Pete Newsome 00:00
You're listening to the Hire Calling Podcast. I'm your host Pete Newsome. And I'm joined today by Ricky Baez to talk about an HR topic that he may have some interesting thoughts on. But before we get there Ricky, how are you today?
Ricky Baez 00:12
I am doing great Pete, beautiful Friday.
Pete Newsome 00:17
It is a beautiful Friday, Elon Musk walks into Twitter headquarters as the new owner fires, everyone. And here we are. So I don't know why I'm bringing that up. Other than it's been all over Twitter. What do you think?
Ricky Baez 00:32
If people were shocked, I don't know where you've been living for the past 20 years. Because normally, that's what happens in a huge, huge acquisition like that. So I expected it.
Pete Newsome 00:42
I think this is a little personal, though, don't you? I mean, you know, this happened fast.
Ricky Baez 00:48
Oh, it did it. Did. You know what it can be personal because we saw it was three top executives, right, who were really involved in censorship in here he comes and says, You go by? That's exactly what we see in the media.
Pete Newsome 01:05
Right? They probably said it exactly like that. Exactly like that. Goodbye. Well, it's going to be interesting. I don't know. Are you a big Twitter user?
Ricky Baez 01:13
You know, what I? I want to be, it's just not as engaging as Instagram. I like Instagram better than Twitter. Now, it's Twitter. I can watch Instagram with my son next to me. Sometimes, it's Twitter. Some things come up.
Ricky Baez 01:31
They're like oh, okay. No, I don't want to I don't want to deal with that. Not not not on Twitter. So I will love to be a Twitter fan. I just, it's just Instagram is a better platform for me.
Pete Newsome 01:41
Interesting. Okay. Yeah, I'm the polar opposite.
Ricky Baez 01:46
Really? Yeah. Is Twitter better than Instagram?
Pete Newsome 01:48
Yes, for sure. I don't really go. I don't really look at Instagram. I don't really, I don't spend any time on there. Look at what I read and learn a lot on Twitter. And so yeah, it's a great source of information. I think it all comes down to who you follow as well.
Pete Newsome 02:05
And What would be an interesting thing for us to talk about in the future is the social media accounts you can really learn from and I do try to take advantage of that.
Pete Newsome 02:13
And that's everywhere from Twitter to YouTube is amazing for learning now, and I wish I say now I discovered it recently, but it's, it's amazing and even TikTok, I think is becoming a channel to learn from right, which is odd, because it's not just dancing nurses, it turns out.
Ricky Baez 02:34
No TikTok has almost replaced my need for entertainment from all the other streaming devices, like a mare flick, if you want to be entertained, and not sleep, open up TikTok at 11 pm in bed.
Pete Newsome 02:47
And it never ends, right? It's a gift that keeps giving.
Ricky Baez 02:51
And then we got a meeting like this today. And next thing you know, like, I'm tick tock, hungover.
Pete Newsome 02:55
All right. And so today, we're putting your HR hat on to the I guess you'd never take it off.
Ricky Baez 03:05
It's the hair, the HR hair.
Pete Newsome 03:09
We're talking about a blog that is on the 4 Corner website that I put up there sometime in the last week, comparing HR to people operations.
Ricky Baez 03:20
Yes.
Pete Newsome 03:22
And your first reaction, I believe, was it's one and the same What are you doing? Right? Why are you why are you? Why are you? Why are you making stuff up? Right?
Ricky Baez 03:32
Yeah, well, look, it's um, I've I have been in HR for 20 years. And when I got into human resources, it was in the transition from it being called personnel to actual human resources, because some of the people I work with, call me personnel. And I'm like, Alright, it just sounded.
Ricky Baez 03:50
So you know, like an authority figure. I didn't know that. But to me, it was really, really tactical, and we move into human resources. Even then, Pete, I saw how human resources was being treated, it was still more tactical, but it had the human element to it.
