EP 31 The Very Cool Sexy Subject of I9's with Karisa Stahle

The guys talk to Karisa Stahle about I9's, 1099 Employees, and how to do audits during an incredibly difficult time.  The guys check in with Karisa on the state HR, talk AI a little, and talk about how to go about an I9 audit.  Where to start and how to keep everybody calm when you let them know you need to redo some paperwork. 

Learn more about Karisa Stahle at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karisa-stahle-mba-shrm-cp-23395950/
Learn more about Tony "Two Weeks' Notice" Benjamin at: https://www.thegrangellc.com/
Learn more about Steven "Big Deal" Smith at: https://thehiringtreebook.com/
Learn more about our sponsor, MegaStarHR at: https://www.megastarhr.com/
Learn more about the books referenced on the Podcast at: https://thehiringtreebook.com/hr-life-podcast

Creators and Guests

Host

Fantastic Tony Benjamin

I am a unique HR leader with more than 20 years’ experience working for some of Utah’s oldest, fastest growing, and most well-known companies. My experience includes Superior Drilling Products, Air Medical Resource Group, Control4, Ovivo USA and Deseret Book. I am a regionally recognized authority on building successful cultures and am an alumni speaker at DisruptHR SLC and DisruptHR St. George. I have earned an MBA from the University of Phoenix, a Bachelor’s degree from Utah State University, and am a certified Professional of Human Resources (PHR). I'm married to a woman out of my league, have three brilliant kids I doesn’t deserve and, although I travel a lot, live in Vernal, Utah.

Host

Steven "Big Deal" Smith

Steve will be the first to tell you that recruiting is marketing. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Finance at Brigham Young University and started his career in recruiting in Feb 2005. In 2008, he took a risk during a recession to help start a new company with Ryan Kohler, called ApplicantPro, a full suite HR platform for small to mid-sized businesses. In March 2025, ApplicantPro became iSolved Talent Acquisition, now serving 177,000 clients and close to 9800 employees. Before the merger, ApplicantPro made the Inc 5000 list 12 years in a row, Top Places to work in Utah 3 years in a row, and Steve was named the Small Business Utah HR Achievement Award winner in May 2024. iSolved was also named an Indeed Platinum Partner in 2023, 2024, and 2025 and is one of only ten ATS platforms in the country to obtain that designation. SHRM-CP & PHR certified, Steve currently volunteers on the Utah SHRM State Council as the immediate past State Executive Director. His book, The Hiring Tree: Laws of Applicant Attraction, was released in early 2023, and has helped thousands of organizations across the country rethink their approach to hiring. If you need help understanding the principles and role of SEO, marketing, and AI when it comes to attracting job seekers, Steve provides a solid framework for hiring effectively.

What is The HR Life Podcast?

The HR Life Podcast is a show about the work-life experience of those of us in Human Resources and business leadership. This long-form podcast is a conversation, casual, and not always the corporate line. Hosts and guests touch on everything from serious or even controversial topics to the absurdity of modern American business practices. Your hosts are Tony Benjamin, owner and founder of The Grange Strategic HR Consulting, and Steven J. Smith, Author of The Hiring Tree: Laws of Applicant Attraction and all-around important guy. Guests include the best minds in the HR world. Join the show weekly.

Tony Benjamin (00:09.858)
Welcome to the HR life podcast, a podcast about the work life experience of those of us in human resources and business leadership. Your hosts are Tony Benjamin, owner and founder of the Grange strategic HR consulting, and Stephen Bigdeals Smith, who is so important that state conferences beg him to come and talk to them about dirty soda. Hey, Steve.

Steve-o (00:35.726)
Wow. I hate Tony. It's because nobody outside of Utah knows what dirty soda is.

Karisa Stahle (00:42.693)
has any idea what it is.

Tony Benjamin (00:44.39)
That's right. there everybody joining us today once again is Carissa Staley. Welcome back to the podcast Carissa.

Steve-o (00:47.598)
Carissa!

Karisa Stahle (00:49.989)
I'm excited to be back. Thank you.

Tony Benjamin (00:53.584)
Yay. There we go. Now, Chris, since the last time you was here, the you were here, the the crowd has gotten a little crazy because every once while Steve gives him Adderall and they go crazy and then we have to get bouncers to line the stage. We've had one we've had one guest crowd surf. So they they get a little they get a little rambunctious.

Steve-o (01:17.976)
We did.

Karisa Stahle (01:19.185)
I wish I would have thought about that, yeah.

Steve-o (01:23.566)
I know. Well, and you know, when you were here last time, because you were our first, like our guinea pig, if you will, we didn't even have the studio audience back then. So, you know, this is fun.

Karisa Stahle (01:28.517)
I was the first.

Tony Benjamin (01:28.934)
very first yeah

Karisa Stahle (01:31.873)
Mm-mm. No.

Tony Benjamin (01:33.212)
Well, we have the studio audience. had no intro music. That's what it was. No intro. Yeah.

Steve-o (01:37.555)
is that what it was? Okay, so we had, so yeah, anyway, you got the short end of the stick there, so just saying.

Tony Benjamin (01:42.631)
Yeah.

Karisa Stahle (01:42.681)
It's... Well, you know, I knew I was the first. You guys did preface that. So I do expect upgrades every time I come.

Steve-o (01:52.818)
There you go.

Tony Benjamin (01:52.924)
Well, that's what we've got. We've got a whole bunch of things. We got all sorts of of sounders and everything now, the newest of which is.

Karisa Stahle (02:02.659)
Steve-o (02:02.702)
Yeah, that's when you have a story to tell.

Tony Benjamin (02:06.256)
That's right. That's right.

Karisa Stahle (02:06.415)
Yeah, I've already thought of a couple places where you might want to use that today. So yeah, I'll cue you in. I'll cue you in.

Steve-o (02:12.686)
Oh, well, here we go. Nice. Nice.

Tony Benjamin (02:12.978)
That's that's awesome. That that's that's fantastic. Anyways, welcome back to the show. We're really glad to have you here. You've you you chatted with us a bit at the conference, and that was a whole lot of fun. But we wanted to get you back in and talk to you about a few things. But Steve, I do think it's important here to touch base and just talk about how many conferences do request you come visit them.

Steve-o (02:42.938)
It's not as often right now because I get a lot of them that request and then I have to turn them down right now because our when when you know when we were taking over we they basically took over the marketing and Unfortunately let go a lot of our marketing folks and then from there we had to just kind of they have rules You know, you know bigger companies have bigger rules. That's just what it is bigger companies have rules. Yeah, Can't just go to whatever I want. I mean technically I guess I could go I just

Tony Benjamin (03:03.826)
They have rules. That's shocking. That's shocking.

Steve-o (03:11.042)
You know, lot of SHRM conferences, don't really technically pay you to come. You go of your own free will and choice, if you will. sometimes they'll have like a reimbursement for travel. But most of the conferences, you know, we're SHRM, right? SHRM is a nonprofit. They usually don't have a lot of funds for speakers unless you're a keynote. And I have done a few keynotes and those are paid, right? So that's what you want to do is you definitely want to do the keynotes whenever possible.

Tony Benjamin (03:36.988)
Woohoo.

I was wondering where that Rolls Royce came from.

Steve-o (03:42.454)
Yeah, that's right. That's right. I hate Rolls Royces. That's a whole nother story. But yeah, you're right. You're right. I'm just not a fan of cars. If you ever see me, I will be in a truck almost every time. I just the car idea is not a I don't know, luxury cars. Just to me, they're not luxury at all. I'd ride prefer a truck, but not a Tesla truck. That's not even a truck. That's like a tissue box. But anyway.

Tony Benjamin (03:44.562)
sorry, I forgot you sold that. That's right, for the Jaguar. That's right.

Karisa Stahle (04:07.77)
Hahaha

Tony Benjamin (04:09.97)
There you go, that's that's fair

Steve-o (04:14.722)
This is where Tony says, Tesla, can sponsor this podcast.

Tony Benjamin (04:17.734)
Yeah, Elon Musk, can sponsor this podcast. We'll rave on and on about SpaceX if we can't talk nicely about your truck.

