long they stay. So the more interactive, the more supports that you're showing, the more training that you're doing, you're ensuring that they're catching on, you know, you do that heavily in the first couple of weeks, they will stay with you a long time. If you just throw them into the deep end and say, Hey, good luck. I'll see you later. Guess what, right? They're not going to be around right? for that long. So, is it more complicated, more time consuming more of a, you know, some people may think of it as a headache to spend all this time training with somebody up front. But you have to realize that what you spend now is often dividends in the long term, right.
 
Leighann Lovely  14:57
And that is that is it is hard for a lot of people, a lot of businesses to wrap their head around that. I have seen it because I come from the recruiting world that businesses are I just don't have time to train somebody right now we just don't have time to train somebody right now. Okay, you don't have time to train somebody, where are you going to be in six months, you're going to be further behind than you are right now. But if you were to put in the tube for six weeks now, where are you going to be in six months from now. And they just don't think of, it's the immediate, I need this done immediately, I need this done immediately, okay. But in six months from now, you're still going to be living in the I need this done immediately, I need this done immediately, you're still going to be constantly behind and behind and behind him behind. You need to think of big picture. And a lot of companies really struggle with that big picture of let me get somebody in, we're going to maybe fall behind. But by the time we get this person up and running and trained, we're going to catch up. And then we're going to actually be on time, we're going to actually be able to keep up with the work and not constantly be running two steps behind all the work that's building up. And I've I've struggled with that, as a recruiter constantly, where they're just like, Yeah, we're gonna hold off right now I'm pulling the trigger, because we don't have time. Okay, are you gonna have time in two weeks? Nope. Three weeks? Nope. a month?
 
Andrea Herran  16:20
Nope. Because you're always going to have less time. Correct? Because they're doing it all themselves.
 
Leighann Lovely  16:25
Right. And that's, it's such a frustration for people who are trying to work with companies that are always and you cannot talk sense into somebody who is like always in that reactive mode, versus being in that proactive mode? Because that reactive is that that fear mode? And it's it's, yeah, anyways, I digress.
 
Andrea Herran  16:54
No, it's and it's true. And the thing is, too, is I look back when I first started in human resources, so many years ago, everything had to be done, you know, in person live next to them, because computers were just starting, right? You know, right. I mean, I remember writing training sessions with the overhead projectors, and taking off the acetate Do you notice right topics. And now with all the tools that are available, and a lot of them are free, so it's not a cost issue. But you can start creating videos, especially the things that, you know, you're going to be repeating all the time, and I just did this for my own business. You know, nobody owes more than five minutes, used Canva, which you can use for free, you know, do a slideshow. And it's me explaining, you know, what the company is all about, I've got another one telling them about, you know, who our ideal client is, and the kind of work that we do. And another one about mindset. Because I've noticed, took me a while to figure this out. But I figured it out eventually, that I had to deal with, you know, people that I hired, were coming from being in house HR, and now being consultants in that mind shift, mindset shift that they needed to be a consultant. So I spend time talking about that, you know, and I found this so much easier. You know, because I could do it. For the videos, when I had time. Some of them were recorded late at night, some of them early in the morning. And then they could review it when they were ready to look at it. You know, and it's like, Okay, once you finish looking at all the videos, let me know, and then we will hop on a call to discuss. And it is made onboarding new team members. So much easier, right? With, you know, and they always have access to it. So once they start working with a client, they said, Yeah, I had to go back and then I'm like, okay, that's what I got to remember. You know, and
 
Leighann Lovely  19:01
right. Well, yeah, the world of technology allows us to, and as long as those videos are not because I've been at some companies where it's like, okay, you're gonna watch this eight hours of these videos. And you're like, wow, my first you know, my first day my first and you're like, eight hours of an I will tell you within the first hour, your brain is checked out. It's boom, you're you're no longer taking no, right. But those are those are absolutely great. And for, you know, in your world, if you're, you know, working with a business and they're like, Hey, we just need a quick like, how do we do this paperwork properly? How do we do this properly? That's a great tool to be able to offer a client where especially forms you know, your I nine forms, for instance, those are, you know, forms that are like, you come in and get audited by the government and they're like Nope, nope, sorry, there is not a dash in the right place, or there's not a number there's or it's missing, or it's not in the right format or whatever. You're like, okay, yeah. Right, you have to have those exact, like, here's a quick two minute, here's the right form, you know, way to do it, here's the wrong way to do it, and still have obviously, you know, be audited by you on a regular basis as a service and that kind of thing. But those are, you know, those are great ways to do that kind of stuff. So,
 
