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Clayton Achen (00:02):
We have a really special guest for this episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. The guest is Ashley McKarney, am I saying that right?
Ashley McKarney (00:47):
McKarney,
Clayton Achen (00:48):
Right? Thanks, Ashley. She’s from Involvi Human Resources, which she is the proprietor entrepreneur of. So just like she owns her own business. And we’re going to be diving into a little bit about Ashley and her business as well as a bunch of hot HR topics. So it is pretty timely and relevant for a lot of strange transitions that are happening in the market. So welcome, Ashley.
Ashley McKarney (01:12):
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Clayton Achen (01:18):
I always like to do this right at the beginning of interviews is take us back to square one when you decided this would be a good idea for you not to be an employee and endure the torture, the absolute torture of being an entrepreneur and then coming out the other side. Give us a bit of history here.
Ashley McKarney (01:37):
So I’ve been in HR for over 15 years, and as you said, always was an internal contributor and usually the sole contributor within an organization, regardless of how large it was. So I had my hands in all of the different HR buckets as we’ll probably talk about later, but really wasn’t feeling that I was making that impact, wasn’t filling that void internally for me as we all search for that, as we grow up in our careers. And a pivotal moment came in my life, I had just had my son, he was six months old, different stars aligned and asked, what do I want to do now that I have a much bigger focus and important place to spend my time and entrepreneurship runs in my family. It’s always something I wanted to do, but I’m the breadwinner of the family and I just kind of didn’t want to take that financial leap and put that big question mark of where’s the next paycheck going to come from. But I knew that I wanted to make impact differently, and so I started the company with a goal of working with more local leaders rather than the larger brands that I’d worked with in the past and really worked with hopefully the owner operators that started the business that had the passion that want to see change and impact in their work that they do. And here we are with IVI three and a half years later.
Clayton Achen (02:58):
Yeah, fabulous. Yeah. And so how did you get your first, because that must’ve been kind of scary when you went, I’m going to do this on my own. And you talked about you’re the breadwinner and you talked about we’re all a bit terrified when we make that leap about where’s that first paycheck going to come from. So let’s drill into that a little bit, and then I want to talk about the buckets and I want to talk about a few of the other things that you’d mentioned as well, but let’s start there.
Ashley McKarney (03:24):
Oh, sure. Yeah. I’m sure we could talk all day if we had the time. So I think as any new parent or somebody that’s been on EI in the government or federal government of Alberta’s coverage of maternity leave or parental leave, we know that that financial support is lovely for the term that we get, but it’s not a lot and it doesn’t pay the bills. And so I had used that as a little bit of a comfort safety net that at least something is coming in because I was still on mat leave when that pinnacle kind of time occurred. I just kind of said, let’s try it. And so I started subcontracting or contracting for a few mentors of mine that had their own business, got my foot wet, got a little bit into that consultant mind of billable hours versus non-billable and what does that look like?
(04:13):
And then I put it out there into the world and said, Hey, network, I am embarking on this. I’m looking for referrals. I’m looking for anybody that might need help. And I was lucky to have two very large organizations, one being a not-for-profit, one being for-profit in a much different industry, kind of sign up and say, yep, let’s do this. We need your help. And the interesting thing is I started this quietly in September, 2019 and started putting the feelers out, but my mat leave wasn’t over until February, 2020, and we all know what happened the month after that. So I hit go on our website, on our services and products, on all the networking groups I was a part of. February, 2020 was the launch of Involvi only to go the next month, what am I doing? And so that was a learning curve in itself along with being a new entrepreneur and a new mom. I mean, it just kind of piled everything on, but that’s
Clayton Achen (05:11):
Inspiring.
Ashley McKarney (05:13):
Wouldn’t have changed it.
Clayton Achen (05:14):
Yeah. I can’t even imagine having all of that on your plate at once. Not to mention that when Covid hit, I mean the need for competent HR people and good HR advice was just sort of magnified, right? So yeah, that’s a wild time. And was your baby then won when you jumped in, right? Right after mat leave. Holy smokes. Totally. Well, good for you. I mean, look at you now. That’s great. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, neat. You talked about buckets of hr. I’m guilty. Okay. I’ve got somebody who handles our HR internally here, and it’s like, yeah, just go recruit some people. And Roni’s our customer experience leader and our HR lead, and she’s got a background in hr, she’s done some education with it. And you go, she goes, Clayton, I’m not a recruiter. I’m like, wait, you’re hr? And she’s like, Clayton, I’m not a recruiter.