Steve-o (04:21.582)
Yeah, they're relocating to Huntsville now so or no that's the other space program, isn't it? Trying to remember there's some somebody's relocating to Huntsville now there they you know, I have a lot of Friends and family in Alabama and so when that news came out, I've already got all the news So they've been talking it up quite a bit. So yeah

Tony Benjamin (04:30.812)
Yeah.

that's interesting.

Tony Benjamin (04:41.685)
yeah. No, SpaceX and everything there in Texas. So that's where they're launching and everything from. So, they may launch from Florida, but I know their headquarters are in Texas.

Steve-o (04:46.646)
Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right.

Steve-o (04:53.646)
Well, know, Florida, the reason that the space program chose Florida in the first place is because it was a lot easier for the weather patterns and because weather does impact those launches quite a bit. even though you still get some crazy weather out there, it was I don't know. I don't know. It wasn't that it was controllable. It more predictable during certain times of the season, right. Certain times of year. So that's why they they chose Florida for the most part. But yeah.

Tony Benjamin (05:03.558)
Right, right.

Tony Benjamin (05:19.154)
There you go. Well, everybody, welcome to the Florida podcast. And no, but that's that's right. This space program. So, Chris, it's really good to have you back and to have you here with us. And we really appreciate it. I'm guessing that you find yourself now having graduated with an MBA. And is that right?

Steve-o (05:22.35)
The space program.

Karisa Stahle (05:23.277)
You

Karisa Stahle (05:41.041)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (05:42.322)
So having graduated with an MBA now and not running the conference anymore I'm guessing you're just sitting around twiddling your thumbs wondering what you're gonna do with your day, right?

Steve-o (05:47.95)
Lots of free time. I can only imagine all the free time you have.

Karisa Stahle (05:56.33)
Yes and no. mean obviously you start to fill your time in other areas but you you graduate in December and you head right into the holiday season so it takes you just you haven't had a chance to breathe yet. It will come. It will come and then then I might be a little anxious about where I'm going next but I'm sure I'm sure there's some other things I'm gonna add to my plate to keep myself busy so I'm excited for that.

Steve-o (06:23.412)
as crazy people do, right? It's just what we do. Yeah, we just always wanna stay busy. That's what it is, otherwise we get bored easily.

Karisa Stahle (06:25.817)
I know, as crazy people do. Yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, there are certain people and think HR professionals tend to be in this group where if you're not swamped all the time, then you're bored out of your mind. You have to over add to your plate and that's just what we do in HR. We like to be busy all the time and say yes to things all the time. So it will happen. It's not gonna stay calm for long. So I'm trying to remind myself to...

take a minute and appreciate it but I'm sure come end of January if you guys talk to me again it will be a whole other world of crazy again.

Tony Benjamin (07:14.864)
Yeah, yeah, no, that's that's that's exactly right. I someone teacher in high school told me that the busiest people are the ones who accomplish the most. Right. And that meaning that they they they always stay busy because that's when they're at their peak productivity. But that's that's really good. Let me let me just ask you before we get into today's topic at all.

Karisa Stahle (07:26.33)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (07:38.381)
you've heard other guests talk a little bit about the state of HR and what it is. And I'm curious if you've had any additional thoughts that you want to share with us. Like, yeah, I mean, you know, as you kind of look at HR, what have you learned last little while, or what's maybe what's kind of your current thought process on the state of HR.

Steve-o (07:47.328)
Yeah, or changes or, yeah.

Karisa Stahle (08:00.913)
Yeah, I think that state of HR, I mean, we're still seeing a lot of burnout. We're still seeing a lot get thrown in our direction that are new challenges that we've never seen before. So I think that's a great place to be in in in some aspects. I mean, obviously we ought to take care of our own mental well-being, but being the one that always gets thrown the new challenges and figure out, you know, some of these like return to work things and.

dealing with remote workforces where we have so many people that are going to stay remote, that HR, if we get to be the ones to own those challenges, how much more valuable we become to the business. And so I think that these are, you know, we should be the first to raise our hand to say, well, you know, find some solutions to this. But I don't think some of these problems are going to go away. And I think the next wave and I think I've said this every time I'm on the podcast, but the next wave is

Knowing AI inside and out and I think HR is getting that and they're understanding that. I'm seeing a lot more come out about AI certifications and AI classes that are geared towards HR and the policy and ethics stuff that we need to be thinking through. And I think for me, as I talk about, by the end of January, I think I'm going to be pretty busy. I think that's where I want to head next. It's just really knowing AI inside and out and how it's going to impact HR, how it could add some

efficiencies and add some things, but also how do we protect the business from AI and using it in ways that could create issues. Because we are seeing hiring issues with AI, we are seeing lawsuits of inaccurate information from AI. You have to be really careful with it, but yet at the same time,

We've talked about it before, it's not going anywhere, it's the next internet. You know, it's going to be something that's totally ingrained in what we do. to me, that's where HR should be heading. And we should still be raising our hand to take on the challenges.

Karisa Stahle (10:07.107)
We also got to still keep focused on our mental well-being and taking those breaks and making sure that when we do take on all these projects that we're taking the time to do things that help ourselves breathe, come back.

and find a center and then dive into it again. So those are going to be really important things in the state of HR. There's so many ever-changing policies and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. So just embrace that and dive into it head first. Be the problem solvers.

Tony Benjamin (10:42.462)
I appreciate that. You started by talking about burnout, right? And what that means. And then you started looking forward to that. I am shocked in the last month or so I've really been paying attention to this issue of burnout in HR people. And I joined a couple of groups on Facebook just to get a feel for what's out there and what people are talking about. And look, a lot of them are newer professionals that are asking questions.

Karisa Stahle (10:48.677)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Steve-o (10:49.464)
Mm-hmm.

Steve-o (11:07.918)
They're not used to it at all.

Karisa Stahle (11:09.957)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (11:10.436)
Right, right. But a giant proportion of it is people just tired of dealing with the same crap over and over and over. And so, you know, as someone who's been through been in HR and that a lot, I find myself offering advice to people, right? Like how the executives did this, this and this, what do I do about it? And we're totally in trouble because of it.

Karisa Stahle (11:17.499)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (11:31.257)
And there's me trying to say, well, make a business case to your executives, talk to them about the importance of these things, try to tell them what the risks are by not following along with it and what you know what what the lawsuit may look like or what you could lose or anything like that. And then you say, and then and then I said, and, every time I try to tell them. But if you find that they're just ignoring the issues, then maybe you look for a place where they don't. And

And it just shocking to me that those signs of burnout, the frustration that the soft spot on everyone's forehead from beating their head against the brick wall, right? Where the skull is starting to turn to mush and you're like, I can't, I can't do this much longer. Yeah. And then, and then of course, the AI think I, the AI thing, I think everybody's excited about to some degree or another, right? There's some trepidation there too, but I think everybody's excited about that. But they're so burned out. like,

Karisa Stahle (12:10.181)
Mm-hmm. Can't, yeah.

Karisa Stahle (12:21.723)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (12:29.198)
one more ladder to climb, one more over the hill, right? So, now I get that, some great observations. Anything you want to pipe in there, Steve?

Karisa Stahle (12:30.001)
Mm-hmm.

Steve-o (12:31.308)
Yeah. Yep.

Karisa Stahle (12:33.167)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Steve-o (12:42.178)
No, just I'm with you and especially as AI begins or continues to impact the hiring space and AI bots and ghost jobs and unfortunately the criminal activity that's going on in that arena. It is what it is like. We I think if anything is HR, we just need to educate ourselves. Be educated about it. Understand you know, one of the things that I've loved about working with I solved right now is they have these little videos that they have us watch just so that we know.

Tony Benjamin (12:56.997)
yeah.

Steve-o (13:11.66)
what kind of scams the AIs are doing. But in between, you still have these videos that you watch where you learn about how important it is that AI does impact your workplace and proper ways to use it. And so we can't just focus on the negative. We have to look at and understand the positive as well and address both of them, period. Like that's just, that's how it has to be. And so,

That's the biggest thing I think, at least from a takeaway perspective that I've noticed recently with a lot of the LMS information that this within iSolve and just being able to differentiate between the two and balance that out so you don't burn out. So, yeah.

