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Brian Escobar and Walter William Duncan III are the hosts of It’s About Payroll. Collectively, they have over 4 decades of experience in the payroll industry.
This podcast was created with the intent to share their knowledge and attracting new talent to the payroll industry.
You can access their LinkedIn profiles.
Think pay transparency is really good, but I also think it requires you to do some work. It doesn't require you to pick two numbers and say, here they are.
Brian:Welcome to our podcast, It's About Payroll. We're your hosts, Brian Escobar and Walter William Duncan the third. Whether you're new to the payroll game or a seasoned veteran, we have something for you. Welcome back, folks. This is episode 105.
Brian:It's about payroll. We have a guest today. We're privileged to host a distinguished expert in human capital management renowned for his prowess in labor relations, organizational development, human resource best practices with the wealth of experience in leading multiple departments. Our guest excels in collective bargaining, change management, and continuous feedback systems. His specialty includes supervisory training, risk management, HRIS implementation, showcasing a comprehensive skill set of crucial navigating the complexities of modern HR.
Brian:Join us today as we delve into their insights and strategies, shorter inspire, and inform our audience of the nuances of effective human resource management. Welcome, Jeffrey. How do you do today, sir?
Jeff:Very good. Thank you for having me, guys.
Brian:Yeah. Absolutely.
Walter:We're excited to have you on.
Brian:How do you pronounce your last name, sir? Jeffrey Naftel?
Jeff:Naftel. Yep.
Brian:Naftel? Yep. Naftel? I hate mispronouncing names. So when I'm off, I like for the guests to make sure we hit it right.
Jeff:You can do Jeff too.
Brian:Jeff is good. Yep. Walt, how are you doing today, sir?
Walter:I'm excited. I'm great. I'm in a I'm in this stage of gratitude, not only just for Jeff, just for us being here in this moment and just really excited to have the opportunity to connect with Jeff and learn from him and just to pick his brain and to just absorb his knowledge that he's gonna share with us today. How about you?
Brian:Agreed. The same here. Like I said, we were just talking about food, and I guess Saint Patty's Day. Happy Saint Patty's Day to everybody. This will post next Sunday, but, hey.
Brian:We're recording on Saint Patty's Day, and I got my corned beef brisket in the slow cooker. And I'm starting to smell it now, and it's now I'm hungry. But before that yeah. Jeffrey, tell us how have tell us a little about your what attracted you to HR? How'd you get into HR?
Jeff:Backwards. So I started
Brian:Oh, really?
Jeff:Yeah. So I started out many years ago doing banking. And when banking changed and became more of a sales kind of job, I left and went to work for Yeah. Florida, big county, and got into their personnel management department, and it just went from there. I had a supervisor there that said you're wasting yourself.
Jeff:Go get your masters. So I did that. And then I stayed in local government management, but I kept winding up in places that needed HR help. So I kept doing HR as my side thing with those local governments, and eventually decided that it was much more fun to do HR than to deal with 5 or 7 council members who could have all kinds of different things that they wanted all at the same time. So I jumped out of that and into basically in the nonprofits and HR work, and that's where I am now.
Jeff:And I love HR. It's as you can tell, I'm a generalist. I've done a little bit of everything, and HR is my thing.
Brian:Awesome. I feel like a good HR person has to do a little bit of everything. Right? So it's can really get the full scope of things. I'm in myself in that same boat where I came up in payroll, always reported to HR, absorbed.
Brian:And then now in the last 5 to 10 years, I've been really been able to expand in HR. So I get it. I get it. Wow. That's awesome.
Brian:What you gave us some of many things to talk about today. And so the first one is unique benefits that can differentiate an employer. Can you elaborate on that?
Jeff:Sure. You'd be hard pressed to find an employer right now that doesn't give health benefits. Right? Health and vision Mhmm. You know?
Brian:Oh, gosh. Yes. And tension is the name of the game.
Jeff:FSAs, flexible spending accounts are pretty common, and there's lots of relatively common benefits. Even commuter benefits are common for people that are being
Brian:used to
Jeff:go back in the office. But there are lots of cool things out there that you can do as an employer to set yourself apart, especially if you want to spend a little to get a lot of ROI on that. And so I
Brian:Yes.
Jeff:There's some things that I've done. So there's some things that I've done myself, and there's some things that I've wanted to do and just haven't had the opportunity to do that I think are really cool and really beneficial in today's environment. And so figured chat up a little bit about some of those. I thought that might make some sense.
Brian:Absolutely.
Walter:So let me ask you a question, Jeff. Sure. Do do you in your experience, have you seen definite impact on the the or difference between the employers that do offer those, benefits and more versus the ones that don't? Like, how and how it impacts employee morale and or engagement at all?
Jeff:I have. And but the thing is, you can match pay. Right? But pay only goes so far. And especially nowadays, if you're trying to get people to come back in your office, if you're trying to distinguish yourself from your peers that are offering the same salaries, you have to have a way of doing that.
Jeff:And so you could do it by saying, well, we're gonna pay 90% of your health insurance instead of 70%. That's one way of doing it. But it's not really making it makes a dollar difference, but it doesn't make a personality difference, an engagement difference. Whereas some of the things that I have in in my head are things that are only really make an engagement difference for people that really set yourself apart.