(06:12):
And so it’s kind of been enlightening for me to go, oh, there’s more to it than this. So why don’t you talk a little bit about what do business, because I’m your serial case. I’m like the entrepreneur who just goes, yep, just your hr, handle it, whatever. But the idea of buckets is really interesting to me because it helps us, I think, as owners of the business who are searching for resources to go, okay, there’s a lot to think about here. It’s not as simple as, yeah, just go find someone. Right? So talk about the buckets a little bit, please.
Ashley McKarney (06:44):
Yeah, and I think just to start that conversation, to provide a little context if you don’t mind, is we’ve all heard of those stereotypes as you referred to being that stereotypical leader that just says, just do it. I just need hr. We all have a different connotation of what HR is. And I think stereotypically it’s more that transactional policy procedure, hire fire police. And in this market it’s very much, oh, you recruit, so you’re a recruiter or you’re a headhunter. And I will say that there are generalists in HR that I will speak to myself as being of having tons of experience in all of the buckets. And I would say I’m a specialist in some after my years of experience. But then there are specific specialists from day one that are recruiters, that are compensation, that are benefits, and those individuals have a unique skillset where Roni was coming from, I’m not a recruiter, that’s what she was saying, is we don’t have the pipeline, we don’t have the tools, we don’t have all of those skills that a specific recruiter does because really they’re in sales.
(07:47):
But people, and I don’t want to commoditize people by using that as an analogy, but it can be a likened metaphor. And so when we go back to that spectrum of you’ve got your traditional transactional HR that a lot of those stereotypes fall under, then you go to the other end of the spectrum, which is really that strategic piece. And we hear HR should have a seat at the table, HR should be this. Well, let’s just call a spade a spade and call it people operations because if your server breaks, Clayton, are you going to go into the server room and try and fix it?
Clayton Achen (08:23):
No,
Ashley McKarney (08:23):
No, because wires and lights and things, and it’s protecting your data. But I think if I can make an assumption, a lot of individuals, oh, if my people are broken in the same metaphor, I can fix it. I’ve got staff, I’ve got a spouse, I’ve got probably kids. I’ve got people I’ve worked with. I interact with people all the time. I can do this myself. And yes, you probably can, but you also don’t know what you don’t know. And so understanding how people interpret a communication, how people interpret language, how people interpret things is another in and of itself. So the buckets of HR are really that traditional recruitment or talent acquisition is kind of another name for it. Compensation or total compensation, which includes benefits and perks. You’ve got performance reviews, performance management, I think as people call it, you’ve got investigations and mediations on the more serious level. You’ve got employee relations, I think is another one. And I’m probably forgetting several in the moment of the hot seat right now. But so many of these intermingle with HR that really we deserve a different definition. But I have this conversation all the time. I was talking to somebody the other day, oh, engagement surveys. Oh, I didn’t realize Alvi did that. And in my head I went, well, it’s part of hr, but my part of HR is not the norm. So it’s an interesting conversation
Clayton Achen (09:49):
To have. What is your part of hr?
Ashley McKarney (09:52):
My part of HR is everything related to your people. If you need to move your employee from that cubicle to the corner office or backwards in that scenario, that to you might be just, oh, operationally, I need to make more room. I’ll move Joe over here. I’ll move Sally here. I’ll communicate it. And they move tomorrow. Do we know what motivates Sally and Joe? Do we know if that’s going to make them an entire detractor because you’re taking away their personal space within your business? I had a client that moved an employee seven times in seven years, and she was the coined greatest culture bearing flag employee of the organization. But she didn’t have any personal pictures. She didn’t have anything of personal note on her desk. And I asked why? Well, they move me so often, I just don’t feel like I have a home. But that for me is such a clear example on a simple level of an operational change that we don’t consider to have people implications to now something that’s impacting culture, tenure, retention, and that feeling of, I have a place here and I make an impact. And so I use that example frequently because a lot of people can relate to it.
Clayton Achen (11:03):
I mean, you mentioned some really interesting things in there. And what I’ve come to realize, and this is trust me, this is from learning the hard way. I guess one of the reasons I see value in a competent HR person, I think there’s a lot of gypsies out there who are slinging in many different industries, not just hr who are slinging sort of stuff that isn’t like, Hey, I’m checking off boxes in a textbook and whatever. And I think that’s the same in accounting as well, by the way. And so it’s really important to find somebody who can actually drill in and really understand. And why is that important? I have learned the hard way through building a Ken Henderson up to, we’re going to be 20 people here soon from three, basically over the last few years, is we certainly have a lot of turnover when you don’t hire the right people and you can’t hire the right people if you don’t have the right message out there, the right and well, okay, great, well, let’s put out a message.