Ricky Baez 04:07
And when I started seeing how it was more tactical, it was more paper-driven. I made a decision 20 years ago, Mike, I'm gonna, I'm gonna really honor what the H in HR stands for. And that's, that's the human aspect. Right? Because, you know, it's not normally HR is seen as the entity that tells the business No, right? No, you can't do that, or we'll get sued. You can't do that this is going to happen.
Pete Newsome 04:32
So they tell staff and companies know pretty regularly it turns out we've had conversations, right?
Ricky Baez 04:39
We've had really interesting conversations that you're like, really, really risky that that that's an HR thing, and we're like, yeah, it is and I love those conversations. Whereas that human element instead of me saying, Hey, Pete, read this handbook or law. I liked the relationship-building aspect to where, from one human being to another, I want to understand how you want to succeed as a business owner.
Ricky Baez 05:05
And I will love to help you understand not you. And in particular people, I will love to I like to help people understand how we can make that happen the right way, from a legal and HR, and people perspective. So, the article is called people off for operations versus HR, the key differences.
Ricky Baez 05:24
So when I read this, I'm like, to me is one and the same and I've been doing that since the beginning. And I read it and I was so happy to see that finally, there's a distinction to the people operation aspect of HR.
Pete Newsome 05:37
Well, HR, perhaps was in need of a facelift. And what I mean by that is, I think of my own experience in history with HR versus an employee who needs to get past the gatekeeper, to determine whether my application resume was worthy of moving on. So that's not, I guess if it goes well, you're, you know, you think fondly of HR in that in that interaction. But once you are an employee hearing from HR historically was a bad thing.
Pete Newsome 06:06
You'd not want to it's like getting sent to the principal's office, right? And I don't have fond memories of any HR interaction, as an employee, working for two large companies either. If I don't, I can't, I don't think this happened. But the fear was there if HR came knocking on me as an employee, that meant something was wrong. And, as a manager, when I had to engage HR, it was because something was wrong.
Pete Newsome 06:37
And I needed their help. So in that case, HR was a resource, but again, it was surrounding a bad situation with an employee or whatever, but nothing particularly comes to mind. Probably nothing I can say anyway. But then as him now, as a business owner, to your point, when I have over the past 18 years thought of HR, it's because I have a problem that needs to be solved.
Pete Newsome 07:02
And that has historically been the way it goes. And I don't think my experience is unique in that regard. But over the past, I don't know how many years I think Google will be like Google, right? That's what everyone's wanted to do for the past eight years.
Pete Newsome 07:20
And it was someone at Google who coined the phrase, I believe, and that sets, you know, as far as I can tell, when writing the article that of People Operations, that's where it originates. And so that makes sense because Google was about late let's, let's be more, let's change the way we treat employees, let's change the way employees get to spend their time here.
Pete Newsome 07:47
And so I think that is a pretty big facelift and a change to who HR has historically been or I should say how HR has historically been perceived.
Ricky Baez 07:58
And so I agree with you 100%. Pete, I've noticed that very early on where HR was very reactive, right? And think about it. I see. And let me be careful in how I say this because I saw what happened to Tom Brady, when he compared his playing in the NFL, to being deployed in the military.
Ricky Baez 08:18
I know, those are two different things. So what I'm about to compare right now is like the police department, I guarantee that police officers 95% of their encounters with the public are negative. It's negative, right? And I saw the same in human resources. Think about it.
Ricky Baez 08:35
The only time this is a positive proactive encounter between a candidate and or employee in Human Resources is when they're about to come on board when they're being onboarded. In that's it. Right. Right, or if they're voluntarily leaving, everything else has been reactive.
Ricky Baez 08:54
And I started to really learn that fact when I worked for the county years and years ago when my really first experience with unions. Let me tell you, I have a lot of experience in unions and 95% of it is negative really was and I wanted to change that.
Ricky Baez 09:11
So when I started working for Sears Home Improvement, we had a call center of about 1200 people. And what I wanted to do Pete, I wanted to change that, that negative aspect of human resources. I hated walking into a room and being looked at as the Grim Reaper.
