Human Resources 101
On this episode of Next Level American Dream, Abigail and Sean are joined by Scott Hanis. Scott is the President and CEO of Fortitude HR Solutions with over 15 years of experience. Today, Scott touches on strategies to manage and grow a business, as well as ensuring employees are the correct fit to the company.
Key Topics
Wow do you know when you need to start the hiring/firing process?
How do you get people to care about the job as much as you do?
How do you know if someone is the correct fit for your company?
Connect with Scott Hanis:
-
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, core values, business, Sean, job, hire, tasks, employee, person, find, building, depends, day, expectations, process, typically, job description, company, opportunities, training
SPEAKERS
Sean Thomson, Abigail Thomson, Scott Hanis
Abigail Thomson 00:01
Welcome to the Next Level American Dream Podcast brought to you by Thomson Multifamily Group. Your hosts, Abigail and Sean, will discuss how you can take your American Dream to the next level through real estate investing, business practices, and personal development. Join us as we share our experiences as a father daughter duo who are trying to accomplish our goal of financial freedom. We hope you learn more about how to define and achieve your American Dream. Here's another episode of Next Level American Dream. Welcome to the Next Level American Dream Podcast. We have a wonderful guest for you today, but first, please make sure you have subscribed if you haven't already. We also love getting your feedback through likes, comments, ratings, and reviews. Today, Sean joins our guest Scott Hanis. Scott is the President and CEO of Fortitude HR Solutions with over 14 years of experience. Today, Scott touches on strategies to manage and grow a business, as well as ensuring employees are the correct fit to your company. If you found any value from today's episode, then please share it with a friend and help us grow! For more information on our sponsor, visit www.thomsonmultifamilygroup.com to start taking your American Dream to the next level.
Sean Thomson 01:18
Hi, Scott, thanks for being on The Next Level American Dream Podcast. We appreciate you being here and sharing your background with us. If you don't mind, just give people a little bit about who you are and where you've come from, and what your experiences are and what you have going on today.
Scott Hanis 01:30
Okay, great. Thanks so much, Sean, for having me on, I really appreciate the opportunity. So, Scott Hanis, and like you said, I own a company called Fortitude HR Solutions. We do HR consulting, as well as recruiting for a lot of small and medium sized companies throughout the US. We do have a heavy focus working with real estate investors, probably 85% of our clients are real estate based. So, I get an opportunity to help a lot of small and medium sized companies really build their business as well as grow. And anytime you're building your business, there's always you know, a lot of fun steps in between, and like we were talking about before the show started Sean, you know, it takes a lot of hard work, it takes grit, it takes, you know, knowing the right people and kind of some of the times that who that can do the how. So, I that's kind of where I try to fit in and really kind of help clients as well as just people in general, you know, I'd like to add value to you know, people and so hopefully, we can give some of your audience some great insights and some tips about how to handle the world of HR, what is ever changing. And I've been an HR for about 16 years, Sean, so I most recently was a vice president of HR for a private equity group. So, it's very similar to kind of the real estate model where you go in and you buy a distressed asset, you know, either a single-family home or apartment building or storage unit, and then you may put some capital improvements into it. And typically, what in the P for, you know, we would sell those businesses, it's a little bit different in the commercial side with real estate, you want to have that long term, passive income A lot of times, but well versed in those things, and really got started doing this business because of my neighbor, Tim Brats. So, Tim was a big multifamily person, and has over 4000 units. That's how we got connected, Sean. Yes, through Tim, and he's the one that kind of gave me the kick in the behind to quit my corporate job and start something on my own.
Sean Thomson 03:13
Yeah, that's great. Thank you for bringing us up to speed on all that. So, let's talk about, you know, as entrepreneurs, we're always trying to, I guess, keep control of our business. You know, I struggle with this a lot. I don't like having a big team. I'm not a I'm not a great. I think I'm okay manager, but I don't really take a lot of it's not fun for me, right? So, I like to just give people their job and let them do the job. You know, autonomy for me is a big deal, right? So, here's your job, just go do it. That's kind of my management style. So, I struggle with some of this stuff as well. So as entrepreneurs, we're always looking for growth, right? And you can't do that without hiring more people and staffing up. So how is it? Let's talk about sort of how that an entrepreneur printer knows when that is important. Right? So, in his business, how do you know when it starts time to start hiring people in time to start filling some of those positions?