Karisa Stahle (13:52.507)
Thank

Tony Benjamin (13:54.807)
No, that's that that's excellent. Why you were saying that I was thinking about you're talking about all those scams I was thinking about. You guys know that that guy on YouTube that built all the glitter bombs for people that steal things off porches, right? And yeah, he's got the stink that shoots out first and then the glitter explodes and all that sort of stuff. But he was that he tracked down some of these call centers in India and stuff.

Steve-o (14:07.246)
Those are so fun.

Karisa Stahle (14:10.319)
Hmm hmm hmm.

Tony Benjamin (14:23.646)
And you know where they they call and they try to scam you or text you and try to scam you. And he hacked he hacked into their video. And so they would call him and he would flip through the cameras until he had find the person talking to them. And then he'd play along for a second. He'd say, you know, I would take you seriously if your feet weren't on the desk or something like that. And just freak him out. It was.

Steve-o (14:27.758)
I heard about that.

Steve-o (14:47.64)
Ha

Karisa Stahle (14:49.553)
That's terrifying, yeah.

Steve-o (14:51.064)
That's awesome though. I would love that way too much.

Tony Benjamin (14:52.62)
It was right. Right. Like you're going to play with me. I'll play with you back. So anyways, he because he exposed it or whatever, he got two or three of them shut down like the U.S. government and FBI started looking into it and tracking it down with him and they they got him cleaned up. Anyways, it was really a cool story. I thought it was really neat, but I thought that's you guys get right back at you. Right. you do that to us. OK. With that in mind, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to I'm going to do a read for us and then we're going to jump into our main subject area.

Steve-o (15:13.518)
Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (15:22.894)
Running a business is hard. HR shouldn't be. Megastar HR is here to save you from bad HR. With expert support and everything from hiring to handbooks, compliance to culture, need payroll help or recruiting power, we do that too. Fractionally and flexibly, no overhead, just results. Visit megastarhr.com and let's grow your business together. Shout out to Becca. Thanks, Becca, for helping us out.

Steve-o (15:49.006)
we go.

Tony Benjamin (15:53.347)
Okay, today's subject is the very cool sexy subject of... I9s.

Steve-o (16:02.094)
Cause we love I9.

Tony Benjamin (16:06.084)
That's right. That's right. Now, Carissa was talking to us about about where she works and and the I9 audit that she just went through. And, you know, with the with the election last year and everything that went on and the promises that were made and certainly now with everything that's going on around the country with ICE and all that. I thought this was a perfect time to talk about.

some I nine things that aren't just the basics where we can probably we may touch on what documents to use and all that sort of stuff. But that's not really the point. The point here today is to talk about I nine audits and going through those. And Chris, let's just start with the basics. Like how do you know if you need to do an I nine audit? Like let's let's just start there because you're in a unique position and maybe explain your unique position in the company you work for and that sort of stuff. So people kind of get a feel for for

what you just went through and all.

Karisa Stahle (17:02.703)
Yeah, so the current company I work for is a minority-owned business, Hispanic. So that is definitely a targeted area. And then we're also in facility maintenance, which has also always been a highly targeted area when you have a higher custodian. So we're kind of in that group where you hear about construction and we kind of fall into those main industries that have just

always, always had a flag raised for USCIS or Department of Homeland Security come in and want to do an audit. But to answer your first question of who needs to do an audit, everybody. It's not a question. It's not an option.

It doesn't matter what industry you're in, you could definitely have an agency show up and want to look at your I-9. even though I've gone out of, you know, I've spent probably seven plus years in facility services. You know, I was in manufacturing. You can also be targeted in manufacturing. I've been in healthcare. So it really hasn't mattered the industry. One of the first things I always do is I come in as an HR professional and especially in a leadership position.

I nine on it and then you continue to do those. You know, I try to do them annually. So you know, it's it doesn't matter who you are, what industry you're in. You're not.

you want to be prepared because it's a huge amount of work if you're not. You can maintain things and make it easier for yourself if you do those audits ahead of time. So I don't think anyone should be exempt to doing an I-9 audit. I don't care what industry or what kind of company you work for.

Tony Benjamin (18:55.354)
So this is the part where I always tell the story about Miller beef packing in northern Utah. This is one of my favorite stories of all to tell. They were up near Logan, Utah. It's up in the northern top corner of Utah, near Utah State University. And they got rated, and this is quite a while ago, but they got rated and what was then INS. It was INS back then.

Steve-o (19:18.146)
By ice?

Yep.

Tony Benjamin (19:22.498)
Anyways, immigration naturalization services before ICE, but they come in, they raided them and they arrested and took out so many people that after they left, the plant was not able to operate. And the plant was shut down for three or four days before they can even get enough temps to come in to fill in to become operational, to even be operational. And in my understanding, shortly after that, right, it just destroyed their margins that year and they went out of business.

But it's the way the story was told to me is the company was fined, the CEO and a couple of the executives were fined. The only person to go to jail, the HR person. Yep, because they were fudging their I-9 forms, which of course is a federal affidavit. And I don't know about anybody else, but man, you just don't fiddle around with federal affidavit and sign your name on it. Just crazy stuff.

Karisa Stahle (20:04.229)
chart person.

Steve-o (20:06.04)
Imagine it.

Steve-o (20:16.11)
That's crazy.

Steve-o (20:22.03)
Like why would they do that?

Tony Benjamin (20:22.063)
And so you'd.

Karisa Stahle (20:24.143)
Yeah, I was gonna say it's better to just not do an I-9 than sign an affidavit that it's right. Like, you're still gonna get fined, but you're like, I feel like you'd probably be in a better position if you just didn't do it versus lying on the form. That's just my opinion though.

Tony Benjamin (20:29.307)
you

Steve-o (20:40.142)
But see, this is a prime example. Yeah, this is a prime example of sometimes the individual feels like they're so dedicated to the company that they have to cover it up or they have to help cover it up. And that's something in HR we should not feel that obligated, right? We should never feel that. Yes, we're there for the company. Yes, we're there for our employees. But the last thing we should be doing is

is going above and beyond in an illegal fashion simply because we're trying to cover what we suddenly realize is, wait a minute, this is bad. Because in part, sometimes they're embarrassed to go talk to the powers that be. Sometimes they talk to the powers that be and powers that be are like, well, yeah, of course we know that. So you just need to sign off it and keep your mouth shut. So it's just crazy some of the stuff that I've seen, unfortunately.

Tony Benjamin (21:32.881)
Well, I think in a high turnover industry too, you're sometimes you're just desperate for bodies like you just need people and it's not a high skilled position. You can train them in a day and you just want them to come in and out, do their thing and go home and you're in a desperate need for people and you start cutting corners. And Chris, maybe you've got more experience. I mean, in what you do, it's not like you train people for six months before they're qualified to do what they do for you.

Steve-o (21:39.128)
Yeah.

Steve-o (21:49.742)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (22:02.07)
And talk to me about that ever need for labor.

Karisa Stahle (22:06.853)
Yeah, we do a two week training program, but then a 30, 60, 90 check in to make sure that they're still getting all the tools and things that they need. And that definitely helps with our retention so that we don't have as much turnover. But we're also, yeah, we are in an industry where, you know, if someone's paying 50 cents more an hour, we probably will lose our employees that they live paycheck to paycheck. It's just the nature of the industry. And so for, you know, for us,

Steve-o (22:31.427)
Yeah.

