284: The Hidden Costs of Employment     

Michele: Hello, my name is Michele, and you're listening to Profit is a Choice. Joining me is Jessica Harling, founder of Behind the Design. Jessica is a seasoned expert in employee and process development, specializing in recruitment, training, and change management for design organizations. Her work helps businesses streamline costs, increase productivity, and develop high-performing teams.​ In this episode, we'll discuss practical business strategies for interior designers for effective hiring, onboarding, and retention to ensure your team thrives.​ Enjoy the conversation!

Every day, empowered entrepreneurs are taking ownership of their company, financial health, and enjoying the rewards of reduced stress and more creativity. With my background as a financial software developer, owner of multiple businesses in the interior design industry, educator and speaker, I coach women in the interior design industry, increase their profits, regain ownership of their bottom line, and to have fun again in their business. Welcome to Profit is a Choice. Hey, Jessica. Welcome to the podcast.

Jessica Harling: Thanks. I'm so excited to be back.

Michele: Awesome. So, what have you been doing since we talked last? It's been, what, maybe two years? Is that maybe what it's been?

Jessica Harling: Yeah, we've been busy, busy over here Behind the Design. I just got back from a glorious vacation to Ireland. but we have been moving and shaken.

Michele: Awesome. That looked like so much fun. I mentioned to you right before we came on that I want your itinerary. It's fun to watch people go on trips and to share the different insights, like what they see and what they find when they're there. Because it's just like anything, we can go to the same place, but we might see different things. Right. Because of either past experiences or what we're looking for. It's that old adage of if you're looking for it, you will find it.

Jessica Harling: Absolutely. And I felt like I had such incredible service and some spots that we didn't really. It was off the beaten path that I wanted to share it and put it out on social and stuff and tagging everyone, because I really felt like I had this incredible experience that others should experience as well.

Michele: I love it. That was kind of the way when we went to Alaska. It was the year before that, so I guess. Well, it was last year. It was last August. And, gosh, we had so much fun. It was so beautiful. And it was some of like you said that off the beaten path, things that we did and saw that weren't normal, even things that I didn't plan for. It was interesting when we went on that trip, we hired a planner, and we just told her we don't really even know what to do. And I mean, outside of getting on the ship and it takes us to certain ports. We don't know what to do. And we did the boat and then we did the inside train and rail and bus all the way up into Anchorage. There are places to discover that we did not even know. We didn't even know the options to know what to do. I don't have time to investigate it. So, will you just set something up that you think would be wonderful for us? And it was really a fun time. So sometimes just getting out of our element and learning to experience different things and see things differently is important. I will tell you that when I used to travel, when I owned the school and I went around the country teaching classes, that's when we taught everything in person all the time, there wasn't a lot of online education, and I was traveling all over the place. But I can remember going up into the Northeast and even just feeling the different flair and, flavor of like, I don't know, Pennsylvania as compared to Maine contrasted with Boston. And then coming back down to Florida and then being in Alabama and then being in California, it just all was so different. I'm a Southern girl, so I grew up going to the Blue Ridge Mountains and to the Smoky Mountains. That's the mountains we went to. They were straight up from us. Blue Ridge more towards the left and Smoky on the right. And that's where we went. Well, when we went out west and we went into Nevada and some of those other areas, you'll see the mountain ranges so differently. And then even when we went into Alaska, we went up in the Yukon in Canada and then over into Alaska. Those mountains are so different. But being able to appreciate the landscape, the really green, really arid and dry, and then seeing the beauty and very wet and snowy. All of them had a different look and feel and flavor, but they were all mountains, which I think is so interesting when we think of, in terms of our businesses, right? We all can have a design business, we could all have a window treatment business, a workroom business, but the flavor of what's happening, the company culture in businesses can be so different. That's why we don't cookie-cutter things. It's not just a one-size fits all that. The one size fits all really doesn't fit anyone well. Truth be told, it looks like a Mumu on all of us. That's just the way that it is. I mean that's what it's got to  be to fit us all. Is your business a Mumu? That's going to  be my new headline. Cause if so come talk to me. I can fix that for you.

Jessica Harling: I like it.

Michele: I mean you work with a lot companies and all within, I would say, kind of a very similar demographic to me in that they are window treatment companies, design companies, but they all have a different flair and a different fit and a different culture. And I know you help a lot with staffing, which means the people that they would hire could be very different personalities than their cohorts or their other businesses?

Jessica Harling: Yeah. And even just how they're going to respond to the other people within the space. You know, you have some owners that are super driven, very direct, you know, one word answers and then that you have others that it takes a half hour to explain one thing. And so, when you're managing those people and you know, reciprocating as an employee to managing up, you tend to need to understand their language. That's part of that culture, it's part of that communication, and you're absolutely right, it's not a one-size fits all, even in the mindset of the owner. So many times, regardless of the type of work we're doing with them, they say, well, I'm different and this is how. And it could look similar to another business and they could have similar processes and such, but it's the way that they think about it, it's the way they approach it, it's the way that they communicate it that makes it just a little bit different for them.

Michele: You know, I remember when I was hiring for one of my new positions and the company that I was working with asked me the question, you know, what do you like and what do you not like in an employee? What kind of things irritate you? I'll never forget. What really pisses you off in business, right?

