[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Welcome to another episode of Balancing act, your guide to grow profit and scale. I'm Linda Hamilton, a CPA certified exit planning advisor and systemologist. I'll be your host today. For the past 30 years, I've been looking under the hoods of businesses to understand what truly drives success.
And while we know the numbers really matter, the story behind the numbers uncovers hidden threats and opportunities.
And one thing I've seen over and over again in my career is that it's not just about working harder. It's about having the right strategies, about taking action, and about understanding that all your activities, whether it's operations, growth, hiring, all of those things affect your bottom line and how do we change the outcome? And we're very fortunate today to have Erica Butler with us. The CEO of High HR LLC, a firm breaking Fortune 100 consulting experience for small and mid sized businesses.
She's a certified disc coach, an intercultural intelligence trainer, and with a deep passion for helping globally diverse teams. Erica, welcome. You have so many of those titles, but you also live the story of building a business and raising young children. So you really have a passion for helping others find that work life balance we've all been chasing for most of our careers.
Welcome.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Thank you for having me. I really believe in what you're doing, so it's an honor to be speaking with you today.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: Linda, let's dive into a little bit of, you know, you mentioned to me that work life balance wasn't just a buzzword for you, that it's very personal. Why don't you start with telling us your story?
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Sure. So it really starts back in my days in college because I knew I wanted to be a mother and I knew I was really passionate about the field of human resource management. So I actually wrote my master's thesis about how can we do this well, and I'm like, all right, we have a good plan. Well, fast forward, I don't know, eight years. I have two kids. My husband and I work full time corporate jobs and I didn't really follow what I wrote very well and we were really, really struggling. So I guess in that sense our work life balance was non existent and we just, you know, to the point of being sick. That's how bad it was. You know, I had a one year old and I never forget I was on a business trip in Raleigh, Durham, and I get a call from my son's new kindergarten teacher and said, Mrs. Butler, is your son going to be in kindergarten because he missed orientation and something like that happened a few times.
Just realized this is not working. Something has to change. So we actually decided then about seven years ago now to open up our LLC and that we were going to really live life differently because we, I didn't want to miss out on my kids life and we just knew we could do, we believe we could do better.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: I love that story and it does bring back memories for me too because I started my CPA firm when my son was one and I actually took him to work on April 15th because it was a tax deadline when he had a fever, put him in my office.
But so you went from corporate to being a business owner, which does give you at least the freedom to make choices. But there's still a lot about work, life balance even there. And you also lived internationally. How did that shape how you approached running your business and you know, family rhythms as well?
[00:04:06] Speaker A: Absolutely. So we were really fortunate that we opened the business about two years before we moved internationally to Europe from Pennsylvania originally. And at that we were able to put a team together. And I truly think if you build that on your team, where you have collaboration and you catch one another and you communicate well, it's possible. Now living abroad, you have to really watch the time differences and you know, my day. Since our business is mostly in the US though we work internationally. I have mornings where I just get to prepare, do the work, do the projects, and then at the afternoon I'm doing a lot of meetings, you know, so I kind of got into rhythms based on the time zone. And also one thing about living internationally, it's a lot for your kids and really coming around them and making sure we're spending the time we need as a family. And we had rhythms around that. But the team, I'm telling you, the team is truly everything and making that a priority across our team to support each other.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: And a lot of our audience probably works internationally as well.
Plus you even have some time zone Differences across the U.S. there are several time zones across the U.S.
were there any specific moments when you felt you were really getting it right and others when you knew something really had to change?
[00:05:19] Speaker A: Sure. I now know very quickly if I'm getting it right or not. And it ebbs and flows right. There's different seasons and sometimes life throws things at you. You're not always prepared. So I kind of like a litmus test. I know I'm getting it right when I feel, you know, physically strong and mentally healthy and just I.
There's time for family and friends and I just feel the sense of, well, being on the Other hand, if we're feeling this anxiety creep up or just you don't feel, you know, your heart rate, these little things that you need to pull yourself back quickly and say, all right, what can I do differently? Something's off, figure it out. And then. And it's a constant tweaking. It's a constant tweaking. It takes a lot of effort to do this, but it is very, very possible.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And as I said, you know, work, life, balance. Sometimes work is kind of coming first or driving the ship, so to speak, the car. And other times it's your personal life.
I've often tried to tell myself it was more about work, life, fulfillment, so that I know I was trying to do my best in all areas of my life.
So what have you learned about what balance means to you?
