VANNOY:

Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining today. Mike Vannoy, vice President of Marketing at Asure. And today, I think it, this is, this is a topic that while the topic I think resonates and has action for probably everybody listening today, every small and mid-size company I is, is dealing with ta their own talent struggles. If you’re a restaurant, you might just be getting ha having a hard time getting people to even ha have all of your tables open, right? If you’re a retailer, you might be facing shrinking hours. Maybe you’re a professional services business and you got the people, but you have the right people. And you know, the, as I think McKinsey coined the phrase almost 25 years ago, this War for Talent, I think for a long time that was really kind of the, oh, the M mucks in in the, you know, fortune 1000 thought about things like that.

And I’d say maybe, you know, 10 years ago became a mid-market problem. But from my perspective, the war for calendar has hit Main Street. And, and it’s showing up in the help wanted signs everywhere. So one, unpack this topic, and, and I think we’ve got a really, really cool guest today. Scott Omelianuk. He is the editor in chief for inc.com. So what a fantastic publication. Tons of great content for small businesses and growing businesses. In, so, Scott comes at this topic really from a, from a super unique advantage point about seeing between the content they produce and the interviews that they have with entrepreneurs and growing companies kind of a front row seat to all the challenges that they face in. And I think maybe some of the solutions as they talk to entrepreneurs about what’s working, what’s not working in, in recognizing America’s fastest growing company. So, Scott, welcome looking forward to our conversation today.

OMELIANUK:

Thanks so much for having me honor to be here, excited to talk about what is an absolutely crucial topic for, for entrepreneurs everywhere and of every scale.

VANNOY:

Yeah. So, so what I think I wanna do is I just wanna kind of break the conversation into, into a few big buckets here. Sure. and so as we think about how do we attract better talent, how do we attract the right talent you know, topics of, of compensation and recognition training flex work time off. Let’s kind of touch on each of these buckets. And as interesting said, as, as you and I were chatting before th this, this meeting I think we’re all in the same storm, not the same boat, right? So the solu some of these solutions we’re gonna talk about might fit for one party, but not for another.

OMELIANUK:

That’s absolutely right. Yeah. I, I think, you know, we, one of the things get, that gets lost in a larger conversation, or the larger media conversation or the headline is that every company is, is different. Every company has different needs, and of course all of that, you know, drives or should drive decisions that are best for the company, not necessarily, you know, what the headline is in, in social media or what you see while you got CNBC on, and the background scrolling a across the bottom of the screen, right? Right. So I think that’s an important caveat for you to, to, to, to offer, cuz cuz we all do different things.

VANNOY:

That’s right. That’s right. So hopefully some of the topics we talk about will certainly the buckets we’re gonna talk about this first one fair pay. Not only is there things to unpack here around how to attract and recruit in, in, in, and hire the right people, the right talent, but these are also some really timely topics. Some of it is legislatively driven, but I’d say legislative legislatively driven as a result of kind of a sea change in how, how I think there’s a, a shifting in power, you know, from maybe from the corporation to the employee. And that looked one way when it was big companies who could flex muscle against the employee. But now small companies, entrepreneurs, they don’t have the same wherewithal to flex. And oh, by the way, with unemployment sub 3% with low participation rates in the labor force how do I attract these people? Anyway, can can you speak into maybe some, some of your learnings what you see at, at Inc around maybe best practices around fair pr, fair pay for attracting talent? Yeah.

OMELIANUK:

I, I think, you know, the first thing to think about is, is that there is legislation that exists that, you know, in, in many places that, that requires equitable pay for, for equitable work, right? And, and that’s just one thing to keep in mind. And, and, and that legal need might drive a lot of people, but I’d urge folks to think about the fact that do you want employees talking among each other? And that’s what happens whether you like it or not and, and, and one finding out they’re compensated vastly different than another for essentially the same role. And, and of course, you know, when issues of gender or other demographic considerations are in play, that that even becomes more of a difficult thing. So beyond any of the stuff that we might talk about at some of the more progressive workplaces Inc visits, we should think about you know, I, is everyone fairly paid and, and if not, and fairly paid relative to someone else at their position, fairly paid relative to someone else outside of the company in a similar position, because that’s an opportunity for them to leave if, if, if they’re not.