Jessica Harling: What's your pet peeves?

Michele: Yeah, they were just, I mean they were just like that direct too. Right. They weren't even like trying to put it in soft cute words. What really pisses you off? And I was like, you know what really angers me and frustrates me is people not taking accountability. So, I can handle almost any mistake that somebody makes, if it's truly a mistake and it wasn't you intentional, I can handle and clean up around anything. As long as they say, I am sorry I made the mistake, or I take responsibility for that. because my next question is usually, where did it get broken down in the process? What happened? Were you too busy? Were you overworked? Did you just miss it? Was it not indicated properly in the SOPs? Like, what was the issue? Where did it. First, we solve it, but then we go back to figure out why it happened. And if they're not willing to work through that process and to own the fact that they made the mistake, it frustrates me. I see so many people, designers that I coach with or work rooms that I coach with that might have an employee that makes a mistake, and they act like it's no big deal, and they go. They do the whole like, that sucked, you know, and then they just kind of move on. Well, that then starts to make the owner feel like, almost like being disrespected in your own home. Like, somebody comes in and breaks a glass and puts a stain on the sofa. You've got that beautiful light sofa behind you. Let's say it wasn’t a performance fabric, and they were to drop, you know, a glass of red wine or coffee or tea or soda all over it. And they didn't at least acknowledge that they did that and that there was some cost to you, them having done that. And so that's really what it is, that feeling of being disrespected in your own home. That was the thing that I told them when I have people that act like that, I don't want to work with them. Like, it makes me angry. I want them out. Go away. The ones that say, I'm sorry, can I grab a tissue and start blotting? Those are the people I want because they're the ones that are willing to jump in when it's hard and when it's not, to take ownership and responsibility. I think even us as employers just being able to acknowledge that. Like, it's hard to say, here's what pisses me off. I wouldn't walk into a conversation with somebody and say, hey, let me tell you how I feel about that. But when asked to really sit with yourself and ask the question, in a business environment or even in a home environment, what is it that causes me to feel that blood pressure rise or to feel that angst and then be able to articulate, what is it that people are doing that cause that, and then that's what I don't want to invite. The big thing is I just don't want to invite that into my business. It's not here now. Let's not invite it in. Right?

Jessica Harling: Yeah, absolutely. Well, and if you can sit with that, like you said, we used to come up with like the 10 rules of business and on those rules were those things of core values of what were our pet peeves, and in the family business we had a core value of take ownership. But how that translated into the top 10 was that we would say like you can't say I don't know and end of statement. It's okay to not know something, but that's not a full sentence. So, keep going with that. I don't know, I will find out. I don't know, let me research. Whatever it is, take that ownership, do something about it. Take some positive action in the next step, but don't just leave it at is. And same thing with I forgot again. It's fine if you forget something, I forget something too. But take that ownership, take that next step and say I forgot. I didn't write it down. Let me do that now or let me reprioritize and I'll have it done by xyz. It's those extra steps that show by action that you care for the business. And it's not just whatever, it's another day.

Michele: Right. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think I'm right. I am seeing a younger crowd come into the workplace that are not as attached to the ownership piece and this is anecdotally, I will state it, I haven't done a big research program here. So anecdotally what I have seen and experience from working with hundreds of design firms lately is that they have seen, I would say over the last, I'm going to go with five years, that they've seen more young people coming into the workforce that are not as tight to the work. We are seeing things like on LinkedIn people will just apply for jobs and they never even show up for an interview. I have seen people that hired people that just didn't show up. I'm seeing people that are hired that are told Your hours are 9 to 5o and they're coming in at 9:30 and 10:00 or I'm going to be late or almost as if that's not a commitment anymore. I'm seeing it show up in a lot of ways. But that ownership of this is my job. I'm taking pride in the work that I do for you. Certainly, having boundaries. I'm not talking about people having to work from 7am to 10pm but not even holding to more normalized value systems in businesses, I'm seeing a lot more, there's been a lot more reporting to me that, that there's challenges with that. With the “ I'm going on vacation this week,” not asking, not putting it in a month in advance, just I'm not going to be here next week. And then you're like, wait, what? And that would never have flown back in the day. I'm not saying there can't be some balance, but I'm seeing things turn.

Jessica Harling: Yeah. And I've seen that same sort of thing. What is, I think happening towards that is this idea and it even comes back to, I think parenting, is this idea that we want to create a better life for our kids, our employees. You know, what we went through was tough and so we want to pave an easier path. But easier and convenient is what's causing this sort of effect on people. That, and the flip side is when it happens, I see more managers today wanting to accommodate the employee, of, oh, I don't want you to leave. Oh, you're not replaceable. So, they don't say anything, or they don't come back at them.

Michele: There's no accountability put back in place.

Jessica Harling: And so, it's a domino effect. So, they learn that they can do that and the more managers, the more owners that can say no, this is how we do things here. Let's put a structure around that. Next time I would like for you to approve that request, then you start to teach them and those 20 year olds turning into 30 year olds will learn and they will become accountable. But if you just let them fly and don't say anything about it for fear that they're going to leave you, well, then you can find someone that is more accountable, or you can teach them to be more accountable. But not saying anything is a disservice.