[00:06:33] Speaker A: Sure, absolutely. I love your. How you tweak the words there. But I think we don't really talk always about work, life, balance. The same balance, wholeness. So it's become more of the word wholeness to me, because you're right. There's seasons that you have something really big for work and your family's going to rally around you. And again, I think it comes to communication. My kids now are 12 and 8, and as much as possible, we let them be part of it. We just had our team retreat last week, and they're handing out the awards for the other kids. And I think there's really a way to integrate. It's like integration. I think that's a better word. How do you integrate both to. And these rhythms? It's really rhythms of life. And it's possible not sacrificing work still, you know, you still have to show up for the job and take care of the clients.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: And so tell me more about rhythm. What, what. What is actually, what's an example of rhythm? And some of our businesses are, you know, some of our listeners are much smaller businesses. They might be solopreneurs, like when you first started and you know, or they work with their spouse or some of their family members. What could rhythm mean to them?
[00:07:38] Speaker A: I think rhythm starts with knowing what matters most to you and what matters most to your family. And then you really come around that and protect that. So, for instance, we started a Friday family Fun Night, and if there's people ask us to do something or we have a work training, we say no. We say we protect that at all costs. So I think it's like maybe a date with your spouse, maybe. What is. What are you going to protect at all costs? Maybe it's your exercise in the morning. That's a good one. And then you literally everything else goes around that and you just protect what matters most. I could say so much more, but I think that's a really good starting place.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: Oh, that's a, that's a brilliant tip there to look at what matters and to not compromise on things that are important to you when you said something. So how about, you know, you now support others as a fractional HR leader, a mentor, a coach.
So tell us something about that one, how your story shaped it or how you approach that.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: Sure.
I actually would like to talk specifically about women, if that's okay. Because though I.
Men and women, there is a special niche there for women leaders and going through motherhood like you and I talked about. What I found is women tend to be really hard on themselves, especially women high achieving leaders. And one of the exercises I like to do is write 10 things that you are proud of or 10 things you love about yourself. I almost always. It brings women, they respond very emotionally because they're so hard on themselves. So I actually think it's important to celebrate every day. Recognize what you did good the day before.
Men too. I mean, this is good for them too. But like when we talk about rhythms and how to, you know, do this and how I coach on this, it's. It's recognition, celebration, positivity that is going to be. It's like a mental, not a trick, but a plan. And it just works for people if they can get this into their daily, weekly, monthly habits and it impacts their team, it impacts their family. There's a really big spillover effect because of the energy they're bringing to the rest of their life when they can do this for themselves and for the others around them. It sounds so simple, but it's powerful.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Yeah, that, that's so insightful. And I, and I think, you know, women often do carry a lot of responsibilities and they can be, you know, there can be a sense of guilt around, you know, always juggling different parts of your life, whether it's your relationships or not. And I'm not, that's not to say that men don't also face that when, when they're running a business. They also have a certain amount of guilt over missing family time. And you know, there. It's not easy to be an entrepreneur, but it's very fulfilling. As I like to say, sort of.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Something from the first story just to my husband, it was crazy because of course I called him bawling. I was, I'm like, I can't believe I missed my son's orientation. He goes, okay, so no problem. You said that we're going and you're going to bring them the next day, right? I'm like, no problem. It is interesting. Like, he also cares so much, deeply. And you're right, Linda, I totally agree everything you said, but it was why his response was so different than mine. It was very like, all right, no problem, problem solved already. So he just, no, he didn't feel the same guilt, you know, So I was that.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: And so the tip is for us to not feel guilt. We have to juggle things. We're doing it well from our good intentions and from wanting to take care of clients and take care of our family. And oftentimes we're last.
Just to close out this segment, we've got a minute left. What about taking care of ourselves?
[00:11:16] Speaker A: I learned this the hard way from walking out of that rough season. But I think it's also radically protecting what, what we need that day. I follow this process. It's actually from an amazing leader named Christy Wright. And every day she has like a journal. And you just say, what am I doing for me today? And it could be your exercise, could be reading a book you love. And I literally plan what was the one thing that I do that fills me today.
It has been helping me a lot. It is a beautiful.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: Oh, I love that. I love that. Your story really brings the topic of work life balance together for us. And I think if people want to follow your work or connect with you online, what's the best way to do that?
