[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Welcome to Balancing Acts, the show where we explore strategies, challenges, and breakthroughs that help businesses build profitable, resilient companies. I'm Linda Hamilton, a CPA certified exit planning advisor and a systemologist.
We keep growth practical on our show. Clear systems, clean numbers, and expert conversations you can use right away. Because running a business isn't just about hard work. It's about strategy for managed growth and profitability.
And today I'm joined by Vikita Poindexter, the President and CEO of Poindexter Consulting Group, a certified management and HR consulting firm she launched in 2000. With over 35 years of experience, she's a trusted HR strategist, investigator, and expert witness, serving on several boards and leading statewide initiatives focused on diversity, equity, and organizational excellence.
Welcome, Vikita, and thank you for joining us today.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: Well, thank you so much for having me, Linda.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: So you've built a respected consulting firm over the past 25 years, and I'd love to explore the story behind that journey. What inspired you to take the entrepreneurial move, and what did you see that caused that?
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Absolutely. So I didn't just wake up one morning and decide to be an entrepreneur.
I have two beautiful children, adult children, and a proud grandmother of one. And my youngest son wasn't expected to live to be 10. And so I was working in corporate America. There was no teleworking back then. And so I needed to be by my son's bedside as he needed the medical care in and out of ICU and hospitalizations. And so when corporate America said no, I said, okay, I got to do something. HR is what I knew. And I just took that. I just took that entrepreneurial leap over the course of time. Right. You know, you just don't know how to run a business. You don't know about the financials, the accounting, the corporate structure, this, that, and the other. So I was blessed to be able to have some legal advice, being that, you know, HR spends the majority of their time talking to legal advisors to be able to help me put that strategy together. And thus, almost 26 years later, here we are.
Wow.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: That's a powerful story and a reason for starting that.
Having a sick child makes it really hard to be having your time controlled by others in corporate America.
Perhaps they've improved, but they were not easy that long ago to have any kind of flexible work schedule. So congratulations to you on being successful, because most entrepreneurs don't make it past 10.
So I think we've both had firms a long time. So what early decisions or turning points Helped you build a business with staying power. As I said, like 50% fail in 10 years. 70%.
I mean, 50% by five years. 70% fail in 10 years.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Absolutely. So for me, failure is never an option. Right. And I had to understand that failure is the event, not a person. And so I've had to tweak my business model over the years.
Excuse me. And so I think for me, identifying what my core niche market was going to be and ever evolving, I think one of the challenges that entrepreneurs is we have a great idea from the very beginning, but it doesn't sustain. The sustainability doesn't last because we don't tweak the model, we don't grow, we don't change it. And so for me, that was the core thing that I needed to do. I knew that I didn't want to do basic hr. I knew I wanted to target small business owners because I was branching into being a small business owner. I knew I didn't want to hire employees. You yet it was the exact opposite of what I was telling my clients. In order to grow, in order to scale, you need to hire. So I needed to take my own advice. So the same advice that I was giving, you know, my clients, business owners, was the same advice I started taking myself. And then I just started adding additional products and services. Each year I added different components to my business, whether it's coaching C suite executives, you know, offering payroll, offering benefits, you know, dealing with, you know, being an expert witness for large legal cases.
Those are some of the things that I needed to do. And finally, I think what's really crucial and important is you need to have a mentor. Right? I always tell business owners, if you're the smartest person in the room, your room is too small. And so I really equipped myself with individuals that had grown businesses and were sustaining, and women, of course, to be able to keep me level set and be able to bounce ideas off of.
And now I do the same identical thing for other women that are jumping into the entrepreneurial space.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: Thank you for sharing that and such good advice for business owners.
I often talk about resilience in the workshops I teach, and I often do approach it from a financial and tax background. But I look at business holistically in all the areas because the numbers matter and the story behind the numbers matter. But what was one major challenge, maybe that tested your resilience? Because resilience is about adapting. And we've both been in business a long time, and if you look back, all those years aren't the same Right. So what did it teach you and what tested your resilience?