Michele: So, it's interesting, I was talking to one of my clients the other day about, we were  setting some KPIs in her business and she wanted to set some KPIs around her team. And one of the KPIs was, you need to come to work on time. And I said to her, setting a KPI to manage poor performance that you're not doing anything about is not going to work. They don't care if you've set a KPI or not. There's got to be some repercussions to not showing up on time. So, after strike three, you lost your job. Go home, like something. You've got it. I'm not all up for firing everybody, but at some point, you've got to stand your ground, because if not, if that whole give an inch take a mile concept, that's what they're seeing. Oh, I can't come in today. I've got this or that. I had another client, her employee said, yeah, I got in late last night and I was just too tired to come to work today and just didn't show up. The whole week's work, especially in a drapery workroom where it's based on labor, was planned with that person being there. And so, you know, if we don't find a way, then we have to teach them. But with teaching comes accountability. And if we don't have some type of accountability structure in that we have failed. The hard part is, I think we don't even know what that looks like anymore because we've been so taught not to hold people accountable in some ways, to just let it be whatever they want it to be. There is this fear of it took me forever to find the employee that I almost take whatever shoddy work that they do, or lack of skill or lack of showing up, but the more that you can start to go, you misrepresented yourself. You're not following. This is what needs to happen. You're now going to be on a performance plan, and now you're going to be shown the door, and I'll go find that. I would rather not have you here than to have you here and not know when you're coming and going and having you ignore all of the rules of the business. Because when one does it, the others start to do it, and then resentment starts being built within the firm and it becomes a horrible place to work.

Jessica Harling: And it's not fair and then if you're doing one thing for one person and not the other. So, if you want to keep it fairer, then you should be holding everyone accountable. Because that's how you can point to the policy, you can point to the process, and then it's not about the emotions. It's not about what he said, she said, or you're favoriting that person. No, no. This is the process; this is the policy. Go look at the book. If you have questions, then I’ll answer them. But this is what it is.

Michele: Great. But this is the agreement, you are paid for this, and this is what we signed up for, and it is what we agreed to, and this is what we’re going to do. I know we were talking about hiring and firing but here’s the deal. If we are hiring, if we go through a good process and we really hire people after going through a good process, it does minimize some of that. But when we hire off of a first meeting or I really like them or we have other factors that start to fit into it or even desperation when we hire in those capacities, we tend to set ourselves up with the feeling of we can't get better. It's almost like being in an abusive relationship. You think you can't see your way out because you don't think you deserve or could get better when the truth of the matter is better might just be not being in this.

Jessica Harling: Well and it's funny you mentioned desperation because I've been having so many talks with family businesses recently and that's what some of the onboarding is like for a family business. You get desperate, you call your family member, oh my gosh, I can't find someone. Let me pull you in just for temporarily or just to you know, get us through. And then it snowballs and then they are with you full-time. And then there were never boundaries set in the beginning. And so, you get into these challenges in those family businesses, and it does translate then to other small businesses when you hire that friend when it is a first meeting. Then you are off on the wrong track, and in the first 30 days, those are the baby weeks. You have to really get them on board with who you are, what they're doing, all the things in the culture of the business in order to set that tone moving forward. But if you don't have that intense focus in the first 30 days, you're getting them off on the wrong track. And some people can handle it. The fixers I call them, can come in, they can fix the problem, they're going to be shined, they’re going to be put up on a pedestal because they could fix, they could just dive right in without training, needing support and all those things. But then those fixers keep fixing, keep moving up and then at one point when it's all fixed, they move on and then you resent them because they were just there in a flash, and they're gone. So, if you really want that long term person, we need to start it the right way from the beginning. Set those accountability structures, set those policies and procedures so that they know this is how we do things, and you get that buy in the long term.

Michele: All right, a couple of questions. I am in total agreement that those first 30 days. Look, if you're not on your best behavior in the first 30 days of coming in to work for a company, that should be a sign that this is not going to be good. I have had clients that have hired people on their design teams or even in their workrooms that within the first 30 days, they were already calling out, like, all kinds of crazy stuff were happening. I mean hours each week for some appointment that they need to go to or so. And none of it was said in advance that I had this coming up. Nothing was approved. It was just. They just assumed their time was their own, and they just kind of did their own things. We've had some that did not want to follow processes and procedures. Like, they wouldn't even put in their time, and they were told you have to put in your time, and they just don't put in their time in 30 days. If I have to tell you for four weeks running that you need to put in your time after 30 days, that tells me you're not putting in your time and I'm not going to put in any more time with you. Like, we're done.

Jessica Harling: Because this is going to continue to be a problem.

Michele: If four weeks isn't enough for you to figure out some of the basics of the job that you have to be repeatedly told, or there is a stretching of every rule, it is not going to get better. This is the honeymoon period, for goodness sake. And if they can't be on their best behavior in the honeymoon period, they're already giving you glimpses into who they are and how they're going to interact with policies and procedures. That is a cost to the company. When we talk about hidden cost, that is a huge cost of the company where people that are being hired either can't do what they said they could do, they're lying about what they said they could do, misrepresenting it on their resume, or they're coming in and just blowing through every policy and procedure as if it doesn't apply to them. I've met people who act like things don't apply. I am a firstborn, type A. I assume everything applies to me. I am following rules that aren't even written because I assume it applies to me. But there is a whole section of people in the world who think rules don't apply to them. And they're just doing their own thing. And so, when you hire that kind of person, either on purpose because you really want the maverick and then you're upset because they're the maverick, it’s going to cause a problem. Right. Those first 30 days tell us so much, which is why I know that you and I would agree on this. If we do not have a really clear onboarding program and plan for those first 30 days, we have nothing to measure against. We are looking for these things, especially within the first 90 days, that says is this going to be a long term fit or is this going to be a flash in the pan? Now none of us want the flash in the pan. We don't want it. And so, what happens, I believe, is quite often we look at it and try to talk ourselves out of the fact that it's a flash in the pan. When all the indicators say this is not a great long term hire, we then feel like we've made some mistake, and we don't want to step out of it. But my gosh, I would rather have said I made a three month mistake than a three year mistake that I should have ended after three months. But it causes us all kinds of angst. But if we've got that very clear onboarding plan and program, it shows up and then we get to do something about it.

Jessica Harling: Yeah. And that's something that I learned a long time ago. Even in the family business, I used to trial and error, bring people on and every single time it didn't work out. When I analyzed it, it was because we were not prepared for the onboarding and the training. When we work with customers now on the recruiting side, we won't even start the recruiting unless they have that onboarding and training, because I know how important that is. You don't have that, it all derails. And the question is how much time does it take to derail? Three months or three years. But usually, it's way too long until you figure it out because you're second guessing yourself. Most people have that positive outlook, or they want to help people succeed and so they look at themselves, they blame themselves. Well, I haven't done this, or I haven't put this together. And so yeah, they're late, but if I had told them. You create these stories that may or may not be true. But the root of it is they still have behaviors. The candidate, the new hire, has behaviors that are not working towards your company, if you have to spend extra time in order to over accommodate them in that honeymoon phase, then it's unrealistic that they're going to buy into you long term and be there for you long term. So, when we think about when to hire, you have got to have that onboarding and training plan in place, at least a checklist or something that says I know what I'm going to do with my first 30 days with my employee.

Michele: It is. And I'll tell you, when we talk about being prepared to hire, I like to have them have three months of salary sitting in the bank for that employee because it reduces the stress of that person being automatically responsible for income generation or income maintenance. If they're on the maintenance side, they can just let it go and let them have three months to figure it out. It also is a cushion because whoever's going to be training them most likely is going to be less effective in their job during that time frame because they're going to be pouring into the other person. The goal is after those 30, 60, or 90 days after that ramp up that that person is now able to hold their own income generation so that the other person can go back to increase it. Right. So, you're taking the hit for a few months of training to hopefully be able to run later. I think about it, like ivy, it says the first year it sleeps, the second year it creeps and the third year it leaps. That's what ivy does. And it's the same kind of thing. When we're making those investments in people, we know that it's an investment for a longer term payoff. But if we are investing in the wrong person, and by that, I mean they could have the wrong character, they could have the wrong skill set, or they could have the wrong mindset. There are so many different pieces. It doesn't mean they're a bad person. It just means it might not fit with the company that they're in, for whatever reason. And when we invest in that and then we have to turn around and do it all over again, that's a huge cost. And it's not just the monetary cost of either having to find a recruiter or going back through the interview process and all the ads and the cost of training all over again. There is an internal cost to that because it causes such disruption with the other teammates who are there or who were pouring in or who were supporting or who are having to come alongside these people. So is there are all kinds of costs that show up later and some of them might not just show up on the P and L, but in the attitude of the employees that are left.

Jessica Harling: Absolutely. Even those things like the tools that you're getting for them to come on. I mean I've had it where the sample books were destroyed within the first 30, 60, 90 days of a careless salesperson that just threw it into their car.

Michele: How do you do that?

Jessica Harling: And then giving it back.

Michele: But that's the thing. Isn't that like the stain on the sofa though? Isn't that like trashing the things that somebody else owns? Like they're not taking care of your things in your home. It's the same thing.

Jessica Harling: Absolutely. And those cost something. You have to redo those sample books. You can't have those go into customers’ homes anymore. Or the technology setting up their email, their CRM system, like all of that cost stuff when you bring someone on board. So yeah, having the three months’ salary, having a generally cash positive business is going to be very helpful to you while you are ramping someone up, having the preparation of the onboarding and the training plan. But there's also this question that comes up from owners, managers, you know, what if I don't have the business for them? There's this fear of what if everything tanks in the economy. What if my contracts don't come through? And that's a valid question. That's always a valid question though, regardless of whether you have employees or not. And so, by having the three months of salary in the bank then you can, whether through some of those times and depending on the role, you may be able to have them and ramp up in time to help with the generating of the new business. But that's where you could talk about that, even more, the cash positive nature of the business. Don't be in incredible amounts of debt, have three months’ salary, but then don't know where your business is going. You know, that would be a dangerous scenario to bring an employee into.