Scott Hanis 04:02
That's a great question. I think a lot of times it depends on it. I don't know if you've ever done this, Sean, but I'm a big believer I kind of evaluating and planning out my day. And if I have too much on my plate, or if I'm working 80-90 hours a week, where am I spending my time? How am I spending it? Is it on? You know, as Tim and I talked about? Is it revenue generating activities? Or is it stuff that maybe I can hire someone else to do to kind of help free me up so I can focus on you know, normally, if you're in the real estate space, you want to be building relationships, and you might be doing, you know, joint venture deals or marketing or, you know, getting into the sales process and looking at properties. So, some of the lower-level tasks, you know, like, sometimes checking email and booking flights or doing like some light bookkeeping or you know, repurposing your social media that you create. A lot of times you can hire that out, you know, to somebody that can take that off your plate. So, you can focus on higher dollar, you know, items and tasks. And so like, one of the exercises I do with color, answers will take like a task responsibility sheet, and for an entire week, write down in like 15-minute increments how you spend your day. And then as soon as you see a pattern that, hey, you know, I'm doing a lot of, you know, bookkeeping, or I'm doing a lot of social media repurposing of content, or I'm spending a lot of time maybe like, even with your podcast Sean, maybe you're doing a lot of editing of the podcast yourself, that's probably not the most fun thing for you to do. So, a lot of times, like, I'll ask the question, does that task add value? Or does it not? Or does it add revenue? Or does it not? And Tim takes it one step farther, it's like, Hey, is it something I'm passionate about? Do I really want to do that, if it is, I'll put a smiley face? And if it's not, he puts a frowny face. And then based upon that, you know, you can create a job description with clear expectations on what that person is going to be doing. And that that's, to me, the easiest way to do it, the first hire a lot of people have when they become you know, an entrepreneur will be some type of an assistant by gadget take that lower level, you know, tasks off their plate, some people will do virtual assistants, some people will do you know, full time W-2 employees, it really depends on you know, your preference. And you know, if you want to manage people day to day in an office, or everybody's working remotely.
Sean Thomson 06:12
So, as an entrepreneur, if you find yourself bogged down by follow up phone calls, or like you said the sort of minutia job, or tasks during your day, and those are preventing you from getting to the bigger task of getting new clients or getting new deals, the bigger, higher revenue tasks, it's probably time to sit down and say, Okay, what is my day looking like, map that out, and then and then go and find someone that can take those sort of sort of smaller, less grand revenue, generating tasks and, and create, like you say, create the job description and hire that person out?
Scott Hanis 06:48
Absolutely.
Sean Thomson 06:49
Talk about what the best I guess next steps would be. So, once we've, once we've identified, "hey, I'm getting bogged down in my business, I need to have someone come in and help me with these smaller tasks," what would someone do once they've kind of mapped that that out? Where would they go to find those people?
Scott Hanis 07:05
So, there's all kinds of ways to be creative. And I think, you know, as small business owners and entrepreneurs, we got to be more creative now than we ever have before. And the reason why I say that, like COVID, really has done a number and how we work. You know, prior to COVID, you know, if you worked for a big company, you went into an office every day, you know, Monday through Friday, you had set hours. Now with COVID, the workplace has really changed, right. And so small business owners, we've lost some competitive advantage, because we used to be able to say, Hey, we can work remotely out of our homes, we can have flexibility. And now with COVID era that we're living in, you know, a lot of the big companies give that same flexibility now to their employees. But I think it comes down to, you know, marketing the job. And you can do that a number of ways, Sean, you can, you know, post things on Facebook, you can post things on like LinkedIn, you can also you know, create a job posting on indeed, or wise hire, or zip recruiter to really kind of generate the interest. But I'm a big believer in now doing more social media than ever in my entire life. And so, I started this, like, 30-day challenge to do like Facebook live videos every day. And it's something I like truly dread Sean, because I don't like talking in front of a camera, doing a podcast like this, or leading a zoom meeting is one thing, but like looking at yourself, while you're talking, you know what I was a little bit weird for me, but a creative way to really share what you're doing in your business. Who are you looking to hire? Why are you growing, share a little bit about the vision? And people typically get attracted to that. And then they get interested in that potential opening that you have. So that's kind of what I would do, you know, you have to understand, as a small business owner, you're not going to compete with the larger companies with medical benefits, dental, vision, retirement, and you're not going to compete with, you know, some of them, maybe the base salary or the salary expectations. So, you got to be creative to and how you compensate and pay that person and find out what's important to them, you know, at the end of the day, and then do they fit your culture? Do they fit your working style, like you mentioned, you know, sometimes it's really easy to let somebody go off on their own and be autonomous and work by themselves? But it does require some initial training and you know, doing onboarding properly, so they know what your expectations are. At the end of the day, Sean, people either live up or live down expectations. And so really clearly communicating that having that defined and you're holding people accountable to those things, is what's going to help remove some of the stress off of your plate as you bring on your first hire.
Sean Thomson 09:29
Yeah, I think like you mentioned culture there. I think that's one of the critical steps for us is I put everybody through a core values exercise. And if their core values aren't aligned with our core values, we, you know, they just don't aren't hired because it's I know, it's not going to be a bit and, and I told you earlier, I like for people to work autonomously as much as possible. You know, I don't like to hover over people and micromanage, right. So, if their core values are aligned, and there, they're independent workers, they kind of fit in well with me. And we have, we have people I have offshore assistance. And I have people that work with me here that they have other jobs. And they do this on the side for me, you know, small tasks and things. And like you said, Now, a lot of people are working from home, you know, and they have more time to do the same thing to kind of do other things. So, their side hustles, as well. So, a lot of times, we have people that are interested in helping us out on top of their corporate responsibilities, too. So, somebody's sort of like, I'm their part time solution, right.
Scott Hanis 10:27
So, which I think is great, because you're offering opportunities, and you're filling the void on your team, and you're filling the void, or that person that needs either the ones that extra income, or maybe they're bored. So definitely, it's a good opportunity. And, like we talked about like this not a traditional like America, like what we maybe grew up in, you know, like before, I think you're 100%. Right, Sean, when you said it, before we started, you know, going to college and getting the job and working, you know, 40 years at one company, that just doesn't happen anymore. And so really, you know, reinventing ourselves figuring out we're passionate about trying to have some freedom over time, you know, versus going to one place. And there's, unfortunately, there's not loyalty all the time from the employer to the employee or the employee to the employer anymore. So, we got to be creative, we got to figure out, you know, different ways to work. And that doesn't always mean that we go to college for four years or five years and have $200,000 worth of debt. Like a lot of times, we can go to, you know, mastermind groups, or be resourceful and go on to YouTube. And, you know, learn as much as we can or find a mentor, you know, and those are different ways to learn these days. Or maybe, you know, like Nick Burton did with Tim's team, you know, got an opportunity to work kind of as like an intern, and then never went back to school, right. And he's been working with him now for six years, and he's doing an awesome job. And really, you know, the formal education piece, maybe not the most important thing for everybody these days.
Sean Thomson 11:50
Right? Let's talk about so once we do find somebody that kind of fits our mold, we've kind of identified that they're, they're fitting our necessities, task wise, they kind of fit our culture through, like, what we do core values, exercises, they can commit to the time they want to do the job, those sorts of things. How is it that are some of what are some of the strategies that you've seen successful business owners use? You know, one of the things about being an entrepreneur is that we want everybody to care about our business as much as we do. And it just doesn't, you know, it's just not going to happen, right? So how are you seeing people that are in our position or my position, finding people that that care enough right to do a really great job and to and to kind of, make me feel like they're, they're invested as much as possible? And are you seeing techniques or strategies, or I don't know, people using?
Scott Hanis 12:39
Yeah, I think there's a combination. I think one of the things like referrals are people that you might know, that are family or friends that maybe knows about the person's character, and what they're all about outside of work, and, you know, talking to them about, you know, what's important to you, again, in the vision, and asking them those types of questions like, where do they align, but with, again, your core values, the culture, but also, you know, if this was their business, what would they do differently, to try to find out kind of some key areas of importance to them. And then I think, you know, Sean, it really comes down to building the relationship, sharing information, collaborating with the new hire, to get them to buy into everything that you're doing. So, they don't look at it as like just a side hustle, or just a job. So, I think really building that relationship is a key component of them, you know, really caring and wanting to kind of run through the brick wall for somebody kind of per se. So, it comes down to the relationship. And then also, I think it comes down to leadership, right? You know, how do you treat your employees? How do you communicate, you know, are you listening, I was making fun of myself, because I have some big ears that stick out? So doing a lot of active listening and follow up and follow through. Like when you treat people, like their people, and you really care about them. And, you know, you show them the same respect that you want, people typically will follow you into the burning fire, though, run through that brick wall, you know, and as far as somebody that might be real attention to detail depends on the role to Sean, I think it you know, understanding again, where their values are and what there you know, potential is for opportunities to grow in the business. That's where it can be a little bit tricky. I think for small business owners, when we bring on people part time, or like through a side hustle. Sometimes they're not fully invested into what we want them to do. So, they may not put all the time and effort in versus like a full-time person that may give you a little bit more. So, I think it depends on, you know, which Avenue you go, how you hire them, again, what the expectations are, it really you know, communicating with them is I think, is a huge part of that.
Sean Thomson 14:37
So, I guess in the hiring process, the making, making sure that someone is culturally fit is a good help in making sure that they're going to be motivated to be on mission. And I think what you're saying is an alignment of, I don't know what you call it a mission, maybe an alignment of goals between employer and employee are critical and finding out what the employee is trying to achieve with their role. With your company, as well as making sure that that fits with what you're trying to achieve overall, as a company, those two things are probably going to be the most beneficial and getting someone to buy into your goals and your mission in your business or long term, right?
Scott Hanis 15:15
Absolutely. Like you like even you mentioned the core values exercise. I mean, I would love to hear what you do, Sean, like, how do you go about the core values exercise? What are the steps that you use that you found to be effective and kind of evaluating someone's core values versus what you're looking for?
Sean Thomson 15:33
Well, it's really quite simple. I got it from Gary Harper, I don't know if you know, Gary Harper, Gary is a good friend of mine. And this is the process that he sorts of put us through to identify our core values. And what it is you select, if I can remember, I haven't done in a while, but you select three to five people that that if you could take over the world, you know, who were the two or three or four or four or five people that you would take with you to help you sort of achieve that goal, right? If you're, if you're, if you're really trying to work to achieve your goals, who are the people that you would want to surround yourself with to do that, and you want to write those people down. And then the second step of that is, what is it about those people that makes you want them on your team, and then you write those things down, and then what you'll find is, you'll find that those are your core values, because those people are inspiring to you, or that you know, would be a success for you in that those strengths that they have, you'll find the things that are most important to you in terms of core values, gotcha, you'll just go through the list and find those three to five things that you keep repeating or you know, are in there, and those become your core values. So, I put I put my new hires through that same question. Just really quickly, that's that was a brief version of it, I have a worksheet for it, but I put them through that same, that same question or exercise. And if their core values kind of come out the same as ours, and I know they're a fit, if they, you know, hard on different sort of core values. And we only have we have three core values is honesty, integrity and smart work. I I'm not an admission to work a lot. But I'm on a mission to work really well. Right. So, I think of my day is as efficient, not as hard. Right? So, I my, my third core value is smart work, not hard work. Gotcha. And honesty, integrity for me is paramount. I if you can't be honest and straightforward with me in any dealings with me, it's you know, I cut you right away. That's good. But so sometimes people will be almost there, but they're just not quite there. And I can't I just can't hire them. If I can't know that they're going to be fully honest with me fully transparent, you know, and all those things, and then they're going to think about their day, they're not going to just barge in and start working on stuff. I want people to work hard. But I also want people to be thoughtful about what they do. So, that's what I do.
Scott Hanis 17:44
Okay, good insight.
Sean Thomson 17:46
Yeah, let's talk about so we've got someone on board, maybe we made some mistakes in this hiring process didn't get the core values lined up, haven't really identified their goals in life, and they just don't seem to be fitting the role. What are some of the indicators that hey, it's time to maybe, maybe part ways with somebody?
Scott Hanis 18:06
First of all, we probably need to fire ourselves if we didn't do that the correct way, because we didn't set him up for success. But no, I mean, I think if there's consistent performance issues, or behavioral issues, you know, we got to document those things, right, depending upon the level of severity of the performance, or the, you know, the behavior, typically, you know, in the corporate setting, and I'm a big believer in this, you do what's called a progressive discipline. So, you do like a coaching. And then if the coaching doesn't work, and you still see performance issues, you might do a verbal warning, the next one might be a written warning. And with like the last caveat that, hey, if you do this again, in the near future, we're going to have to have a different conversation. And you can either at that point, get into like a performance improvement plan, where you give them like 30 days to turn it around, and you meet with them with, again, clear expectations. If they don't, you know, make those changes or improvements. A lot of times, they'll usually they'll quit on their own, because they know they're not, you know, cutting the mustard, per se. Or if you get to the worst-case scenario, they still don't perform. They're not meeting your expectations. You've communicated things clearly. Then at that point, we got to make a tough thing. tough decision, tough conversation, we got to let somebody go. And so, to me, there's a process now, if someone's stealing from the company, for example, that's a little bit more egregious. And so, at that point, we're going to do an investigation, make sure we have our facts, assuming that we did find that somebody did steal, we're going to cut that person immediately. We're not going to have that long, drawn out process. Normally we'll ask about it, you know, to that person and say, Hey, this is what we found. Here's the facts. Tell us what's going on. And normally in my experience people when you present them with that facts in the data that someone stole like they usually will just quit right or if they still don't get it you know, you still terminate them with the termination like usually want to have, you know, somebody there was a witness. You don't want to do this ever alone by yourself. Because then you get into you know, he said she said, it's always good to have a third party. That's neutral, even if they work for the company, but that is not a part of the conversation that is observing and maybe taking notes. If you know it's going to be a hostile termination, based upon the person's temper or something like that, you may want to call the authorities to be on standby, you don't want to do it in front of people, it should be, you know, a private thing, again, with another witness, but it also the time of the day, you know, matters. Like I would never let somebody go in the corporate world, like, in the middle of the day, when everybody's in the office, and there's lots of stuff going on. Usually, it was in the first thing in the morning, or was the last thing at the end of the day, that way, you know, we try to, you know, we want to have some respect for the person that's losing their job. But at the end of the day, they're a human being, they may have a family, and it can be really, you know, an embarrassing thing and a sad thing. So, we want to make sure we understand that try to limit the conversation, you know, Sean, as much as possible, don't get into the I'm sorry, thing, you know, you can recap what happened, why we're making the decision, but at the end of the day, you know, we're going to part ways with you, right? Let them know if you know, if you offer any type of severance package to that employee that's exiting, but then also, you know, sometimes it was like Cobra stuff, depending on how many employees you have letting them know about those rights and benefits. And then it depends on shot, if it's, if it's a performance-based thing, usually, you know, they can file unemployment, but you'll normally will contest it, if it's somebody that's getting laid off due to lack of work or, you know, decline in work, a lot of times you wouldn't contest the unemployment claim that somebody may make. So, it all depends on the scenario. But, you know, again, clear documentation, clear communication, again, treat the person like you would want to be treated if you were in that situation. So, try to have some empathy, but don't say you're sorry.
Sean Thomson 21:44
Yeah, well, I've never said that to you. Generally, by the time I've gone through that process, where I've said, Hey, this needs to be addressed, hey, this needs to be addressed, we're going to write this up. And then, you know, by the time you get to that, that third or fourth conversation, everybody kind of should be on the same page, it's like, this is not working, you know, you need to go somewhere else. You know, I've had people that were just as they were just unhappy, you know, and they were hanging on to the job because it was safe. And they needed to go somewhere else, you know, and it was just a situation where they, once they left the company, they went to a new job that they really thrived in. I mean, I've had several people that do that. And I think a lot of times people think of a firing as something horrible, and it's not necessarily, it's, you know, it can be a freeing experience where the person can finally go do what they really need to be doing. And you can get somebody in the business that needs to be in the business that loves being there, too. So, I I’ve never looked at firing somebody necessarily, as a negative thing. I've, I've just seen it as, hey, this is not this is not the fit for you. Or us, let's find, let's, you know, let's free you up. So, you can go find the fit for you, you know, or and that allows us to find the fit for us again, too. So, but that's, like my perspective, I guess.
Scott Hanis 22:58
I think that's great. And I think, you know, if you have the relationship with the, with your team, and your people, you know, you can also talk about, hey, this isn't working out, let's transition you out, you know, they can go find something, you can give them opportunities. I agree with you 1,000%, with what you said, Sean is, you know, sometimes people just may be miserable on the job, and they're just, you know, the doing the minimum amount to get by and, you know, a way to kind of try to prevent that is to meet regularly with your team members, you know, one on one and find out, you know, how are things going? What can we do to help you out? What are the roadblocks? Are we hitting our goals like that constant communication and continuing to build that relationship will give you some indicators on whether the person is going to be around or not?
Sean Thomson 23:40
Yeah, and I think not being afraid of that comfort those conversations are critical as a manager, and being okay with Hey, you know, this just isn't working. Let's try something else.
Scott Hanis 23:51
Absolutely.
Sean Thomson 23:52
A lot of people think firing is a horrible thing. I've never seen it that way. I've just, it just I don't think it's bad. So, what I guess if you're going to, if you're going to fire somebody, I guess we just talked about a little bit, but what were what are some of your recommendations? You were saying that you don't want to say you're sorry, things like that? What would you What would you recommend for someone who is having to have these difficult conversations to be the best sort of path for that?
Scott Hanis 24:13
You know, like we talked about, I mean, the thing being very direct, again, but with some empathy and saying, you know, Sally, like things aren't working out, we've talked on a number of occasions, that the end of the day, we're going to move in a different direction, we're going to let you go today's your last day, you know, and then getting into like, again, if they have any benefit, you know, things that we have to kind of clean up sometimes if it's left on a good note, you know, we may provide like a reference for them, you know, let them know about unemployment. Sometimes I've like help people find new jobs even because of, you know, just different corporate requirements. They wanted me to kind of go the extra mile. So, I would put them in contact with some recruiters, you know, and other headhunters in order to really try to help them you know, sometimes we offered career transition counseling. So, it really depends on the company and again in the size, but there's lots of ways to do that. I think the Big thing again, like we talked about, though, like, what time of day you have the conversation where you have the conversation, you know, again, making sure you have a witness, having, you know, piece of paper, I used to always have a paper. And I would read directly from it not to be insensitive. But there's a lot of legality things you got to worry about if you wrongfully terminate somebody. So, we were kind of go through those things, ask if they had any questions, we wouldn't get into, you know, again, the I'm sorry, we want to get into what you should have known, like, at the end of the day, like that doesn't add any help to that person that's losing the job or to you that's telling them, it's better off just to be kind of direct and to the point and move on.
Sean Thomson 25:39
Okay, good. Well, let's circle back to a couple things that I wanted to talk about, since we have a little bit of time here that I think are important. And I'll just sort of get your take on things. So training, and then job descriptions. I think I think training, initial training for the applications people are going to use and the processes in your business are critical, having those map down and 10 trainable, and then having a clear job description for that person so that they know what the expectations are, what their accountability issues are going to be what they're going to be held accountable to. So, let's talk about training. I guess first, how important is even in a small business? How important is training someone to do their job properly? And when they come in, start that process right away? Is that being that something you recommend to everybody?
Scott Hanis 26:20
Absolutely. That's vital, right? I mean, you can go find all the A players, rock stars, all the high-level people, but if you don't train them on your processes, your systems, if you don't integrate them into your culture, and against start building those relationships, like people are going to fail. And so, to me, it's critical as leaders or managers, like at the end of the day, we got to give them clear, again, like you set expectations with the job description, but we got to give them the tools and the resources so they can be successful. So like in the real estate world, if it's, you know, you have a CRM that maybe they've never used, or they have a process flow, you know, you should spend time reviewing that as part of the onboarding and the new hire orientation, obviously, going through, you know, levels of expectations from like company standards or Code of Conduct values, that should be a part of it, you know, if you're doing sales, or acquisitions, helping them, if they don't have that skill set of underwriting deals before having, you know, them go through some type of training, if you're putting them on the phones, like I would never just throw someone to the phones without giving them script, having them practice it, you know, going through some like, you know, pull a role playing, but then also listening to someone else, make those calls, and then eventually putting them on the phones, but having somebody Listen, and then after each call, saying, hey, you did this really well, this is something I think you could have improved and getting their buy in. And also, their feedback on the experience becomes a really critical part of the initial part of the new hire. But then as you continue to develop and build the relationship with the employer, the team member, giving them constant opportunities to learn and grow. Because hopefully, as you build your company, you're not just you know, when they join your organization, they're not at one level, the entire time that they're with you, you'd like to see opportunities to grow and to, for them to also grow. That's why typically people will stay around if they see opportunities to grow, and how, again, how they're treated. But training is such a vital part, I think a lot of people look over that. And you know, you can have them, you know, document processes, and you can have them document what they do from, you know, again, work instructions to standard operating procedures, once they get used to do on the job to kind of help the person. And then I also have a big believer, Sean, and finding out how people like to learn right before they even start. So, are you more of an auditory learner? Do you need to have visuals, you know, do you need to do hands on stuff, that way we can adapt our training to the needs of that person? And that way, they can be the most effective in that training approach. So, they can take that and then apply it. And training is only as good as if you know as the person that's training, but also is if the person is going to apply it. If you go through training, and they don't apply it, it's a waste of money to waste the resources. So, it's our job to provide it but then it's on the employee or the team member, they got to I'm sorry to train it, but then they have to apply it as the new hire or the team member.
Sean Thomson 29:13
Yeah, one of the things we've done is, I guess, a little hack for people that are entrepreneurs and small businesses, you know, we use a ton of apps, you know, I use Podio, call rail, all kinds of applications right in our business. And a lot of people think that they have to build this training system out for all these different applications. But if you look at the applications that you use, what this is what I did, we looked at Podio, and their training system, and they have a full front of back training on how to use their application, right. So, all we did was take their training, and put it into our system so that people can learn how to use Podio. Pretty much from day one. It didn't take me really any effort. It's already produced. Podio did it I didn't have to recreate the wheel. And we found that with most of the applications that we Use, they're pretty high-level applications, they're used by people all over the world, they have a really great training structure already in place. And then what we do is we teach them how to use the application. And then once they've learned how to use the application, then we teach them how to use that application in our business. So, we created our own version of you know, our processes and systems, but we would say, okay, with Podio, this is how you use Podio. And then now this, I use Podio, in our business, and it really sped up our ability to train somebody by just leveraging the tools that we already had in place with the apps that we were using. So, I guess that may be a hack for some people that are out there trying to create training for their business, you can do it really quickly, because it's already there. Yeah, absolutely.
Scott Hanis 30:42
A lot of what other what other people do, will do as well, Sean is, you know, when they onboard people, if you have standard operating procedures that are written out, or processes, you may video them, you know, like with loom, or do, you know, like a recording, and that way, they can watch some of those things to get exposure to some, again, the systems and processes, and then they can ask questions, and, you know, kind of have that interactive dialogue with somebody, which I think is another good tool or tip when you're bringing people on.
Sean Thomson 31:08
Yeah, our technique is that we process everything we, so we have it written out process, we have a process map for everything. And then we video that process in in real world application. And that's our training so people can review the process to read it if they want to, they can see it mapped out if they want to see the steps depends, like you said, depending on their learning style, and then we have a video that really shows that process happen. And that's really the three effective ways to that we found it to build your training. And like I said, you really don't have to do that for your processes in your business. The other things you can train people on using the applications are usually available on the application. But let's talk about I guess, job description, really is the first step in looking for new hires. And even before your training, I guess would be you'd have to, you have to know who you want to hire. So, let's talk about job description, how critical is job description for getting that person in the right place, and then having accountability for them?
Scott Hanis 32:07
That's another critical part to me when you have a business because you need to know what they're going to do on the day-to-day basis. Like, there's an AT&T commercial on if you remember when the guy was getting a tattoo on his arm of like the motorcycle, and he's like, you know, stay in your lane, bro. Like, I think it's important that people know what the essential duties and responsibilities of their job bar. And that becomes a big part of you know, what's in the job description as well. as, you know, if you have requirements on they need to have this experience or this education, that's not always the most important, but it depends on the role. And then I would put a lot of the, I normally put a lot of like the soft skill things in there. You know, like about having a positive attitude or being resourceful. We list typically the company values and all the job descriptions that I write for my clients, because we want to talk about that during the interview process. And then I usually also put on there a statement most states or employment at will states, meaning you can let somebody go as long as you have just cause if you're the employer, and then the team member or the employee, they can leave at any time. Usually, it's not a written contract. It's just a little like paragraph. And then I always have people sign the job description. So there's some accountability there like that they had reviewed and read and they understand what they're doing. And then the last part of any job description that I write is kind of the physical demands section. So like, if they have to lift things, how much are they lifting up to if they're having to climb up things, if they're on the phone all day, you know, if they have to have good vision, like we'll include that as part of the job description, because that becomes an important part. If somebody gets injured on the job with workers comp, Shawn, you know, we want to have like an interactive process with that doctor. So hopefully, they can come back to work, even if it's a light duty situation. Or if you have more than 25 employees, you're subject to the American Disabilities Act, the ADA. And typically, if somebody's got a disability, you have to go through the interactive process. And usually, again, the job description will list a lot of what those physical demands are. So that should be in my opinion, step one, anytime you're going to bring somebody on to have that created. The other thing that I would say goes hand in hand with that Shawn is, you know, what are the goals or the expectations? You know, is it a SMART goal that you're giving to your team member? Is it a personal performance objective? And then what are their also their key performance indicators or KPIs that they're responsible for? So they already know before they even come into the, you know, the job or into the company? What's required of them on a day to day basis, or maybe a yearly basis? You know, a lot of people like traction or EOS, you know, you have rocks typically every 90 days or every quarter. You know, it just depends on which system you're most comfortable and putting into your business.
Sean Thomson 34:43
Yes, what's the job description? Just listening to your talk? The job description is really the kickstart for everything when bringing someone in so as soon as you start having conversations with people, you should have the job description kind of done. Absolutely. Yeah.
Scott Hanis 34:59
Yeah, maybe because it is If you don't define it, right, like the person is going to come in, and what are they going to do? And there's going to be all kinds of questions, confusion. And you know, I understand being a business owner, you may not know where to find those. But you can find sample job descriptions online, you can work with people like myself or Gary, like that can help you document those things. So people, again, know what those expectations are. I mean, there's all kinds of resources that are out there.