[00:05:41] Speaker A: I think the biggest thing for me was hiring my first employee. Excuse me. And so for me, you know, being in HR and having to deal with clients that were dealing with employees, you know, some of my clients have one employee, some of them have thousands, depending upon the size of the organization. I see the challenges, see the obstacles. I see the adversity that comes when it. When you're managing people. And I didn't want that. However, I was burning the midnight oil. I was doing it. I had that narrative, I can do it all by any means necessary. But that was almost to my own detriment. And so I said, I can't continue to do this this way. I was growing by leaps and bounds. I needed to bring on a team. And so I took the same approach that I give my clients to say, hire slow, but fire fast and take your time, do your due diligence. And so once I got over my mindset of saying, I can do this, I really don't want to have employees, and I hired my first employee, then it became just like, okay, this is phenomenal. I hired another one and another one and another one. You know, 17 employees later, here we are. So I think for me getting past that piece to say, I really don't want to deal with employees because I didn't want the quote, unquote drama that comes along with it to the fact of, okay, let me do it the right way, because that's the only way that this business is going to grow and sustain.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: Interesting. Because, you know, I'm also an exit planning coach. And, you know, one of the things that in running a business, if everything is dependent on you, you don't have an asset you can't sell, you can't exit, and ultimately you do burn out.
And so that was a great lesson to have learned early on, because it is hard to hire if you're not worried about the drama. You're worried about the liability and all the compliance that goes with it, which most small business owners in our audience who aren't growing, you know, tax compliance, HR compliance. There's no shortage of compliance rules that we all have to follow that apply for large and small companies.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:07:40] Speaker B: How has your commitment to equity and leadership shaped the way you run your business?
[00:07:46] Speaker A: Sure.
Well, that's really good question. So, for one, I lead by example, right? And then I think that's the core piece that I try to talk to my business owners and my C suite leaders that I coach. You have to lead by example, you have to make sure that what you're asking an individual to do, either you've done it or willing to do. And so for just for me and my leadership roles, you know, with not just my company, but boards of commissions that I sit on, I really take my time and really kind of make sure that it's aligned with, number one, my personal, personal mission and vision statement. And one of the things that I found is most CEOs don't have a personal mission and vision statement. They have the mission and vision statement for their organization, for everything else, but not for them personally. And so what I wanted to make sure is that in everything that I do, I was being fair, I was being equitable, I was treating people with grace and humility because I was that employee that didn't get that grace when it was so desperately needed at a critical time in my life. And so I think for me, I've never forgotten where I've come from. I don't use fancy titles as chief executive, I mean, or chief people officer. I don't. I don't do all that. I just. I'm human resources because the first word is human and the second is resources. So I'm a human being providing resources to clients, customers, vendors, and employees. So I think, you know, for me, when you're talking about leadership, you got to lead by example. You got to be authentic, you got to be transparent.
You've got to heal some of the past traumas that have impacted you that will impact your ability to be a great leader.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: Oh, so insightful. Human and resources, yes. Not AI first, but human people first.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: It's really great. What's one piece of advice you would share with women building their own consulting practices today, whether it's in HR or in other areas?
[00:09:35] Speaker A: Give yourself some grace.
You're not going to have it all figured out, right? You're not going to go from 0 to 100 in the first year. The first two years, it's going to take you anywhere from three to five years to build it, right? Because you have to be able to identify what is it, what. What is it that you're trying to do, what is it that you're trying to accomplish? The second thing would be, you know, write. Write down your goals and your visions for your particular organization. I mean, we do this. I do this as an individual and I do this as an organization. My team, we get together and we write down what are we expecting to accomplish in, you know, that new year. We reevaluated every quarter have we hit those target markets?
What I mean by give yourself some grace is this as women, we have that mindset that we can do it all and the more the better, which is not realistic. Right. More women are in leadership. More women are CEOs or C suite executives. More women are leaving corporate America, starting their own business. They're turning passions into profits. But make sure that you do your due diligence and get the foundation set right.
How are you going to set up your organization? Is it going to be an llc? Are you going to be an S corp, a C corp? Are you going to be a 513C, a 5O? You know, for whatever that's, whatever the tax setup implications are going to be.
Make sure that before you start hiring employees, you've identified what your core market is going to be, what's your marketing strategies, what's your customer base, and then also don't allow the HR component of your business go to waste. Or whether that is an admin assistant, a virtual assistant, someone that can help you navigate through that. Oftentimes what I see is women business owners that are taking that or women that are taking that lead to be their business owners or entrepreneurs. Because I think there's a difference between the two is they have a great idea and they just jump off and start doing it. And oftentimes there's no structure, foundation. And so what happens is it crumbles because the foundation is not solid.