Brian:Examples, please. Excuse me, bro. Man, I'm sorry, man.
Walter:You okay?
Brian:Nah. I'm feeling a little sick, which reminds me. Crap, man. I need to put in my my sick time.
Walter:Oh, what system do you use?
Brian:Oh, Time Track Go. The simply better employee time clock software that is going to make your life easier. I don't know if you know, man, but it already has a unique graphical employee time card, and it's awesome because it helps you quickly identify and fix the mistakes.
Walter:That's right. Now did you say that? They just announced the addition of a automatic PTO accrual earnings. So you can say goodbye to those manual calculations. Time Track Go's new automatic PTO accrual feature takes the hassle out of tracking those earned and accrued times, assuring accuracy and consistency for both employees and HR teams.
Brian:Oh, that's golden. That's awesome. You know what? That's right. I remember that.
Brian:I read that you can choose from various rules, like yearly, monthly, pay period, hourly, and hourly percentage to seamlessly align with your company's policies. It includes new state sick leave. Awesome. Because I'm not feeling good. That's gonna help.
Brian:And you can do vacation hours that automatically increase with length of service.
Walter:Man, like, how could someone find out what a simply better solution could do for their business?
Brian:Oh, to learn more, they're always doing a 14 day free trial. Someone should go to their website at www time track go dot com. That's timeetrakgo.com. Or if they wanna call, the number is 888-321-9922.
Walter:Let's go. Let's go.
Jeff:So the first one is one of my favorites, and it's called Ezra, and it's a online coaching platform. Run through it. They're an arm of LHH lead Lee Hat Harrison, but they provide an online coaching model so that coaching is really important. Right? And everybody can use a good coach, but coaches are not cheap.
Jeff:And you're paying usually for an individual one on one coach. You're paying 1,000 of dollars a year for that particular one on one coach, and that's what you get is for that one person, one coach. What Ezra brings to the table is it's all online through an app. You get a choice of coaches. You get to tie it to your competencies that are in your job descriptions.
Jeff:You get to say, you have 6 months with this coach during this year, and you get it for the organization gets it for a flat fee. And so you pay x amount of dollars for the year. We, at My Last Stop, we did it for all of our people managers. So 48 people got an individual coach for 6 months.
Brian:Oh, wow.
Walter:And
Jeff:it was really well received. So it's really well received because each individual can get whatever coaching needs they need. So some people, maybe it's how to manage a team, and some people, maybe it's how to how to do feedback. And some people, maybe it's just their own individual growth and how they grow. Everybody had their own coach.
Jeff:Everybody could get whatever coaching they needed in whatever fashion that took. Just an awesome way to different differentiate yourself from your competition by providing something like that.
Walter:Wow. That's amazing.
Brian:Yeah. So do you know if they offer it direct? Does it have to go through the employer?
Jeff:Ezra does, I believe. Yes. Because it's offered as a benefit package. And so you could in theory, if you wanted to, you could charge the employee for it, but then you could defeat the purpose of offering.
Brian:Yeah. It defeats the purpose.
Jeff:Right.
Brian:See, what what we talk about on the show is investing in yourself. So I'm I'm like, well, wait a minute. If my company can't give me this, how do I get it myself? Because I think that's an amazing tool. If they can make it affordable right now, it opens up the and I've seen I've been seeing this more really cool benefits, but they're only going through the employer.
Brian:And then that kinda leaves it on the employer to get out to the employees, and not all of them wanna spend the money because this the economy and everything we're at. So it's like a catch 22, and it's a little frustrating because I love the product, but it's, gosh, well, how do I do this for myself?
Jeff:Right. But that's the thing with ROI. Right? Your return on your investment. If I provide that in x amount, let's say it's, let's say for the sake of argument, it's 25,000 for a year, right, just for picking a round number.
Jeff:If I'm getting if I'm keeping 3 employees who might have left me otherwise, I've more than saved that money back by providing them. Absolutely. So turning around and being able as an HR person to justify And likewise, with the other things that are in my head. So another one. So people use LinkedIn Learning.
Jeff:Right? Everybody uses LinkedIn Learning if you have a premium account.
Walter:Sure.
Jeff:If you don't have a premium account, meaning you're not paying whatever it is, 40 something, $50 a month, then you don't have access to LinkedIn Learning. But if you've got a learning management system, LinkedIn will tie to your learning management system, and then your employees get access to all of LinkedIn Learning's learning. Like, all 10 points. Wow. So in in my case, we had a cornerstone platform.
Jeff:We tied LinkedIn Learning to it. By being an employee of ours and having access to our learning management system, they had access to LinkedIn Learning. It's an extra benefit.
Brian:Wow.
Jeff:Wow. Right? And it saves them $50 a month. Right? So it saves them, what, the math, $600 a year.
Jeff:Right? My health. It's a cool thing. They've got tons of learning. They got bite sized learning.
Jeff:They got large learning, hours long learning.
Brian:Oh, I talk about LinkedIn Learning all the time. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Good.
Brian:And that's a it's, again, a really cheap way to invest in yourself.
Jeff:Correct. And so that's what it does. Right? For us is it not only provides us with having learning we can push out to employees, but it has learning that they can do if they wanna self develop. So it it has that double whammy that you get for doing that.