Karisa Stahle (22:36.913)
you have to be very, very, very dedicated to make sure you're still going through the process the right way. And it's an ever ongoing conversation with our operations team of like, I'm not meeting customer expectations because I'm understaffed. And finding that balance of like, we've kind of started to set metrics and we'll do a lot more of this in 26 where

we have an understanding of what's the tipping point between being able to hit our quality goals and we're so far understaffed we can't hit our quality goals. So if we need 100 people cleaning the site as long as we have 93 we can hit our goals. Once we've dropped below the 93 we now have to have a different emergency response to fill those positions and again this is still kind of in the work so we're kind of gauging

we do daily audits so we have audit scores so we've been trying to watch the audit scores and the staffing so that we can come up with these with these metrics and know where is that tipping point and where we have to change our strategy but it's something that we have to tell the team all the time we are not a desperation hire like you've got to go through the process we do interviews we do second interviews we do backgrounds we do drug tests we make sure that we follow the process completely every single time

Tony Benjamin (23:31.366)
Right, right.

Karisa Stahle (23:59.122)
So that we don't find ourselves in a position where we're hiring bad fits or where we're hiring people that can't provide the documentation we need. We got to stay very disciplined in our hiring processes. yeah, it's easy. It would be really easy to say the site's screaming at me, my operations manager is screaming at me, I just got to get them people. But we have that conversation all the time, slow down.

We want the right people, the right people are gonna stay, you're gonna train them once, you're not gonna have to have this constant turnover. And as long as the operations team feels like we're supporting them, then they get it and they're also in the same boat. So it's just open dialogue between the HR team and the operations team. And you have to have it and you have to stay dedicated on the HR side.

Steve-o (24:53.986)
Yeah, that's so true. Yeah. Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (24:55.484)
No, that's good and have integrity, that integrity you talk about. how many, let me just, and you can answer in round numbers, you don't have to give us anything specific, but what is the approximate population of employees you have?

Karisa Stahle (24:58.598)
Yeah.

Karisa Stahle (25:11.395)
We're about 400 employees right now.

Tony Benjamin (25:14.204)
About 400. Okay. Gotcha. And then how do you. Okay. So let's just say you go to work for a company and you get in there. Where do you start with that? Like how do you go about doing an audit of I-9s? Do you go do you pull the file on every single person? Like do you go up and ask them how do you do it? Talk. Walk me through that.

Karisa Stahle (25:35.516)
Yeah. Yeah, mean, I pull a typically my process is to pull a list of active employees and then go check their file and go check anywhere that it might be. So I always start with the documentation itself because there are definitely times where you find an I-9 where section one is completed, section two is not. You there's always those little things where it was like we started on the right path. We didn't maybe finish the right path. And so, yeah, just.

Check the list, like active employees. Let's start there. Do I have an I-9 for everybody? And typically I've been evil and very lucky where I've always been able to get somebody to help, hire some temp labor help or hire, you know, we're minority owned, family owned. Like I was lucky enough to hire some of my boss's high school kids on the summer project to go through all the files for me and find I-9s and...

Steve-o (26:32.013)
Nice.

Karisa Stahle (26:32.849)
put them into a file. you know, I always try to help a company understand the benefit and the risk of not having the 99 audit when you first walk in the door. And so being able to find some, you know, some college students that just need some extra money. It's not a fun project and I get it. And I tell them that upfront, like, Hey, this isn't going to be fun, but it's really critical for us to do this and just have them start.

putting a I-9s, know, so much of it is electronic now. So putting I-9s into a secured electronic file where we can just have a spreadsheet and check like, do we have section one, section two? And I'm not asking them to do anything other than find it. And once we've got all of that, then going through kind of the retention, can we find these, you know, these are the individuals that have been termed in the retention period. And so we still need an I-9 on file. Now can we find those? So just.

Tony Benjamin (27:03.538)
Right, right.

Karisa Stahle (27:28.305)
Simple gathering is all you're trying to do at first. Like don't worry about anything else, just can I find them? And then you have an idea of where your gaps might be to then come up with a strategy. And every time it's been different for me. I haven't taken the same strategy once I see where the issues are. It may be, yeah, we're missing a lot. We gotta go figure out.

Is that a payroll system change and we can find them somewhere else that we forgot to look? Is that we got to start coming up with a plan to go get these I-9s? Is that something else? Do we find some paper I-9s somewhere? Just kind of double checking that process. could be, hey, I'm in a really good spot. So let's just now start organizing and making sure things are good. And then starting to walk through.

Did we fill it out right? Now, and that's where the heavy lift comes in is did we fill it out right? And making those corrections. But that's always the last step for me is, you know, cause it does, it's time consuming and that's where you need the HR team to come in and really help do the heavy lift. The, you know, the gathering is not the heavy lift. It's, can be kind of outsourced a little better interned or, you know, something to that effect. Like I wouldn't hire an HR intern to do this. They'd be super disappointed, but

I would hire someone that's looking for a data job for the summer. Like, hey, I just need, you know, I need an easy job for the summer. I think hiring an HR intern to say, go gather. Yeah, I feel like that would be such a letdown. If I was an HR intern and I spent the whole summer just finding I-9s, I think I'd be a little disappointed. So again, just putting it all in an organized.

Steve-o (28:53.73)
the

Steve-o (28:58.958)
unless you tell them that you're purposely hiring a grunt.

Steve-o (29:08.504)
High nines.

Tony Benjamin (29:12.475)
Right, right.

Karisa Stahle (29:16.661)
and then starting, like I like to start folders of active, I like to start the folders of retention and putting dates on those folders of when we wouldn't, when we are able to get rid of them and just start organizing everything so that from the get-go after that audit, it's so much easier to know, to keep it up and then your audits after that are just really short, easy.

It's really just auditing the i9s from the last year and not the whole company. You just kind of can, you can bunch it a little bit smaller to make sure that you've got everything from the previous year.

Tony Benjamin (29:56.211)
That's okay. Perfect. I think I what you're just I remember when I worked for Dish Network. No, that's fine. I remember when I worked for Dish Network and we would go to an office, say, because what they would they would generally have one HR people for three markets. Right. And so you would go you travel to somewhere where they used to have an HR person and now they didn't have one. There is one of the other three markets that they were over, whatever. And so you'd you'd walk into this building.

Karisa Stahle (29:58.943)
That's a lot, I know.

Tony Benjamin (30:22.994)
And there was always a room where the HR person used to work, an office or room or something like that. And it was like, 50 % of the time it was like floor to ceiling stacks of paper that they had just never got around to filing. And so when they left there, they pulled the person out of that area. They just stuffed it all in a room. They said, here you go. And that's back in the day, they were keeping every resume of every applicant who ever applied.

Karisa Stahle (30:34.821)
Yep. Yeah.

Steve-o (30:44.12)
Yeah.

Karisa Stahle (30:44.721)
Mm-hmm.

Karisa Stahle (30:50.865)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (30:51.006)
and they were keeping all their forms and everything like that. And I just remember sitting there looking thinking, thank goodness, I don't have to go through all that. Because I think that I would freak out if I had to like, and look for all those I nines and everything. So when you were talking about going around and finding that's what I had vision in my head is searching through all the

Karisa Stahle (31:10.841)
Yeah, and I have worked for companies that, you my current company, we started in 2019. So we've always been in the digital era. Like we've always done I-9s through a program. It is good. So it makes it easier because they're stored in a handful of different systems. As we've gotten bigger, we've had to implement new systems, things like that. But at least it's always been done electronically.

Steve-o (31:10.892)
You

Steve-o (31:20.943)
that's good. Yeah.

Karisa Stahle (31:35.41)
I have worked for companies where it was exactly that. We had regional offices, you'd walk into a regional office and it'd just be floor to ceiling stack of papers and you didn't know what you were going to find. And I was the one sometimes sent to go find things. Yeah, was the one sent and you're just like sitting. I mean, yeah, I do remember going to a regional office once after an HR person left and they decided not to refill the position, backfill the position.

Steve-o (31:45.326)
Mm-hmm.

or where to look. There's never like a Dewey decimal system or anything, you know?

Tony Benjamin (31:50.362)
Yeah. Yeah.

Karisa Stahle (32:05.041)
And I remember walking into the office and that HR person had been there for like 20 something years and there was this like 20 something years of files everywhere. And I just remember sitting on the floor with stacks of files and putting them in like, well, this is this and this is this. like here, you know, here's an employee file. Here's a medical file. Here's an I9. Here's a, and just starting my own stacks. And I, I remember, I remember the regional manager poking his head in and he was like, I don't even like, ah, ah.