[00:11:31] Speaker B: Exactly. And you know, often found that women, the last person they hire is their own assistant.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: Right.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: It's the first sharing your origins, the story and your resilience behind your company. I think it's important for others to hear and your path sets the stage for everything we're going to explore together. And our next segments, talking about hr, talking about your expertise and the challenges and even opportunities that, you know, HR brings for any company. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: Sam.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Welcome back to Balancing Acts. I'm talking with Fakita Poindexter about all things hr. If you love what you're watching, you can catch Balancing Acts and all our Now Media television shows on NowMedia TV live or on demand anytime 24 7. You can download the free Now Media TV app on Roku or Apple for instant access to bilingual content in English and in Spanish. From business and news to lifestyle and culture, it's all streaming 24 7, so search Now Media TV on your favorite podcast and never miss a moment.
Vakita we just had a great conversation talking about your story. Not only your HR expertise, but how you turn that passion and expertise into a business. So I think it was a really wonderful segment to set the frame for. Now, what we're going to talk about, what you do for others you offer. It's a full service HR firm. And when you look at the comprehensive, you know, HR infrastructure your firm provides, what does that mean? What does it look like within Poindexter Consulting?
And what are the challenges that organizations are coming to you to solve?
[00:13:45] Speaker A: Sure. So when we talk about being a full service human resource consulting firm for some of our clients, we are in the HR department, we just don't have an office on site.
For some of our clients, we are on site maybe two, three days a week. For some clients, it's project based. Maybe it's investigations, this, that and the other. When we talk about full service, literally we're handling everything from an HR perspective. Recruiting, training, development, hiring, firing policies, procedures, implementation, mitigating risk and liability, setting up benefits, processing payroll, making sure workers compensation EPLI is completed. So, so we're handling everything from the HR perspective as it relates to the organization. And we do that whether it's remote, in person, on site for multiple of our clients.
So that's what I mean when I talk about full service.
We also handle investigations. I do mediations, arbitration. I do a lot of expert witness testimony. So when you see these large cases where an organization is being sued for 1.2 or $3.5 million or for wrong, for termination, harassment, discriminatory practice, those are. They need a forensic person to come in and give an accounting. From an HR expert, I could just say that I am the coroner of hr. That's the best way that I kind of explain it. Not my client. I'm just going in and giving a forensic analysis based off of the data and the information. Did the employer or the employee do what they were supposed to do from a legal perspective?
[00:15:14] Speaker B: So when you listen to all those things that full service means, I think our viewers can hear that HR is complicated. The compliance laws, everything around it. Right. Is complicated. So these laws are shifting constantly and depending on what state you're in, every state often has different laws. Right. And then federal laws. So how does your firm help businesses navigate the complexity and very confusing requirements?
[00:15:42] Speaker A: Sure. So we stand the breast of the law so they don't have to. Right. And so, you know, when I formulated my company and had our model, a partner you can trust, that's exactly who we are. We're your HR partner. We're going to walk side by Side with you. You're trying to run the day to day operations of your business. We take on the HR piece of it, right? We stay abreast of all the employment laws. Federal law is consistent across all 50 states. However, each state and sometimes county and time, sometimes city, can be different.
For example, California has the most taxing employment laws, right? Certain things you just cannot do within California. And California sets the tone for the rest of the nation as it relates to the employment law. So I have to stay abreast of all of the changes that take places within California.
Not just from a state perspective, but LA county could be different from San Diego County. This city could be different from this city all the way down to wages, how much people are going to get paid, how much sick time, et cetera.
So that's very difficult for a business owner to navigate through.
Now, my firm is crystal clear, we will handle all of the HR pieces. We're not your marketers, we're not your advertisers. We typically stay in our lane because we have enough to stay abreast of all of the different changes as it relates to employment law. So we update our clients on a regular basis saying, okay, this law is going to change. One of the things that I do as a CEO is I advocate on behalf of business owners from a public policy perspective because I want to make sure that laws that are being passed are not crippling small businesses owners. Again, I'm a small business owner and so I will often go to Washington D.C. or Sacramento for California and really kind of advocate on those laws that are being passed.
So when we partner with our clients, we are not only helping them navigate through that, we're staying abreast of all the employment law changes so they don't have to.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: That's great. You know, that reminds me on your side, you know, all those different laws. On my side as a CPA, we have 50, 50 states are like 50 little countries. They have tax laws, sales tax laws, and yes, they are confusing and very expensive for small business. It can put a tremendous burden on them. Which brings me to ask you about common HR gaps that put organizations at risk, especially the smaller ones that they should maybe pay attention to or talk to someone, an expert like you about it.