Andrea Herran  20:31
I do, like, you know, one of the things that we also do, one of the projects is we'll help people move to a new payroll system. Usually, they're going from something really basic, just that they're more robust. And they'll be like, Well, how do I do this? So instead of trying to write an email, or call them and say, okay, click here, do you see that button? Okay, no, no, it's the one next to that. I can record a quick screenshot video. Send it to them, they have access to it today, tomorrow, a week from now a month from now, whatever. And I always get back the same response. So like, Thank you, this is so much easier, I can see exactly what you're looking at what you're pointing at. And when people have looked at a multiple times, because especially if it's things they don't do often, right? You know, yes, I can fill out an i nine form blindfolded. Because I've done it way too many times. Right, we audit on it. But I get it your business, you may do it once every six months. Right. You know, so yeah, if I create a video for you, I want you to have access to it. And you can always see how to do it and refer back to it.
 
Leighann Lovely  21:41
Right. Yeah, I used to think you know, that I used to have people filling out those. I used to fill up three i nines a day, sometimes more in the staffing world, it was like, it was ridiculous. So but a business again, some businesses hire one person a year. Some more No, nowadays. Yeah. So. So obviously, as an HR professional, for as long as you've been, you've seen the good, the bad, the ugly, you you bring that up in your you know, in your bio. So do you think that, you know, things are getting better? Do you think that we are headed towards things getting better in in the way that that HR handles things? When it comes? I guess? I guess that's a tough question. Because we can't see the future, we can't predict the future. But with everything that has happened, obviously, with cultural shifts with people being more, you know, companies trying to be more sensitive, more inclusive. Where do you see this, you know, going over the next couple of years.
 
Andrea Herran  22:56
You know, what it's, I'm going to really simplify it. Because there's, there's so many nuances to it, right? But what's going to happen is, first of all human resources, as a profession, is really starting to come into its own now. Yes, companies have had you human resource companies for you know, 50 years or whatever. But there wasn't always a seat at the table. You know, and it was getting a little bit more attention, the pandemic, you know, for this good, bad and ugly, really brought, people started to realize the value of HR, to the company and to its employees, and what their employees mean, and how to take care of their employees. Even if they're a curmudgeon, that's like, you know, especially thankful they have a job kind of person. They still needed to do it the right way, and they still needed to make sure that their employees were taken care of. So HR came to the forefront, because we understood what the laws were saying, we were understanding what the programs were saying. We understood each state handled it differently. You know, so it's, we're at the table, and is, as long as the rest of the C suite, executive leadership owner, depending on the size of the the organization listens to HR and values, HR and HR brings value. You know, you can't, nobody can have a seat at the table if they don't bring value. Right. And they bring that value, you will see it change. You know, each generation of employees, you know, because somebody had asked me it's like, oh, yeah, but Gen Z has got to be the worst. You know, for example, like they said, What about the boomers? They said that about Gen X, they said that about the millennials. Now it's Gen Z's turn, every new generation is considered the worst. Right? Or entitled, or too demanding, you know, and it's just because they are different. And we also need to realize that as a generation, are the one that brought into this world, the following generations, right, going to complain about them, you kind of got to look at yourself.
 
Leighann Lovely  25:28
We created them. Exactly. Go look in the mirror.
 
Andrea Herran  25:34
Yeah, you know, as a Gen X, raising Gen Z. You know, when people talk about Gen Z, I'm like, Well, yeah, because I'm raising them, like I was raised, and my generation was raised, because Gen Z is closest to Gen X. Right? As far as the way they look at things. I mean, there's obvious differences, but they're the closest, and Gen Z is is no BS kind of policy, you know, I think is refreshing, you know, I, I,
 
Leighann Lovely  26:02
when it comes to the Generate, I think this new generation coming into the workforce is amazing. Yeah, I think they are absolutely. Like, they just want to know, like their spot. Do they have a spot at the company? And will you teach me? Will you allow me to grow? Will you train me? Will you give me what I need to grow? Because that's the expectation they have. They don't want to just be a flash in the pan. And I think that that's, I think that's amazing. Because if you look at millennials, they were just like, this powerhouse coming in being like, Hey, I'm here, now. Promote me. And it was like, what? And again, I'm,
 
Andrea Herran  26:49
that's the everybody gets a trophy generation. Correct. Everybody gets a trophy.
 