Jeff:Yes. Yes. Another one that's actually another getting more common is student loan support. It's actually financial support targeted to people with student loans. And so you got it you got it 2 ways.
Jeff:Right? So you there are companies out there that will do 2 things. So one is they'll set it up where the employer puts in they contribute to a pension. They contribute to your student loan payments. The other way is that they all they do is they provide financial support to people with student loans.
Jeff:So if you've got a large student loan, they provide support in how to maybe get it paid off, how to maybe get it to a different provider to get a cheaper interest rate. So they provide that level of support rather than having the employer have to contribute into it. So there's multiple ways of doing the student loan support that provide that differentiator for the organization. And then Amazing. The last one I want is one I've suggested a couple times in places I've been and never actually gotten anybody to buy into it, but I think it's a really cool idea.
Jeff:And that's offering especially now, that's offering in office childcare. So when you're trying to get people back into the office and you're saying to them, well, I don't care whether you've got kids, and I don't care whether you need child care, and I don't care about all that. I want you in the office. Maybe pony up a little bit, put in office childcare. And then now there's no real excuse for not being in the office because your kids are there already.
Jeff:So
Brian:Yeah. You know,
Jeff:it is
Brian:That's a big liability, though. Right? That's probably why.
Jeff:Well, so the real trick is you've gotta hire some people. Right? Because you've gotta hire cloud care people, and they've gotta be certified. But Yeah. If you're open for that, whatever that cost is, if you really desperately want your people back in the office for whatever reason that might be.
Brian:Easy win. Yeah. Yep. So Easy win. Wow.
Jeff:So those are the 4 cool things that I've that I love it. Jeremiah, like I said, I've a couple of them I've done myself. Couple of them are things that I really would like to do.
Brian:Wow. That's amazing. Those are really good nuggets. Yep.
Walter:Yeah. Especially the childcare piece because childcare is so expensive, and it has just increased
Jeff:Mhmm.
Walter:The years so dramatically that it's for some people, it's a mortgage payment or even more than their mortgage payment Oh, yeah.
Brian:Oh, heck yeah. Especially if they have
Walter:more than one child.
Jeff:Yes. You bring it into your office, and then the expense is really the staff that you need. You need to have x number of staff for x number of kids. So if you've got 30 kids, you probably need 4 staff people to manage that. Yep.
Jeff:Then you gotta pay for it.
Brian:Yep. Depending on the state, that world where for childcare. So there's ratio requirements depending on the state. Mhmm.
Jeff:But
Brian:and I I started to think about, oh, well, why don't you just give them the money? But it it it's because not all if some folks don't wanna do childcare day cares because they don't trust them because all the horror stories that we hear. So I like I really like that one.
Jeff:So what we did, because we weren't doing an office job care, is we set up an LSA, a lifestyle spending account. And what that is, it's similar to an FSA, except that it is taxable, and it's reimbursement only. And so what we did is we said, basically, if it wasn't a health care expense, so you could use it and get reimbursed. We put $500 in for every employee, and they could do it for summer camps for their kids, child care, office furniture, whatever they wanted to get their $500 used for. And so that was an alternative to spending the bucks that are needed to maybe do childcare in the office.
Jeff:But if you wanted to use it for childcare, there is $500 you can offset during the year.
Walter:So I love it. That's amazing.
Jeff:I love
Walter:it. Yeah. Well, okay.
Brian:Yep. Those are good ones. Those are really good. I like I like that a lot. Yep.
Brian:Financial wellness is also is get becoming a bigger conversation Yep. Shoot. We had a HR professional on a few weeks back that he was saying that he's starting to see where and I don't know if I agree with it a 100%, but HR is even helping employees with their personal problems, trying to help them solve personal challenges, because right?
Jeff:Good HR people do that. Good HR people do that.
Brian:There you go. Yep. Look at that. Look at that. It it right?
Brian:Because if they can't come to work, then what's you might as well try to help them through it.
Jeff:Yep.
Brian:I get it. I get it. It's but it's but, Jeff, is it not a slippery slope? Like, how you you responded very quickly, so you have an opinion on it. No?
Jeff:I do. I think that so I'm very much into the human side of human resources, and I really believe in doing the best that I can for the employees. And if that means so an employee that's leaving me and they're worried about taking COBRA because COBRA costs an arm and a leg, I will say, go visit the ACA and take a look at what's available there in the marketplace. Because almost certainly, you can find an equivalent or close plan Yeah. Probably a lot less money than you pay to keep your insurance with us under COBRA.
Brian:Keep your COBRA.
Jeff:So those kinds of things, I don't see any harm in doing that. And if I can help somebody, I'm gonna help them. And I had in in in one of my past roles, I had a a lifeguard, and she was her visa was expiring. She was a good lifeguard. I wanted to keep her.
Jeff:So I found her an immigration attorney to work with. Do I do I need to do that? No. I don't have to. But Yeah.
Jeff:It's the great thing to do. I want her to stay.
Walter:Wow. That's that's amazing. See? Yep. That is amazing.