[00:18:07] Speaker A: Sure. I think one thing is don't disregard your HR policies and procedures. Excuse me? Whether you have one employee, 10 employees, or a thousand employees, your HR policies and procedures are your bible to your business. Right. Those are the rules and regulations that kind of set the tone. So you have to have Your policies and your procedures, your employee handbook, your code of conduct, policies, everything that you want employees to adhere to. Employees want structure. They like structure. They just want to know what they're going to be held accountable to. Are the challenges with organization is HR is the last thing that they think about until they get in trouble. And so then it's like, okay, now we have to be the firefighter. We got to put out the fire and then stop it from smoldering again.
So having your basic policies and procedures in place and holding people accountable to them is, I think, is crucial. You have to be able to educate them on what the policies and procedures are because nothing will kill your culture and your environment, and nothing will kill the culture in your environment if you try to hold people accountable. And you haven't even told them what they're going to be held accountable to.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: So, you know, that brings me to thinking about, about this. What is you say they don't pay attention to HR until they get in trouble.
What's an example of how they get in trouble? How do they get in trouble?
[00:19:26] Speaker A: Sure. So it can come in different ways.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: Right.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: You can get a disgruntled employee. An employee will file a complaint. Right. I think most employees will have tried to have some type of, type of communication with a manager or supervisor or someone in their leadership hierarchy. If they don't get the communication and, or the resolution that they're looking for, then the next alternative is to reach out to an employment law attorney. And we have to always remember that employment law attorneys for plaintiffs, meaning employees, they take those cases on contingency. And so the employee is not having to pay anything out of pocket to have a conversation. And it never fails. Now you're getting a demand letter from an unemployment law plaintiff attorney. The other thing that could transpire is you'll get a demand letter from the employee asking to see a copy of their personnel file and. Or requesting a copy.
That, right. There is a red flag to say, okay, something is coming down the pipeline because. Because they're looking for something. And so anytime an employee is looking for any kind of data typically tells you that there's a challenge that has gone unresolved. And so it's some of those little nuances that as an HR expert, I see and I hear, but most business owners don't think twice about it until they get a demand letter from an attorney.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: So an example of those things you get letters about, is it about overtime? Is it about discipline?
What's an example of, of. Of a topic, especially the Smaller businesses who probably don't even always have these files or personnel files because they're the ones with no HR help.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: Sure. Well, that's, that's, that's illegal right there. You got to have personnel files, whether they're remotely or digital or in person. But typically, the biggest one that we see is wage and hour compliance. Right. Employees weren't paid correctly, they didn't meet the standards, they were misclassified. And, you know, we went through this whole thing with the independent contractor versus the employee. So that's typically one issue.
Unfortunately, with AI, you just put in the data into the AI system and it spits out everything that you need to know. And so typically we get those kind of responses because they can tell when they're AI generated. It's code of conduct, harassment. You know, there's a difference between sexual harassment, harassment. Sexual harassment is anything from a sexual perspective. Harassment is the one that's a little bit more undefined. It's anything that makes someone feel uncomfortable within the workplace. Well, currently, today, everything makes everybody uncomfortable. It's having conversations in the workplace that shouldn't be. You know, I tell all of my clients, do not have conversations in the workplace that are controversial subjects. Leave it. Leave it outside the workplace, because you never know what someone else has gone through. Those conversations that are taking place in the workplace could strike a nerve with an employee or someone else that may not be offended by the statement themselves because it wasn't directly directed toward them, but the conversation in itself could be offensive. And so those are some of the challenges that we see that will automatically spike some type of legal action.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: Sounds like a minefield in some ways, to not know all these things. So what's the real value in outsourcing HR services, especially to a firm like yours?
[00:22:39] Speaker A: You're going to get the expertise and you're going to be able to mitigate your risk and liability. There are so many things that employers can put into place when it happens. And I say that just like that. It's not if it is when it happens. Because the longer you stay in business, the more employees that you have, you're going to run across some HR challenges, and I call them challenges, because challenges that, you know, you can overcome. There were. There's going to be a demand letter. It's not the end of the world. I have negotiated settlements with, with attorneys. And you are going to get employee complaints. Well, you need to go through and do an investigation. The business owner doesn't need to do the investigation. You need to have a neutral party that's going to come in and conduct the investigation so that it meets all of the requirements for legal purposes. So for, for our firm, it's not what I know, it's what I can prove. And so going through doing our due diligence with conducting these investigations or analysis of whatever is transparent mitigates the risk and liability for not just the business, but the business owners as well, because you could cope potential liability as the owner or C suite leaders.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: So very important there. Thank you. I think you've given us a clear picture of the depth and scope of your services and your expertise. It's really impressive how much ground you cover.