Leighann Lovely  26:54
And I'm part of that I'm at the very, very tail end of that generation. I participate in the, you know, in soccer, I got a trophy. So you know, here I am, give me a trophy. I participated. But now we have a generation of, you know, stop, you know, thinking that you're gonna get a pat on the back for showing up. And they're like, oh, okay, so I have to put forth the effort. So they're putting forth the effort. But they're asking for it. They're asking, I would like to get training. I would like to be a part of this community. I would like to, and everybody's complaining, oh, man, they need hand holding. No, they don't. They don't need to handle they need to be tained.
 
27:36
They want in the deep end. Correct. That's what people that's what it's supposed
 
Leighann Lovely  27:40
to happen. They're supposed to, they're not supposed to act like a millennial and be like, Yep, I'm here. Don't bother me. Just give me the promotion, and the money. And I'm out the door at five o'clock. I don't want that employee. I want the one who comes in and goes, I want to learn, I want to grow, but you have to show me how to do it. And why are people complaining about this?
 
Andrea Herran  28:05
Because previous generations would just suffer in silence. Here's the thing, you know, even with millennials, they were the first ones to say give me feedback. Yep. You know, they were the give me feedback generation. So it's like I talked to people now I got they're always wanting feedback. And I'm like, didn't you when you first started? And they're like, Well, yeah, and I go, so the only difference with this generation is they're vocalizing what you didn't feel comfortable saying, right? Gen Z is the same thing. We all want it to be trained. We all wanted to be given direction. For whatever reason, we didn't say it and they're saying it. They want to have a purpose. They want to know how they fit in to the organization. Right? Personally, I'm so glad to see that because I've been preaching that companies do that. I'm like, people need to know where they fit in. I've been preaching it for eons. Everybody's always wanted to know, what's the difference? Gen Z is vocalizing it right? Where's the rest of us? We're just thinking and going. That would be so nice.
 
Leighann Lovely  29:08
Wouldn't it be nice if somebody would tell me what I'm supposed to do and how I'm doing it?
 
Andrea Herran  29:13
Yeah, exactly. So it's funny because people bring that up. And I'm like, you know. But everybody's always wanted these things, right. But they're vocalizing it, where they're going a step further, is Gen Z also wants their companies to take more of a social stat. That is where life gets complicated. Right? But it doesn't have to be, you know, companies like individuals can have their own beliefs. You know, if your belief is I am not going into that, you know, hey, we know what we do. We have a great time we service our clients, we produce our products, whatever it is that we do, we don't do so stance, that's fine, just let them know. And then they can decide whether or not they want to be there. Right? If you do take a social stance, let them know what, where that is. Right? And what is it? Is it about a particular cause? Is it a philosophy in general? You know, I'm trying to avoid politics, but right, that kind of falls in there. But people are okay with it. Because everybody falls along the spectrum that's not, you know, people try to think of things as you know, it's either blue or it's red, it's not, you know, there's purple. And but people just wanted to know, because they want to be part of companies or organizations that share their values. So the more you share your values as a company, and what it is that you stand for, and what you want to be known as they will, they will self select in or out of the company, which verbally during the recruitment process, and not after they've started and taking your time. Correct.
 
Leighann Lovely  30:57
And I think that a lot of the old school companies choose to not do that, because they don't want. They don't want to exclude talent, they don't want to exclude possibility of an end, the younger generation doesn't quite under some of them don't understand that yet. Because it is taking a risk. Because if especially if they are falling on the line of any political things. Yeah. And and I think that in business, it's, it's smart to stay out of the political arena. Because you can, especially nowadays, with how volatile you know, it can get out there. But you're right, I think that a lot of them, they also want to be able to take part in, in volunteer work, they also want something that that was not a thing. I mean, it was a thing, but it wasn't as important of a thing when I was, especially in my early career, that was not even, I mean, occasionally a company would say, Okay, we're going to have this, we're doing this event, we're all going to do it together, and we're going to go volunteer, or there was a Christmas tree that you know, you had a tag on it, that you could go and you could buy gifts, and then you wrap them and you put them under the tree, and then they donate them. That was the extent of any company that I had ever worked at getting involved in, in anything. And then now the rise of you know, companies saying, Hey, we're going to do this fundraiser, or we're going to do this event, and we're going to raise funds and all of the funds are going to go to we're going to vote on which you know, which
 
Andrea Herran  32:42
charity charity, we want to support. Correct. And that's,
 
Leighann Lovely  32:45
that's absolutely amazing, you're seeing more and more individuals want to get involved in their community be part of their community, not just on a social basis, but on a way to give back. And that is that is the rise of this generation coming in that they really want to be involved. They want to give back, which is awesome. And that is the doing of their parents, that is part of the way that their parents have instilled in them on giving back. And, and being verbal in
 
