HR Best Practices with LeiLani Quiray

george grombacher 0:02
Lani curae is the founder and CEO of Be The Change HR. They’re providing outsourced human resources, support and services to small and medium sized businesses. She is an Ironman triathlete. She climbs on scary stuff. She is back on the podcast. Welcome back. Leilani Thank

LeiLani Quiray 0:20
you for having me back. Again. I appreciate it.

george grombacher 0:24
Does learn about your personal life more about your work and why you do what you do. Personal

LeiLani Quiray 0:29
or wherever you’re right. I do climb scary stuff. I find it I find it exhilarating. So I am an Ice Climber. I really am a mountaineer and an alpine climber. I started hiking, hiking turned into backpacking that turned into I can only walk up mountains, and I can only do it in favourable weather. So naturally, I went to ice climbing and started doing that. In fact, I’m a way better Ice Climber than I am a rock climber. And then yeah, Iron Man. So I will be completing my second Ironman 70 In a couple of weeks, I’m super excited. It just had my longest training block on Sunday, four hours straight. And at the very end, I was like, I can keep doing this. I know I’ve been ready to go. And then professionally, I have this amazing social impact. Human Resources consulting firm, we’ve got clients all across the US, we help small and mid market businesses with their HR, anything from it to handbook all the way to like give us all of your HR will handle it for you. And what I’m most proud of at the the change HR is the social impact piece, we dedicate 1% of our top line revenue to a job readiness program, where we provide classes and one on one coaching for sex trafficking survivors. And how we do that is we’ve teamed with several nonprofits across the United States to deliver these classes in this coaching. It’s again, it’s why I started the the change HR and it’s why I’m always stoked to lead and drive this business. I

george grombacher 1:57
appreciate that. So you train for four straight hours. But that’s just a a drop in the bucket when it comes to have a full triathlon, isn’t it? It is

LeiLani Quiray 2:08
it is. I mean, so it’s training, right? You got to train. I don’t people will tell me like I just did a 5k That’s nothing I’m like a 5k is a big deal. To do anything for 30 minutes straight is a big deal. Sure. So all training is just stacking something like that, you know, times a multiple over, you know, depending on your fitness level three to six months to prepare the body to be able to do that all in one go. And I know when I do my training blocks, and I feel that strong. I’m ready. I’ve done the work. I forget the phrase, I keep saying you’re wrong. The horse has left the barn or the horses are in the barn. I’ve done the work, whatever that phrase is. I’ve done the work is

george grombacher 2:47
out of the barn. Okay, you go horses out of the barn for sure. Awesome. Well, good luck if I don’t talk with you before. So that’s awesome. All right. So are there parallels to I’m always looking for some kind of a story or a spin or a narrative of the parallels to climbing a sheet of ice and human resources?

LeiLani Quiray 3:11
I mean, yeah, anything in life, it’s, it’s an endurance sport, right. And so we always, you know, you think about whether it’s, you’re doing something in HR, let’s use an easy example, you need a handbook, right? So that’s a huge task. It’s got like 40 policies, and it’s specific to your industry in your state. And if you think about tackling on one, like the objective, getting to the top of the summit, anything, but I got to do four pitches. So for you non climbers, a pitch is one length of a rope, and then you do the one length, you get to that level, and then you do the next link, and you get so you can get up the mountain that sort of pitches. So you don’t think about like, oh my gosh, it’s gonna take us six hours to get to the top. And you know, and all of the energy that goes into it, you just think of it in parts. And that’s really what like ice climbing is. It’s really what any endurance sport is, is this one, like objective and step at a time to get to the whole piece, you know, again, another horse reference, like how do you eat a horse like one bite at a time? So it’s something like that. And I think of that in so many different ways and so many aspects of my life, about endurance sport, what it takes in those moments, sometimes it’s super fun and you look around and the view is gorgeous and you think no, like it’s so rare to be hanging off a sheet of ice on a mountain and be like who gets to see these amazing views and it feels so good and other times there’s something in ice climbing called the screaming barf ease. And what that is, is because your hands are over your head in cold conditions and you lose the circulation in your hands. When you drop your hands for them to rest, the blood will rush back and because they’re so cold, it hurt so bad that you want to scream and throw throw up, screaming Barbies. And sometimes you know, your journey is like that to where it is painful and difficult and you know, in and then there’s the endurance piece of it. If it’s like one step at a time. If you’re hanging again, you’re on a wall and you’re gassed out, and you’re like, how am I gonna get there, but there’s no way up, but no way to go. But up, you learn to sort of enjoy being in pain for those periods of time to get to get the top