Walter:I I like that you said that you're that you lean more to the human side of it. And Brian and I have had horror stories working for some HR teams that just did not care at all for the people. And it was just, hey. Buy the book. And I understand you have to follow things, and I I get all that.
Walter:But it's just they didn't take into account people's mental wellness, their the burnout that they felt, the pressures that they felt to excel and achieve on the job. And I'm just so pleased to hear that you spoke to that, Jeff.
Jeff:And that being said though, of course, you do reach points with some people where you gotta follow the book and do what you gotta do. Yeah. Not every situation allows you to be really flexible and cut some points. So sometimes you
Brian:gotta do what
Jeff:you gotta do, but I've had a few
Brian:because because we do have to balance it out. Right? You do you're you have to look at the company's best interest as well.
Jeff:The morale of other employees, if they see one person getting away with stuff and they can't, those kinds of things can dig into your engagement. So
Brian:Yep. We were just talking about employee engagement. The so the other show we do is is this one called It's About Your Paycheck, where we focus on what the the employee experience. Mhmm. We were just talking about employee engagement and what that looks like from the employee side and how that impacts.
Brian:Yeah. That's and and so perfect segue here. Right? You also have here skill based hiring versus education experience hiring. Oh, and that's a good one because we were just talking about that, how Google the last thing I remember was, like, a I saw an article that Google had hired a developer with no college, no degree.
Brian:So can you expand on that, what you mean by this?
Jeff:Yes. In the past and for decades, right, you looked at somebody's resume and you said, okay. They went to school at Princeton versus they went to school at Pudong State. Right? And they went they worked at worked at Google or IBM versus working at mom and pop store.
Jeff:And you said, okay. These are the people I wanna hire because look at where they worked and look at where their education's from. And that ignored what was on their resume underneath those titles, which is what skills that they acquire at those places. If you change that focus around and you change the focus to what are the skills that we need for the role and what skills do they show on their resume that they gained at that work experience, at that education experience, then you actually are getting a better fit for your role. But you've gotta change your mindset.
Jeff:Right? And so one of the things that required is that you get an up to date job analysis to make sure you have all the essential skills for each role. Because if you don't know what the essential skills of the role are, how do you know what to look for when you're looking? And then this is particularly beneficial for those with a military background. Because when you work in the military, oftentimes you have really good skills that really fit roles, but you can't articulate it real well because lieutenant first class doesn't tell you anything about what you did or how you do it or and being able to show on your resume the skills you have, and then having an employer be able to match those skills with their role and say, yeah, that's a good fit.
Jeff:And I don't really care that this title didn't have anything to do with the role. Right? That's the ideal. It's something that's being pushed all over the place, not just with the big companies. SHRM is also a proponent of that, skills hiring versus any what from SHRM's perspective, that is another, positive, which is second chance people, second chance employees.
Jeff:They have skills that they may have acquired, and those skills may not show in the way of job titles, especially if maybe they serve time in jail. And then they're coming out of there with a skill, but that skill isn't recognizable from a job title. The prisoner 105 doesn't give you a job title. Right? But you come out, you still got a skill.
Jeff:If I can match that skill to a role, I can get you a job. So, you know, there's a lot of value to not focusing so much on where you went to school and where you've worked, you know, the places you've the titles of the places you've worked, not the necessarily the place. Right? I'm in nonprofits. And if I see somebody that's worked in a nonprofit, that's good.
Jeff:It doesn't necessarily mean that I need a top of the line nonprofit or a 1,000 employee nonprofit. I'm a 50 employee nonprofit with no name that I've ever heard of might be good too, depending on what skills that cost. Right? So That's right.
Walter:Yeah. Wow. It's amazing. Okay. So one one one of the things that we say, and I wonder how you feel about this statement, Jeff, that you I don't know if it ties in to this topic, but if you can hire for attitude and you can teach the skill.
Jeff:This is true.
Walter:So that's alright. So you agree with that statement. Okay.
Jeff:But, again, if you've done so I'm hiring for attitude. Right? I want the person that wants to work for me. I want the person that gets gung ho about coming to work with my role and my organization. That being said, though, if I can look and see that they've got the skill set because of the other places they've worked, then I know that they've got the attitude and the skills, and they don't have to do any training as opposed to that second person that has the attitude but doesn't have the skills, which is as opposed to the 3rd person that doesn't have the attitude or the skills.
Jeff:Get that out of the way.
Brian:It it yeah. It's relative to what you're ready to do because training is tough. And if you don't if you're not ready to train them or at the time or the resource to train them, then you need both. Right?
Jeff:Training is resources. Training is time. And so if I've got a role that needs to be filled, and I have to bring somebody in and train them in those skills, yes, I can do that. But I'm losing a month, 2 months, 6 months trying to get them up to speed. Whereas if I can bring somebody in that has the skills and the attitude, I mean, I've got somebody who can jump in with it.
Jeff:Ground running. That's right. Yeah. I like to think I'm that kind of person when I get to a role. Then I come in, and I I know what I'm doing, and I just need to get in there and do it.
Brian:Heck yeah. Heck yeah. Likewise. And it's funny you bring up the the military. Walter actually did payroll in the military, chose that job, and came out, hit the ground running, already had payroll experience.
Brian:Like, we hear his origin story. He he just had to adjust to the civilian piece of it. Right? Well Yes. Exactly.