Tony Benjamin (32:24.658)
yeah.

Karisa Stahle (32:33.647)
Nope, can't even come like I couldn't even come into the office because it was just utter chaos. But I'm like, I don't know how else to do this. I just got to stack and organize. But no, I think, you know, as we get into the digital era, it's going to be so much easier to keep track of I-9s because you're not going to have these paper paper I-9s that only one person has access to. You're going to you're going to have everybody in your company can immediately have access when you do these types of systems.

Steve-o (32:34.446)
Don't even talk to me right now.

Tony Benjamin (32:39.9)
Yeah.

Karisa Stahle (33:02.723)
It's one of my biggest recommendations to people. Stop. If you're still doing paper, why? Why? It just doesn't make any sense. And every payroll system now offers an I-9 process that you can just do through your onboarding. So if you're not taking advantage of it, it just doesn't make any sense. So I think you'll see less and less than that. Yep.

Tony Benjamin (33:19.346)
Right, right.

Steve-o (33:24.046)
And usually there's easy reports too, right? There's reports that they can run. If you ever go through an audit, you can so easily pull that information. Yeah, there's just, there's no excuse anymore for sure.

Tony Benjamin (33:24.389)
If you're

Karisa Stahle (33:32.902)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (33:33.235)
Yeah. And I found that usually their interfaces are easier to use than he verifies. So just straight up. Right. Right. Right. OK. So now here's something I want to ask you. Right. So there's obviously the you know, and you hear about this all the time right now that, you know, there's a fear out there about ice coming and snatching people and all that sort of thing.

Karisa Stahle (33:39.813)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve-o (33:41.998)
What? I'm shocked.

Tony Benjamin (34:01.266)
How do you have, you know, if you have a large immigrant population or minority population, and there's some worries, how do you like, do you tell everybody you're doing an io nine audit? Do you do you not tell them unless you got to go follow up with a bunch of people or like kind of what's how do you approach that? Because the last thing you want to do is like have this panic running through your company.

Karisa Stahle (34:24.877)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I actually haven't ever told my employees that I'm doing an I9 audit until I know, okay, hey, I do need an I9 from you. Can't find one. then we always, and then we come and say, hey,

Steve-o (34:36.494)
Hmm.

Karisa Stahle (34:40.017)
We're just going through everyone's files, making sure we have all the paper. Because typically, you can also find some other things that might be missing. If they're missing an I9, they might be missing some other things. we kind of, chances are. So yeah, so typically, if.

Steve-o (34:49.058)
Yeah, chances are so true.

Tony Benjamin (34:50.492)
their personnel form or something.

Karisa Stahle (34:55.673)
possible. I mean, if you have a lot of I-9s you got to go find, hopefully not, then maybe I would change my strategy. But I've never been in a situation where I have to go back and get hundreds of I-9s. So typically I'll go look at, know, or have the HR business partner myself or someone that can, you know, help with the situation, kind of go look through what else is missing and then, and then sit down with the, you know, conversations, just say, hey,

We're just doing a compliance check and so we're kind of just going through everything. Notice that these are the three documents we don't have finished in your employee file. Let's go over them and then you're it's not just.

Hey, your I-9 isn't here. It's like, I also missed your signature over here on this form or this policy or let's talk about this. So then it's a whole different conversation because it's just, hey, we're just trying to make sure we have everything. And we found three things in your file that are missing and that opens up a different conversation. If it's only the I-9, again, we just take the same approach. Hey, you we're going through everything. We want to make sure that we've got everything. This is just for us. This is not going anywhere.

Steve-o (35:34.286)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (35:34.31)
Right, right.

Karisa Stahle (36:01.875)
want to make sure we're prepared. And so we're proactively looking at this information. Notice you didn't have your I9 on file. Maybe you did it, but I don't have it. So can we do it? Because sometimes I've had employees that are adamant that they've done an I9. I did it. I remember. Well, I can't find it. So you may have done it, but it didn't get filed right. So I can't find it. Let's redo it.

Steve-o (36:20.098)
Yeah. And how do you, how do you help them understand that? Because, you know, I've, I've gone through that too, where it's like, we simply don't have it and they are so insistent that you do get some pushback. So, so I don't know if you know this, but in my career, one of my first HR roles where I was, I was consulting with a company, I didn't know that they were going through an I-9 audit. I was consulting them with about hiring and then they finally said, well,

Tony Benjamin (36:22.725)
Right.

Tony Benjamin (36:38.256)
Steve-o (36:47.214)
Can we just hire you? We'd love to hire you. We need help with hiring, et cetera. Made a good offer, so I went ahead and started with them. And by day two, I found out they were going through this I-9 audit and we had over 600 I-9s missing.

Karisa Stahle (37:02.417)
That's way worse than anything I've ever been through.

Steve-o (37:03.468)
Yeah. It took us, it took us months to, to, to fix and I'll be honest, I struggled. I struggled at the, and again, I had only been in the recruiting world for about three years, but I had never in my life dealt with I nine anything. And this was the first time where I, and in fact, it's the reason I went and got certified.

because I found out, there's this sherm chapter. there's these people I can talk to. like this was a huge win for me at the time because I was like, okay, now I've got a network of people I can talk with and I can figure out kind of what they're doing. But man, the struggle was real tight having these hard conversations with some of these employees that were just like, well, wait a minute, I already did this. And some of them were people that didn't even work with us anymore, but we still needed documentation. my gosh, that was, it was so...

it was just, was horrendous. I'll tell you right now.

Tony Benjamin (38:01.35)
Yeah, no, that makes sense. It's it's always the employee that came and worked for you for three days and didn't work out that you have a hard time finding their I nine. Right. And and you're just like, no. that of course, that'd the one they would pick in their audit, because they just randomly grab names. Right. Yeah. And you're just like, dang it.

Steve-o (38:07.106)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Karisa Stahle (38:10.641)
Mm-hmm.

you

Steve-o (38:14.806)
Of course, yeah, if they're going to do the audit.

Karisa Stahle (38:16.033)
Yeah.

Steve-o (38:20.236)
And back then, they would make you put all the names in an Excel sheet and just randomly pick a number because we didn't have the technology like we do today. Man, I was tempted to not include certain names.

Tony Benjamin (38:27.484)
Yeah, to randomly select.

Tony Benjamin (38:33.938)
Right, Yes. No, I, no, I understand that that's, yeah, back in the day, all those very thick folders you had of I nine forms and they were always separate from the employee form and

Karisa Stahle (38:35.579)
Don't do that, Steve.

Steve-o (38:37.422)
I know, right? I know. I was too moral.

Steve-o (38:47.63)
Mm-hmm. Oh, and we had the room. Chris had describes the room. We had it. All the files and filing cabinets and yellow manila folders and just nothing labeled. Nothing. Not even the years. So.

Karisa Stahle (38:53.35)
Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (38:53.807)
Yeah.

Karisa Stahle (38:57.969)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (39:00.208)
Yeah. I got a.

Karisa Stahle (39:03.334)
Yeah.

I came into an HR file once that the employee hadn't worked for the company for 30 years and they still had the employee file. And I was like, well, I don't think we need this anymore. I don't even know. I think we're done. Yeah. So there are, you know, there's some, I don't see it as much, but when I first started my career, you do have those old school HR people that just won't ever get rid of anything, even though there's retention rules and laws, they just won't get rid of anything. And so, you

Steve-o (39:12.361)
Wow.

Well, we could shred that one.

the

Steve-o (39:30.648)
Which is so weird. Yeah.

Karisa Stahle (39:34.611)
you're sorting through papers that have that kind of like dusty moldy smell and you're like there's no way I still need this. Let's just be done with it.

Steve-o (39:42.252)
Yeah. Well, let's be honest, how many of us have gone back five years ago to pull an applicant that we interviewed back then and suddenly they're open and willing and they're hired? It just, yeah, it just, it never happens. So anyway.

Tony Benjamin (39:43.28)
Yeah, no that's...