(12:12):
Well, what if that message doesn’t actually reflect the reality in your company? Now you’re selling, I’m looking for the analogy, I can’t remember what the analogy is, but you’re basically just a salesman or a salesperson, sorry. And so where am I going with this? Is to have your culture clearly defined and operating properly, and then communicate that out to the market and people will come and find you. And man, have we ever lost a lot of good people over the years because we’ve pivoted and changed and started living by certain ideals that we picked up sort of mid stroke. And because we wanted to get bigger and we figured out that you have to start doing this stuff. Well, the old way worked for those people and the new way and having help figuring all that stuff out would’ve been immensely helpful. And we didn’t have that help.
(13:07):
We had to learn the hard way of losing some really good people. And everybody who’s worked with us, I’ve really enjoyed working with. And when they leave, it’s like, Ooh, that’s it hurts. So speak to that a little bit and how, I don’t know if your organization helps with that, but I feel like there’s a huge amount of front end work there that isn’t only hr, there’s leadership culture, there’s a whole bunch of coaches that you need to bring in, but when you look at what is the most valuable resource at Aiken Henderson by a mile, it’s the people that work here. And I think that’s true in a lot of organizations. So getting your culture dialed in and then communicating it effectively to the market, man, I wish we could have had some help with that and we could have gone a lot faster basically, I think. Right? Do you have any thoughts on that?
Ashley McKarney (13:55):
Yeah, quite a few actually. I think you touched on a couple different buckets that I won’t go into detail of all of them, but we can expand if you want to. The first one is from the experience that I’ve had, a lot of companies, most companies care about what their customers feel, think and say about their brand. So we have these N P s scores for those that are familiar of the happy faces of how was your service today? And different companies measure it different ways, but I think there’s a huge exercise and a learning moment in turning the tables internally on the exact same exercise because your staff are in there every day. They see when the cloaks come off, they see behind the curtain and the mess that goes on behind the stage, if you will. And they are going to be the first ones to share it if they’re a detractor employee or they’re maybe on their way out the door, they’re definitely sharing that.
(14:47):
I think the other piece of it is that leaders need to be better people leaders, and that’s where we’re going with IVI and our service to our clients is, yes, let’s help you with the transactional, let’s get your foundation there. Let’s put what we call those guardrails in place to let the employees know these are the boundaries that our brand asks you to stay within, and then let’s be us within that so that we can communicate that and stand behind that. But if we can make people better people leaders, then you may never need those foundational policy and procedure things because you’re treating those people on your team like humans. You’re allowing them to fail forward. You’re allowing them to challenge it in a good challenge, status quo in a good way. And you’re making more of a collaborative environment where those people will feel like, oh, I actually have a say here.
(15:36):
What I do in say matters. I can see a connection of the work I do to the business and its goals. So that’s the other piece. And then the last piece is that communication piece during the pandemic and still to today, I think HR need to be expert communicators because if you Clayton, in this example, want to send a communication out to your staff that they have to work remembrance day, which is a stat in Alberta for those that are watching, you could just say, you’re working remembrance day and this is why. How are people going to receive that? And if you have a person in your organization that has that people mindset to say, Ooh, well, let’s put a little bit of context here and let’s add some color here and let’s make it a little softer, then it will be exactly the message you want it to be, and it will be received hopefully equally across the board. So sometimes it’s those leaders just taking that pause in their busy day-to-day hamster wheel and saying, how is this going to be received? Does this translate at the leadership team the same way it does as the frontline team? Right?
Clayton Achen (16:42):
You’re making me very uncomfortable here. I mean, I’ve tried really hard to stop doing exactly that because I’m very transparent and I just speak my mind. And it’s like, you can’t do that anymore. And I have lost really good people because of the way that I’ve presented things, right? And I’m guilty of that. And so when you say that, it’s like, oh man, why didn’t we do this podcast three years ago? Right? No regrets, obviously, but oh man, is that ever a helpful hint is going, listen, you’re slammed and you need shit done. I need shit done. And how are you going to get that done? Well, you can be the tyrant dictator, or you can just have a habit, not be the tyrant dictator and just have the habit of speaking your mind. But maybe what you need to do is customize your message a little bit to the recipient of the message. And maybe it’ll have a bigger impact then. And maybe it’s super important to focus on that as a leader. And maybe that is actually the highest and best use of my time is figuring that out rather than doing tax returns. And so yeah, you’ve me really uncomfortable because I’ve learned those lessons pretty hard over the last couple of years.