Tell us how people can find you online.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: Sure. So our website is PCGHR.net Poindexter Consulting Group or reach out to me on LinkedIn. I really engage a lot on LinkedIn with other individuals.
[00:24:08] Speaker B: Stay with us. When we come back, we're going to talk more about HR services. Thank you.
Welcome back to BALANCING acts. I'm your host Linda Hamilton, a CPA and exit planning advisor. And I'm talking with Vikita Poindexter about all things hr. We had a great conversation about some of the challenges you can face and how companies get in trouble often because they're not paying attention to hr. In this segment, we want to talk about Vaquita's partnership, pointdoctoral Consulting's partnership with the national employment law firm.
You made a strategic move by partnering with this firm. I'd like to dig into why that expansion mattered and why it it helps to be in partnership versus sending a lot of your clients off to, to someone else. So what led you to that partnership and why is it the right step for your clients?
[00:25:36] Speaker A: So what led me to that is first of all, I'm not an attorney, right. I just play one sometimes when it comes to mitigating risk and liability. So I don't have a, a JD degree or anything like that.
Sometimes these cases will need to go to court.
And so one of the things that I found was partnering with one a national firm is because my organization is national. And so I have clients through, you know, several states. And so I needed a law firm that just wasn't one state specific employment law. I needed a firm that that's all they specialized in was defense employment law. And so one of the things that I found was going through the course of this, some of the clients that we were being referred at one season all had some type of employee relations issue. They had either been served, had a demand letter or Something to that effect. And so the law firm I have been working with for years, I said, I want to develop this strategic partnership because my clients are not trusting the legal profession for whatever reason. But if I'm intricately involved in it, I can walk them through the particular process, I can do the majority of the work. And then your correspondence with the attorneys back and forth obviously will need to happen. And if the case goes to court, then I have your representation that I know. And so they were in agreement. I was in agreement. And so it just was a win win for the clients.
I think it was also beneficial because it mitigated some of the costs associated with hiring a law firm. Because my job, not my job, my goal is to keep small business owners in business. And if you get hit with a major legal issue, you're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in defense costs.
And if you lose the case or lose one complaint in the case now, you're on the hook for plaintiffs counsel's attorney fees. And so I wanted to be able to mitigate that in this particular law firm has worked to say we will cut rates, we will do X, Y and Z, just to ensure that the clients are getting the best representation that they needed.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: You know what else occurs to me as you talk about that? Because, you know, I have been in business for 35 years myself, and I am an advisor, so my clients pretty much, you know, talk to me about everything.
But you know so much about your clients as I do. Right. Directly, that that's got to save time on explaining things to an attorney and working together there. So I, I can see how that having that partnership can really make a difference.
What additional capabilities does this partnership provide that traditional HR consultants typically can't offer?
[00:28:15] Speaker A: Sure. So if I'm going through a challenging, you know, scenario with a particular client, I'm able to pick up the phone and call them and say, I just need to run this by you just to be sure that I am, you know, looking at this the right way, not second guessing myself, but just getting that confirmation. And 99.9% of the times they're like, you, yeah, you got this. You know this. Listen, you do this better than we do it. So it's just our bar number that you don't have. And I was like, okay, just wanted to be sure. So we have really good relationship. Some of the other things that this partnership has helped is during the midst of the pandemic, there was so much compliance as it related to, you know, osha, Cal OSHA as well. And so they would put together information which helped me in order to get this mass communication out to all of our clients because we, we have a large client base. So that piece helps. The other piece this partnership brings together is we're in the fight together when it comes to advocacy. So oftentimes if we're on the Hill or we're in Sacramento, you know, some of the individuals within this particular partnership, we're there fighting on behalf of small business owners as well. So it's always good to have that, to be able to show my clients that, listen, this is just not a scenario where I'm writing your employee handbook. Like, we're in this for the long haul and then we have partners that are in this with you in this fight.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: And so, you know, a lot of what you're talking about, these large cases, small business owners often think they won't face that. But I talk to business owners across the country and one of the biggest things they're not doing is classification. Right. Right.
I'm going to hire an independent contractor because they're part time or they're gig worker. And it is something that can crush a small business. And I try to educate them. I'm not an attorney either, but I do read tax law. Right. So that, that and, and plus the experience of working with professionals like you have, have often helped me also be able to advise and say, you need to speak to someone.
How does your firm help these smaller businesses with that classification process? You know, they think it's too painful to do it. I don't think it's that painful. The truth is it's not that much more money if they do it the right way.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: I'm very transparent with my clients. Right. And I let them know you can do it this way. Then here's the potential risk of liability I get. Every business owner operates with risk and liability. I don't recommend that this is it.