Sean Thomson 35:24
Yet, a lot of it's going to come from just you clearly identifying what your needs are, like we talked about in the beginning, you know, I find myself doing these things too often, and mapping those things out. And then creating accountabilities around them, a lot of it's going to come from you just generating that for yourself, too. So absolutely. What's good. Well, I always ask everybody on the podcast, you know, kind of what is your American Dream? And if you have a couple maybe tips for people on how to level up their American Dream, some things that you've maybe applied in your life, that would be helpful as well. So go ahead, what is what do you see as your American Dream?
Scott Hanis 35:58
I think I'm living it right now, Sean, you know, I worked in the corporate setting for 14 years, I was an executive at a private equity company, I did international HR stuff. And, like, I enjoyed what I did, I enjoyed the people I worked with, but there's a great feeling of owning your own business, and really helping multiple people, not just in one company, but throughout the US. I feel like I'm living my dream right now. And I'm working, you know, probably more hours than I should. And I'm in the process of building up my team, I've only been in business for roughly 20 months. So I'm still new on this journey. But you know, I always tell people, they're like, well, how did you get started? And why do you? Why do you love doing it? Like, I think it's the ability to help people in because I'm an HR person, I truly want to help people, I care about people. But also, I think, just kind of some of the freedoms it gives me. You know, as far as like, in my work in the corporate setting, Sean, I was never able to go to a basketball game for my son, I was always working, I was always traveling, I never got to help coach, you know, because typically stuff during the week, and I was always working, you know, 12 to 16 hour days, you know, in the corporate setting. And I still do that now, but I have more freedom where I can take a two hour, you know, extended break, and then come back and do it. So to me like that flexibility has been huge. The other thing, like tips are like your network, like everybody says that your network is your net worth, like, if I didn't meet Tim, you know, and just happen to be neighbors with him into the community that we live in, I probably wouldn't be doing this, I'd probably still be working in the corporate setting. So, I think your network is really important. And I think also, again, sharing what you're doing. And, you know, really building those relationships with other people that are like minded, you know, because I think, you know, entrepreneurship can be a ton of fun. But you know, I think a lot of times, I've seen a lot of analogies with the up and down roller coasters. And so really, you know, again, surrounding yourself with good people that support you, there's plenty of work out there. So finding people that are like minded, that want to see everybody win and grow. Like that's the fun part about being an entrepreneur, and you know, living out your American dream, which I feel like I'm doing right now.
Sean Thomson 38:00
Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you so much for that. No problem, I noticed a bunch of people listening that are going to be interested in building out their teams and things like that. So I tell people how they can reach them, but the best way to reach out to you.
Scott Hanis 38:12
Yeah, thank you, they can go to my our website, www.fortitudehrsolutions.com. I'm on Facebook as Scott Hanis, you can also find me on LinkedIn, same name. We're also on Instagram. And so like any of those sites are great. There's a Contact Us page on the website. So they can you know, feel free to reach out if they have any questions. Yeah. So that's a couple ways they can reach me.
Sean Thomson 38:37
Yeah. And if someone is just kind of getting started down this path of building out their team, they want to accelerate that process, it'd be good idea to give you a call and see what kind of help you can provide them. And in that area, that'd be good.
Scott Hanis 38:47
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Whatever I can do to help. Again, I always try to find a win with anybody we work with. And we're not like, you know, we do HR consulting, we're kind of like fractional HR consultants. And we have retainer options, and then we do the recruiting to kind of help build out the team.
Sean Thomson 39:03
Yeah, awesome. Those are important things. Those are important. Those are important helpful things for someone in my position, for sure. Well, Scott, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the show, and sharing this stuff. You know, HR is one of those topics that is critical to the success of your business, but sometimes it gets overlooked. People don't want to really want to deal with these issues all the time in their business. They avoid them, I think a little bit too much. When it's really it's not super hard, but it is super important to do. Thanks for coming on and sharing some expertise in that area!
Scott Hanis 39:34
Yeah, and I appreciate you on the opportunity and hope people learn something that was some value. I don't want ever to be like associated with Toby from the office, if you've ever watched that show, like I tried to add more value and try to be you know, like a business partner with people that we work with. There's a lot of legalities and things that you can and can't do in HR. But you know, if we can work together we typically can find a solution. So, definitely appreciate the time today!
Sean Thomson 40:00
Yeah, great. Well, thank you so much for coming on. We'll see you soon!
Scott Hanis 40:03
Thank you very much!
Abigail Thomson 40:04
Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level American Dream. If you would like to learn more about what we talked about today, want to contact the team directly, or are interested in passively investing and being a part of our deal room, head over to our website at www.thomsonmultifamilygroup.com -- Before you go, please leave a review! Your comments help us create more episodes for you to enjoy.