Jeff:But your title when you came out of the military wasn't probably payroll, was it?
Walter:No. It it was a dispersing clerk, and that doesn't
Jeff:But that's the point. Right? You had the skills, and somebody was smart enough to see you had the skills and put you to work using those skills as opposed to saying Yes. Oh god. He's a he's in a disbursement clerk, and I don't have a job for a disbursement clerk.
Brian:I don't know what that yeah. Exactly.
Jeff:So Yeah. Yeah. You got lucky because you got somebody that actually saw the skill set. So that's a good thing. That is a good thing.
Brian:Yes. Wow. Before we move into your last I'm really compelled to ask you this. What oh, I get what's what stands out the most to you in your career at this point as far as HR? Is this just one thing that, like, wow, I wish or anything at all?
Jeff:I say all the time right now that I wanna be in a place where they value what I bring to the table. Right? Where they value what HR brings to the table. And that's because too many times, people above think they know HR better than the HR people know HR.
Brian:Yeah.
Jeff:And I I like to say I don't go in and tell marketing how to market. And I don't tell IT how to do IT because that's their role. That's their specialty. So why tell HR how to do HR? That's what our role is.
Jeff:That's our specialty. So it's it's gotten better. You always hear now about HR having a seat at the table, and it has gotten better. Mhmm. And when I first started out, HR was the yes, no people.
Jeff:Right? We'll tell you, yes, you can do this, and, no, you can't do that. And that's really all we want from HR. It's gotten significantly better, way better. But still, you run into situations where the people above think that they know HR better than you.
Jeff:So your job then is to tell them, look. I'm giving you my professional opinion. You shouldn't probably do this. If you choose to do it, that your you consequences are yours. At
Brian:your risk. Yeah. That's right. Proceed at your own. Now let me ask you this.
Brian:Do you what do you think about HR being rebranded as people operations? Do you agree or Sure. Ali, you're smiling. You haven't thought about this. I know you
Jeff:I'm old school. But and you know what? I I is there a big difference between people and humans? I don't think so.
Walter:No. Right?
Jeff:It's a it's a way of getting out of the HR moniker, I think, which is got some negative connotations for some people. But, I think the the idea was that human resources treats people like a commodity resources.
Brian:Right.
Jeff:And people operations is about how we're operating with people. So I'm okay with that as a concept. But what but my thing is HR is HR is HR. Right? Doesn't matter what you're doing.
Brian:Yeah.
Jeff:Doesn't matter where you're doing it. Doesn't matter no matter how old you are doing it, HR is HR. So if you wanna call it people operations, if you wanna call it talent and culture, if you wanna call it whatever you wanna call it, it's cool. I I like what I do. HR is HR.
Jeff:So it's fine.
Brian:You can right. I've been called worse. That's what I tell people. I've been called worse.
Jeff:And I have. Yes. Exactly. Uh-huh. I've dealt with experiences on my career.
Jeff:So, yeah, I've definitely been called worse.
Walter:Oh. So Yeah. Oh,
Brian:gosh. Tell tell oh my gosh. The union experience. Yes.
Jeff:You wanna so I don't know do you wanna do you wanna hear a funny union story? Just to Please.
Walter:Yes, please.
Jeff:So we had one of the cities I worked at, we had a police union and a fire union. And the fire union and the police union were negotiating a contract. And they felt like the mayor of the city was the one that was holding up their contract. So they decided to fly a plane with a banner over the city, denouncing the mayor daily for a while.
Brian:Oh my god.
Jeff:Okay. So they got their message across, right, because the public was saying that. But the mayor really is one person. It's the council is the one that makes the call. It's not one person that makes that call.
Jeff:Oh my god. That is just entertaining. That's a lot.
Brian:That's crazy. So it sounds like you've you've lived in the north and the south. Is that right?
Jeff:That's correct. Started out in started out working in Florida, and I've worked my way back around north. I've been in South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Maryland, d and now DC.
Brian:Only East Coast? Have you been to the West Coast at all?
Jeff:Not working.
Brian:Not working? Okay.
Jeff:Fun one a couple times, but not working. So
Brian:Sure. Sure. So do do you have a preference? Any drastic differences in in in work mat the HR experience as it as as it relates to North or South?
Jeff:I think the differences that I saw were related to local government and the fact that in the south, local government is not looked at as a profession anymore. So there's a lot of councils there that wanna, like, a business, which is not what government is. They're not for profit. They're to provide services to the public. We're using taxpayer movement.
Brian:Right.
Jeff:Yeah. So that's where I see a big difference between local governments in the south versus local governments up north. From a from an HR perspective again, HR is HR is HR. We do what we do. So
Brian:No doubt. Got it. Nice.
Walter:Alright.
Brian:So now So Go ahead. Yeah. No. Go ahead. No.
Brian:Go ahead.
Walter:No. So I was just gonna ask them the the last question. Well, we have 2 more questions, But the well, the topic that you brought up, SHRM's emphasis on inclusion versus diversity and equity.
Jeff:Mhmm. Could
Walter:you speak more to that?