Tony Benjamin (39:59.831)
No, and you know, back in the day, again, they were keeping you know, every application that was turned into them or every resume so that they could defend against, know,

Steve-o (40:05.44)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, in case of litigation, which, yeah, so true.

Tony Benjamin (40:07.728)
discrimination lawsuits and all that. Yeah, yeah. And in my entire career, I've never seen or even heard of someone telling me that they had where somebody accused them of discrimination, the hiring process, and they had to go back and look at every single resume that they ever collected for last 10 years or whatever. I've looked, I'm sure that happens. I'm sure somewhere along the line, it happened somewhere. But I've never in my entire career, never experienced it. Nor have I ever run into anybody that said they had to produce it. And the metaphor

Karisa Stahle (40:08.699)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (40:37.662)
fact, like even the workday case, right, that's going on now, the only reason that you can look back at all those history of stuff is because it's kept digitally. And, you know, and it, yeah, yeah, exactly. So I want to I want to talk about what, okay, so generally, you're going back and doing that. And I've been in a place where we just said, Okay, everybody in this facility, we're going to redo I nines on everybody, because it's such a mess that

Steve-o (40:46.008)
Yeah, and it's so much easier to keep.

Karisa Stahle (40:49.073)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (41:04.898)
It just isn't worth the time to go back and do it. I'm just curious, do you get cultural implications from that, Carissa, when you start going back and getting missing forms? Do rumors start floating around? sort ooh, they're looking into stuff. Gotta be careful. Do you have cultural implications of that sort of stuff?

Karisa Stahle (41:23.661)
Always. Not just with I-9s. It doesn't matter. There's always rumors about why we're doing it. And it's not a transparency thing. Like we tell people what's going on, but everything just gets twisted and turned. And this is what they're really up to. mean, it's definitely it's definitely a part of our industry and culture just to, you know.

Tony Benjamin (41:25.234)
Right, right. Yeah. It's like the old rumor. Right.

Steve-o (41:39.736)
Mm-hmm.

Steve-o (41:51.438)
Mm-hmm.

Karisa Stahle (41:52.946)
I've seen, like I said, I've seen in manufacturing, which, know, kind of funny because manufacturing, when I did that, was like all men and I was surprised at how gossipy the men were, I don't think it matters. employees like to feel like they're in the know and so they like to tell people things that maybe they really don't know anything about. It doesn't really matter what it is, but yeah, there's always some like...

Tony Benjamin (42:06.77)
Right?

Karisa Stahle (42:20.913)
Oh yeah, they asked for my I9, they're looking at this, they're looking at that, like they're doing this. So, you know, I just think you just kind of take it with a grain of salt and just know that that's what's gonna happen. And you do your best to make sure that the employees you're talking to are the ones that really understand what's going on. And you'll, yeah, you'll get employees that are gonna come up to you and say, wait a second, why are you doing this? And it's like, well, did I ask for yours? No? Okay, well then you're good. Like there's nothing more. Like, let's not make it a thing.

Tony Benjamin (42:48.754)
Or, or, or they're refusing to do it again or something like that. Yeah. There was, there was one place I worked

Steve-o (42:49.868)
Yeah, let it be. Just let it go.

Karisa Stahle (42:51.087)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Karisa Stahle (42:55.281)
Yeah, well and Steve you kind of asked that question earlier of like what do you do when an employee wants to make it difficult? Um You know, and I I just I don't know maybe this isn't the right tactic, but I just always kind of say hey probably my fault I I couldn't find it looked everywhere like you know, if you have any ideas where I could go look let me know but but

Steve-o (43:16.674)
Yeah, things get misplaced, right? Yeah.

Karisa Stahle (43:20.145)
I can't find it, so I need you to help me out. And typically then you get people that are a little like, oh, okay, well, fine, I'll help you out. They like to know that HRO's them a favor. So they feel like if you're, like my bad, my fault. And I haven't had that be a problem. Yeah, exactly. HRO's me, they messed up. I know I didn't, but then the employee's like, oh, okay, well.

Steve-o (43:32.014)
you

Tony Benjamin (43:35.364)
It's the mafia tradition. You owe me a favor now.

Tony Benjamin (43:43.09)
Yeah

Steve-o (43:48.024)
It kind of softens it, right? Yeah. Yep.

Karisa Stahle (43:48.23)
Alright, I'll get you your information. Yeah, it's often that like hey, it's a mistake. It's an honest mistake We can't find it. I'm sure you did it. I unfortunately have to do it again How you know could you bring me your documents like let's go through what that looks like and and yeah They might get a little like one but you know, just say hey, unfortunately, I need it like I need this So can you find you know, can you bring your documents by the end of the week and let's get this done? And typically I can get people to do do that for me if I just like

My fault, sorry. But gotta have it, so I don't know. But with 600 people, I don't know, I might take a different taxi.

Steve-o (44:20.514)
Yeah, it's a legal requirement.

Tony Benjamin (44:26.512)
Right. Right. So so let me ask you this. How does how does current politics play into this stuff, too? Because I mean, this is this is a big deal, right? There's there's been riots in L.A. and Oregon and Chicago and demonstrations all around. There's there's people who are, you know, standing on street corners and watching for ice to drive down the street and reporting locations and coordinating with people and all that. How does how does current politics play into this? And like, how do you handle that?

Karisa Stahle (44:28.091)
You

Steve-o (44:39.864)
Yeah.

Karisa Stahle (44:57.285)
That's it. Boy, it's been heartbreaking. I mean,

I don't even know where to start with that one. with, I mean, the politics, I mean, it's definitely this year has been a whole different ball game with documentation and I nines and, in some aspects, I mean, I will say, I feel like in my industry, when we do hiring, you know, hiring and people bring in documents, we were catching a lot of fake documents. I don't feel like this year that was such a thing. Like we got

we got way less people presenting documents that were fake. My favorite though, I will share this. We had a future employee in the hiring process bring us their I-9 documents and their driver's license. And we started doing the I-9 and the HR business partner that was doing the I-9 called me and said, I think something looks a little funky with this one. We took a sushi.

sent me a picture and we started looking at it and we realized that the height was five foot 13 on the driver's license. So we realized pretty quickly, we're like, that's a pretty good fake, except for that you're five foot 13. That's not how a driver's license is gonna indicate your height. So we're gonna go ahead and tell you this doesn't look like it's real and you need to produce a different document. And then they disappeared.

Tony Benjamin (46:13.938)
Oops.

Steve-o (46:20.75)
No.

Steve-o (46:25.398)
What?

Karisa Stahle (46:32.721)
But so I will say I feel like the fake, yeah, surprise. So I, uh-oh. But I mean, I think the fear is real. The fear is real for our employees. I think one thing that does help us is we don't have like locations ourselves. We're cleaning.

Tony Benjamin (46:33.637)
and surprise.

Steve-o (46:37.976)
Wait, mine says 514, what?

Tony Benjamin (46:40.53)
You

Steve-o (46:50.36)
Mm-hmm.

Karisa Stahle (46:59.857)
Customers office spaces, so we're sending them out to other other businesses. And so I think since we're also really dispersed Then then maybe that that provides a little bit of protection for for us But I mean our employees when I talk to them, you know, we do have employees in LA when the riots were really strong and going they were scared they were scared and and

you know, asked like, do I do? How do I, how do I protect myself? And, and we worked with some immigration attorneys just to say like, what, what should we be telling our employees? And, you know, at the end it was basically don't leave home without your documents. That way if something happens, you have them on you and you can show, cause, cause they will, they'll just kind of take y'all and then figure it, figure it out later.

That's what we've been seeing. if you have, if you get taken and you don't have anything on you, it could be really hard to get yourself out of that situation. If you have everything on you, you have a better chance, but make sure you have copies for your family. So that's kind of where we landed with some immigration attorneys is carry your documents. Like it's scary to carry your documents too, but carry your documents on your person. Make copies, make sure your family has those. And, and you know, just

Steve-o (48:12.546)
Yeah.