Ashley McKarney (17:54):
Yeah. Well, I appreciate your vulnerability and it wasn’t intentional, but when we are engaged as a firm to work with organizations, typically if it’s a little bit larger and it’s not the owner operator, then it’s usually that ops manager that second level down in that hierarchy. And we’re asked to make change. We’re asked to influence, we’re asked to move the people operations function forward and in whatever capacity, make impact. And once we do that, we always look to fill the gap that those leaders have, because we know HR is a cost function. We know they’re looking at how much this is going to cost me versus what am I going to feel, see and know is an impact. But once we do that, we want to create systemic solutions so that it just doesn’t happen again. And we haven’t put a bandaid on it. But unfortunately as we do that systemic work, sometimes we find that it is the top level leaders or leader that may approach business in that dictatorial way or may not be self-aware of how they come across or may be so stuck in their ways of, this is how I’ve always led.
(19:01):
I’m just going to continue that. We’re putting a square peg in a round hole. When we think about orientation as a very simple thing. We’ve been orientating or bringing employees on in an organization the same way for 20 plus years, give or take a few slight amendments. And now we’ve gone through a pandemic. We now have a hybrid or variable workforce in terms of work from home and in the office, but we’re onboarding people in the exact same way. We’re saying, okay, fully remote employee, we’re going to onboard you the same way we onboarded Joe a year ago, but that’s not going to work. So how are we adapting what we’re doing to fit the new way of working? And I don’t think it’s malicious in the lack of movement we’ve seen there. I think it’s just it takes time, energy, commitment, and investment to make those huge changes, and we just may not be planning for it in our strategic plans.
Clayton Achen (19:57):
Well, and you make a really good point. This is actually a good transition into some current issues. You’d mentioned a couple things before about people’s expectations changing and wow, I feel involved in the decision-making process. And I work with a group called Crankset Group quite a lot, and I run three to five clubs here in Calgary. And we talk a lot about participation, age cultures, and participation age companies where the owners, the way to truly get off what we call the entrepreneurial treadmill is to have good people who have clear expectations and context and decision-making ability and the ability to behave like adults and make their decisions that are good for the company. And so setting up that framework, another thing you said was if the framework’s set up, and I’m sorry if I’m paraphrasing you a little too here, but once you’ve got the framework set up and if it’s functioning well and the leaders are adhering to it and your company culture is functioning well and everybody’s unclear on their context and understanding and have the power to behave like adults and make decisions, you can throw the HR out, manual out the window basically because you don’t need it anymore because it’s a well-functioning machine.
(21:07):
I am sorry if I’m taking that a little too far on the manual, but the HR manual becomes now, as Chuck says, a shelf help book that you throw up with your other shelf help books on the shelf help shelf. So I love that. Right?
Ashley McKarney (21:25):
Or it becomes that thing that’s there when really, okay, I’ve tried everything and this employee is not a fit, or this employee is breaking every rule. It provides that backbone, right? But to speak to what you said unintentionally, I have done that with my team at volve. I am a very collaborative leader. I have been known to give too little structure, and some of my team members are like, well, I need the guardrails. I need a little bit of direction. I can’t just wonder as we call it, to get this solution. So I’ve had to work through that in my own leadership skills and style, but really we have a collaborative environment where everybody provides input. I created a new strategic planning process that my team developed our strategic plan for the next year and dictated what they wanted to see and what they wanted to do.
(22:16):
And I’m just going to make it happen. I think on a small, really well-functioning team that will work. But as you get bigger, you have to insert some guardrails. You have to insert a little bit more structure or direction. And I think as you’re asking for feedback, whether it’s in this process, an engagement, a pulse survey, fireside chats, whatever you want to call it, it is crucial that if you are asking for feedback that you will respond. And if somebody says, I’d like three monitors on my desk instead of two, evaluate that in terms of all the aspects of your business to see if it makes sense. If they’re asking for an accommodation because maybe they have and maybe they just need a little bit of help with white noise or something else, how are we going to make that happen in this new world?
(23:04):
But on a more extreme level, I want a company car for everybody at the firm. Well, okay, we might chuckle at that comment as we review them as a leadership team, but it is equally important to address the entire team and say, Hey, group, thank you for your feedback. This is what we’ll action in zero to six months. This is maybe one to three years. These other items, I’m sorry, but they don’t fit with our mission, vision, value or company direction or budget. So we’ve heard you on the car for everybody, but we unfortunately can’t action that. And I think that piece is what gets lost because then it’s those dreamers that have these great ideas that one day will give us a nugget of gold that will now feel disrespected if we don’t address the car for everybody in that example. Right.