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Sure. So you can find
[email protected] it's spelled G O H I H R dot com. We're also on LinkedIn. You can type in H I H R LLC and you'll find us there.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: Thank you so much. And we're going to take a break, but stay with us because we have lots more to talk about about returning to work. Remote work. Remote work, alternative work. Lots to share with you. So come right back.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: It.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: Welcome back to Balancing Acts. Love what you're watching. Don't miss a moment of your favorite NOW Media shows and this show, live or on demand, anytime, anywhere. You can download the NOW Media app on Roku or Apple and get instant access to our full lineup of bilingual programming in both English and Spanish.
Prefer to listen on the go. You can also catch the podcast version of the show either on your favorite podcast or right on the NOW Media TV website. From business to breaking news and Culture and everything in between. Now Media is streaming 24. 7.
I'm your host, Linda Hamilton. And we're back with Erica Butler, who's worked with companies around the world to build sustainable HR practices. And we're going to talk about a hot button issue right now, and that's return to work, returning to the office, getting away from remote work. And large companies in particular are mandating three or four days a week. But is there a cost?
And they're even requiring relocation or offering severance packages.
So the question is, is your return to work policy fostering, is it undermining employee loyalty, diversity and performance?
Erica, what do you think is really driving this return to office mandate? Because it is a mandate. Right.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: What I've seen driving it is, I don't know if fear is the right word, but unfortunately, sometimes it's a few people who are not responsibly with the responsible, with the flexible schedules and they're not held accountable. And then senior leaders might see this and then they just think, you know what, we're all better together. It's easier to manage everyone in person. And I see it coming out of reasons pertaining to that more than anything else.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure that's right. And not everyone can work from home productively, you know, because there's a lot of, let's face it, there can be a lot of distractions at home.
As you know, we talked about balancing our work and our life when we are at home. So I guess the companies are looking at this as a productivity and performance issue. But that's probably not a one size fits all answer either, because some do really well working from home. So I would imagine there might be other ways to resolve that. So I've heard a lot of stories about it affecting morale, retention, and even the branding of the employer. Can you address that a little bit?
[00:15:28] Speaker A: Sure. So it's very rare to hear anybody speaking excitedly about that employer doing that more. So you hear even from director level and above, disappointment, because it's something they had that they really valued. A lot of times that really motivates people to be part of a company that trusts them and gives them that ability to lead their life that way. And then they're really sad to lose it. Most times you see that. So I do think from a morale standpoint, organizations that are making these decisions need to find, okay, what is being lost and then what's our plan to give something else or, you know, how are we going to sustain that? Keep the morale high. And it's a big Deal. And they need to have a plan to address it and have a support the employees to not lose morale because of that big decision and also losing top talent.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: Right. And you know, I want to talk about morale a little bit because the theme of balancing acts is about balancing everything. Time, money, priorities, and everything affects your bottom line. Everything affects the numbers. If there's bad morale, you know, which probably leads to a poor culture as well. Your customers are going to feel that. Maybe the, the boss is going to feel it. They're, they're. You know, I always say you have to put the people back in KPIs because yeah, it is all about people and how they knowing that the boss cares about them or the company does. So what, what would you say as another way to solve it? What more could companies do to address that morale issue?
[00:17:07] Speaker A: So I have a very strong opinion on this and it may or may not be popular. I think they should never remove it. I think I really disagree with the organizations that are doing that. I get why. But instead they should really focus on their performance management procedures and policies and how can we better focus on managing results? And the ones that are not hitting results, they need to be held accountable in a way to lift them up and help them be successful. The rest of the organization shouldn't have to. I don't know if suffer is the right word, but shouldn't have to lose this really positive thing for some of these families and organs and people. They shouldn't lose it just because it didn't work for some. Several others. Yeah. So I'm not a fan of taking that away. And on top of it, then they miss out on.
A lot of the competitors are still doing it.
So it's harder to attract these talent.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: And that's interesting because, you know, I run a small firm and we're all fully remote, but we go into the office when we need to or we have to have meetings with clients. And I often have a retreat once a year because some of our younger employees struggle a little more with isolation and not being around others. So it may be. If you're not productive, why is that? Are you lacking skills? Do you need training? Is, you know, accountability can mean different things. Is it a punishment or is it. Or is it something that's going to help the employee reach the potential and the goals of the company? Because we can't say they don't matter. What would you say to that?
[00:18:42] Speaker A: Oh, I guess I could.
Accountability. The goal is to lift people up and help them succeed. Succeed. And then on the flip side, if they're. If it's not a fit that it is addressed because it's not fair to the rest of the team and the organization.
Yes. But can you repeat the last part again? Because I have one more thing I know I wanted to add here.