Ricky Baez 09:28
I really hated that. And this is something that I got a lot when I worked at Darden my job at Darden Restaurants as an employer relations manager, I don't know if I would share this with you. I used to fly all over the US and have conversations with people who do investigations, right? Just to make sure the organization doesn't get in trouble. It's a great company to work for.
Pete Newsome 09:51
Yeah, for anyone not familiar with Darden, they have 1000 Well over 1000 restaurants, and multiple brands that you'd recognize so they're A large employer with us with lots of locations.
Ricky Baez 10:02
Yes, absolutely. Trust me, I know because I took advantage of that discount. But I was flying everywhere. And, you know, my team, I mean, other than lead the team, but the team I belong to gain the reputation that as soon as we got there, boom, there's a grim reaper, somebody's getting fired. I hated that feeling. I hated that feeling. And I wanted to go in there, and just really get to know the folks.
Ricky Baez 10:25
So what I asked my boss, I'm like, Hey, can I get some money in my budget to fly place this before zoom was as prevalent as it is right now? I wanted to fly places, just walk in, and talk to the folks, let me tell you, I quickly learned how to make Cheddar Bay Biscuits when Red Lobster belongs to Darden.
Ricky Baez 10:43
And let me tell you, I did some good work in building relations. Because all I did was go in and talk to the folks to see how they were doing to learn how to bake should it be biscuits, and I gained 30 pounds in the process. Because of course, I got a taste and Pete I mean course.
Ricky Baez 10:57
But, you know, the reason I Liked this article is because it really focused on the human aspect is that people's operation, but in this article, it says that it's a part of human resources. And I want to challenge that people operation should be human resources, period. It should be a period.
Ricky Baez 11:18
That's why I love how this article put what is that difference? Because I want to make it just a little bit just add a little bit more and put that the people operations piece should be a part of every aspect of HR.
Pete Newsome 11:32
Well you know, HR is a pretty broad term, or, at a big company. The responsibilities of an HR department are very broad. If you and I recently talked about the different roles that make up an HR department, we differed a little bit, I think on recruiting in particular, which is generally an HR function. So maybe shouldn't be right, maybe, maybe, maybe we talked about payroll, right?
Pete Newsome 12:01
Payroll, if you look at what payroll is, is a financial function, sometimes HR. So it's HR becomes almost a bit of a generic term, because of that, and so I think people operations, refine an aspect of HR, to give you that you now know what it means. Right, then that's the point of this article, where you say, Okay, I understand the distinction there that we're talking about the strategic aspect of it.
Pete Newsome 12:34
That's not as, as you said, tactical, right? And that, I think, often has a negative implication to it. But that's the work that has to be done, right? The details matter, the payroll has to be processed, the, you know, the terminations have to go through when one time the, the onboarding, paperwork has to be filled out completely.
Pete Newsome 12:59
So those aren't, I would say those are critical functions. The People Operations aspect of it is not mandatory. So hear me out on this. I have to process payroll, I have to fill out the onboarding paperwork, I have to make sure benefits are in place, I don't have to make sure my employees well being is sought after I don't have to check on them to make sure they're happy.
Pete Newsome 13:32
I don't have to think of things like career planning. And, you know, what can we do to improve retention? I should do all of those things. But I don't have to. So to me, People Operations is an opportunity for an organization to cover the things and take care of the things that they should do. But they aren't obligated to do it. So is that Is that a fair way to approach it?
Ricky Baez 14:03
Okay, I'm pausing. Because the way I'm looking at it, Pete Are you see? So let me use that same example, the same example where payroll has to be done. It's paper-esque, right? But I see payroll as an amazing opportunity to connect with the people because I tell my team all the time.
Ricky Baez 14:23
Every issue that comes into the HR department, it's on a first come first serve basis, except for two things. Anything that happened that's illegal that we have to address and payroll, right? Never, ever make people wait for the reason that comes to work, which is money, right? So to me, the payroll department has a great opportunity to connect with the folks in case something bad happens right? In cases like zero was added or taken away because people notice those things.