Clayton Achen (23:49):
Well, and it’s interesting too. You go, okay, so we talk about the participation age and we talk about people being able to contribute, and you said it really well, and I have been the same kind of leader until recently as well, where I would issue an edict and then step away and let everybody handle it and then measure it in six months time and see how we’re doing. What I’ve kind of come to realize is while people don’t want to be micromanaged, they certainly want to be resourced properly. And when we hire a new team member, we can’t just say, here, go do bookkeeping and then off to the golf course. It doesn’t work like that. And so while I’m not going to come in and hover over you and micromanage you or leaders on our team, better yet, what they are going to do is check in and make sure that you’ve got the training opportunities that you need, make sure you’ve got the mentoring that you need and the coaching that you need.
(24:46):
And that needs to happen all the time. And people are expecting that. And I think that ties back to another thing you said, which is people don’t want to just come to work and punch the clock anymore. And this is a really nice transition into the current issues. And I’d like to talk a bit about current issues, but people want to make meaning at work. They no longer want to just come in and fill a chair and get a raise every year for occupying the chair. It’s like, congratulations, you sat in that chair all year. Here’s your raise. And that’s done. It’s over now, at least in meaningful companies where people show up to make meaning. I had a fellow C P A at a C P A conference recently go, Hey, I’m having so much trouble finding people. I’m like, I’m not. And they’re like, well, what’s your secret?
(25:33):
I’m like, the secret. He’s like, there’s nobody out there. There’s nobody out there in the market. And I’m like, well, actually, there’s tons of people out there in the market. They just don’t want to work for you. And well, why is that? He was a bit offended, but I’m that kind of a dude. Love it. And why is that? And I think if you could boil it down to one thing, it’s people want to come to work and make meaning. Well, how do you know if you’re making meaning? Well, when I applied for this job, you said that these were your objectives as an organization, you have your vision, mission, core values figured out, and I align with those. And then when they come to start working at that organization, I’ve got a podcast right at the start of my podcast. It’s like episode one or two and it’s on this stuff.
(26:16):
And when they come to work, they go, okay, this company is actually what it said. It was on paper. And our application pages are massive. You’ve got to get through four pages of who we are before you can apply. And then applying is tough. We insist that people work before they work to find out who they are and filter and filter and filter. We could talk about recruiting, but let’s not. And so they got to show up and go, yes, you told me that this was who you are as an organization. You communicated that I liked it. I felt that during the interview and now I’m working here and it is actually what I’m feeling. And that helps me make meaning because I applied to work here because of who you said you were. And now I’m here to see if that proves out. So is it proving out or not?
(26:59):
Oh, it’s not proving out. Oh, okay. What you actually need is somebody to be micromanaged and fill a chair for a year and then give an annual raise to I’m out. I’m out. And we lost somebody late last year who was one of our key people, and she ended up at one of those places and two months later, she’s not there anymore. And it’s like, yeah, darn right. But we lost her. And that’s on me. So how do we help our people make meaning at work? Because I think that’s important to people these days more than money. Although money talks. So
Ashley McKarney (27:33):
Money talks, but there’s a saddle out there that roughly 80% of employees leave their job because of their manager. And so going back to my earlier point, if we can make better people managers, then hopefully less people will leave the job. Hopefully more people will be communicated to that they are making impact and how they are making impact. And I think very often organizations, and don’t get me wrong, finances are important. They keep the lights on, they pay the bills. We have to know where we are financially and that better than most. But naively or not, my thought process as I operate in bvi, is every contract or client coming in? Am I in the black on a very general sense, as long as I am in the black, regardless of it’s small or a large margin, I know my finances are taken care of.
(28:26):
So now I’m going to focus on my team because my team, if I can make them raving fans, they’re going to love their job and the clients are going to feel that in every interaction and the deliverables that we customize for them. And then hopefully we’ll make raving fans of the customers, which means then they will refer us on and we’re grateful. Most of our new business comes from referrals. And so then the cyclical pieces there, which then is generating more revenue even if I’m not paying attention to the ins and outs of dollars paid in dollars spent or earned. And so I think very often organizations fall into this trap of watching the p and l and watching the cash in cash out debits and credits and monitoring and creating their strategic plan around that rather than the humans that are executing on the work and delivering on their brand promise
Clayton Achen (29:17):
And leading to the entrepreneur’s salvation. Frankly, my priority in life is to be at my dinner table every day, and I fail at that sometimes and it kills me, but with my kids, and the only way that I get to do that is if there’s good people here taking care of the customers. So that was a very Richard Branson statement of you. You take care of the employees, the employees will take care of the rest, right? Or the stakeholders, right?