Andrea Herran  33:13
the school systems. A lot of schools you have to have volunteer hours to graduate. And people found that they enjoyed volunteering,
 
Leighann Lovely  33:20
right, right. And being more vocal, I mean, I am very diligent with I have a five year old, I'm very diligent, my audience knows this. Probably bring her up and my dog multiple times per episode. Um, my dog is evil. He's still a puppy. He's not evil. Sometimes he's evil, anyways, especially when he eats my sandals. Yeah, that it's my fault for leaving them where he can eat them isn't as, okay. So he's not evil, it's just my fault. Being more vocal, that is also the result of the parents telling kids you know, I tell my daughter all the time, it is okay to be mad. Absolutely. Okay to be mad, it's okay to be sad. It's okay to be angry. But it's not okay to start screaming at mommy and telling her you know that she hates her and that she's gonna go in her room and never come out or that she's going to, you know, all these other random things that come out of a five year olds mouth that I'm like, where did she even learn that? And, again, got to look back at the parent, right? But it's because of the parents realizing that they didn't have the voice that a lot of kids growing up, you know, if I threw a fit my parents were like, That's naughty. And, you know, go to your room. I wasn't told that it's okay to have these emotions because they weren't allowed to have you know, there was a time when if you were a boy and you cried, everybody was like, boys don't cry. Well, what, what is that doing to the psyche? I mean,
 
Andrea Herran  34:56
which has caused which has caused mental health issues and it And I am so thankful that mental health has become more top of mind. You know, it's as a person who has reviewed health care and benefit plans for the last, you know, 30 odd years, I would see mental health would get like, many amounts, yep. Which still basically puts the whole burden on the employee to, to pay for it in now, through legislation through people realize it's, for example, it took legislation to get there. But I think insurance companies, for example, you know, the healthcare insurance companies have finally realized that preventative medicine, in the long run is cheaper, bright and better than trying to cure somebody after it's too late.
 
Leighann Lovely  35:51
Now, if we can get the doctors on board, sorry, this is my slam, if we can get the doctors on board to stop handing out painkillers, when somebody goes and says, I have, you know, chronic headaches instead of saying, Oh, here's some medication for your headaches and have them actually go. Well, let's figure out why you have chronic headaches. Yeah. I mean, let's let's, because let's take the preventative because I can tell you that my chronic headaches went away when I got adjusted, you know, my back got addressed, adjusted with my chiropractor, boom, I used to have a headache every day, at three o'clock, every day. I started seeing a chiropractor, and I don't have headaches at all anymore. So let's start it. And again, I've been on medication for years for chronic migraines. And I'm wondering, now can I get off that medication? Anyways, I digress. So if we can get if we can get that aligned, but you're right, on the on the mental health, you know, I was at one time paying $1,500 a month for my medications at a time period in my life where I could not afford that. Right? Luckily enough, you know, we still have, you know, drug companies out there that assist with individuals who have mental health problems or who are diagnosed with chronic mental health, my my being bipolar disorder, and for so for a year, they were able to give me my medications for free. But there are there are individuals out there, you know, we need to focus on chronic diagnoses people who were born with something, diabetes, all of these things that people that are born and come into the world who are diagnosed this is, you know, again, this is an entirely another conversation that we could have about, you know, the the medical fields on on the way that health care plans are put together. You know, I'm I'm born, I get diagnosed with something that I didn't ask for, and then you are the person who ends up paying. And you know what, I think epi pens at one point were, like, $800 is
 
Andrea Herran  38:10
ridiculous. Yeah, I know. It's good for like a month or two. So right, the keychains.
 
Leighann Lovely  38:15
Right. So again, I when it comes to I'm glad that you know, preventative medicine has finally caught up mental health, the site of mental health has finally caught up on all of those things getting better.
 
Andrea Herran  38:30
I think it's still so more to do to really catch up, but it's getting better. Yeah,
 
Leighann Lovely  38:35
yeah, it's those are absolutely, we've completely gone off on a tangent from HR.
 
Andrea Herran  38:42
But you know, what, this is, this is what I love about HR, you know, because for us, the day to day can be talking about we can go from handbooks to what do we pay people to health insurance, how to use the health insurance, why does not cover this, you know, the mental health, you know, but what about this and that to performance, and I call this I've always been an HR generalist, because I always say I like having my hands and Oh, cookie jars. And I like and I enjoy that variety. Every day, I can easily just go from one topic to the next to the next and then back again. And you know, and some more. That's to me what makes HR exciting, right?
 
Leighann Lovely  39:25
And that's why I love you obviously wouldn't have a podcast if I didn't love talking and having conversations like this, like it's, there's, there's so much that goes into it. And on a regular basis. I'm sure you're having conversations with your clients when it comes to all of these different things of the best, you know, health insurance plan and then the next conversation is your employee handbooks and an audit and so but before we run out of time, I do want to ask you the next question that I had, you know, ready for you which is, you know, there are A lot of mistakes that can happen when it comes to HR. But what do you think the biggest mistake employers make that can easily be fixed when it comes to dealing with the HR world? I know it's a loaded question. And
 
Andrea Herran  40:16
I'm totally oversimplifying this. No, it's to make a point. You know, in kindergarten, we all learn the rules of being in kindergarten. If you don't have anything nice to say, you don't say, Keep your hands to yourself. You know, be polite, be respectful, right? Think if we just keep those rules that we learned in kindergarten, in our adult lives, and as we manage people and work with people, you're going to be great, you've got 80 80% of it is there. The other 20% is just fine tuning to maybe a few laws or whatever, you know, for example, it drives me crazy, that we actually still have to give people sexual harassment training. It drives me crazy, because why do we still have to be talking to people about don't touch people? Don't keep asking them out, telling them that they're beautiful, and you'd like to do whatever with them is inappropriate. I mean, honestly, folks, I laugh crazy.
 
Leighann Lovely  41:24
I laugh because it seems so simple at the idea that, hey, you're in a work environment. Don't do that. Yeah, but you still have to tell people, hey, that's inappropriate. I know. Can you believe it? I know.
 
Andrea Herran  41:48
I know, they can't see me. But I'm like,
 
Leighann Lovely  41:49
I know you're making you're making like that your arms are going all over the place, and you're making faces. It's i I completely agree with you. It's what seems to you and me, and probably 75% of the people listening to this, and I say 75, which seems like a low number, but it really, it's not. No, I even would, it seems like an obvious thing. However, there was a client that I had years and years ago, it was a golf course, when I said you have out you have to, on a regular basis have, you know, complaints when it comes to you know, you know, you have these young individuals going out on these golf carts selling boots, I got to assume you get a lot of complaints from, you know, the the beer cart individuals, and I'm going to use individuals, a lot of us are thinking in their head, you know, what I'm avoiding saying, because at one time it was predominantly females who did that job. It is not, you know, again, and I said, you know, they've got to get harassed a lot by you know, the, the young golfers and the guy goes, Oh, no, no, no, and no. And they went, Oh, okay, great. That's good. He goes, No, they don't get harassed by the young golfers. The old ones, and I went, Oh, he goes all the time. Non stop. It is all of the old golfers. And I went what? Oh, because it was a generational thing. Yeah. And I went, Ah, crap. How did I miss that? i How did I not catch on to that? The younger generation coming up, understand that they understand that you can't make a comment. Hey, you look hot in that outfit. It's inappropriate. A generational my grandpa to this day will still make comments about you know, not obviously not me. But he'll stay still make comments. You know, if we're at a at a restaurant, oh, she's a cute one. And I'm like, Oh, God, but he's in his 70s. You know, and he's not making it to her. He's not making her uncomfortable. But that was a generational thing. They they, it's unfortunate. But in that generation, and unfortunately, there are still a lot of and I'm not gonna say just men it it is not just in the men bucket. Oh, no men and women alike. In the old and I'm not saying it's just in that generation. I'm sure that there are plenty. There are plenty of other people. But there's a large population of people in the older generations that still make the same mistakes. And a lot of people will brush it off and go oh, it's just through age, but it's still inappropriate.
 
Andrea Herran  45:03
Absolutely, absolutely. And the nice thing is, is, you know, you're talking about how the younger generation is so aware, the younger generation has been exposed, openly exposed to so many different things, whether we're talking male, female, liberal, conservative, gender identity, orientation, things like that. I mean, it's, like I said, I've got teenagers, you know, my boys are in high school, and they're like, oh, yeah, you know, it's we see this, we see that and I'm like, I've never heard that term. What does that mean? And I'm like, okay, you know, right. They see it all the time. And they're like, people are just being themselves. It doesn't affect me. So why should I care? Right? And that's the way they are like, Would you ever do this? And they're like, oh, no, right? No. Why? Why would I be little somebody else? Correct. It's just constantly. Thankfully, they just don't yet. Right? I don't understand why anybody would want to do that. Correct.
 