Karisa Stahle (48:26.895)
be as careful as you can because you did deny and you didn't verify you're here legally. So again, just be cautious. And so that's kind of where we landed. But we did have a lot of employees tell us that that's what they were doing. didn't they won't even, you know, wouldn't even go to a grocery store without carrying things on, you know, on them at all times. So it has been a really heartbreaking year watching employees just be scared and not having any.

control over that situation. But on the flip side, way less fake documents this year.

Tony Benjamin (49:03.634)
And I, wow. You know, to just say this in an apolitical way. And there may be lots of people who disagree with me politically about all of it, but the human aspect of all this is just sad, right? From the human trafficking across the border to the advantage that the cartels were taking of people and how they were smuggling them in to the exorbitant and huge amounts of money that they were paying to make it the U.S.

Karisa Stahle (49:07.045)
Mm-hmm.

Steve-o (49:18.968)
Mm-hmm.

Karisa Stahle (49:19.077)
Mm-hmm.

Karisa Stahle (49:25.466)
Mm-hmm.

Steve-o (49:31.414)
Yeah, which is inhuman in and of itself. Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (49:34.291)
And sending them here in trucks and all that sort of just all that was horrible. And now the flip side of that is a lot of people that survived all that and the coyotes and everything like that to bring everybody here and then to get here and a few years later be going through this. I like my heart breaks for those people. It's really tough that that's that's completely separate from the politics of this situation. Well, look, the people who did it right, you hope.

Steve-o (49:56.11)
Especially those who did it right. Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (50:02.448)
What you hope is that as they gather people up or whatever, that they're being judicious about who they grab and knock on wood. So far as I'm aware, no one who's a citizen or here legally has been deported accidentally. And of course there's always accusations. So who knows what is actually true, but you hope that it turns out right. If you're here legally and you've done it the right way. And, but I still, the, the human aspect of that is just, it breaks my heart. feel bad for them.

Steve-o (50:07.342)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (50:30.704)
I feel like they were taken advantage of to get here and then once they get here now they're finding it's not as secure as they were told it was. Or even worse, now they're paying those same cartels to hide them and now they're becoming trafficked human beings within the US, for nefarious purposes and all that. It's just terrible stuff. I have that. I want to ask, sorry, now for something completely different.

Karisa Stahle (50:57.809)
No. They are hiring.

Tony Benjamin (50:58.508)
ICE, you can sponsor this podcast if you want to. So yeah, they are. We'll run ads for you, ICE, to hire if that's what you want to pay us for. I'm agnostic as to where my money comes from. I want to talk about 1099 employees. Look, I've run into this more and more. It seems like...

Steve-o (51:02.114)
Hey, they're hiring right now. I've seen the advertisement, so there you go.

the

Tony Benjamin (51:23.29)
And I would have thought this would have been cleared up a long time ago, but I don't think so, especially medium sized businesses have this idea that somehow I can make everybody a 1099 employee. And my opinion is that like, I think that the 1099 thing is going away. Even industries where 1099 has been normal for a very long period of time. think eventually it'll go away like barbershops and beauty salons and all that sort of stuff where they're not.

they're a 1099 person, right? And they rent a chair. So I think in the long run, all that sort of stuff is going to go away. dog grooming and all that sort of stuff. I'm just curious, like this inner interchangeable, do you? And I know we talked about this once, and there's overlap in those conversations. Why don't you touch base on that and talk about the boundaries around that, and how to best handle that?

Karisa Stahle (52:14.705)
If any of my co-workers end up listening to this they're gonna be dying laughing because 1099 is a dirty word and they know it pushes my buttons anytime like they they They any chance they have to throw out. Well, can't we just use 1099s? They do it just because they know I'm gonna like flip my lid like that is like the one thing that I just like it's not funny anymore anyway, so

Steve-o (52:24.174)
you

Tony Benjamin (52:24.978)
It's a strategic word. It's a strategic word.

Steve-o (52:27.894)
No.

Tony Benjamin (52:38.93)
You

Karisa Stahle (52:43.759)
My coworkers are probably dying as you ask this question. So yeah, I I think I agree there seems to be a trend with more and more clarification around 1099 that would make it indicate it's going to be harder and harder to be a 1099 and legally fit that requirement. And like you said, as we were a small business to a medium business and

you know, there was a lot of work that was, you know, short term and you're trying to find 30 people to do a short term project and you just, you know, you just kind of go to your network and who can work for us and, you know, there's those 1099s and that's, I just.

I probably take one of the more stricter stances on it, but I tell the team all the time, if it's a core part of your business, we're not even touching 1099. We're just not doing it. And you can change and tweak the rules here and there with different presidencies and different stances and different Department of Labor and who's running the Department of Labor. But ultimately, that's the test. If they're a core part of your business and if that's where you're making money,

They're a W-2 employee. You can do it more in the fringe support. If you need marketing support and you're not a marketing company, that's where you're going to use a consultant 1099. You're going to go to these other finance. If you need some fractional support from a finance when you're not an accounting company, that's where you're going to use a 1099 or a consulting firm or go to a company.

But again, just my firm stance is if they're part of that core business, you don't do it. You're putting yourself at so much risk by doing that. And like you said, Tony, it's one of those things where you see the cases and who ends up in jail? The HR person. And so, for me, it's not something I...

Tony Benjamin (54:53.244)
Ha.

Steve-o (54:53.816)
Hahaha.

Tony Benjamin (54:58.224)
Look, I don't think any of us look good in those orange jumpsuits. None of us look good in orange jumpsuits, right? Not doing that. It's not my fashion choice. That's right.

Karisa Stahle (54:59.427)
mess around with. I know what...

Steve-o (55:05.218)
Orange is not the new black.

Karisa Stahle (55:05.605)
There's a meme going around that I keep seeing a lot that says, may think you're tough, but you're not prison tough, so don't make dumb decisions. It's just like, yeah, that's true. But I think too many companies take risks on that misclassification. the penalties, I I've been doing some research just to kind of

Steve-o (55:19.81)
Ha ha ha!

Karisa Stahle (55:35.024)
watch the trends. mean, these are even small companies are paying multi-million dollars in fines. And that's the fine, you know, you're not doesn't include the all the the attorney fees. And if you lose, you're not only paying your attorney, you're paying the opposing side attorney. And you know that those are also million dollar bills that you're receiving from a big attorney firm. And then you're paying another, you know.

Steve-o (55:36.323)
Yeah.

Karisa Stahle (56:01.905)
I saw one the other day, was 67 million and the company was like 150 million annually and they paid like a $67 million fine for misclassification. It would shut your business down. Yeah. Cause like you said, Tony earlier, like it removes your whole workforce and you got to have a contingency plan to get a new workforce in. You get hit with this fine and you're paying attorney fees and

Steve-o (56:14.914)
Yeah, easily.

Tony Benjamin (56:15.452)
Yeah, yeah.

Karisa Stahle (56:29.967)
the damage to your reputation out there. Like it's going to be in the news. Those types of lawsuits are lawsuits that, mean, we see all the different lawsuits that, you know, like Uber went through. It was all over the news. You've got some damage control there. And so if you're a small, small to mid-sized business, you, I don't, I don't feel like you would recover. And so we do not, like it's just, it's, it's like I said,

Steve-o (56:32.536)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Karisa Stahle (56:59.823)
They all joke with me just to push my buttons like, we're going to bring in 1099s when we bring on this new client. And I'm like, OK, what are you trying to do to me? Like, you're trying to kill me. Because they know I have such a firm, firm stance that we do not do 1099s.

Tony Benjamin (57:05.778)
You

Steve-o (57:15.246)
Well, and talk a little bit. Why do people, yeah, why do people want to do the 1099? I mean, obviously we all know this answer, but just for those of our audience who might be listening where they've never really had to deal with this, why would a company want to do a 1099 and fudge that per se?

Karisa Stahle (57:34.45)
Yeah, and I think there's a handful of different reasons. But taxes ultimately is the number one answer. They think it's easier. They don't have to go through an onboarding and a drug test. you're just, hey, invoice us. And we don't have all of the other things that go along with that. It's just an invoicing process.

Tony Benjamin (57:37.458)
Taxes taxes

Steve-o (57:39.256)
This is number one,

Steve-o (57:48.206)
Mm-hmm.