Ashley McKarney (29:39):
Well, and the concepts have been there forever, and the people that read it and get it, they get it. But every day I encounter a new client that maybe hasn’t gotten it or is so far from getting it that it’s a big uphill climb. And having those conversations with the senior leaders and asking them to change their ways, asking them to maybe check their egos, even if it’s not malicious, the ego is there, the pride is there. Going very far back to the Covid example, as things changed and as every day we were waiting for updates, sometimes three a day, if the leader said, I got this, don’t worry team, we’ll get through this. I’ve got it. There’s a lot of mistrust there because everybody knows nobody’s seen this before. There’s no playbook. And so the leaders that said, look, team, we’re all going through this together.
(30:24):
I’ve got experts on the team that will help guide us and be our knowledge experts, but we are going through this together and I am humbly on this journey with you and we are going to fail, and then we are going to fix it, and then we are going to fail forward again, and it is going to be a cycle of learning. And I’m here with you. Those are the leaders that the people stuck by and the people believed in. And so if we can continue that, let your ego and pride go and realize, I don’t want to be the smartest person in the room that will get you really far, because you will be humanized by your team and they want to follow humans, not dictatorial robots.
Clayton Achen (31:02):
So we got about nine minutes left, so let’s spend a few minutes talking about how Covid, I’d like to hear your take on how Covid rewired us or rewired the, I guess maybe not us as entrepreneurs, that’s a different podcast entirely, but the labor pool that we’re trying to or attract, attacked, attract. How did it rewire them and their expectations and how can we as employers do better at attracting them? So let’s talk about expectations and how to attract better people. And then I want to talk about how I can work with you and you can give me a little plug on your company and what you can do for us.
Ashley McKarney (31:43):
Sure. So I think not only Covid has rewired us, but we all know the force that chat G P t has come on with and this AI concept and how that’s bleeding into. So I think it’s covid and the influx of technology because Covid I think forced a lot of people to hibernate. A lot of people came out of the woodworks as the next consultant or the next entrepreneur, and some are succeeding and some are not, which is natural selection, I think. But it’s caused a lot of people to dig into a specific topic and become an expert or generate innovation. And so as many as people suffer during the pandemic, I think a lot of those humans and others have come out with new ideas and innovations that are just changing the way we do business. And so I think we have to adapt and welcome innovation and crazy ideas because that’s where innovation comes from.
(32:33):
It also comes from merging two concepts, but that’s another podcast. Then I think if we can stand behind our name to what you said earlier and we can really say, we are who we are, this is what we stand by and inside you feel that culture. That is what I think is important. Those organizations and leaders that said, we’re forced to go virtual for the pandemic, but now that we’re back, we have to be in the office Monday to Friday, eight to five. If you’re not here, you’re not working. Well. Those are scare tactics. We know that some humans work better independently at home. We know that some humans will work better in an office collaborative to talk to people and need that energy. So are we learning how people tick? Are we learning what actually makes them difference and celebrating that? Or if we do learn that, are we siloing our team out?
(33:29):
And so if you can be a more transparent leader than you were yesterday and give the why behind you need to come back to the office, the why behind maybe at-home work doesn’t work. I think that is a really good step. I think it’s also encouraged all of us to have more difficult conversations. The absence of having difficult conversations, whether you like to or not, could put you in a world of hurt as a business regarding hr. And then I think as we attract people, it’s being open to what they need. It’s being open to the working moms or the working parents. It’s being open to flexibility getting home for dinner, but are you going to log in at eight o’clock at night and finish that one thing probably, right? And so it’s having trust in the employees and equally holding them accountable. So it is a two-way street and everybody feels like they’re getting what they need out of the traditional work world that we’re in.
Clayton Achen (34:26):
Interesting. Flexibility is a big takeaway there for me, and we’ve focused a lot on that. I think an interesting piece too on that is listen, people leave, right? Opportunities pop up, and you’re never going to be able to keep people forever. And that has really hit home for us in the last six months. We lost a few good people, and that sucks, man. But you know what? They got better opportunities. One guy came in and said, I got this opportunity and it pays this. And it’s like I shook his hand and said, congratulations, man. That’s awesome because people are going to leave. So you have to be able to accept that you’re never going to be able to keep everybody forever. And that’s just what we have to live with as people who are hiring people to come and work with us. Right?