Ricky Baez 14:51
Instead of waiting for the person to get that payroll that checks in the short or they have too much. You reach out to them as soon as it has but it's right that we can plan ahead. To me, that's part of the people aspect.
Ricky Baez 15:04
Or if their paycheck is shorter, the benefits didn't happen. I don't care if you, as an HR specialist are about to go to lunch or about to hit overtime, take care of them, I'll pay you for it, obviously, take care of them, do not make them wait for me.
Ricky Baez 15:17
That is the people operation aspect that we as long as we as HR folks and business leaders, as long as we take care of exactly what they value, they're going to do the same for the organizations that to me, to be honest, Pete, they're one and the same.
Pete Newsome 15:33
Alright, you're not there yet. So let me counter that I can say, you could make that same case for every department of an organization. That doesn't mean it's they're in charge of People Operations. So customer service should go above and beyond where possible sales are going above and beyond where possible, and the greeter at the front door and the receptionist should do more than just make sure that the person has a badge and signs the guestbook, or whatever it might be.
Pete Newsome 16:01
So I think you could make a case that every employee of an organization should have responsibility for people operations to the degree that they can write or every manager every department. But this, to me is different.
Pete Newsome 16:18
This is saying, it's not just those things that we should assume or take for granted, we're going to make sure it gets the right level of attention and thought that our bid our employees deserve, and it's meaningful to me, because personally because for years, I didn't give those things much thought as an organization.
Pete Newsome 16:41
If of course, we wanted to take care of our employer, clients, and candidates, and employ the best we could. But again, just through the normal course of business. And now we have meetings about what can we do to enhance the employee experience here. What can we do to improve retention? What can we do to attract new employees who want to be part you have to be part of our organization?
Pete Newsome 17:09
And that thing It's, if you're going to make significant improvements, you have to put forth the significant effort. You can't just say, well, it's natural that we're going to do these things, of course, we're going to want our employees to be happy, and we're going to take good care of them. But if asked, what are you actually doing about it? That I think, is where the rubber meets the road.
Pete Newsome 17:36
And you say, well, we don't really have much of a specific answer to that. But if you say, well, we have a, you know, people operations focus in department or individual, whatever, depending the size the organization, and here's what their responsibilities are now, now it has more meaning. Now you're going to get more out of it. So I think it's not enough, perhaps to just take it for granted.
Ricky Baez 18:03
I'm with you. I'm with you there. I think I think we were seeing the same thing just differently, right? Because it's this is why this article sparked a huge interest in me because it's, I wish it's happy for somebody to finally say, finally, somebody said it. Finally, somebody addressed HR and HR, because that's what this is, right?
Ricky Baez 18:21
Finally, somebody addressed that there is a people function that really needs to be, it really needs to be brought to the forefront, like the other areas in HR, for example, compliance training. I, it's I don't like the compliance name, right, because it sounds like you're doing something like you don't want to do and as soon as you treat it that way, then people are going to treat it that way.
Ricky Baez 18:45
But if you connect with the employees in a way where they get excited for this training, how this training is going to help, you're going to get a better result from attendance and what we call in the training and development world, the transfer of knowledge, right? Because that's, that's the key, the transfer of knowledge, and that knowledge is being used. There's one thing in this article that I really liked.
Ricky Baez 19:04
And I said it already is when it talks about the people operations versus HR, what is the difference, there's the approach to the system and the legal function, but the part that I liked is reactive versus proactive, which is what I started talking about earlier over with Darden. So when I worked at that 1,200, to $100, minimum 1200 seat call center, I noticed that it while I was over a team of four, and I noticed that we were a machine when it comes to recruiting and we will recruit people, and we will focus so much on helping people reach their career aspirations, their pay everything.
Ricky Baez 19:40
But once they went to training, we forgot about them, right until something happened, right? And that's why I'm like we cannot forget about the employees. As soon as they go to training, we still need to treat them and connect with them with the same ferocity as we did to bring them on board. So that's what changed the reactive versus proactive.