Karisa Stahle (58:00.594)
And it just so it's it's convenient. It's a time saver. It opens. It does open up a bigger workforce for you if you don't have to go through all the processes. But, you know, it's then liability insurance. hmm. Mm hmm. They're responsible for their own workers. Comp insurance depend, you know, like all of those things. Yeah. So it.

Steve-o (58:13.25)
and liability.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And the reason I bring that up is because exactly all the things.

Karisa Stahle (58:26.161)
You know, looking at it, there's definitely cost savings there. But there's always other solutions and let's do one that's a legal solution. It's not tax evasion.

Steve-o (58:37.632)
Exactly, because the violation and the fines alone are well beyond those savings.

Tony Benjamin (58:42.258)
Right, right. They certainly can be. like I said, there are certain industries, for example, that have skirted past harassment laws for a long time. The doors or the room around the walls are closing in on those places and those type of workforces. Even at places like adult services stuff or whatever that they do, it's closing in on them.

Karisa Stahle (58:45.467)
Mm-hmm

Steve-o (59:00.206)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (59:10.706)
it's it's it's slowly catching up to them as well. And I don't think in the future, if if you want to have a barbershop, and you want everybody to be 1099, you should not have any control over anything they do. You don't ask about their quality. You don't tell them what hours they come in, then come in and out work whenever they want. You just say that you have to maintain certain cleanliness while you're here. And outside of that, everything is whatever

Steve-o (59:25.614)
about their clients. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (59:35.731)
But if you exert the tiniest bit of control over those people, don't. And I really think that gap where you used to be able to get away with that stuff is narrowing very quickly now. Even though I think the Trump administration has made that a little bit easier in how they interpret some of the rules around that sort of stuff and the whole idea of looking at all of the rules and instead of just narrowing in on one or two being more important. But even with all that being the case, it's...

it's drawing in close on you. It's coming for you eventually. And you might as well figure out a business model now that accommodates that as opposed to waiting for it to catch you. That's kind of my thought there. Well, Chris, I appreciate that. And I didn't know there was a dirtier word out there for you other than strategic. So there you go. So there is your second reference, people.

Steve-o (01:00:13.762)
Yeah. Yep.

Karisa Stahle (01:00:24.113)
That 10.99 is it, 10.99 is it. That is a bad, bad word.

Steve-o (01:00:24.654)
Now we know.

Tony Benjamin (01:00:32.626)
So yes, yes. 1099 the bad word. OK, Chris, I only I only have one last question for you. And I think that this is I really want your insight into this. Why do you think Steve is so cool? Like, how do you think that happened? I'm just. You know him well and yeah, like, tell me why is he so cool?

Karisa Stahle (01:00:36.454)
Mm-hmm.

Steve-o (01:00:50.99)
So ridiculous.

Karisa Stahle (01:00:51.483)
How do I think that happened?

Steve-o (01:00:54.676)
you think.

Karisa Stahle (01:00:55.985)
Bye!

That actually is a, that's kind of a hard, because I'm at 10.99.

Steve-o (01:00:59.266)
Because I'm a 1099.

Tony Benjamin (01:01:03.178)
He's just said 1099 friend. That's right.

Karisa Stahle (01:01:08.081)
Well, you know, geez, I'm not trying to stumble on that question. Just the way you ask that question makes it difficult. I was going to say like Steve is cool because he like year round he has a Christmas tree in his background. I don't know why that makes him cool, but it does make him cool. I don't so I don't know the why, but I do know that like Steve is cool and he's kind of a big deal. Yeah, so.

Tony Benjamin (01:01:15.013)
You

Steve-o (01:01:17.166)
Very difficult.

Tony Benjamin (01:01:22.31)
That's right, that's right.

Steve-o (01:01:31.938)
There are certain elements.

Tony Benjamin (01:01:35.75)
He's a very big deal.

Steve-o (01:01:35.958)
or ridiculous.

Karisa Stahle (01:01:36.207)
I don't know if that answers the question, because again, I wasn't prepared for why Steve is cool, but what makes him cool?

Tony Benjamin (01:01:40.87)
Yeah.

Steve-o (01:01:44.45)
There is no why. Just, yeah, just...

Tony Benjamin (01:01:46.02)
You know what? There all I know is we have verified now at least 30 times that Steve is cool. So at least 30 times we've.

Karisa Stahle (01:01:54.512)
Yeah.

Steve-o (01:01:56.078)
That's because you guys fish and try to find it. It's like you find this old boot and somehow you turn it into this story about being cool. just, I don't know. Even with holes in the toes.

Tony Benjamin (01:02:03.778)
Yeah, well, that's right. Well, look, when the boot is a port key, it's important. That's all I got to say. So well, I think this has been great. Thank you very much, Chrissy. You've really helped and enlightened. I'm sure there's a bunch of people out there going through this that you really helped. And the crowd loves you and we love you. And we're just thrilled that you deign to be with us again. It's like, wow.

Steve-o (01:02:09.203)
There you go. Nice. Nice.

Tony Benjamin (01:02:33.006)
Steve, we've met some cool people, but none of them are quite as cool as Carissa. Well, and you, you might be, but the rest of the world looks up to Carissa. So there you go. Chris, is there any I'm. Yeah. Well, for what it's worth, Chris, there are very few people in the professional space that I'd rather partner with on anything than you.

Steve-o (01:02:37.026)
That's right. Nope. Nope.

Steve-o (01:02:44.396)
Now got her blessing again. There you go.

Karisa Stahle (01:02:44.515)
Thank you. It's fun. It's always fun to be on the show. I know. I know. I don't do well with compliments, so.

Steve-o (01:02:51.009)
Hahaha.

Tony Benjamin (01:03:02.322)
Matter of fact, maybe no one more than you for sure. And I would and I just you're fantastic. My time knowing you has been incredible. You and I together have accomplished some amazing creative things. And those are things that stick out in my head. And and it's wonderful. I'm just grateful you'll be on the podcast with us every once while and and bring a little light into Steve's shadow for me to to me to see and be able to move around a little bit. So.

Karisa Stahle (01:03:05.073)
Thank you.

Steve-o (01:03:14.733)
Absolutely.

Karisa Stahle (01:03:30.217)
Steve-o (01:03:30.53)
There he goes again. That old rusty boot.

Tony Benjamin (01:03:31.954)
That's right. That's Anyways, okay. Before I compliment Chris anymore, make her turn any redder. I'm going to come out with this. Pucks for autism proves that when communities rally families win their hockey tournaments raise local funds that support autism programming inclusion and connection for kids and adults everywhere. Join the team that plays with purpose visit pucks for autism.com.

That's pucks for autism.com and get involved today. Shout out to Claire and all the great work that she's doing there. And hopefully they'll be in Utah. Yeah. Yeah. And if you want to put Yes, yes. From six mile all the way from six mile there. Right where she lives right next eight mile. But anyways,

Steve-o (01:04:10.306)
And I heard she recently talked with Utah Mammoth. And so maybe we'll see that here in Utah. That would be really cool to see that get spread like that. She's a huge hockey fan. So it's fun.

That's right. That's right.

Karisa Stahle (01:04:27.483)
Thank

Tony Benjamin (01:04:28.754)
Again, Chris, thank you for being here with us. We're super grateful. And I've learned a lot. And I know the next... I was, I was.

Steve-o (01:04:35.938)
He was getting choked up there. Did you hear that, Chris?

Karisa Stahle (01:04:37.955)
I know, I know. I did see that.

Tony Benjamin (01:04:41.706)
And the next time I do an I9 audit, might hire you as a consultant for my consultancy. There you go. anyways, Chris, you've been awesome. Thank you very much. We'll have you on again soon. And everybody else, we're going to exit the same way that we came in. Thank you for listening to today's podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a five star review on your favorite podcast app. Comments or questions for us?

Steve-o (01:04:49.71)
There you go.

Karisa Stahle (01:04:53.041)
Here you go.

Tony Benjamin (01:05:09.688)
email the podcast at the HR life podcast at gmail.com. And we'll talk again soon.