Ashley McKarney (35:07):
Well, and as you say that as a last point, I would caution the employees that are doing that to interview the company, you’re going to what you’re leaving, and the grass is not always greener in all of the aspects. If you’re motivated by money, go do your thing. That’s awesome. But sometimes those organizations that are throwing the large dollars at new candidates or poaching from other firms, there’s something else under the rug that they’re not telling you. It’s not all going to be roses when you go in. Not every company is all roses, but I think candidates are interviewing the company more than we are interviewing them now. Interesting. And they are dictating where they want to go. And if we don’t show up and we’re not vulnerable and we’re not open and transparent and we don’t show some of our downfalls, if you will, everybody has them, then they’re going to start looking for them. They know that they’re there. So I think the other thing, flexibility, vulnerability, honesty, transparency is this other element of let’s be real and let’s share what’s going on and let’s make our employees part of that process.
Clayton Achen (36:14):
Process. Yeah. Yeah, super interesting. And I couldn’t agree with you more on all of those points. Okay, so tell me about evolving, what it does, what a typical engagement looks like. What are the outcomes I can expect if I land on your website and I decide to click go? HR is tricky, man. It’s just like marketing. The other person who’s on this call is a fly on the wall, is our marketing person, Derek, and I’m constantly bugging him about r o. I constantly bugging him about R O I, his eyes, just like dude enough with the R o I. But that’s what it’s all about. When we own the business, it’s about r o I.
(36:53):
And so HR and marketing as a crafts person, as a person who builds and delivers, a lot of this stuff can appear as fluff. And I think we’ve talked about for the last 45 minutes, we’ve talked about why it’s not and why HR is so, so important and it’s so important right now that we get it right. There’s tons of people out there, they just don’t want to work for you anymore. Just remember that. Right? And so I guess what’s a typical engagement with Volve look like? What can I expect as outcomes and how do you create value for the money that I’m paying you?
Ashley McKarney (37:26):
Thanks. Yeah. So at the very general sense, and we first of all hear the gaps that leaders are experiencing in their organization as to why they called us first. Because like we talked about earlier, if your gap is that everybody is coming in late and everybody’s leaving early and you can’t figure it out, yes, the traditional way is you need an attendance policy, you need to write those people up, and then you need to fix it or fire them. Very archaic, very policy driven. We’re not treating them like humans. And so yes, we can write you an attendance policy if that’s your gap call or Clayton, and that’s what you’re saying, great, let’s make it, but is that going to fix that systemic problem that is probably rooted in culture? No. So we do want to meet the need that the client has as soon as we can so that they see that R O I and they see that, oh, they accomplished that.
(38:21):
But the other real conversation we have to have is that if we don’t fix the bottom and the systemic, then it will keep happening. So I think we want you to see r o I immediately, we want to create practical solutions to the people issues or people gaps that you’re experiencing. The other thing I think that we want to do is we want to make sure that you are able to run your business the way you want to, whether you’re a leader, an owner operator, or an entrepreneur. If we come in and say, okay, here’s the black and white of employment standards, human rights, o, h, and Ss, all these governing bodies that people don’t want to hear about anymore, much like you hear with C R A, but 99% of employers, you and me both included, operate in some form of gray when it comes to those governing bodies.
(39:06):
And my personal take and my team’s take on this is if we force everybody to the black and white, we’re going to kill your culture because we’re asking everybody to be robots. So what our job is, is to come in and say, look, here’s all the gray you’re operating in. Here’s the risk that you’re absorbing. If the piper comes calling and you get sued, are you okay with that? Where is your risk tolerance? And if you say, yeah, I’m good, great, then we will operate in the gray. But then we have to be that squeaky wheel of, okay, here’s the risk or here’s the precedent you’re setting because what you do for one, everybody’s watching. So back to Volve, we are wanting to work with you. We’re wanting to find solutions that customize to you. We are not taking templates and putting Aiken Henderson all over it.
(39:52):
We want it to speak like you speak and you operate your business. So at the core of what we are, we are a fractional HR managed service. We come in, we act as your HR department physically in the building or virtually or a hybrid of both. Anywhere from our HR hotline, which is kind of like the bat phone. I need some help, give me some help hourly to our core HR service, which is five, 10, or 15 hours of help per month with a dedicated consultant or coordinator on your file. Two of that more strategic, we are part of your business. We are part of your team. We have an HR at Aker Henderson email. We have all of these things. We’re part of your meetings, but we can not only help you today, but we can help you plan for the future and strategize.