george grombacher 5:30
screaming burpees, that’s got to be one of the best terms ever. Top 10 term grooming bar fees. I love everything about that. I don’t think I’d like to have the screaming bar fees, but I’d like to talk about it or hear somebody else telling me about it. What What are. So I imagine there’s some kind of a like stages or continuum for an organization when we need human resources. So I start the organization and things are a mess, or they’re going along, but I need foundational things. And then we’re moving along. And then at the other end is potentially, I’ve got this amazing wellness program that’s fully integrated across the whole company.

LeiLani Quiray 6:15
And those stages, right, so in HR, like there has to be ice climbing references before you start climbing, before you start climbing into safety gear, right, so and any climber any any You’re always like, you know, helmet, you know your harness you tying in properly, you know, are your Where are your tools, like if you’re the lead climber, like do you have your safety, your fall safety equipment all ready to go, and so much more. And human resources, you you need that level of support from day one, really, I would encourage you about three months before you do your first hire. Whether you do the research yourself, you hire an attorney, or you get a consulting firm to do it for you, you need a strong foundation of that, like regulatory stuff, right? The stuff that will catch you if you fall, things like a handbook, understanding the paperwork, understanding the leave laws in your state, all of that foundational stuff should be set up from you know, the compliance piece of your recruiting process, what you can say what you can, we can ask what you can offer letters, like all of that stuff needs to be set into play. And then you can wait, you don’t need HR after that you got the foundation setup. And then when you get there’s always like a pain point level. Maybe you’re the owner and you’re like handling all this yourself and you you think okay, where’s my time best spent? Should I be doing this? Or Should someone else and that’s having whether someone in house part time or outsourcing it to have someone work with your staff and who has an HR knowledge for the regulatory stuff, but also income strategy? And that is said simply how am I going to create an amazing employee experience for the people who are here. So they’re happy you so they’re healthy, and at the end of the day, so they’re productive for you. And so they stay? And so that’s part where you okay, you got to think, is this my talent? Or do I bring in, you know, a consultant to handle this for me until you graduate to the phase, I’ll give you some numbers in a second of where you bring it in house. And that’s anything in your business as you grow it. And so HR people we like to hear it’s not not this is like, we’d like to hear one HR professional, true HR professional for every 50. Once you get to 100, you need it. You need that HR professional, for every 100 employees to help handle all the compliance stuff, all the strategy stuff, and really to have some more for your employees to go.

george grombacher 8:36
Okay, I love it. So where do people typically turn for that? Is this they ask their payroll provider for it? And is that a good idea?

LeiLani Quiray 8:46
So many different ways. Yes, one could be your payroll provider could have an ASL model that will have some type of HR attachment to it. Some people go straight to a PEO or professional employer organization. And that looks a little bit different. Make sure you understand what that means. But that can be a bundle of not only having HR support, but health insurance and worker’s comp bundled in, of course, you’re they’re leasing your employees back to you. That’s the PEO model. You could have someone do it in house as part of maybe a hat that they wear. You could have attorney support or you can have a consultant come in. So all of these are options that you really want to evaluate what’s best for your organization. I will say this, they’re in an ASO and some PEO models. Not all I always tell people we’re evaluating you realize that someone still has to push the buttons in order for it to work. So that’s whether it’s reaching out to the contact that you have it either those organizations to handle the human resources or prompting them for what you need. If you want more proactive support. You need to bring someone in house, whether an employee or a consultant that will like make sure you know oh, there’s a new Coming up on July 1, that raises a salary basis test in the United States. That is actually happening. Follow me on the socials, I have a whole video series coming out about it. But that’s important. You need someone proactive so that you don’t turn around and be like, I didn’t know that, because that’s never unfortunately, that’s not an excuse.

george grombacher 10:19
Ignorance is not an excuse. No, no, I wish such a bummer. Okay. So what are what are, for lack of a better term projects, challenges that are your favorites to work on?

LeiLani Quiray 10:35
Ooh, I sort of hinted at it in many different ways. And that is a great organization, who cares about their employees, I’ll give you headcount 50 or under. And they’ve made it so far for years without like any formal HR because they’ve been so healthy in that way. But all of a sudden, they’re like, I just don’t know what I don’t know. And I want to make sure that we are dotting our eyes and crossing our T’s. And so we have a proprietary tool, it’s a HR program review, a deep dive assessment to let someone know, here’s where you’re at. But we don’t do it in a way where it’s like, oh, look at all the terrible things that are going on, we actually have a weighted component just as equally important as telling them what’s going right and what they’re doing well. And so each bucket of HR, from pre hire to post term comes in what’s going what’s going well, and you’ve done well, things to think about for the future. And then of course, regulatory compliance issues, or anything aligning with the business goals that need to be thought about, right. And so that’s where my favorites to get someone, so everything is so visible, you’re like, I know what I need to work on the way to build an action plan for them off of that, where they want to work with us. They want to do it themselves. They have a roadmap of what’s next. I think that that’s great.

george grombacher 11:54
In terms of in terms of creating, how do you feel about the word culture?

LeiLani Quiray 12:03
I like I mean, it exists regardless, you want to ignore it or not. It’s there in your organization. Yeah.

george grombacher 12:08
And the stereotype or the meme on the internet is, here’s here’s your culture. And it’s a big table on a boardroom, like full of pizza boxes, right? Yeah, it’s like here, here. We’ve, we’re, we’re doing culture, right. When when when you hear culture, right, talking about that, that less than 50 organization where people are engaged? Is it is it easy to tell when a company has has their culture? Right?

LeiLani Quiray 12:37
Yeah, I mean, there’s gonna be markers of that. Metrics, even if they’re getting it right. Retention is a big one or turnover, however you want to look at it. Are you? Are you keeping your employees? How long are they staying? And that can tell you a lot of what’s going on. Another one that is obvious is any type of claims that come through an organization, whether it’s Wage and Hour, or harassment, discrimination, those are those are big ones. And you can tell that, but I get it. The idea of rewarding people with pizza. By the way, one of our inside jokes here would be the change HR is does pineapple belong on pizza or not? Just so it makes me laugh, even in our deck when we present to people. But it’s not enough to give someone some great break room food and give them a pizza party every once in a while. You really get to you need to know first of all, what kind of culture you want to create and where you’re lacking there. And then and then how do you do that in a meaningful way that your employees will feel? appreciated? And dare I say loved by you? And then I think after that everything falls in line, but that but it’s it’s not as easy as me just saying that right? It’s a lot in order to do that for your for your workforce?

george grombacher 13:59
Do those seem like they might be obvious or maybe not at all? Do most people know what kind of culture they want? And do most people? They do they love it appreciate their employees?

LeiLani Quiray 14:15
I always go back to the person and the leader. Right? And what is their lens look like? What is their What did their life look like? And where are they? Where are they at right now? Because the that’s the most important piece, the person at the top is going to have the view of who are who is their workforce and what does it mean to to them as a human being. And if you’re the kind of person that’s like, you know what I pay you and you need to do that work, okay? But you’re going to have a certain type of culture with that and you really need to be able to see around what that means. Or maybe it’s way the other way and you’re like so generous you know, you’re giving away that company and sitting and overpaying people and giving too much and realizing you know, is that is that a piece of you? too. And so, yes, culture is really important. But I think even more important than that is us as leaders understanding ourselves and how we view the world in our workforce. That’s what’s going to ultimately determine and then if we need to make any changes, also go to therapy. Awesome.

george grombacher 15:18
Awesome. Also good at therapy. I think that that’s right. Yeah. What do you think about is I work in personal finance, more, more appropriately, I work in a do 401k plans for companies, and the term financial wellness has been in the ether now really seriously, for probably five years or so. It’s a financial literacy now. It’s financial wellness. And I look around and I see this wellness term everywhere. How do you feel about that? What do you think about that?

LeiLani Quiray 15:49
Oh, yeah, we had, so we do events together, meet my team and I, and for our wellness event, we brought in a financial therapist, and we did some exercises around our thoughts and feelings and childhood memories of money and how that might shape you know, how we view it now. So I think it’s important. I mean, obviously, we need money, right? It feels so many different things. We need to plan for it. But I also think it’s important to understand your emotions around it, and why we have the habits that we do, in how we how we handle our money. So I think it’s important, and I think if this stuff isn’t taught in school, I mean, I wish it was maybe balancing a checkbook, but that was probably about it. We don’t even do that anymore. So, right. And so I think it’s important to tack this on besides being like, gotta save for retirement, because you do you got to save for retirement, you if you can, as an employer, or some places you have to, if you don’t, then the state will take over you need these types of retirement plans. And then for owners if you don’t I mean, I’m sure they know from you, George would if you don’t, there’s their benefits for an an owner themselves with these types of plans and saving for retirement. But I also like the component of the emotional aspect behind it and exploring that with your employees in a safe space.

george grombacher 17:14
Yeah, I appreciate that. And then just wellness in general, is it? Do companies feel good about that? Like, do they feel like and it’s probably going to be kind of an obvious thing that each company is going to be different? But should we be providing information on on diet and exercise and financial stuff? And just all of it?

LeiLani Quiray 17:36
Yeah, well, talking about a good culture, we talk about how we treat our employees, we’re really looking at the whole person. Right? Does that mean that you need to give everyone a life coach? No, that doesn’t mean that you need to do that with everyone. But as employers, I think, at the very minimum, providing the resources to be able to do that something you can do that’s really inexpensive as an employee assistance program, it tacks on to health insurance, it generally will have a financial wellness component, some type of smoking cessation, something to have to do with health, sometimes they will offer free counseling, maybe you get three sessions or 12 sessions or something like that. But that’s something you can do for your people. And if you have a safe enough environment, for your employees, I would suggest bringing in practitioners who can talk about, let’s say, mindfulness, not like meditation, like the head, you know, we don’t have to get like, but mindfulness meditation and breathing exercises, how to stay calm, or the financial wellness I was talking about or those types of things with your team can really bring everyone together. And I think it can be a very beautiful thing in supporting the whole person in the workplace. Yeah,

george grombacher 18:49
big opportunity. One more question. Does pineapple belong on pizza?

LeiLani Quiray 18:57
My name is Leilani my family is from Maui. And I’m a huge fan of pineapple on pizza. My team is divided 5050 very passionate about this. Oh, it does not. But I am I like the salty and the sweet. And I even here in New York City now that I live here. I still will get it even if I get glares.

george grombacher 19:24
Well there it is. Alright. Leilani thank you so much for coming back on where can people learn more about you? How can I engage with you?

LeiLani Quiray 19:31
Yeah, be the change hr.com And then if you scroll to the very bottom, you can sign up for our newsletter and you can see us on all socials, please follow us the very least find me on LinkedIn connect with me. I’d love to see you. Excellent.

george grombacher 19:45
If you enjoyed as much as I did, surely Alana Leilani your appreciation share today show the friend who also appreciates good ideas go to be the change hr.com Check out the great resources that Lonnie has been talking about and then Follow her on LinkedIn and keep tabs on all that she is doing both the world of human resources and on the face of a frozen mountain hopefully avoiding the screaming barf ease and eating pineapple on pizza or whatever. Thanksgiving Lonnie.

LeiLani Quiray 20:15
Thank you for having me. Till next time, remember,

george grombacher 20:18
do your part by doing your best

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.