So I really walk them through. Especially when we went through this whole change of independent con, independent contractors versus employees, I really wanted my clients to be able to understand is you can have employees and still accomplish the same thing and still be legal. And so I have you. I have to break that down into a language where they understand because oftentimes when you're talking about classification or misclassification, I literally would break out the numbers and say, this is the fines, this is the penalties, this is how much it will cost you in the event you are caught with misclassification. And here's how you get caught. Right. You know, if an Employee decides that they want to file for unemployment and they don't have anything in the unemployment bank that will trigger an audit. An audit, depending upon whatever state you're in, can go back three or four years with all of your current and firm employees. And so once you really, you know, educate the client, which is what we, I focus on, I believe knowledge is power and the people perish because of it. And is I educate my clients as to here's the law, here's the liability, here's the risk. At the end of the day, it is your decision. And whatever decision that you make, you know, I will help you navigate through it, but it's not worth it. And then I also let them know the personal liability that's attached to it depending upon how they have their, their business set up.
[00:32:13] Speaker B: Yeah, good, good, great points. And I was going to ask you, like, how integrating HR strategy with legal expertise changes the way you support clients in high risk situations. I don't know if that's the only high risk situation of independent contractors, but what others? So how do you integrate the two together under one roof?
[00:32:32] Speaker A: Everything employee related. There's a risk and that's just the bottom line. Right. And you know, I want to just address one thing that you said. Small business owners don't think it'll happen to them. The majority of the times it is small business owners that are getting hit because their larger organizations have a team of attorneys on staff that are able to help mitigate that risk. It's the small business owners. And so whether it's wage an hour, whether it's your benefit processing the way you do COBRA benefits, if you're not offering benefits, overtime policies, procedures, you know, are you paying expense reimbursements? If it's an employee working for home, what is that? Are they using their personal cell phone for business purposes, that should be a reimbursement. And if you're not doing that, then those little things that we kind of overlook creates more potential liability. Now I have one client that says, well, we don't have landlines anymore. I was like, that's fine. But if the employee is using their personal cell phone for business purposes, that becomes a business expense. You have to reimburse them for it. And we saw that during the pandemic everybody was working from home. There were tremendous amount of laws that said you have to offset some of these costs. And most clients didn't do that because a lot of it is just a lack of knowledge. What we do is come in and provide that information for them. So that they can mitigate those risk and liability.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: Interesting. So what other expenses besides telephone do you have to reimburse? What about Internet?
[00:33:49] Speaker A: Internet, electricity, you know, not only that, but say, for example, an employee is working from home and they have an accident.
Is that a workers compound matter depending upon what state that you're in? California definitely is. And so it's all those little nuances. So you have to put things into place. Right. The other thing I tell employers all the time is when they start thinking about, you know, mitigating their risk and liabilities, there's insurances that you can put into place that covers all of that. And a lot of them have no idea. We ensure our bodies, we ensure, you know, our life in the, in the event that that ends, we insure our, our cars. But what about our businesses? And I'm not just talking about liability or, or general liability. There's employment practice, liability insurance that handles the HR piece of it, you know.
[00:34:37] Speaker B: And I don't want to scare people, but let's face it, compliance is a little bit about. These are the things that can go wrong, whether it's in tax or hr. And you're in the business of protecting your clients and, you know, having someone tell you about that really matters.
I think this partnership that gives your clients, you know, both the law, the legal expertise as well as the HR services go so well hand in hand together, even though they're, you know, under a different licensure, makes for a more stronger, more protected foundation for your customers. And it's a very complicated landscape with everybody working in multiple states and remote workers. So how can people find more about your firm?
[00:35:21] Speaker A: Sure, it's PCGHR.net and then you can reach out to me directly on LinkedIn.
I just want to say this too, Linda. The other partnership benefit to us having this employment law is because now if I engage my attorneys involved, all that information becomes attorney client privilege. So it's not subjected to any subpoenas or anything else.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: That's, that's really a great insight for people to hear and I hope you will definitely check out Vikita's website because these are things you can put in place rather than wait for things to happen. It's the best thing you can do for your business. Give yourself that gift of peace of mind. Stay with us. We'll be right back and we're going to talk about recruiting and staffing with Vaquita when we come back. Stay with us.
[00:36:27] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:36:36] Speaker B: Welcome back to Balancing Acts. I'm your host, Linda Hamilton, a CPA and certified exit planning advisor. And we're talking with the key to Poindexter of Poindexter Consulting, a full service HR firm. We've had a great conversation about her journey as an entrepreneur, about the, the legal risks and challenges, just HR challenges in general. And in this segment we're going to move into staffing and recruiting services and how important that is for business owners. But if you love what you're watching, you can catch balancing acts and every Now Media TV show, live or on demand, anytime on NowMedia TV. You can download the free Now Media TV app on Roku or Apple for instant access to all of our bilingual content in English and in Spanish and from business and news to lifestyle and culture. It's all streaming 24 7. So search now Media TV also on Roku or your favorite podcast and never miss a moment. Faquita. That was a great conversation we had about, you know, what it did for your clients to partner with a national employment law firm, really to build stronger foundations and protections for your clients. You've also expanded into staffing and recruiting, which adds another layer of support for clients. Let's explore how that fits into your vision. What inspired you to expand in that direction?
[00:38:01] Speaker A: We were doing anyway for our clients and so, you know, for our clients, where we are, the HR department, we were already doing their staffing and recruiting and so it just made sense to say, okay, we can offer that as a separate service. It doesn't have to be a package because your employees are your greatest asset. And what we started to see is there was a disconnect between the culture of the organization and how they were recruiting their individuals. And so to streamline the process to allow business owners to focus on running the day to day operations of their business, we took anything from the employment perspective and kind of managed it. And so we go through and we'll do the recruiting, we'll do the onboarding, we'll do the drug and background screens, the reference verifications, we'll do whatever pre employment testing that needs to be done.
And then we will, you know, send out the offer letters and everything like that and onboard them with our particular clients. And so it just was a natural fit for us to be able to take on the recruiting aspect as well.
[00:39:00] Speaker B: And so how does that set you apart from say, traditional staffing agencies?
[00:39:07] Speaker A: One stop shop, right? So traditional staffing agencies will charge a fee based off of that.
And so what we do is we incorporate it into their HR practices. And so we have our recruiting policies, we have our Onboarding policies.
We streamline the process. And so we're just not focused on running some ads on Indeed or LinkedIn and then doing the interview process. Like we literally will go and find this particular candidate. Sometimes I'm taking that candidate from not another one of my clients, but from another organization. Right.
I'm not always looking for the best of the unemployed.
Our recruiting methods are a little bit different. I will tap into my sphere of influence because what sets us apart is I know the organization. I typically know the leadership. I know the culture. I know their leadership style.
Once you have all of that information, I'm just not throwing darts to be able to see, is this one going to stick? Will it fit in? Our interview process is different. You know, how does your vision aligns with the vision of the particular organization? And so I can kind of discern through that because I have the relationship with the organization or the leaders to be able to say this person is not going to be a great fit because of whatever. It's not always about the experience. It's also about the culture fit.
[00:40:26] Speaker B: Interesting.
That makes sense. And being on the inside, you're not explaining exactly what you're looking for.
So how do you help your companies ensure they're selecting the right talent? You know, not just any talent. You get so many resumes, I'm sure, and probably from all states as well. So how do you. How do you help them ensure that? Sure.
[00:40:51] Speaker A: So I have a very streamlined process when it comes to it. Number one, if your resume is over two pages, I'm not reading it because I don't have the time or the capacity to do that. And so you should. Your resume should be a.
An intro to who you are.
And then I. I'm always prepared. Right. And so, you know, for example, I just hired a chief financial officer for one of my clients. There was very specific things we were looking for. This particular client was in the nonprofit space. There was very specific things that we were looking for, very specific criteria, you know, whether it's grants, management, and everything like that. And. But most importantly, I needed that culture fit. Could this individual work with the current finance team, Work with the current C suite leadership team? What were their communication styles like? I knew what that CEO was looking for. So I need to find somebody that not only had that skill set, but that could complement this particular CEO. That's not something you're going to find on. Indeed, that's not something that you're going to find on LinkedIn, because most recruiters won't have that information. As a matter of fact, in this particular scenario, this particular client decided to use a recruiter. Initially, when I told them it wasn't necessary, that didn't work because every candidate that we received wasn't the match that we were looking for. So I said, we don't need to do this. We don't need to pay all this extra money for a recruiter. I'll go find the candidate. And within three weeks, I found the candidate and we hired them. So that's kind of what separates us apart.
[00:42:14] Speaker B: That's impressive. And you mentioned hiring a cfo, which is a financial category.
You mentioned the communication styles and culture fit. So how do you evaluate it is a fit. Are there tools you use for that?
[00:42:31] Speaker A: Absolutely. So I'm huge on testing. Right. You know, because I, I am from the auspice that employees are not all square pegs are going to fit into this round hole. And that's just, we're human beings, right? We communicate differently. How does this information, how does this individual receive information? How do they communicate information? How do they lead? How do they manage their people? How do they like to be managed? How do they like to be led? And so I will do, you know, any type of personality and, or communication test to be able to see. And I do it for my own firm. I am a very direct, straight to the point individual. I am not the warm and fluffy individual. And so if I have someone that works for me that's hypersensitive because I'm not the warm and fluffy, I don't care how much experience they have, it's not going to work. And so my team is typically, whose communication style is typically like mine, very direct, straight to the point. They're not hypersensitive. And so it's the same thing I do for my clients. I look at, okay, who is this person going to be reporting to? I already know their communication style. I know how they receive information. I know what the skill set that they're looking for. That's the easy part. It's the other part, the personality. Are they going to mesh well with the team? How well is the culture going to be?
So we do that. The other thing that we also do is depending upon the role, whether it's finance or something else, there's some additional testing. Again, I hire slow, but I get rid of problems fast.
And then obviously all of the background screening, I don't just don't, I just don't call to say, you know, was this employee a great employee? Because typically most HR professionals are only Going to give you dates of employment and verify the last position held. I kind of go in and bypass some of that typical way and get a little bit more information as to the work ethic, the quality, and then there's some background stuff that I can delve into looking at, you know, you know, other previous potential legal liability that they may or may not have had.
[00:44:24] Speaker B: Interesting. And you know, so I love those personality assessments. And while I can see how you wouldn't want somebody with a communication style, like if you know that's overly sensitive, if you're direct. But when I did, for instance, it was a Colby and found I'm a very high fact finder. I research things to death. I want five different solutions. If my assistant or the person working with me is the exact same, nothing would get out the door.
So you kind of need also different, different roles when you build a team, right? Like where are your blind spots? And so that kind of brings me to the next question of, you know, hiring mistakes are blind spots that you see in small and mid sized businesses in either getting the right people in the right seats or maybe not firing people fast enough when it's really not working.
[00:45:16] Speaker A: Right. So I'm gonna deal with the fire piece second, but let me talk about that one. The biggest problem that I see with leadership is not hiring above them, right. Because people feel threatened. And so I always tell my leaders, if you're the smartest person in a room, your room is too small.
And so that's a challenge for me.
I like to build a team that have individuals that our communication styles are similar.
However, I'm not the smartest person.
I may be the most knowledgeable when it comes to mitigating risk and liability.
But when it comes to system and processes for my own team, I need somebody that's an expert in this, that and the other, because I'm not. And I am confident enough to be able to hire people that are better than I am.
And I'm not threatened by that.
Part of the challenge with leadership is we, we believe that we have to be the smartest person in the room. And that's where the failure comes in and we won't hire up. So one of the things I tell leaders is this.
Identify what your strengths are, right? Your communication style, what is going to make you that good overall team? I'm a huge football fan. So you need a good offense and you need a good defense and what are the core components on each side that's going to make you the well rounded leader while you're helping build a trajectory of your, of your team and their particular career path. So that's number one. The number two thing is we're quick to I got an opening, I need to fill the position. Well, you need to kind of take a step back. Why do you have an opening? Is it because of growth? Is it because of turnover? How many times has this position been turned over? What's the duties and responsibilities? Are you sure this is what you need? So do your due diligence first, then to tackle your second. Part of the question is firing fast. Oftentimes we don't do that because we can fix it.
You will know within the first 90 days max if this employee is going to be a key player on your team.
You can't change it, you can't fix it. If they're not performing within the first, I literally say 60 days, then you should be creating an exit strategy.
[00:47:21] Speaker B: That's really important and a lot of times we like the person and it's not working out and we have to make that decision. I think your integrated approach to your hr, the legal alignment and staffing really gives companies end to end support and it's a remarkable model you've built in, in a small business. And of course I'm a big champion, an advocate of women founders in business and so it's really been wonderful talking to you. Please tell our audience how they can find out more about your firm and about and connect with you on LinkedIn.
[00:47:54] Speaker A: Sure. So you can reach out to us at our website. It's PCGHR.net you can reach out to me at LinkedIn@vaquita Poindexter and you can even reach out to me via email at
[email protected] be more than happy to have any conversations with you.
[00:48:08] Speaker B: Thank you so much. Stay with us. Balancing Acts is every Tuesday at 7pm Central Time. And come back next week for another strategic and tactical episode of things that will help you build a profitable, resilient business.