[00:19:01] Speaker B: No, I think it was more about solving the accountability that not being a punishment that maybe they needed training or skills.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: What I seen the best companies do is have options. So you can have hybrid. You can come in some days for those that really love to be a person or all some people love to be be in the office, they don't want to take their computer home. So I think the more you can provide options for everyone to do what they do best, how they work best is really what I see. People thriving at the best organizations that I've seen and been part of.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: If I go back to work, life balance. I know, you know, from the pandemic when I started working fully remotely and at home, some of the downside of that for me personally was know, getting out of bed and walking to my desk and not taking as many steps. And I my practice is in New York City. We walk a lot. And so I found that I had to do different things because when you're in the office you're walking quite a bit, you're talking to people, you're chatting and that's sometimes missing from remote. So you know, and that can come back to having meetings. What would you say are.
I think you feel strongly that certain groups maybe are being left behind on this return to work mandate. And how do you want to address that?
[00:20:21] Speaker A: Sure. Well, I don't like to put people in one bucket, you know, parents or. Because the thing is even a single individual might be caring for the elderly parents. So I guess the people left behind are those who have a very full, robust personal life of maybe people need them and they can't run it as well when they have to be in the office and make that hour commute sometimes or whatever it is. It just makes it a lot harder for them to feel, I guess that wholeness, that balance to do the things that matter to them and get that commute time back for just an example.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: Good point.
We talked about a return to office strategy. So what do you think a successful returned office strategy looks like in 2025? And let's not leave out the small businesses maybe who don't have as many employees. So you know, it's not as big a an issue for them to actually get control over.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: Absolutely. So I think it's important to have really strong communication so everyone knows what's happening and what's okay. What's not okay, what are the new policies and really make it clear.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: Clear.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: Because a lot of times when we change something big like this, there's a lot of confusion around the team. It can save a lot of time for being clear and consistent.
Also I just think even though maybe everyone's back in the office, are we going to allow. Do we have a policy where hey, you have to be out in afternoon, no problem, just fill out the simple form or something. Something where they might not lose everything and might not go back to how it was, but just a few processes in place that provide some flexibility, at least for those that need it.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: I think really important on that communication. So you provide fractional HR services.
How can, can fractional HR leaders help return to office transition more strategically? And what is a fractional hr?
[00:22:23] Speaker A: Why we exist is for there's, you know, small middle, middle sized companies, they don't need a full time HR director. So, so we come in and provide what they need. It would be technically like part time hours, but they still get access to high quality support. I know you do the same, I'm sure for financial services, CPAs. Right. So marketers, you can do that for every key area of business.
Yes. And then. Sorry, can you repeat one more time the last part? I apologize.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: Well, I was just. How can a fractional HR leader help someone be more strategic in these, whether it's return to work or hybrid, whatever they want to do. How do they be more strategic? With the help of a fractional HR leader.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: One of the most important things we do in HR is make sure there's that two way communication. So say that you do this policy and it just does not go well and everyone's back. We're going to make sure there's the focus groups, one on one communication, a pulse survey. We're thinking often, okay, how do we hear from the team in ways where it can be anonymous, where they share how they're really feeling? Because then if it does go poorly, we can quickly tell the senior leaders, make a plan, adjust what we need to. So it's constant, constant two way communication and providing that, that voice for the team as much as possible.
[00:23:36] Speaker B: Erica, this is such a critical conversation for business leaders, small business owners and you know, communication can really go off the rails and go wrong and maybe your problems are much worse. And that's why it's important not to kind of bury your head in the sand and not look at all how all these different things impact your business and your bottom line.
Where can viewers go to learn more about your work with High HR llc and did I pronounce that correctly?
[00:24:05] Speaker A: Yes. We have say go higher a lot. So go higher International Human resources Higher llc. All that works. It's great. Thank you, Linda. Yes. So we're active on LinkedIn so you can find us there. Hire H I h r llc also ww.go hi hr.com and we try to do our best 24 hours. Back to messages and would love to help, love to help help the viewers.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: Thank you so much. Stay with us. We're going to come back and talk to Erica about workplace innovation and her being a culture consultant. So stay with us. We'll be right back.
We're still talking with Erica Butler, an advocate for rethinking how work is structured. Let's talk about flexible bold models. Changing the workspace for from four days a week to what Erica calls a cynic async first cultures. I'll have to ask her about that.
They could be four days working four days. It could be job sharing, summer Fridays, work from home days.
But I think everybody's thinking about that. And we just talked about a second about return to office and how important culture is to any business because when your employees have poor morale and you don't have a healthy culture, that is one of the biggest drivers that can really lower your profitability and affect the asset value of your business if you ever want to sell it and certainly affect your life as the owner of the business or one of the officers.
Erica, let's talk about alternative work structures first. You know, what are they and is it more than just a Gen Z trend?
[00:26:25] Speaker A: Yes, I love that, you know, Gen Zers, they're getting the name for this. But you know, I think it's been around for a very long time and people care very much about their schedules and how they have wholeness between their life and their work. So yes, I think after Covid happened people really got used to having that extra flexibility and in some cases it stuck. In some cases it hasn't. Right. So we see this polarizing effect of people still wanting it. Some companies are pulling back while others are going full force into the four day work weeks, into summer Fridays, which people who doesn't love that and many other ways. For instance, you can literally make for, for even blue collar, white collar. We have a client that they have a six day work week but then they get off four days and they the team wanted that so just listening to your team and what, what is possible. There's a lot possible. And you could be very creative with schedules if you put your heads together.
[00:27:24] Speaker B: I love that. You know, and in some ways you can think of it as like fringe benefits. You know, not every company, especially small companies, can afford all these perks. And there's insurance, there's a lot of things you can't that can make employee happiness almost and fulfillment of a reason for them to be loyal and stay even when things get tough at work, do flexible work options such as four week.
Do they really work? What's the data show about productivity and about burnout?
[00:27:59] Speaker A: So I have, from everything I've experienced and read, yes, they work. Forbes just came out of a study and they estimated about 66% percent of people are risk of burnout or burnout. So burnout is just such something as leaders we need to be aware of. And I agree with you, Linda. Small organizations can really compete for talent by giving additional flexibility, being creative. I am part of a group called entrepreneurs organization, 16,000 strong around the world. And this is one of the things they train and push because small businesses can win talent by giving these as a fringe benefit. And they do work if you're communicating, if you're collaborating and if you have really good performance. Management accountability, KPIs in place. It really just takes that and it's very possible and it goes great. I've seen it work time and time again.
Yeah.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: And you mentioned earlier, I noticed you were talking about some pilot programs, maybe some real world pilot programs. Can you just give us a little background on that?
[00:29:00] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. I can give you many examples, but one in particular I just saw. So there's an organization, they have about 151of our clients, global organization. And they have a leader, had a new child, a key leader in the organization. And they really haven't done this before. But she wanted, hey, can I do four days? And they let her. And you know, just seeing them keep her because they might not have been able to. So you see, you know, having this open conversation with team members, would this work? Would it not? And it is going well and it's making it possible now for her to continue to do both. So that's one example. But I mean there's so many a big company, small companies.
[00:29:38] Speaker B: That's interesting because when I came up the ranks and I worked for Coopers and Library before I started my own firm, it was very hard to justify any, any type of flexibility for. Especially when you had children, because you know, if they didn't see you in the office, they assumed you weren't working. And I always found that people who were not in the office often put in that much more when they juggled their day.
So I think that can really work if you're strategic about it and you know, and actually keep your eye on it. What's working, what's not working, what about, what are the biggest challenges companies face when they're moving away from a traditional structure?
[00:30:19] Speaker A: Sure. And just Linda to comment. I actually worked at a company called Thermal Fisher Scientific and they were so I call it kind that I also was actually allowed to do four days a week for a season. And you don't realize how much that meant to me and how I worked so much harder. I didn't care at night, whatever I did, whatever it took. And that's just a personal example how it was more than the page me in that season of life. But I just wanted to agree with you on that. So challenges, challenges. When you're moving away from tradition to giving more flexibility, I think it comes down to varied, very well thought out processes and policies in place so the work doesn't drop, so the communication and collaboration doesn't drop. For example, say you put a job share in place and you know, many companies have this, but what is the handoff? Who goes to who for what? You know, making sure that that's well thought out of before you actually make that allowed in the organization because you don't want to hurt clients, you don't want to hurt the team just because of this. So I think just really a written thought, well thought plan that is communicated well to everyone. Invol.
[00:31:26] Speaker B: Can we dig into that a little bit more job sharing?
I mean I kind of know what it means, but I've not really heard much about that in practice. Tell us more about that.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. So I'll give you one example from a company, Novartis. They're a large organization and they, what they've made available to their team is you can apply if you find somebody else in the organization that wants. And this is in, this is in Europe. So actually I don't, I can't say if they do this in the US but in Europe that you can literally apply to do a job share as long as you find someone that wants. So for example, you take a 40 hour a week job. One person will do 20 hours, the other person will do 20. So it could look like we come in the morning and then have a handoff and then the other person works the afternoon, it could look maybe Monday through Wednesday and then you do a handoff Wednesday. So it's really up to those two people to make it work and have a good plan in place.
[00:32:18] Speaker B: That's interesting. So it's actually the two individuals who make sure they're filling the requirements of the position and the job and the hours. So you don't actually have to go out as a leader or a boss and hire two part time people. Which sounds like that could be really interesting because hiring is one of the hardest things, right? Hiring, vetting, retaining hiring is something that really gives people a lot of stress.
[00:32:47] Speaker A: They keep those two people now that they might have lost. They keep them. And also good morale for everyone involved. I think when it goes well, they see it and it just feels good to be at a company that cares that much that they would allow that. You know, it's pretty cool to be part of.
[00:33:01] Speaker B: I think it's something I'd love to explore for the smaller businesses of how that could work. How about how, how do these alternative work structures, if they do, do they affect employee engagement?
Well, you just mentioned that it did help retention. What about engagement?
[00:33:18] Speaker A: Sure.
I can give you again just an example I've seen. I was part of an organization and the leaders were not. They really didn't believe this could work. They really fought me on it. And a few months later there was enough trust that we got the green light to roll it out. We rolled it out because in focus groups we heard this to be very meaningful. So we allow people to have some work from home days than they never did before. And they, I'm telling you, the turnover cut in half.
People wanted to work for us. The interest in jobs went up. It just was really, it's just so cool to be part of and see the results. And then I remember being at a leadership team meeting and they were just like celebrating because a year later you look at the turnover cut in half and just that was a big reason why they felt heard and they really loved that policy. It really was impactful from customer service to some other mostly office positions. But they wanted it a long time. And when we heard them and rolled it out, it just, they made sure it worked. The employees, they really wanted it to work. So they made sure they held up their end of the bargain and it went really well.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: That's where you keep the people in KPIs is because they were very specific.
[00:34:26] Speaker A: KPIs were happy. So that's yes, very.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: They wanted it to work. So I think that, you know, I'm in a lot of business groups. I teach workshops for women business owners. Everything is always about don't just chase revenue and growth but also look at the story and make sure you're profitable. But one of the biggest complaints by every business owner that I hear of the small business is they have trouble hiring and they have trouble retaining. So I think what you're talking about is something that would be great for them to explore. Just in our last two minutes here, how can a fractional HR leader help a business explore alternative work situations?
[00:35:11] Speaker A: Well, we just wrap around the business leader owner and they have enough to worry about. They don't have time to write these policies to lead these policies to address if there's a conflict and we just take that weight off and we lead it and do it and make sure the communication is good. We just take the whole thing and run it for the organization.
[00:35:30] Speaker B: Exactly. You opened up so many possibilities and what you were to do is future forward workplaces which I think is great.
Things that don't change and adapt end up often dying out and suffering. So it's really important to do that. Covid gave us a taste of being able to manage our lives a little bit.
You have to go to the doctor.
Doctors want work, life balance. They don't all work after five. So you know, you need to be able to take care of your life as well and do well by your employer and your job.
Where can HR leaders and business owners find out more about these types of arrangements and connect with you?
[00:36:15] Speaker A: Sure. Well, one of my favorite go to places is shrm shrm.org Society of Human Resource Management. I've been part of them for 20 years and you can just search and they'll give you so many great tools and resources. Resources as a go to but also our organization. You can find us on LinkedIn at h I h oh sorry h I h r llc. You can search that as well as our website go higher go h I h r.com so I'd love to hear from you and help as many people as we can.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: It was so great to talk with you. Stay with us. We're not done in our next subject we're going to talk about more about hybrid work and some gender disparities and how that can impact your business and and help you grow profit and scale. Stay with us.
[00:37:23] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:37:31] Speaker B: Welcome back to Balancing Acts. I hope you love what you're watching. Don't miss Balancing Acts or any of your favorite Now Media shows 247 live or on demand anytime. You can download the free Now Media app on Roku or on Apple and you can get instant access to all our programming, which is bilingual in both English and Spanish. If you want to listen on the go, you can catch your favorite podcast version of the show either directly on NowMedia TV or in any of the podcast apps. And from business news to lifestyle culture and everything in between.
Now media streaming 24. 7 and now we're going to get back to talking with our guest Erica Butler and we're going to close out this segment by talking about hybrid work and what kind of gender disparities there are in hybrid work.
Erica, you've talked about this as a quiet crisis.
Remote work has been a lifeline for many women and we did touch on that a little bit in our previous episodes.
What could be widening the leadership gap there? Women are choosing remote work at higher rates than men, but that flexibility might be coming at a hidden cost.
Why are they more likely why are women more likely to choose remote work?
[00:39:01] Speaker A: I want to be very careful when answering this because I know so many amazing men, fathers, family care about the family. So what I'm about to say doesn't mean men are not. But it is a time and time again, whether it's cultural pressures, family pressures, women tend to be more feeling the guilt or feeling like they don't want to miss a doctor's appointment. They want to be involved in everything, they want to do it all. So we tend to see women more so opting and wanting the flexible work options.
So there are hidden costs to that which I know we're about to talk about.
[00:39:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And some of that might be feeling risk, but not just that they want to do it all, but they also feel responsible for it. And maybe they have trouble turning that off and choosing other things. And I'm sure there are men who feel the same. But women do tend to take on care of children or parents or even helping their spouse and medical things. There's something about that women take. And so there is a cost. Right.
To you personally and your well being and mental health if you are trying to do everything.
So what would you say are some of the unintended consequences of remote work from a work perspective, talking about visibility and promotion opportunities?
[00:40:26] Speaker A: Well, you hit the nail on the head. I think that's one of the biggest that is a shame. It's just people in person. If the leaders are in person, they're getting more facetime. They're building relationships. So much happens because of relationships. Right. And the trust we have with people. So when you're not in the office and other people are, you're not having that same ability to build that, that in person trust. The cooler chat that just happened, stopping by the office to talk about, oh, what happened at the soccer game, you're missing that relationship building that just naturally happens into office. You're missing getting invited out for happy hour, likely, you know, so all that, that's a lot less, that's going to impact a lot of times, future decisions that are made so that, you know.
[00:41:10] Speaker B: That'S a choice we're making when we want remote work. Right. So what can we do about that? Of getting that FaceTime or.
Because you often have to be your own advocate, it's nice to think there might be a coach at work or you know, or a mentor or that the leaders are smart enough to want to make sure they involve their remote work. But leaders can be overworked too.
So what can we do personally to maybe I like to call it own your future. I want to own my own future in business and in life.
[00:41:43] Speaker A: Linda, I love you said that. Because it's not just the leaders, it's not just the employee. It's really a team effort. And if you're sitting back and doing nothing, then that is on you. So to your point, Linda, what someone can do who wants to grow in their career, that wants to be that they didn't need to call the HR person, call the leader, come in person when they can and say, hey, I, this is where I want to go in my career. This is my vision for where I can go. What do I do next? What trainings can I be a part of? Schedule one on one schedule. Coffee. It's not just the leader's job. I mean it's a two way street, right? But you have to show up and you have to show your intentions and there's many ways to do that without going into the office.
[00:42:25] Speaker B: So that leads me to something else because many of my clients over the last five years, and I think across the United States, certainly probably even internationally, we have gone to hiring people in other states.
So you might, your physical location might be in New York or in Florida and you have people in one or more other states, so they're not going to be able to come to the office. So that, that's going to make that hybrid situation a little more difficult to get the FaceTime or to have that connection because it is about human connection. What do you recommend in that case for either the leader making sure that that hybrid workplace works for their team or for the team member wanting to make sure they're taking a little more control over it themselves.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely.
Number one, if you can do it is that retreat.
You know, Linda, you said you have one, I have one because we work remote and just having that team time together to celebrate and train and focus on solutions, that's so powerful. If you can do that at least once a year, if not more. But also these rhythms of meetings. So are you having one on ones with every team member? Are you having a team meeting every week? Many organizations do a huddle in the morning so everyone's on the same page, page. Check in with them.
I learned from entrepreneurs organization they have a best practice. They have all their people do. And it says one word. How are you feeling today? Are you sad? Are you good?
[00:43:55] Speaker B: Where are you at?
[00:43:55] Speaker A: You know these check ins and building them into the schedule and it's just a non negotiable. They're really powerful and they keep up with the relationship and collaboration and it just, it works really well.
[00:44:06] Speaker B: You know you would do that if you were in the office.
I know all the years I worked in, I would walk up, how are you today? Right. It's just something more than just showing up on a zoom meeting which can be rather cold. So I'm glad that we're talking about that.
And so we want this work to be both equitable and flexible. Right. So meeting practices, mentorship access, how could that work?
[00:44:36] Speaker A: Sure. So I think if we, you know, to be equitable we have to a keep an eye out for what is the mix on our team, what do we look like then two, you know, if the mix, if we don't feel like it's where it should be or we're missing some groups or whatever, it's nice to where are we hiring?
And also looking at our current people. If it's just, you know, men getting promoted or just women getting promoted, asking why and talking to the team and seeing, you know, is there, is there reasons in our processes and how, how we're doing things. So it's really like peeling back the onion and getting the root cause and then okay, we can fix this. What's the plan? What's the plan in place? Because having a mix is powerful. There's no denying the more diverse team you have, the better you'll be. We have diverse clients, we have a diverse world. So when you can do that well, you're going to be winning more as a company. I don't think anyone would deny that.
[00:45:25] Speaker B: And I think it's diversity of thought as well. Right. We're not, it's not just people. It's how we think that we have different personalities. Disc. You do. Disc. And I know if we all think the same way, you know, we're in our own, like we have tunnel vision almost. So diversity. Let's talk a little bit more about.
I know that you are, you are certified in disc. Right. Can you just briefly talk about that and how that can help build teams?
[00:45:49] Speaker A: Sure. For those in small business, really every. Every size of business, if you're not doing disc or insights or one of these personality assessments, I can't tell you how powerful it is.
What, what, what it does is it you learn about, you know, kind of where you not in a bucket, you can flex your style, but then you also learn where your teammates fall. And you learn, okay, when I do this, it makes you feel like this. We all are motivated differently. We have different stressors. And from doing this and having this information, you can actually learn the person on the other side of you what makes them tick. Because it's very much the same typically for those in that group. And you just learn strategies how to handle conflict better, how to work together better.
I really can't say enough about it. I've been doing this for over 10 years and it's really impressive. Impacted my life personally and professionally.
[00:46:39] Speaker B: Yeah, me too. It's helped me be more aware of how my communication style or I'm a lifelong learner. So I'll come back with a zillion ideas and my team will look at me and think, does she really expect us to do all this right now? And I did have to learn from my younger employees or those didn't know that that wasn't the point. I was just excited about these new ideas. Like you mentioned job sharing earlier, my head is buzzing about that.
So let's close this out with what strategy should a business owner or an HR leader do about making sure that gender equity when it comes to remote work is working?
[00:47:23] Speaker A: Sure. So practice that I'll do the rest of my life is having a good succession plan in place and being really mindful about that. Regular talent reviews with leaders identifying, you know, who is our up and coming talent, what are we doing about them, them, how are we continuing to encourage, lift them, train them, develop them. Also, if there's a challenging, you know, performers, are they getting the support they need or are they a fit or not, that kind of thing. So I think we should be talking about our talent constantly because as a leader that's what we're doing. We're there to, you know, our. Our talent's everything. They're the ones working with the customers. They're the ones driving the business. So having a players is paramount and that's how you win. So those are the strategies I would put in place.
[00:48:05] Speaker B: I always say people times process equals profit. So if you need both and you need to work on your culture is very important.
We have a minute left, but we did briefly touch on retreats. I just wanted you to also maybe address what a retreat means. Like for my firm, we're small.
I brought in an interesting training. I brought in an AI speaker for them. I brought somebody in on cybersecurity and then we went to a show afterwards. So it was a great way for the team not to feel so lonely and isolated, which is a big problem with remote work. Can you close us out with that?
[00:48:42] Speaker A: Absolutely. We're aligned yet again. The connection piece is our number one goal and making people feel connected and building their relationships. So, yeah, we do a very similar. Linda. We do some training and development, but we do a lot of. We do a lot of disc stuff.
We do just a lot about sharing about each other, what makes us tick, and listening and learning more about each other and how we can work better together. So that's a huge priority. Then we celebrate with a team picnic every year. It's become quite a fun tradition.
[00:49:12] Speaker B: It's wonderful. If you could just quickly share your website so people can find more about how to connect with you and work on their culture.
[00:49:20] Speaker A: Sure. So best way is go hire G o h I h r dot com, our website as well as LinkedIn. You can find us if you type in hi H r.
Human resources should come up very easily on LinkedIn.
[00:49:34] Speaker B: And I hope you enjoyed this episode of Balancing Acts. And you can watch all of our NOW media shows in English and in Spanish. Everything is bilingual.
Download the Roku app or the the Apple app if you want to to watch it and or if you want your favorite podcast, it's 24 7. Anytime you need access to current news, lifestyle, culture and everything in between. Join us next time for another episode of Balancing Acts.