(40:36):
In addition to that, we do have recruitment offerings, but we are not a headhunter. We do it our way for small business. We are adult facilitators when it comes to learning and development. So we offer customized learning and development solutions, whether it’s three level leadership training, customer service training, difficult conversation, training, whatever it is for whoever in your organization. And really, if it impacts your people, we can help because whether we offer it directly or we have a preferred vendor or a community partner as we call them, that helps us the expert. We just want the clients to get the solutions that they need rather than us trying to be all things to all people we know when we’re not the expert, and we will be very transparent about that.
Clayton Achen (41:20):
Right on. Yeah. Well, I think if you’re not already, you’re going to be very busy here in the new world because this is front and center and we can no longer, there’s a way that we need to treat now that has always been present, but it is so much more prevalent now because I think our team members, our stakeholders that are coming to us for a job and working for us, there is a baseline of expectation. There’s a lot of opportunity out there for people, and they don’t have to settle for nine to five, punch clock, annual raise for occupying a chair. They don’t have to settle for that anymore. Interestingly, I guess on the flip side is I see a lot of that talk on LinkedIn about here’s all the things that employers should be doing for employees because this is what employees expect, and then all that stuff is very, very helpful.
(42:05):
There’s a flip side that doesn’t get talked about much, which is, as an employer, as a business owner, I expect these outputs. I want performance. I’m willing to do those things, but I want outputs and performance. And part of the HR offering is really to say, well, how are you clearly defining that and communicating that with your team? And you’ll start getting it if you ask for it. I don’t think people are being unreasonable in the market when they say, Hey, I’d like to work from home and I’d like to work when I’d like to work. Why do I need to do nine to five? That doesn’t make sense for this job role. I sense a lack of trust where if you go, well, here’s what we need you to do, here’s the context and understanding of what your job is, or here’s the goals that we’re trying to achieve, and here’s the core values that we operate within. They’re going to perform for you because I think people will step up when they’re asked to in the right way. So that’s another thing that HR is just so important for us.
Ashley McKarney (42:57):
Yeah, we will, and I mean, we can talk about this all day or I’d welcome another podcast, but I think the equal side of that that we’re seeing with the candidates and the employees in the marketplace is there’s a lack of knowledge and understanding of how a business operates. And interesting. If you share your billable hour, we’re calling fictitious numbers. Fictitious numbers. Let’s say it’s 25 bucks an hour, and then you’re sharing your billable hour out there, whether it’s 25 or a thousand, and the employees see, oh, well, I’m only making $2 an hour, but they’re billing 25. Where does that money go from? I deserve a raise, right? Sure. Yeah. And we as business owners are not only running the business and measuring the debits and credits and the financial position of our services, but we’re also now in a position to politely and supportively educate those new staff to say, this is how a business operates. So it does take that vulnerability, it takes some transparency on the financials, but to cure that entitlement that’s out there of this is how much I should be making. That’s one thing that business owners are really coming up against right now is that education piece. And it’s only going to work if the self-awareness of the employee is there to hear it. So it’s not always possible. But yeah, there’s lots of different things that are impacting the marketplace today with regards to people.
Clayton Achen (44:20):
This has been so interesting, and I want to thank you for making the time. I know you’re very busy, but I think a lot of people are going to get a lot of value out of this podcast. And so why don’t you tell everybody they can find you and get some help from you and where broadly you operate and what your markets are
Ashley McKarney (44:36):
For sure. So we are headquartered in Edmonton, but we primarily serve organizations in Western Canada, but we do have Eastern Canada clients as well. We have a couple that we dabble with in the U S A, however, we don’t do compliance HR in the us We would do more culture leadership training, development. I call it small C coaching because we are not certified coaches, but it’s what we do every day. And so everybody can find us on our website, ivo.ca, i n v o l v.ca, and we’ve got obviously a free conversation. Call us, email us if we can add value in one conversation, great. There’s obviously no charge for that, but hopefully we can make a more systemic impact by engaging with you. We also have a free HR health check on our website. So for those organizations that say, I don’t know what’s going on in my hr, I don’t know what I’m up against, take the free quiz, we’ll call you, we’ll disseminate it with you, we’ll give you your risks, we’ll give you your successes, and then there’s no obligation. If we’ve helped, great. If we can find a solution, again, we’re willing to, but those are a couple of ways that you can engage with us for free and just ask the questions you’ve always wanted to ask. There’s no stupid questions.
Clayton Achen (45:46):
Alright. Yeah. Well thank you so much. Alright, you, this has been asked McKarney of Involvi HR, and I really appreciate you making the time.
Ashley McKarney (45:53):
Thank you Clayton. Really appreciate it. Have a good day.
Show notes:
