Nobody should fully rely on an employer

Thanks for having me.

Well, that is we're just gonna jump right in there because it's quite the story. But I had initially been and I started my career in administration for accounting firms. and then by my third accounting firm, they tripled their staff in the first year that they were in business and I was the only non-financial person there. So HR kind of fell into my lap. it turned out that I absolutely loved it. went back to school for my masters. I even all s suggested that the accounting firm that I was working for offer HR as a service similar to what I'm doing now. And unfortunately that didn't come to fruition. So I started working for a PEO. Do you know what that is?

PEO. Okay, so a PEO is a professional employer organization. it's basically a fancy way of s describing a payroll and benefits company where small employers will go underneath a professional employer organization to get better access to big company benefit rates is really

the main purpose of it. But this particular PEO also assigned HR business partners to each of their clients, which was the role that I was in. I started there in twenty nineteen. I was working with seventy five different small employers. I was responsible for two thousand employees. And at that point, this was during COVID. So a lot of it was like learning on the fly. And It was a real learning experience. And that's kind of where I got the experience to go out on my own. I had left there and started working for internal HR management job where I was only working for that employer. And it just became very clear very quick that their values didn't align with mine. Cause there's more than one type of HR, right? So there's HR that's i exists strictly to protect protect the business. but then there's HR that you know once realizes that the employees are the are the reason that the companies are employers and making sure that they're happy and healthy and safe. And that was more of what I wanted to do. I want to make a real difference. this employer did not. So I walked out in the middle of the day one day and just started my company.

so don't get me wrong, there are some bad HR people out there. but that the biggest misconception is that like the HR is not your friend type of thing. while technically, no, like I'm not friends with the employees, but I do have their best interests at heart. so I think that is a big misconception. also that HR is strictly about paperwork because it's about so much more than that.

So the way I offer my services is on a tiered structure. So it's a monthly subscription and they can use me as much or as little as they would like in the confines of that subscription. So my base level tier is an advisory tier where essentially what it means is I am keeping my clients compliant throughout the year, making sure all their policies and procedures are up to date. and then handling anything that comes up. so if there's like a weird employee situation and my clients don't know how to handle it, they have someone that they know and that they trust and that they built a relationship with that they could reach out to to bounce it off of. and, you know, I'll advise on how to handle certain things. and then as my they go up in tiers, my level of hands on, increases as well. So like I'll be more involved in their day to day. Their employees will be able to route reach out to me. You know, I'll help them select their benefits. you know, I'll onboard people, off board people. it's an unfortunate thing. But yeah, sometimes I sometimes I have to fire people. so I help them do that in a way that's compliant and compassionate. and then that's actually one of the things that I am super proud of, knock on wood. But I have never had a client in all the years I've been doing this get sued by an employee or a former employee.

Very very often. We are a very litigious comp country. Yeah.

Yeah. So I will actually work with companies overseas too. I have a a couple of clients in India, in the UK, and they hire me to work with their smaller US branches because they're just like and they're the best because they appreciate it so much. because It's just so wildly different. And and not only do you have to keep up with like the federal laws, but you also if you have employees that are remote in multiple states, which a lot of companies nowadays that's the case, you also have to keep up with all of the rules in every state, which which could be wildly different from the next the next state over.

So when I was working as an executive assistant, I used to have to attend a lot of networking events on behalf of the executive. So that's kind of like where I learned how to network. he put me in a in a program called the Moxie Mentoring Program, which basically pairs young women entering the workforce with a mentor in their space. and it and they have a whole curriculum like you know, teaching you how to do your elevator pitch, teaching you like what to do with business cards, teaching you like follow-up etiquette. And it was super helpful for me when I first started to help me gain confidence to to go out there. However, I would say that my networking style has evolved quite a lot since then. I spent a lot of time networking. I would say probably 50% of my working time is networking. and I've learned that it's more about finding your your people. so one of the networking groups that I'm a part of is called Nooks and Socials, local to Long Island. it's primarily for business owners, but they are extremely authentic. They they put other people first. they it it's all about Building real, genuine relationships where other groups I've been in have been kind of more transactional. and I've realized that like that's not really the space for me. but I have spent a a lot of time getting to know these people in this group, years and years. And it's not about getting the business right away. Like, like I said, sometimes it'll take years before one of them hire me or or or I get a referral. but J I mean, just yesterday I gave a gift basket to someone I've known probably since I started my business in twenty twenty one, for a referral that he gave me. He referred me his a lifelong friend of his. And like there there's nothing that says like I trust you and I trust your expertise and and I trust you to take care of my people, then I like I it's just something that like touches my heart.

So I I think I've just gotten really lucky and being in the right rooms at the right time. my very first day, that day that I walked out in the middle of the day at my last corporate job before I started my business, I literally printed out business cards on my home printer, cut them out with scissors, like and went to a networking event. And that day I met the founder of this group that I'm referring to. And like you just never know. Like, but you that's not gonna happen if you're you're not putting yourself out there, you know? so sometimes it's luck. But there's also like, you know, if you're an HR joining your local like Sherom chapters, there's like industry specific groups. And for me, like I don't really find clients in those spaces. Those spaces are more like professional development, but they all serve a purpose.

Yeah, and not being afraid to ask for help too.

So I think in the beginning, you know, everything was trial and error. Like, what do what should I be charging people? You know, I severely undercharged my first year in business. what software should I be using? How do I make this more efficient? how do I keep in contact with my clients? Like what processes and procedures should I have in place? those types of things. I will say something that has been a constant challenge for me. like I will HR the crap out of everybody, but not myself. Like I do not want to have my own employees. but at some point in order to grow, I'm gonna have to kind of let go of the reins a little bit. and and be able to delegate and be able to because I'm the face of my business. My clients, like I said, they know me, they like me, they trust me, they want to work with me. But I I'm learning like that doesn't mean I have to do it all alone. so so I do have a VA that that helps me with a lot of like the back end stuff, the the filing and keeping me on on point with my actual consulting work. but I think that going forward, if I want to get to the next level, I'm going to have to be able to maybe take on another HR specialist at some point.

I love AI. I I am aware that it can be a little bit controversial. but I'm a little bit con controversial. So I I'm okay with, you know, using new tools as long as you know you're taking proper security steps, making sure that you're not uploading sensitive client data or sensitive employee data, like those that kind of stuff. but but I use AI every day. keeps me.

it it's it's still me. It's just making my life more efficient. and I mean if you call my work number, you're gonna you're gonna get an AI receptionist

So I recently wrote a book. and I didn't use AI to write the book, but I did use a book building software to in which I answered a series of electronic interviews for each chapter, and then that became the like source material, I guess, for the book itself and helped me figure out a way to tell my story. in a way that made sense and was structured and rather than, you know, me just kind of trying to do that all on my own. and I I I wrote it in four months. So it was extremely helpful.

I have been experiencing steady growth since I started. and I want to just continue doing what I'm doing, continue working with the right clients. And that's the other thing, like with putting yourself out there, it attracts the clients that are good are the right fit for both you and the client. so I just want to continue working with great people, continue building. and I do eventually wanna be able to take a vacation and actually be on vacation.

So that is the title of the the book I was just talking about. And it actually came from the first speaking engagement I ever did. and that is what the organizer of the event named my talk. So I didn't come up with that. one of the people in my networking circle heard my story and and decided to Name it from Hellday HR. And it kind of stuck. And I was like, all right, now I'm gonna take a 10 minute talk and turn it into a book.

For a long time, yeah. I had an interesting upbringing. I was in a group home as a teenager. I failed almost failed out my first semester in college. I had a series of odd jobs when I first left college. I I was a preschool teacher by day. I I poured drinks for the Hells Angels, which is a biker gang by night. And it took me a really long time to discover this, discover that I was really freaking good at it, and be able to turn it into a business that sustained it I mean, it got me through some of the hardest times of my life. my mom attempted suicide. I was fired from a a corporate job at that time, very shortly after, and I had nothing to hold me up but my business. And that was when I reached out to my networking group and I said, hey guys, I need help. my business is super small. I just lost my six figure HR job and I need to make this work because now my mom needs me and I need to be able to have the flexibility to take care of her. So I actually reached out to that group. I tripled my business in the first three months, surpassed my corporate salary in the first year, and I will never go back to corporate HR.

and and even my husband, my husband just had an HR nightmare of his own with a company that he was at for twenty years, and you know, he he didn't earn money for a year and three months, and my business was able to carry our entire household through that period. So it's it's something that like and and this is gonna be a little bit of a hot take, but I don't think that anybody should fully rely on an employer. You know, they should have some backup plan in a way that that they have the ability to generate their own income because they might need it one day, no matter how good the employer is.

So we do have paid leave in some states, but some states no, there isn't.

I remember when I first started working with my client who's based in London and I reviewed their maternity leave policy. And I was like, wow, like this is very good, very generous, but it is not gonna work in the US. I'm like because because part of it was like they were telling their employees, like, you cannot work, like you have to stop working for four weeks before you actually give birth. You know, and that's not something that we can tell people, like as employers in the US, like only a doctor is gonna put somebody out of work in the that situation, you know. we don't get to make that determination. And then like in in New York, we do have we have six to eight weeks of disability leave that they could take right after they give birth. And whether they get six weeks or eight weeks depends on, you know, whether they have a C section or not. But it's $170 a week. Who could live off of that in New York? but and then we have our paid family leave, which is available for both the birthing parent and the non birthing parent, and that's up to twelve weeks at sixty seven, I think, percent of their average weekly wage. So that's a little bit more generous.

I'm very active on LinkedIn. I'm always accepting LinkedIn connections. there's also my website, www.cravehro.com. and that will take them to any of my socials or you know, my email as well.

Awesome. Thank you so much. It was great to chat with you.