Michele: You're right. We all have a fear at some point. I mean even me, I could easily have a fear of is the work going to dry up, is it going to go away? I remember during those Covid years when everything was ramping up and people were going, I need help, I need help, I need another designer. Work is coming like it is. It was like a deluge on most of us. Right. But then the fear was I don't want to hire up these huge teams and then all the work goes away. People could see, they knew it was outside the realm of normal. There was no normal in those years of I would say 2020 to 2022. There was no normal there. It was a scramble to keep up. It exhausted everybody. And a lot of companies were what we were talking about was that teeter totter, of stretching work out with the team that you have versus higher, higher, higher. It's kind of like when people would hire seasonally and then let them go and you got a seasonal job, let you go, can you fill in with 1099 work and back off? Like there were ways. But I will say the thought that comes to me and that I push through with my clients all the time is that fear. Those fears usually come and they’re normal. Like you said, how we analyze them and deal with them is determinate based on the strategy that we have for our business. That’s the piece that most people don’t have. It is that overarching, full on one to three year strategy for the business. So, then everything they’re doing is just within the here and now, the today. Thats why I’m pushing so much and teaching strategy. Because once we have the strategy that says here's what we want the business to do, this is how big we want to be, this is how many people I want on the team or what our building can handle, what is the financials that we need to keep the business going? Well, once I know the strategy and I know what the money is to keep the business going and to pay everybody and do what it needs to do now I can plan on how many people do I need to get it done. What is the marketing? I need to find the work. Everything that we do in our business hinges on the strategy and the finances to make that work. And if we don't have those two pieces, then you're right, we are going to feel trepidation at hiring. If we don't have a strategy plan and a financial plan, we absolutely should feel trepidation. That's your gut saying go get your house in order. Like that's a good thing, that's a good feeling. But if we then can go back and look at the data, we might still feel a little nervous, but we can feel at rest and at ease because we have the financial stability, we have the process in place, we have a long term strategy, we have an educational plan, we have an onboarding process. Well, once you've done all those Things at that point, you just have to have like, you got to trust at some point and move on, right?

Jessica Harling: Yeah, absolutely. And that is why I love talking to you where we’re on the same wavelength here. Because when I hear people wanting to hire and I'm asking them, you know, why if they don't have that financial plan, they don't have that strategy, a lot of times it's because it was a feeling or an emotion from an employee that said, we need more people. I'm at my max. I'm overloaded. And then to me the question becomes, okay, well, why does the employee feel that way? You know, is there inefficiencies in what they're doing? Are there tools that they're missing to be able to do their job better? And let's look at the strategy of the process, the finances and things like that before you make a reactive decision to jump and add someone on. We've seen so many times where people just get overstaffed just because of a feeling that someone was inefficient or not even the people, the process was inefficient and therefore it felt like everyone needed and more and they were at their max.

Michele: That's exactly right. So, if we're letting the team tell us, I mean, I've seen it a lot where they just weren't using the right processes and right technology. And of course, they felt overloaded because they felt like they didn't know what they were doing. It could also be that sometimes the help that they needed was a different help than what they thought. I know you see that as well. They think they need another designer and maybe they need a design assistant to do some of that lower level work. So, we need to listen to it, but I don't think the answer is always maybe what’s suggested. I've seen people think they needed to hire more because they were told by somebody that they needed to hire. My question is always, but do you really? And what, like, what is that really tied to? Right? Is it because you want that? Is it because it follows along with the strategy? And I've heard them go, I don't really want to do all that. Like, that's not what I want. There are plenty of people out there that don't want to have a big firm. I just read about a designer the other day, I think it was in “Business of Home” or something, and her comment was, I knew I did not. I watched my family manage larger teams and I knew I did not want more than six people on my team. That was the max number of people that I wanted. But she knew that. So, then she's built her firm and built around the max number that she wanted, and that became a strategy of what work she could take and how she could take it and how they could show up in the best way possible. So, it's finding these intersections. Right. And knowing the timing of who to hire, when to hire, how to hire well, how to prepare well, how to onboard well, and then how to manage well. Like this doesn't stop, you know, at the time we put a post on Indeed and get a resume. Like that's just the absolute beginning.

Jessica Harling: Right. It's just a task in the process.

Michele: Jessica, I'm curious, loving the conversation. Are there any other areas that you think are overlooked, with regards to cost associated with onboarding or having a new employee that we haven't touched on yet?

Jessica Harling: Yeah. I mean, you briefly mentioned it in regard to time, there's so many elements of time that goes into the phases of bringing someone on. And if you break down the phases, you've got the recruiting phase, the onboarding phase, the training phase, and then you've got your management phase, and then offboarding. So, in those different phases, there is time that is going into building that person up. Let's talk about the hiring phase, the recruiting phase, for example, you might be able to delegate that to a recruiter, but you also, as a manager, as an owner, have to prepare for that person coming on board. So, you have to gather the samples, you have to put together your employee manual and all of the job descriptions and, elements. You have to make sure that their email is set up, their ADP or their time tracking sheets are set up. So, all of that takes time leading up to the first day. And so many owners that I see do it after the first day, and then they're chasing and they're scrambling, and it's actually taking more time to do it than just preparing it in advance before they come. The fear, I guess, that I've heard that creeps up is, well, what if they don't show up on their first day? But that's going to be a smaller percentage of people than those that actually do show up. I've had it where they weren't prepared and then they left. The employee just was like, yeah, you guys aren't organized enough for me so that's why I'm leaving. So don't put yourself in a position to put up a gate and not allow that person in just because you were disorganized. We have to do that time up front. But then the onboarding and the training, so many times, you know, if you do have people that you can delegate training to, you know, you might have a junior designer that they can shadow or ride with. You still need, as the manager, the owner, to be able to either prepare or have an oversight over that plan and not just delegate it or dump it to another person and not know what they are covering. Because a lot of times when that dumping happens and I've come back into triage why that person wasn't brought up to speed enough. It just was simply because that trainer didn't go through all the things that they needed to because there wasn't maybe a plan or they didn't know they needed to do that, or they assumed that the person coming in knew of certain things already that they didn't have to cover. And so, all of that training and that onboarding then creep up in terms of time and no, it doesn't have to be 40 hours a week, but you do have to plan for 40 hours a week. You yourself don't have to be the one that executes that. But think about those first 30 days again as the baby weeks. Would you leave your baby alone for a period of time? Probably not. When they're sleeping? Yes. When they're in a cradle that has nice guardrails up and they're not going to move around? Yes. But when they're awake, you have planned out your day with them. You know what's going on because you need to have them grow up with you and it's the same thing with that onboarding and training. So, plan for 40, but you yourself may only need to execute an hour a day if you set up a structure that works for them.

Michele: I've seen people bring on employees and not think about how they're going to get lunch the first day. As they have the same thing you said, they just were not prepared. I always liken it to having a guest at my house. I just hosted, my husband and I, a large portion of his family here for another family, a family wedding. I was making sure that all three guest rooms were set up. I made sure I had little Wi-Fi cards in the room. You know, we have different food allergies. I made sure that the person with food allergies had Something special at every meal that they could eat that was similar to what other people were eating and yet kept it separate when it was cooked. Like, all the things asked everybody what their favorite drinks were, what their favorite desserts were so that we could just make them feel comfortable. We'll put it this way, it was so fun. They ended up staying, like, an extra night so that we could just hang out. We watched the football game. We cooked out. Like, it was just, it was one of the most fun weekends that we've had. But we prepared for them to come. We had our home ready. We had the things ready that they needed. We stayed with them when we needed to. We gave them space when we needed to. You know what I mean? It was just a beautiful weekend. Well, when we are in the workplace and we're not doing that to bring somebody in, I have seen people do exactly what you said. You're not organized. This feels so disorganized. I can't work in this environment. And it was simply because the hiring manager or team did not in advance plan for how to help this person. And they sat there for a good portion of a day or two, not knowing what to do, nothing to do, feeling horrible at picking up their phone and playing games or scrolling Facebook and Instagram. Yet there was nothing that was given to them to do that they could do. I love to draw the analogies, because then it makes us stop and think, wait a minute, what's really happening here? And for us, it's probably not because we're thinking, I'm going to hire somebody, and for 20 to 30 to 40 bucks an hour, I'm going to pay them to scroll Facebook and Instagram. Nobody in their right mind is going to think, we're not going to do that. Yet we do that by hiring them and not having the work laid out, the training laid out, the opportunities for them to engage laid out. We literally are paying them to sit and do nothing. I don't know about you, but I don't have that kind of money that I'm going to throw away for somebody to scroll Instagram and Facebook, unless they're posting on my behalf. Like, otherwise, I don't want you to do all that. Right. But we have to create a work environment where they can learn and engage at the level that we need them to.

Jessica Harling: Yeah, absolutely. And starting them off from the beginning, having certain structures, even if you leave them alone, there should be a plan. They should know what they need to do during that time. If it's watching videos, if it's looking through articles, if it's organizing their sample books, whatever, there's an activity that can be done because it's work. They're not there just to sit and stare at the wall.

Michele: Yeah, yeah, take up space. Yeah.

Jessica Harling: You know, you might get to them at some point, but then they don't feel valued because you are just getting to them. If it's planned, it's going to go so much smoother. You know, just like you said in the party preparation or planning for your guests, then you don't have to worry about when your guests are there. Oh, shoot, I forgot that I had to do this or that and then the stress creeps up. Then you're distracted, and you're not enjoying the experience of your guests being there, and they may feel like you're not a good host. And so, it's a whole domino effect if that preparation isn't done.

Michele: And even in preparation, I'll say this. At one point, my husband said to me, because, I mean, girl, I was making homemade biscuits. Like, I'm talking, like, we went all out. Like, I am literally sitting here with a bowl of flour and butter. I'm making homemade biscuits people and, you know, charcuterie boards. Like, we did hamburgers and hot dogs, one day and we just did all kinds of stuff. But it was fun, and I got to engage. Like, they all sat in the kitchen with cups of coffee and our banquette and talked to me while I cooked for them. But it made the serving delightful because I was prepared. It did not feel laborious to me. It did not feel like a chore to me. It felt like I was serving people that I cared for, and everybody was gracious and thankful. And I think in the workplace, if we are prepared, it feels like a giving, not like a taking. And so, what's interesting is when we're not prepared and when that person asks us, it feels like a taking. Right. It feels very much like you're bothering me; you're bugging me, you're taking from me. You're interrupting me. I need my time for something else. But when the person is prepared for you, it feels very much like you're serving that employee to give them the best opportunity, to give them the benefit of your knowledge and wisdom and to bring them along. It is a completely different feeling. I know even as a mom, when I was running short on time and my kids would ask for something, it would become an irritant to me. It really wasn't about them; it was about my lack of time management at that particular moment many times that I was trying to get those last things in, but I wasn't taking care of what was right in front of me. Like, can you help me get my shoes on? And then I'm huffing and puffing putting on shoes when I told them to put their shoes on 30 minutes earlier. But I should have just stopped 30 minutes earlier and said bring me your shoes and let’s sit down and see if you need help putting them on. So, part of it was me not preparing properly. And I can see that in my home life and then I could see in business when we do that. So now it glares at me, what does your first day look like? Who is managing them? And I love how you said, and I teach the same thing. It doesn't have to just be one person. This could be a multi effort approach here, right? Like hey Michele, you teach this and when you're done with that, Jessica's going to help you with this. When you're done with that, John's going to help you do this piece. Like we can move them around, we can have multiple people pour into them so that we can still accomplish what we need to accomplish for the day. But I just don't think we recognize the cost. I know we're talking about some of the financial pieces, but the cost of the lack of preparation, the lack of knowing who we are and what we need, the lack of not making accountability matter and then the lack of not training them properly, all of those things start to stack up, and have hidden costs. There are some other financial impacts that happen. Jessica, what happens when people leave, like when employees leave because there is cost there too?

Jessica Harling: Yeah, absolutely. Well, the offboarding, whether we like it or not, is an inevitable part of doing business with employees. And that offboarding portion of it, if it's going smoothly, some of those costs can be again, time, tools. So, you know we talked about the onboarding of technology, sometimes you need to keep your emails open for a period of time. And so, you're incurring costs for a couple of weeks or months while those emails are getting cleaned up. But if it goes sourly, then you have the risk of costs associated with insurance where your insurance rates can come up. Kind of like when you're, you know, you get into a car accident, your insurance rates go up. If you let someone go, and they could go to unemployment, then your insurance rates start to go up and it creeps up over time. So, if you have lots of turnover and that creeps up every year, your percentages can get pretty high. So that's an element. Of course, the risk of it going really south and then you have to pay any sort of lawyer fees or any sort of court fees to get through some of that termination steps. But that's in more rare case, hopefully a very preventable case for most people.

Michele: Yeah. There are also the costs that are involved in taking whatever work that person was doing and putting it on somebody else. Like the human capital cost of moving that over or, paying overtime to somebody else because they've got to backfill the work that needed to be done. There's cost too when we think about, technology again, maybe we bought them a license for a year or whatever, and yet now we have six or eight months of a license that we have to pay for that we have nobody using. So, you know, all of the costs start to add up, which is why if we go all the way back to the beginning, we want to be really careful. They say, hire slow, fire fast. Like you really want to be really slow and deliberate in that process and not, I call it graspy. We're just grasping for answers like, don't be graspy. Really, really stop and think and plan and then plan what does it look like to be successful? I think that's an amazing question. What would it look like if we built a successful plan from hiring to onboarding to training to management to offboarding. Like really deliberately creating a strategy for success. If we do that, then we are constantly executing success over and over and over. It's when we don't have it planned either for the company, the financials, the marketing, the employee, any of it. We're not executing with success. We're executing within the moments of the day, and what feels good today, but today's feeling good might not line up with tomorrow's plan and goal. Be really intentional. I know even in my educational courses; I sit back and how do I want people to feel in this course? How do I want them to feel at the end? And everything I do to lead them down the path to feel that way at the end. Well, the same thing is true if we're hiring people, right? How do we want them to feel in our company on day one? How do we want them to feel on day 90? How do we want them to feel at the six months mark or the one year mark? How do we want them to feel at the end? Even if they need to step out for the next career. How do we want them to remember their time with our company? Now let's start building the processes and the culture to allow that to happen.

Jessica Harling: There is a new trend in big corporations, especially those of like high level positions, lawyers, law firms, hospitals and stuff like that where they actually have a proactive off boarding plan. Give you an example, my partner worked for a law firm, and they had a whole department dedicated to getting the current employees a list every week of potential job openings out on the market. This is nuts. Potential job openings of other law firms, you know, giving their ads out for looking for a lawyer. And their philosophy on it was twofold. One, to show their current team that they are proud of the things that they provide to them in terms of comp and benefits, and so if you want to look, look, go ahead. But two is in that sort of market, if they go and get another job at one of those, they want to be seen, that original company wants to be seen as like the alma mater of we taught them everything they know. They are now flying into a new company and a lot of the time with the experience that that lawyer gets, they will rely on the original company and actually use them when they get into tough positions. And so, it actually pays that company back in business because they're helping people grow and develop. In our industry and most industries there's always this question, of well, what if I train and they leave me? This company is great, we know that they're going to leave us one day. The average person stays three to four years, so they might as well have a great time during those years. And what if they could go to another position and then somehow, some way it comes back as a win-win for both.

Michele: That's interesting and phenomenal. So, a couple things, Jessica, that make me think that it may also say to those employees a couple of things outside of what you mentioned, it says we also have our thumb on the pulse of the industry. Right? Not just you're out there looking, coming to me and saying I think I deserve more. They're saying it's very proactive. I mean you know this probably better than I do, but I know that when you work for a company and you have to go to them and say I think I deserve more money, you're already halfway out the door because you've already started to entertain thoughts that they're not rewarding you commiserate with the work that you're producing. So, when your team members come to you and say, “I want more money”, they're already looking and they're already thinking. And so, this company was going, we're already looking too. Which means if they're smart and they're looking, they're already making sure that they're taking care of their people so that they're going to say feel free, compare all day long. What they probably also recognize is if people step out to some of those, it's probably because that opportunity is not available in house. Because that type of company would also be willing to say, here's what we have, we promote from within and here's what we have if they want to keep them. So that if people step outside of that, it's probably not for the benefit, it is probably for some growth factor that they cannot get where they are. Wow, I love that. It's interesting. I've worked with a couple of designers who they hire right out of design school, and they bring them in, and they have a whole pathway. You come in as a design assistant, that's all that they'll hire for. You sit in that position for one to two years and then you move to junior designer. So, you learned, then you move to junior. You may sit there three or four years and then you move to designer or staff designer. Right. But they know that a lot of them, especially the women, no offense to any men here, but most of the women somewhere within that, three to four year time frame assistant, junior or whatever, and they're moving their way up, they're getting married, they're perhaps starting a family, or they're getting to the point they stay a little bit longer and they want to go out on their own. And their idea is, I know that's what's coming. I’ve got four good years and then we bring the next person in and train them up. But the process is such that they just train and train and train, but their work just keeps growing and elevating because these people know that you're not trying to hold them back, you're actually got a pathway, you're actually trying to help them. And you know, it's worked out really well for many of them without that fear of, you're always going to leave me, you're going to leave me. Which then leads us to manage in a very fear based way that you're always going to leave me or take something from me versus that company, which has more of a mindset we're all going to grow, we're all going to move on at some point. Let us help you do that and support you in that endeavor.

Jessica Harling: Especially as your company grows and you get to those mid-size to large businesses in small business, so like you're getting to 15, 20 employees, or 50 employees, reaching these big milestones. When you get to that level of volume, you do have to consistently recruit on board, train, recruit onboard train, and you have to become a machine with that especially if you're, you're actively growing at rates of 10 to 20% year over year, you just have to stay ahead of it. Because regardless of you having a great culture, regardless of you having a great process and great management, something could happen where someone retires, or they move because their husband's job moved. Those things you just have to stay ahead of and as you are growing, you can do that by just being proactive.

Michele: Yeah, life goes on, right? We're not doing what our parents did, you know, my parents both, for the most part, went to work and they retired from the company that they started with. That's just what they did and that's not what we have anymore. We don't have that type of work environment. Just recognizing even that natural rhythm and then being able to associate time and money and cost and investment all the way through and then being very intentional about that process is so important. Jessica, what an awesome conversation. I had so much fun. I know we could probably sit and pull it apart even more. I'm really liking that idea though in the upper management, the idea of here's what's on the market, if you want to look, look. You know, I had another designer who told somebody on her team that, you know what, I get it. When I was in your position, I wanted to go look. I want you to go look. So, here's what we have here. And if you choose to stay here, we'll continue to grow you here. But if you feel that you need to go somewhere else to get the next level of growth, we'll support you in that too. And it actually becomes freeing for both sides to have that type of conversation because now nobody's there because they have to be. Everybody's there because they want to be.

Jessica Harling: Absolutely. And that's why we put out our job ads on social and our job board and stuff, because we want to be able to show the industry, you know, what is happening. I have a lot of clients and non-clients who come back and say, I love that. I love seeing what other people are doing for benefits. I love seeing, you know, what they're offering and what their culture is like because it gives me ideas to then help me in my business and also make sure I'm competitive. Because most managers, most owners, want to be competitive for their employees. They want to be even generous to their employees. And so, by being on the pulse of it, they understand what they can do proactively for their team.

Michele: Absolutely. Well, Jessica, where can people learn more about what you do and connect with you?

Jessica Harling: We just got a brand new website and I'm so excited about it, gobehindthedesign.com. We are also on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn either at “Go Behind the Design” or “Behind the Design”.

Michele: Awesome. Well, we'll make sure we put all of that in our show notes. And again, thank you so much for your time today.

Jessica Harling: Thank you, Michele.

Michele: Jessica, thank you so much for joining today. It was such a pleasure to just dig into this with you. I am really inspired by the idea of going ahead and just keeping our thumb on the pulse of what's happening in whatever industry we're in and then having it as an open conversation to make sure that we are doing the best that we can by our employees, and then hopefully building trust with them. Thank you for bringing that to the table today. If you are looking for help with employees, hiring, and building out those really detailed processes, Jessica is your person and you're going to want to call her. If you are interested in building strategy and vision and looking at how the finances impact that I would love you to call and work with us. We are focused on really helping you understand your overall business strategy and how the financials play into every part of that so that then you can make those hiring decisions or marketing decisions that you need to make. You can find out more about working with us by going to scarletthreadconsulting.com and you look at the Work with Me page. We are offering courses throughout this year as well as deep dives into your financials with the CFO2Go program, and then we are offering strategy and financials in a one to one setting as well. Reach out through the Discovery form and we can jump on a call and find out what is best for you, and what works with our schedules. We'd love to support you in that way. Remember to always, always think about how to be profitable in each situation because profit doesn't happen by accident. Profit is a Choice is proud to be part of the designnetwork.org where you can discover more design media reaching creative listeners. Thanks for listening and stay creative and business minded.