Ricky Baez 19:57
So what I started telling my team is, each and every one of you does twice a week, not on the same day, go out and check on it and spend 45 minutes walking the floor talking to the people seeing how to do it and do they have anything? They're gonna freak out at first? Because they're like, why is he charts happening on the shoulder at 10:30 in the morning, on a Friday, yep.
Pete Newsome 20:16
Pack your stuff, pack your stuff and go ahead and do the walk of shame.
Ricky Baez 20:20
So took about a couple of weeks to a month to get over that stigma. But you notice something different. You started to see people interacting, you started to see people loving what they do, and not being afraid to go to HR. To me, that's the part of the article that really got to me. I'm like, Yes, finally, we're getting there. I mean, I don't know if that's what you were shooting.
Pete Newsome 20:39
Yeah, I think that's the point. Right? Did you set it reactive versus proactive? And what you describe is, I think, what, every it'd be nice if everyone did that. It'd be nice if every employee manager person who's in a position to help said, Hey, let's not do the bare minimum of our job because that's essentially what you just described. Let's follow up. Let's do more than we're required to. Okay, that's, that's awesome. That's rare, I think.
Pete Newsome 21:13
I mean, I guess I really don't know how rare that is. Yeah. When I, when I, when I see so much quiet quitting talk lately, I think it's rare because that whole premise is, let's do only what's in our job description. And I suspect what you just described was not in your job description.
Pete Newsome 21:30
You wanted to enhance the experience, and just do the best job you can, you can do so that it'd be nice if that existed everywhere. What this is, to me is a company acknowledging, or the need to acknowledge that that may not be happening. And let's put focus on it.
Pete Newsome 21:53
Again, whether it's a role, a department, an individual, or just a part of what you incorporate into your quarterly conversations and planning, whatever might be that, Hey, are we taking care of this aspect of HR, just like we take care of benefits and onboarding? And the stuff that we have to do? Because that's to me the real difference, right? This is not a must-do. But you need to do it.
Ricky Baez 22:29
So okay, so I don't know if you said it back to you meant it that way. You see that a must-do but you should do it. It's not the same thing?
Pete Newsome 22:36
No, not at all. I must, I must process payroll. Right. But I should make sure that the employees are satisfied. And that we're looking out, for things beyond just showing up and going home during the day. So
Ricky Baez 22:54
I don't know why I asked that. Because I know the I know, I know the I know that difference. It's like the other day, where are we talking the other day and about a PowerPoint? And I said you said hey, I got I see some slides that are not complete. I know it's hidden.
Ricky Baez 23:09
And here's what hidden means. And it's right. Oh, yes. You're like, Wait, stop the YouTube. Tell me the difference between the definition of hidden I'm like, holy crap.
Pete Newsome 23:19
Did you define a heading for me? Which was much appreciated.
Ricky Baez 23:22
You're welcome. I do without you. I'm retracting that. But the question, you're right, it's not the same thing. But you know, I think that from my perspective, since I've been doing this so long, to me, it's a must-do. And that's because endless that's how I see it.
Pete Newsome 23:37
So there's a choice you have to make as an employer. And I have an appreciation for this. This has gone off the rails a little bit. But when you can take those things for granted that employees are going to do them, unless you know, you shouldn't pray like don't assume someone's going to do that.
Pete Newsome 24:03
Don't assume that someone is going to go above and beyond when they do recognize those individuals, promote them, reward them, and take care of them, no question about it. But I think it's an appreciation that I've had, so I'll step back a little bit to say when I decided to start my own business. It was partly because the organizations that I worked for were too bound by processes and procedures.
Pete Newsome 24:29
And I was ambitious, I was someone who was constantly coming up with new things, two ways to improve and grow. And it was almost always met by, here are reasons why we can't do it. Or if we can, we can't do it quickly. And we have to go through all of these steps or this is the way we've always done it. And that was extremely frustrating to me. It became increasingly frustrating as my career went on.
Pete Newsome 24:55
And I finally got to the point where I said, Well, it's time to put up or shut up and put my money where my mouth is Let me go prove that the way that I want to do business is can work and can be effective. So as we started to grow, I realized that sometimes structures needed sometimes processes are, are there for a reason.
Pete Newsome 25:19
And I've had to find that balance. And always think of maintaining that balance between let's be agile and flexible, and give our employees the ability, to make their own decisions and to act quickly. And that's been a strength of our organization since day one. But let's also not take these things for granted. As we get bigger as the message gets diluted.
Pete Newsome 25:47
The of you know, like the telephone game, we're at what I think it is, versus the person who I sent it to, to a saying to someone else to then say I'm saying it to a new employee because now that we have our employee numbers are in the 30s. It's not a huge organization, far from it. But that still happens. And so we have to write things down, we have to make sure we're documenting things.
Pete Newsome 26:11
So that's really a very long-winded way of getting to the point that if I knew what every employee was thinking and doing, I wouldn't need to write it all down. But a big organization, if you take if you assume that your HR team is going to go above and beyond like you described, yeah, that's, that's probably not very safe and unwise to do. Yeah, you should, you should make sure those things are being done that again, very long-winded way of getting to that point.
Ricky Baez 26:42
Well, and especially now, this is why I Liked this article, how it's so timely these days, because, you know, yes, we talked about Quiet quiet. And we talked about quiet firing, we talked about the great resignation. So now a lot of organizations are scratching their head is like we're even paying people more than what we did five years ago, and people are still quitting.
Ricky Baez 27:03
So the reason the people operations piece of it is so crucial is because I am going to tell you, folks, I've seen this, that if yes, people respond to the money they do.
Ricky Baez 27:15
And if somebody else dangles $30,000 more a year over their head somewhere else, chances are, they're going to jump ship, but you know, depending on their financial situations right there so that their personal financial situation aside, if they're about to leave an organization where we have leaders, we got peers, we got a company culture, that really focuses on the person who's doing the job, not just the job, they're gonna think about it twice, right? They really are.
Ricky Baez 27:45
So even if they jumped ship, to that $30,000, even if that helps them, you know, that extra money in six 910 months, even a year, they're going to be miserable, and then their values are going to change. And they're going to come back and say, You know what this pay cut is worth what I'm getting at this other organization coming back here, you know because they really cared about me as a human being.
Ricky Baez 28:10
Of course, that's not the goal of the organization, especially for profit, you gotta make a profit, right? So we can address people who don't perform a different way. But I'm telling you, this is crucial for companies to really understand these days, he will look into curbing the great resignation that's happening now.
Pete Newsome 28:27
Yep. And that is, it's gonna be a problem for the rest of our careers, as there's going to be a talent shortage and call it a war for talent if you will. And so the companies that get it right, they're going to succeed the ones that don't, yeah, good luck to you. Right. So I think we can conclude on that note, we'd beat this thing up enough. I think we understand what it is. I think I have you on board right with Siebel operations.
Ricky Baez 28:54
I was never off the board, right? I am on board. It's I agree with this. 100% I'm just glad there's a spotlight on it. I just need one favor from you. I just need you to make me one promise Pete.
Pete Newsome 29:05
What's that one promise?
Ricky Baez 29:06
If for some bizarre reason, in the near future, Elon Musk decides to buy for corner resources, you're gonna make sure that he doesn't cancel my contract. Come on, dude.
Pete Newsome 29:17
Yeah, well, you know, if you're ready, call me. We'll talk but I think he I think he's, I think he's probably focused on a few other things right now. So we'll, we'll get back to him later.
Pete Newsome 29:29
All right, Ricky, if I see you in space next year, we're gonna have a conversation. Perfect.
Ricky Baez 29:33
All right, man. Well, thank you so much for weighing in. Have a good rest of the day. Thanks for listening.