Jeff:Yeah. So I think many, if not maybe most organizations, are really focused on bringing in diverse staff, and they're having success at that. And so you don't see a lot of organizations that are very one-sided in their diversity. There are some still. But I think from a success standpoint, diversity has been very successful.
Jeff:We've been able to go out and reach out to people that we wanna bring in that are of diverse nature, culture, backgrounds, whatever, and been very successful at that. And from an equity standpoint, the whole idea of paid transparency that's out there right now where states are passing laws, cities are passing laws, making it easier, closing the wage gap between people of diverse cultures versus white males. Those kinds of things are happening. So from the standpoint of what's really needed is, it's okay to bring in a diverse group of people. But if they don't feel like they're part of the team, part of that together package, then you're not including them.
Jeff:They don't feel included. And you may think you're including them, but they don't feel that way. And if they don't feel that way, then either they're not gonna stay, or they're gonna be disengaged, or they're gonna actually be negative impact on the organization. It could be any of those.
Walter:That's true.
Jeff:From my perspective, insurance perspective, inclusion's, like, critical at this point. It's not enough just to bring in a diverse group of employees, but you've gotta make them all feel like they're part of the same team, that they're all that they're all valued, that they all have the same expectations and responsibilities, and and will all get the same level of respect that everybody else gets. And so I think that's really important in this day and age, especially. Agreed.
Brian:Agreed. Yeah. You brought up paid transparency, and that that's a hot topic for me while laughing already. Because having that payroll slant on things, we're always like, no. Don't talk about don't compare checks.
Brian:Don't compare checks. Where I've settled on it is pay transparency is about the gross amount, not the net amount. Because that can vast wildly be Depending
Jeff:on you can make the same money. Got it and depending on how much you're putting in your pension and all that kind of stuff. Yep. Yep.
Brian:Wildly different. So you can't compare the net, folks. You gotta compare the gross. That is what pay transimariances. I I have to keep
Jeff:The the funniest thing about pay transparency right now is the initial reaction that we're getting is, so we post the bottom and the top of the range that we're willing to pay for the position. And invariably now, applicants, when you ask them what they want the top of the range Of course. Whether that's how your system works or not, whether that was everything intense. And now you've gotta be really wordy about it. Right?
Jeff:So we'll pay you within this range based on your experience
Brian:and blah
Jeff:blah blah blah blah in order A
Brian:lot of qualifiers.
Jeff:And so it's not just Yeah. Okay. Here's my top and bottom of the range. Now I gotta have a whole essay on what I why I have the top and bottom of the range and how you get there. So
Brian:Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Well, yeah, that's true. That's true.
Walter:So let me ask you about that pay paid transparency. Do you feel like it's well, I think you did say that it's helped. Right?
Jeff:I think it's helped. But, like, as I think it's healthy.
Walter:Okay. Yeah. Okay. Alright.
Jeff:So this goes back to maybe to the equity part of things. If you're bringing in so at my last stop, what we were doing is we did we said that we expected you to be at the midpoint of the range by 7 years of service. And so if you came into the organization and had what would be equivalent to 7 years of on point direct experience for that role, we'd pay you at the midpoint. So everybody was coming in equitably. Right?
Jeff:Everybody was getting based on their years of experience to a certain point in that range, and that's where we brought you in. And the cap was the midpoint of the range so that there was still room to grow when you got in. But not everybody has setups like that. Right? And if you don't have a setup like that, and you just have a range, you say our range is x to y, and you gotta have a way of distinguishing why somebody's at x and somebody's at y and somebody's in the middle at x plus.
Jeff:Right? And so it I think pay transparency is really good, but I also think it requires you to do some work. Doesn't require you to pick two numbers and say, here they are.
Walter:Right. Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay.
Walter:Interesting. Man, this has been a a fantastic talk with you. I've learned so much. You've dropped so much knowledge and so many nuggets. But before we conclude and ask you our final question, we have a segment that we call this or that.
Walter:It's a game that we play with each of our guests. And so we're gonna go ahead and play that with you right now.
Jeff:Mhmm.
Walter:Brian, do you wanna go first and I do the last 4? Sure. Okay.
Brian:Alright. And you can it's either or, both, or neither.
Jeff:Okay. Yes.
Brian:And and why if it comes to mind.
Jeff:Okay.
Brian:Alright. So first one is pit beef or kadi?
Jeff:What is kadi? What's missing
Brian:as fish
Jeff:shake? Okay. Pit beef for sure. I'm a meat guy. I'm a meat guy.
Jeff:I'm a meat guy. My wife will tell you that.
Brian:Got it. Oh, okay. Got it. Coffee or tea?
Jeff:If I have to tea, but I do mainly water.
Walter:Okay. Okay.
Brian:There you go. An an ebook or a real book?
Jeff:Oh, real book. Oh, I must have the paper in my hands. Definitely. No. Yeah.
Jeff:Okay.
Brian:I'll yeah. I'm stuck on real books too. Alright. Netflix or Hulu?
Jeff:Netflix. I don't have Hulu, but I really like Netflix a lot. I've we've had Netflix probably since the beginning. So Netflix.
Brian:Yeah. I had Netflix since it was only discs.
Jeff:Oh, so
Walter:we When they were
Jeff:We got it after these back. Yeah. We got it after that when we're actually streaming. But, yeah, it was we've had it for a while.