Leighann Lovely  46:02
And that's the same. My daughter came home. And we were talking about one of her little friends at school. And I said, Oh, what? You know, what are what about her mommy and daddy, and she's, oh, she doesn't have a mommy. And I said, Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. She goes, No, she has two daddies. Oh, okay. Great. And for her, it's completely normal. There is nothing wrong with it. It's completely normal. For me, I'm going Oh, okay. And I'm thinking, well, maybe I should ask her if she's okay with that. And I'm like, wait, no, I'm not going to say anything else. Because then it's going to seem like there's something wrong with it. And she's going to wonder why I'm asking. So I just went, Oh, okay, that's cool. You know, and we, and we just kept on talking. Because, again, my generation is still, we're still getting used to the processing of processing it. And, and we're still my generation, our generation is still processing the pronouns, and we're still and while I am completely accepting, and I, it doesn't matter to me one way or another, it's still, we're still in a state of processing the information to try to understand it, you know, appropriately. Right. And the younger generation, they're, they're growing up in it, they're in the thick of it the same way that I was, and you, and, you know, the older generation was in the thick of, of, you know, I mean, I saw, I had friends who were experimenting with the same sex at that time, and my parents were like, Oh, my God, no, no, that's not, or my parents actually, were really forward thinking and didn't care, my grandparents would have been, like, you know, oh, my God, that's, that's not appropriate, you know, that's completely, again, each generation shifts to be more accepting of the next. And so at some of these employers who are, you know, are much older, and trying to shift with all of the dynamics of the different younger generation coming in. I would not want to be incorporate HR anymore.
 
Andrea Herran  48:12
Because it gets confusing, you know, like, one of the things I liken it to is computers. You know, it's, I'm Gen X, a home PC came out in my generation when I was in high school, right? I like to think of myself as computer literate, but I'm sure there's tons of stuff that I don't know, still, you know, where as this current generation doesn't know what it's like not to be without a computer, including the one that's in their hand. I mean, cell phones are just small computers, right? You know, they grew up with all that. So to them, it's absolutely normal. You know, so while the rest of us are still trying to process that, I don't have to remember phone numbers anymore, because now I've gotten in my phone. You know, and we're still processing that. It's the same kind of thing. You know, it's
 
Leighann Lovely  49:01
right, you know? Yeah. I I asked, we were watching Honey, I Shrunk the Kids with my daughter for the first time. And there's a scene in the beginning where the the girl is on the phone that's hooked to the wall, and it's got a cord on it. And I my husband looks at my daughter and goes Honey, do you know what that is? And she goes, Yeah, daddy, it's a phone. And I was like, Oh, okay. Well, she, you know, she's seen. She's seen them before. And she's got a toy that looks like that. And I was like, well, at least she knows what it is. But who has a phone that's hooked to a wall anymore?
 
Andrea Herran  49:42
It's very rare. Like I don't know if you've seen those videos of like, they put like teenagers in a room with a rotary phone. And you're saying call somebody and we're all looking at it going? Well, it's like, whatever. But you know, it's funny to watch when you know how it's supposed to work. I can't figure out it out. Like they dial like numbers, they dial some numbers, then they lift up the receiver. done anything.
 
Leighann Lovely  50:07
Oh, is that funny? Well, we are coming to time. And I want to respect that. So I'm going to ask you the question of the season. What do you think will go down in the history books from what the world has experienced over the last three years?
 
Andrea Herran  50:27
I think history will talk about these last three years with not just events here in the US, but worldwide, about the great divisions, you know, it's your ego, this or your that in the lack of compromise or willing to compromise. You know, being evidence we, the pendulum has really swung towards, Nope, you're either with us or against us kind of thing. I mean, with anything, even on the international stage, you know, we can talk about Russia and all that kind of stuff. It's either you're with us or against us. So I'm looking forward to when the pendulum switches back moves back towards more cooperation.
 
Leighann Lovely  51:13
That's very interesting.
 
Andrea Herran  51:17
I have it's funny, because that's, you know, every once in a while my kids be like, it'd be just so much easier for everybody thought the same way. And I said, No, it would be boring. Yes. And I go, because if everybody thought exactly the same way, there would be no innovation, right? There would be no change, we'd still be living the same way. We did, you know, 100 years ago. But also differences are great. It's what makes us thrive. What we've lost sight of is how to actually have conversations around differences. You know, we're not having conversations around differences. We're having arguments. Which arguments nobody wins, right?
 
Leighann Lovely  51:57
If somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about contacting you?
 
Andrea Herran  52:02
Oh, very easy. I can you can go to my website, there's a Contact Us form on there. You know, focus, HR dot biz bi Z. You can email me at Andrea a nd or EA at Focus HR dot biz, or call me. You know, and my phone number is 773-531-8199. Excellent.
 
Leighann Lovely  52:23
This has been an awesome conversation. I really appreciate you joining me today. And yeah, I mean, it's just been it's been amazing.
 
Andrea Herran  52:32
It's it's been great. I could talk for a few more hours, but we won't do that to your listeners.
 
Leighann Lovely  52:37
Well, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support. Without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, to follow us, like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPY
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, companies, hr, andrea, generation, employees, gen z, conversations, talk, business, work, mental health, hire, started, great, human resources, question, gen x, millennials, paid

Join Wendy Terwelp and me as we dive into the world of AI and how it can be used as a tool to create resumes, but only a tool. Wendy celebrating her 25th year in business has seen a lot change over the years and continues to help her clients level up and find their personal brand. She also explains some of the challenges that come with using AI but also the great benefits if used as a tool and not the end all. This is a great conversation with a Brilliant Author, Executive Speaker, Speaker and so much more!  
 
Contact Wendy
LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/wendyterwelp
Website - https://knocks.com/
 
Leighann Lovely  00:20
HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely. Let's get this conversation started. 
Wendy Terwelp founded Opportunity Knocks of Wisconsin LLC, a boutique career development firm, in 1998. She writes, speaks, consults, and coaches on personal branding, networking, social media, career development, and employee attraction and retention.
Winner of the 2022 BBB Torch Award for Ethics, Terwelp’s work was also recognized in Inc.’s “Top 10 Helps for Your Career,” ATD’s “Best on Career Development,” and she was named in the Top 15 Career Masterminds.
Dubbed a “LinkedIn Guru” by The Washington Post, her advice is quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Chicago Tribune, The Business Journal, CTDO magazine, ABC, NBC, FOX, and other media. Her books include: “Rock Your Network® for Job Seekers,” “Rock Your Job Search,” and ATD’s award-winning “Jumpstart Your Job Search and Get Hired Faster.”
Terwelp served in community and professional leadership roles including Judging the 2023 BBB Spark Awards; Chairing PD Charitable Fund Board’s Premier Awards Event; Officer on Wisconsin Association of Staffing Services Board; Co-Chairing the Career Development Track for ATD’s International Conference & Expo.
Terwelp holds a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Workplace certification, six career industry certifications, and a degree in Mass Communication / Journalism.
Wendy, I am so excited to have you. This is actually a treat because you and I have spoken on a podcast before actually in a previous podcast life of mine. So welcome.
 
Wendy Terwelp  03:08
Thank you. I'm glad to be back. It's exciting.
 
Leighann Lovely  03:12
Yes. So why don't you start out by telling everybody a little bit about yourself? Well, my name
 
Wendy Terwelp  03:18
Well, my name is Wendy Terwelp, and I founded a company called Opportunity Knocks of Wisconsin LLC. It's a boutique career development firm. And I founded this in 1998. So it's year 25. For me. I'm excited about that I write speak, consult. And coach on personal branding, networking, social media, career development. And lately, employee attraction and retention. Since the pandemic, that's been a key factor of my business talks now is all about how do we attract better fit employees? How do we keep our employees that we have, and so on. So that's really where my emphasis has lied when I when I have been doing my career coaching and talks. When I work with individuals, I typically work on career advancement strategies, personal branding, and also of course, how to find jobs. So even though there's a huge demand for people, they still need to know how to get the right job for them right now. And when I work with companies, it's really all about employee attraction and retention through their employer brand. So,
 
Leighann Lovely  04:39
yeah, awesome. And congratulations on your 25. That is amazing. That's so much fun. And I'm sure that the last couple of years is definitely throwing you for a loop. But you're absolutely correct. Now is the time to not only work with individuals on finding the right job for them, in hopes that they will stay A, but finding a way to retain the great employees that you have. And that is definitely the burden on employers. You know, today because we all know that employees are on the move, right? They are looking for the balance between work life, the love of their job and their opportunities to be had by all, aren't they're?
 
Wendy Terwelp  05:29
Absolutely, yeah, I really think that's what you're going to see. But I know that question comes later.
 
Leighann Lovely  05:37
Yes, so one of one of the things that you and I had kind of, you know, thrown out there as a as an area to talk about, which is, you know, on the rise, it is, you know, being talked about everywhere you go, which is, you know, the AI tools, you know, the GP chats of the world, all of the other tools out there that are specific to that, you know, I've had people approach me and say, Oh, have you use this one? It's specific to podcasting, or have you use this one. But one of those things is, you know, a AI tool for writing or creating resumes. What are your thoughts on that?
 
Wendy Terwelp  06:16
Yeah, I, I really love this topic, because I actually had one of my clients. She messaged me through LinkedIn. And she's like, I'm really concerned about your business, because I have people that are using AI to create resumes. Well, first of all, that's not the sole part of my business. So, right. But But secondly, I think what people really have to remember is AI can be used as a tool, just like your computer programs can be right. It's a tool. And I think that's the really big thing for people to remember that it's a tool. So what this tool can do for you is, you could use it as a tool to research keywords for the appropriate position that you're targeting, you still have to put the human you into your career documents. So even if AI creates a resume for you, it's not you, right, it's just some something generic, it's not going to have your qualified quantified achievements that focus on bottom line results that are specific to you, because it doesn't know those things, it can't pull those out of the internet ether. Because it doesn't have that information. You have to have that information as a candidate, you need to know these things. You can't say significantly improved sales, you're not going to get hired, you need to say by how much and what percentage, did you improve sales? How did you improve sales? What specific actions did you take to improve those sales? And more importantly, who are some of your key clients? How much revenue did that bring in? And over what timeframe?
 
Leighann Lovely  08:05
So not only that, but I also you know, you get again, being you know, coming from the recruiting world beat Yeah, you get all of these resumes, and and I like the uniqueness of a resume, somebody who pours their heart and soul and being like, and again, I'm not saying like, Oh, make pretty, you know, put hearts and flowers and rainbows on him. Because that would just irritate me, I don't I don't need that stuff. I want the I want the short and skinny of how you accomplish what you I don't want to book, please don't send me a book. I'm not interested in reading your life story. I want the short and skinny of how you did what you did at that job with the highlights. Because, again, most employers or people who are hiring, they give your resume, a couple of you know, 10 to 15 seconds to grab their attention and decide whether or not they're going to read further. If they read further, you then you know you're in your chances of being called for an interview increase dramatically. Right. But if you're using an AI, I'm gonna guess that this AI is pulling from, you know, historical data data on what is the best format? What is the best verbiage what is the and you're going to end up with what everybody else has?
 
Wendy Terwelp  09:33
Yes, exactly. It's generic. It's not you and it's doesn't separate you from the crowd. Your resume look like everybody else's. If you're an accountant. That's pretty straightforward job but what's unique to you are the type of you know, what did you save money wise? Did you do a due diligence for an acquisition or merger? What was your impact to the organization if you did that, you know, what level of accounting Are you Are you? Are you a CFO? Or are you a staff, accountant? Those are different responsibilities. Even if you're a newbie, a new college grad, okay, some of those things are going to be general because you're new to the world of your new profession. But maybe you had an internship nobody else had. Maybe that makes you different. Maybe you have some amazing volunteer activity that you participated in that other people didn't. Maybe you did a study abroad program as a new grad that somebody else didn't. These are separators, right. So you can use, you can use AI, maybe as a tool to research keywords, maybe to flesh out a format, but you still have to be take ownership of what you put out. And I feel, you know, you need to know what your achievements are, you need to know what your personal brand is what sets you apart, because not all people are created equal. That's what makes us great and makes us you know, hireable, and it makes us a culture fit for the organizations we target. So we have to get into those differentiators.
 
Leighann Lovely  11:08
So do you think this is probably a bad question? But I'm gonna ask it anyways. Because your show? I mean, don't you think that that AI is slightly ruining a cup? And again, I know my audience is gonna yell at me like, What? What do you mean ruining us? But I mean, it's great in some aspects, it gives, hey, I use it. Don't get me wrong. I love GP chat. I love to jump on there and be like, I need some ideas. And then from what it kicks out, I'm like, Oh, that's a really great idea. And then I, I go off and I created on my own, you may be using a couple key words that I did not that I didn't even know existed. But for the younger generation, the reason that I have gotten to where I am, is because I've had to swim. I was thrown into the pool and a sink or swim. I swam. Don't you think that that's kind of ruining that learning that necessary learning for some of that younger generation?
 
Wendy Terwelp  12:19
Well, that's more of a culture shock situation. I mean, when I was growing up, I didn't have a global pandemic. To share. Right, right. When I graduated from college, we had the second we had the second we had a stock market crash. When I graduated from college, there weren't any jobs. Right. So I had to go out there and forge my own way, right. And I was still was able to get employed, primarily through my network, applied everywhere, but still had to do the groundwork of networking, that personal touch, the networking, in fact, I wrote the book called Rock your network for job seekers. So hello. Right. And, and I, the network still has to be there and AI can't replace your network. Right? These are all tools. Social media is a tool, you know, so I think I think we have to look at these as tools. I mean, I had a typewriter, I had a compu