Walter:Nice. Alright. Well, go ahead and finish it then. Alright. Do you prefer Gmail
Jeff:or Outlook? Gmail.
Walter:Gmail. Okay.
Jeff:More streamlined, easier to use, graphically more pleasing to me.
Walter:Okay. Yeah. Target or Walmart? Target. Okay.
Walter:Alright. Country music or rock?
Jeff:Rock.
Walter:Or neither?
Jeff:Rock.
Walter:Rock. Okay.
Jeff:Definitely. Okay. Eighties hair metal is good.
Walter:Nice. Okay. Alright. And then the last one, Excel or Google Sheets?
Jeff:Excel. I'm a traditionalist.
Walter:Excel. Okay.
Jeff:And it's got way more features. See. And it's got way more features.
Brian:I'm I'm the same way. So and it's interesting because you pick Gmail over Outlook, but Excel over Google Sheets. Mhmm. And I'm the I tend to be the same way with Excel. Google is cool tool, but you just can't do everything that you need to do.
Brian:It's in Yep. Yeah. Anyway, I I could talk on that is Walt. It's me all the time because he's really good in Google Sheets, and I'm just like, I can't keep up.
Jeff:I can do it, but I just as soon have my Excel work spreadsheet out there.
Brian:Yes. Yep. Alright. So now last question, what we always ask folks as well to close the show is, what advice would you give to an HR pro who is not sure about their next step in their career?
Jeff:Get certified. SHRM certified. I, teach the SHRM certification class, and I'm a big proponent of Oh. The value of it. And I believe that what that does is twofold.
Jeff:It shows that you know what you know about all kinds of different areas of HR. But in addition, because you gotta get recertified every 3 years with credits, continuing credits, it shows that you're current on what you need. You're current on what you know. And if I go into an apply for a job and I've got a SHRM certification, that goes a long way towards showing that I know what I'm talking about.
Brian:Amen. Alright. And there's 2 of them. Right, Jeff?
Jeff:CPN and SCP. So senior certified professionals, what I am, and then a certified professional is the lower level. In the lower level is the focus is really on kind of day to day activities. And the SCP, the focus is more on strategy and being a big picture thinker for HR. So
Brian:Okay. Okay. Nice. I love it. And I knew you taught.
Brian:There was something about I knew it. I knew it. I said that he's got a book or he teaches something. Yeah. I love it.
Brian:I love it.
Walter:Do you have a book yet?
Brian:Yeah. You should write one.
Jeff:Who's who's got the time for that? I don't know.
Brian:We gotta get you a ghost rider so you can just talk and somebody else could write it.
Jeff:There you go. There you go.
Brian:Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I bet. That would be awesome.
Brian:Well, I we can't thank you enough for joining us today. What a wealth of knowledge that you have for us. If folks, if you're interested, he's on LinkedIn, Jeffrey Neufteld. And and his book is coming out soon. I'm just kidding.
Brian:I'm always pushing people to to write a book. I love reading, and I love learning. And I think you have a wealth of knowledge to share with the HR folks out here, and maybe we can talk you into coming back on the show at some point and Love to do that. Keep sharing.
Jeff:Enjoy the conversation a lot.
Brian:Awesome. Great. See, we're not we'll have to hold you to it. Well, look, Walt, do you wanna keep them on for safe talk?
Walter:Yeah. Yeah. Let's keep them on.
Brian:We do, we end the show with a segment called safe talk where just free form, we throw a question out there, and we meanwhile usually just banter back and forth with it, but we'd love to have you a part of it. We've been playing with the idea of having the guest on as well. We don't wanna make few people feel uncomfortable or whatever. This one's, I think, is a softball. Question is, should you go to HR first or your direct supervisor for a comp to report a complaint.
Brian:What do you think, sir?
Jeff:You wanna be first?
Brian:You're the guest of honor. Yeah. Absolutely.
Jeff:So the answer is, unless it's the supervisor that's causing the problem, you go to the supervisor first. You at least allow them the opportunity to address the issue. If they choose not to, or unable to, or don't want to, then you definitely gotta go to HR. Now I would expect the supervisor to come to HR though if they get something like that in order to make sure HR is in the loop. But I would say go to the supervisor first unless the supervisor causes the problem.
Brian:What if the so you bring up something interesting, though. What if the supervisor didn't wanna address it? Do you now then warn them, hey. I'm gonna go to HR if you can't help me?
Jeff:I think that should be an obvious no brainer for them. I would say the employee should just go to HR. I don't think they have to tell them anything. If you're if you go to your supervisor and your supervisor says, I can't help you, you go to HR who can help you.
Brian:They should know.
Jeff:Yeah. And the and the supervisor should expect that's gonna happen. And if the supervisor doesn't, then the supervisor has got a problem. So
Walter:Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. No. I totally agree with what Jeff said.
Walter:And because the employee shouldn't have any fear about any retaliatory actions from the supervisor, especially if it did not help, if they neglected to help them
Jeff:Mhmm.
Walter:Resolve the issue. What What do you think? I see you have a thought, Brian. What's up?
Brian:Well, no. I just it it just makes me think of all the friends and family that I have talked to over the years that are scared to go to to their company period, like to bring it up to anyone at the company. And I just wonder I just thought about that. It just made me think about that. Like, folks who are just scared to bring it up.
Brian:Oh, I need this job. I'd I've literally had folks. We talk about something, and I'm like, hey. You should go bring that and go to your supervisor. I also agree that the right escalation procedure is to go to your supervisor first and then escalate from there.
Brian:But they folks would be like, no. I don't wanna do it. I need this job too much. I don't wanna shake
Jeff:that. Something about the organization, though. Right? If your if your people are scared to go to their supervisor to discuss an issue that requires discussion, that says something about the organization and the culture that organization has put in place. And from an HR perspective, we at HR should be working to make sure that culture is not what's out there.
Jeff:Right? That there's a culture where you can feel comfortable and safe to go wherever you need to go in order to make sure that the problems are resolved. And so that organization is doing something wrong if that if that if you're in fear of going to somebody like that, at least from my perspective.
Brian:No. I agree. I agree.
Jeff:I agree.
Brian:And yeah. And I and I, again, I just I just had a young person in the workforce just asked me recently the the it was a situation where someone was fired at another organization and then and the the friend of theirs was scared. Oh my gosh. This person, their coworker got fired, and then they became that this person got curious for Why did they get fired? Am I at risk?
Brian:And they're like, Brian, should they go to HR? And I was like, no. You should start with their he should that person should start with their supervisor because it could actually make it could actually make things worse if they go to HR first for them. You wanna be able to have that conversation. Hey, boss.
Brian:Am I okay? This is this opportunity. If I'm not, I need to know so I can perform. I wanna keep this. It's a great opportunity to close a gap where there may be some misunderstanding.
Brian:So yeah. But it but again again, Jeff, we just throw these questions out there to keep converse to raise these conversations and to make people more comfortable about talking about these things.
Jeff:Mhmm.
Brian:Because again, we like and I love what you said. If they're afraid of going to the anybody at your organization that has an organizational problem, we just so the last safe talk question was, who's responsible for employ who's more responsible for employee engagement? And our opinion was it's a it's a balancing act. If the employer should be doing everything they can to get the employee to engage, but it's on the employee to also want to engage. Right?
Brian:Do you feel that it's a two way street? So I'm getting 2 for the price of 1 now. You get how do you feel about that?
Jeff:I think that employees who want to be engaged should share what they need in order to be engaged. And it's why I like stay I like stay interviews because you find out why people are staying and why they're not wanting to stay.
Brian:Oh, stay interviews. Yes.
Jeff:And so that's where I see the role of the employee in that is making sure that that if they're not feeling engaged, that they are sharing why. And so not every organization does an employee engagement survey. Right? Not every organization
Brian:That's right.
Jeff:Talks to people the way they should. So it's up to the employee then to make that known to people to get that out there. And so Yes.
Walter:Matt, see, Brian, we could have had him on the other show too.
Brian:Yeah. Well, shoot. We might
Jeff:You don't wanna even offer him a slice of your shirt.
Brian:Oh, no. Are you kidding me? We love it. We love. Jeff, we we we say this is a cheat code for us because our jobs make us better at this doing this show, and this show makes us better at doing our jobs.
Brian:So it's such a cheat code that and we get to talk to folks like you who are subject matter experts in their field and brings us such a wealth of knowledge and ideas and things. I'm over here taking notes, just so you know. So it's yeah. We love it. We love it.
Brian:Again, we'd love to have you back. We gotta figure out. We'll schedule. We'll keep in touch and kinda work up the next few topics to come back on the show because we really appreciate it. Again, we like what we do, and we're in a place right now where we love what we do, and it's really showing, and it's helping us grow in our careers.
Brian:And then we think that let's not everybody finds that, and we've been doing it's funny because we've been doing the same jobs more or less for 20 plus years now. Me and what? 40 plus years in in the business, But it's not until you I don't know what changed. It's just you hit a you hit some type of place where you're just like, oh, wow. Wait.
Brian:I'm really good at this. And, you know, now you get to I don't know some confidence. I don't know what it is. It's the turning point for me was actually where me and Walt met, and it was it started off really bad. What in the world is going on?
Brian:And then I realized, well, crap. I'm good at this, and I know what I'm doing. And even in the chaos, I can bring some order to this and figure out what to do, and I really hit my stride. That's the phrase I was looking for. Like, I think the rest has been just, history from there.
Brian:But, yeah.
Jeff:I've enjoyed this, guys. So happy to do it again if you want.
Brian:Good. Oh oh, heck yeah. We'll keep in touch. We'll give you back your Sunday, and enjoy Saint Patrick's Day. Thank you so much for joining us today, sir.
Jeff:Thank you.
Brian:Enjoy. Yeah. We'll stay in touch.
Jeff:Very good.
Brian:Looking forward to it.
Jeff:Enjoy the rest
Brian:of your day. Thank you. You too. Care.
Jeff:Bye bye.
Brian:Bye, Jeff.
Walter:Before we sign off, here are a couple of quick things. Don't forget to follow It's About Payroll on LinkedIn, and It's About Your Paycheck on Facebook and TikTok. Thank you for being a part of our payroll community, and thank you for being a part of this journey with us. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and most importantly, keep going.