And so, and so I think we automatically, as owners and founders and entrepreneurs, we, we, we have a, a, a win at all cost mentality and, and knee jerk zero sum, and that more money out the door is just more money out the door. And that’s not always the case, right? So if we just start wi with that here, here at Inc and it’s parent company, Mansueto Ventures, we do a pay equity audit. We’re a midsize company. Smaller companies can’t necessarily afford to do that. But, you know, as the head of an organization, you can make an assessment of, of whether folks are, are, are adequately compensated. But then once, you know, moving beyond that, right? When we get to, to, to companies and, and how they may be more pro progressive, I think you know, inflation has hurt everybody.

And, and this is one of those places where you have to think about, well, what is my company relative to others? I know folks who run companies who have contracts that lock in their price at Walmart. If they want a bunch of folks who work for them, want a raise, it becomes really hard because they don’t have any leverage to raise price themselves at, at that moment. I know a handful of founders who haven’t taken a paycheck in the last year because of that, because their team has team has demanded it, and frankly, without their team, they, they’re nothing. Right? so, so we have to be mindful that inflation is, is, is real. It, it makes folks less satisfied overall. And, and one of the things we see entirely is, you know, the happier you can keep an employee, the more productive they’ll be.

So in our best workplaces survey that we do, half of the companies involved in the survey or who were named a best workplace, slightly more than half actually offer stock options. Now, again, a bigger company opportunity, but that doesn’t mean that there’s something smaller companies can’t do right? A, a bonus that’s not tied, not end of year, right? We, there, there, there, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that end of year bonuses don’t work very well, and it’s because the, the reward is so disconnected from the effort, right? So I put an effort in all year long and, and three months after the year is over, I, I, I get this paycheck. That doesn’t mean a lot to me, but maybe a quarterly one does, maybe spot bonuses do, maybe, you know, the opportunity to, and it doesn’t have to be a lot.

Cuz another thing we found is that money which in our minds might add up to something, doesn’t necessarily mean something for an employee. It’s more about the recognition often, right? So it doesn’t even have to be a lot of money. But one of the best workplace companies, we have a company called Stella Rising, which is a marketing firm. They, they offer happiness allowances. They give people $500 to spend how they want. That is kind of creative. It, it doesn’t put you in the place of, of, you know, the for, as you mentioned, the Fortune 1000, where you don’t, you don’t have the leverage of a large organization and, and, and the ability to, to, to, to leverage you, you know, discounts on plans and, and, and, and reciprocal agreements with organizations outside of yours and other things like that. So it’s a different approach to how you can think about compensation not pay. And when you get to the fair part of it, it really comes down to do people feel like they’re being treated fairly for what they’re doing? And that doesn’t always mean the most money there is.

VANNOY:

Yes, Scott, that that’s, that’s really cool idea because you know, so, so a lot of the, a lot of our weekly shows are focused on very compliance oriented topics and, you know, fairly Labor Standards Act has, is one way to think about Fair Pay. But, but in today, this context, it’s about attracting talent and retaining talent and making it, this is more of do they feel, does the employee feel that this is fair not by some necessarily legal standard, right? And so we, we just know if I was to give you a hundred dollars, a hundred dollars bill in a, in a meeting saying, Hey, that you did an amazing job on that project, I just wanna say thanks and hand you a hundred dollars bill, compare that versus an extra a hundred dollars in a line item on your pay stub. That’s right. There’s no question which has the bigger impact. So part, I think part of the message here is for employers and entrepreneurs to get creative in the way in which you dis distribute the pay, right? Take take, however, your what, like you said in your, in your example with Walmart, get their, the, their mail, the pie may only slice mail only be so big of dollars there are available to give, you might have to get creative in how you divy that slice of pie up.

OMELIANUK:

A absolutely. And, and you know, that can, that can be in a lot of, of of different ways. And, and there, and there can be barter opportunities or, or, or mass purchase opportunities, right? So, you know, you might negotiate a discount with a company a company we know called ERA Software, which is in the data management space. They, they make new employees they make $3,000 worth of office furniture available to them for the home, right? And, and because it’s a software company, there’s a lot of remote work that, that, that’s possible. They’ve calculated that that $3,000, which doesn’t really cost them $3,000 cuz they’re doing a deal with, with a provider company so they get something of a discount off retail. They, they’ve calculated that, you know, that, that that money that allows someone to set up a nice home office actually creates an environment in which people are more productive, right? So, so there’s a sort of a sideways spend that feels like you’re being compensated if you’re the employee, but that, that results in, in a lot of extra productivity or potentially, right? It potentially does for this software company. Again, not gonna apply to a landscaper, but, but it, but it works. It, it works for, for, you know, a software company of any scale. Frankly, Franklin

VANNOY:

Scott, you, it was interesting, you, you talked about productivity. I think about this a lot where there are some jobs that maybe it’s a retail clerk, there’s x number of customers that come in the door. The person can only be so productive no matter how awesome they might be. And therefore that might have to calculate into some of, of your compensation strategies. But there are some jobs where somebody who’s 10% more, more effective, more talented, that might be five times more productive, right? I mean, it’s the parental principle, you know, 20% of the work 80% of the work done by 20% of the people. What, what are your thoughts on not just being fair, but being dare I say, wildly generous in your compensation, but along with that comes an expectation of much higher productivity?

OMELIANUK:

Yeah. I, I think, you know, so this is a very valid idea. I, I think we have to step back and, and see individuals in this case and what the last couple of years ha has, has done to them, right? And so we see a lot of people who, who are not working traditionally anymore. We see a lot of healthcare and childcare issues that have affected people. And so not everyone is gonna be able to actually work at maximum productivity, frankly. But for those folks who can, and, and, and by the way, we have to, you know, I think by and large, if we find that employee valuable, we have to give them leash, right? We have to, to, to let them work at the level of productivity that allows them to sustain themselves until the environment we’re in changes. And, and, and hopefully that will, will one day happen.

 Right? But, but in, but in, in the short term, yeah, there are other ways of, of compensating. We see a lot of companies that engage, as I said, in, in sort of the, you know, a stock option. And, and that can be modest, right? But it can be key to, to productivity. We, we can see or allow people, and we see this a lot to get x number of work product done in whatever timeframe they need to get it done, as long as it meets the company’s larger goals. And again, that doesn’t work in retail, for example, but, but, but asynchronous work that will work for right? Where, where when I do my job really doesn’t matter. Ultimately, if I do it at midnight or at noon, it doesn’t matter as long as I’m done by Friday. You know, this is, this is something, I had a son who was in Montessori school.

This is something they learned as, as, as, as four year olds, right? Like, manage their time as long as they got the project done when they were told they would need it to be done. So we as adults certainly can do this. So I, I think I think there is that opportunity to, to let folks be adults, to know the ones who are invested. And, and, and as a manager, it, it does require extra effort, right? We need to pay more attention to our people. Doesn’t mean spying on them, doesn’t mean installing spyware on their keyboards or anything like that necessarily, but it does mean you know, paying more attention to them as people and how they function and what works for them and what doesn’t. And do they have to worry about a, a sick parent, or do they have childre issues or they, they offline entirely because everyone in the house has covid and they have to take care of, of everybody.

VANNOY:

I have a friend who’s a C E O of about a hundred million dollar technology company, has done really, really, really well. Bootstraps started the whole thing. It’s gone from, from zero to a hundred. And now, like I say, can’t do that in as a landscaping company. He can’t do that in retail. But as a technology firm, it doesn’t matter where his people perform their work or when they even perform it in many, many cases. He says Hey, we’re gonna pay X amount for an engineer. I don’t care where you are. So he doesn’t treat. And so he has the very, very best, the 1% of the 1% of talent from around the world that in some countries that he might be exorbitantly overpaying, but he just wants to send the message, Hey, this is how much an engineer is worth to our company.

And maybe if you live in Silicon Valley, maybe that’s just average. Maybe if you live someplace in the other side of the globe or in a different hemisphere you could be rich beyond your wildest dreams. But it creates this feeling of equity and value in, and it’s not just the skill level people. People are passionate behind the brand and the mission and, and, and the productivity is that he gets is insane, right? So it’s not, Hey, I’m gonna pay you more. I’m gonna press the thumb down on you harder. It’s, this is our strategy. And just being really transparent about what that is. You know, lots of different ways to approach this fair pay pay issue.

OMELIANUK:

You, you said something that I think is also often overlooked that is, is, is really important, and that is mission, right? And, and it is remarkable throughout history what people have done not for pay, but for passion and cause, right? And, and the fact is that if you can find the mission for your company and show your team how it matters, and how what they do matters to someone out there who’s relying on them you’ll get enormous productivity out of people without any extra pay here at Inc. Where our whole mission is to support the American entrepreneur. When, when I talk to my team about going out and meeting someone, and what an impact, a story we’ve written about someone has had on that company, or ha naming them to the Inc 5,000 list of fastest growing companies, what that is unlocked for them.

And then I come back and I tell folks that story it, it, it’s, it’s far more energizing than a few extra dollars in, in, in the check, right? In the direct deposit. So if you can find your own version of, of what the mission is for us, it’s to support the people who are creating the future. I previously worked at a brand ran a brand called This Old House Ventures, which is the parent company of the television show. This old house, which has been on television for 40 some odd years now, the recognition there is that what we were doing was helping people create safe spaces for their families, right? Like, that was our mission when you started to think about that and what that really meant, what it means to have a safe space for your family not to do a fancy remodel, which is what you’d think if you just like glossed, you know, had a gloss of the brand, but, but really, like, what, what, what at the core we did was that, that that changes things.

You know, I talked to someone a couple of weeks ago that runs a staffing firm, and you know, at first when we had this conversation, he’s like, I, I run a staffing firm. I put bodies in seats. And then we started to talk about it, and he came around this understanding that he was giving people opportunity and helping companies be their best, right? And suddenly through that lens it’s a very different conversation and, and an exciting one. And, and it has nothing to do with money. And, and that’s great, right? It’s a form of compensation that has nothing to do with money.

VANNOY:

Yeah. I mean, I, I, I’ll, I’ll double down on that. I, I think mission and vision can be so overlooked. We, you know, if you’re older than a certain age, you’re remembering the malls, the accessories stores where they had the posters of all the inspirational quotes with Eagles soaring. And, you know, people shaking hands saying, the customer is our number one priority. Meanwhile, the clerk doesn’t make eye contact with you, <laugh>, they’re on, on your cell phone, right? It’s like they don’t, if you’re not living out those values, they, they, they mean nothing. But if you really dig deep and declare your mission and your vision and your values more, much more importantly, if you live them out, if you act them out, you’re gonna draw the right kind of people in. Because you know what, little Maslow’s law or something, eventually, the money doesn’t matter as much. There’s obviously a baseline. I need to feed my family component. I wanna feel that I’m fairly compensated in the marketplace, but after a while, it’s, what am I doing? What am I, what, what, what am I, what am I getting behind? What am I part of That is absolutely sometimes more important.

OMELIANUK:

I have been very unhappy and, and highly compensated jobs, and I would say I’ve been incredibly happy working as a professor which, unless your tenure track does not pay very much at all, right? But the reward is astonishing. Absolutely. Yep.

VANNOY:

All right. So the reward is astonishing. What a perfect segue. And these two things are not unrelated, right? Fair pay with feeling appreciated. So you, you, you, you get to look at a lot of companies in, in your, in your seat. What, what are the best and fastest growing companies doing to feel appreciated to make their employees?

OMELIANUK:

I, I think, I, I think this is really important and, and, and is, is the equivalent to pay. And it’s different for everybody, right? How do you make someone feel appreciated? I very personal e example, at the start of the pandemic we vowed here not to, to, to lay anyone off that we, we thought that it, it was inhuman to disconnect people from, from their healthcare at a time where we didn’t know what was happening. About nine months later and, and, and by the way, then we bonus to everyone about n nine months later we were served papers of an intention to unionize the employees. That felt like a personal slight, right? But the simple fact of the matter is, there were lots of ways that the team did not feel appreciated beyond the, the obvious.

And so there, there are, there are, there are lots of ways to do that. But the, probably the, the most important one is paying attention to your people. And, and that, that can happen in a bunch of different ways, right? Our CEO has her cell phone number on the bottom of all her staff communications, and people just know that if they really have a problem, they can reach out to her directly. That means something to folks, right? The companies that we’ve seen in, in, in the best workplaces will have regularly scheduled meetings for, for, for staff with say the head of hr. And, and it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a conversation around, you know, how can we help you be better at your job? How can we improve as an organization? Not all the ideas are gonna be valid.

Not all of the conversations are gonna have forward momentum, but the fact is, someone’s had the opportunity to talk about it. And that changes the dynamic radically. Other, other folks we see doing stay interviews. So not, not, not, you know, it’s a traditional practice at companies of a certain size. The HR department does an exit interview. Well, it’s, you know, when we stop to think about it, well, that’s kind of too late, isn’t it, though, that the, the horse maybe be that thoroughbred is already out of the barn door, right? So, so doesn’t it make more sense to have regular and ongoing interviews with folks while they’re still employed? And the answer is yes. I, you know, can

VANNOY:

You go deeper on that one? Cuz this is a super cool concept. The, the stay interview you, you have, you have some, some suggestions around best practices different ways the, that entrepreneurs could conduct these stay interviews. Is it truly as simple as, Hey, I love ya, I think you’re great. I wanna make sure I never lose you. What’s really important to you that, that we need to do more of? What do we do that bothers you, we need to do less of? Is is it that simple?

OMELIANUK:

I, I think it can be that simple. Obviously, you know, if you’re, if, if you’re, you’re, you have a good eq, good emotional intelligence, just, you know, the questions based on the person, based on their level again, you know, at a certain size, this becomes impossible for, for, you know a, a single founder to do. And, and a group of people have to do this, but recognition is important. It’s one of the reasons, right? That social media, which has somewhat fed the employment situation we’re in exists because people wanna be recognized. And, and so I, I, I think it’s incredibly important to sit down and, and, and make sure and this is particularly true of, of younger generation of people, where, where they have an expectation that you will help set them on a career track and help advance them each step of the way.

 And, and, and having those regular check-ins can help enormously. I talked to a, a, a founder who in, in Los Angeles, who created a whole bunch of intermediate titles relative to what he used to have at his company. So you went from, you know, used to go from associate to senior or assistant to senior, whatever it was. But now there’s a, a junior and an associate in between and, and it, and, and pay doesn’t necessarily change that much. Responsibilities don’t necessarily change that much, but folks feel like they’re making more progress and that, that matters to them, right? Because the world is moving so fast to sit in the same job for 18 months or two years seems like a career death nail right now. Now, you know that that was not the case for me where I was completely content when I was young to have a job that was the same for two years.

But that, that does exist. Now, the flip side of all of this is that sometimes you’re just not gonna be able to keep people you want. And, and there’s nothing you can do about it. So I have in the last year received resignation letters that frankly I, you know, printed out off the email and saved because they were so generous toward me. And, and what I had done for someone say when their family was sick or, or when they were without electricity for a week, and we paid for a hotel that had air conditioning in the middle of, of, of the summer so they could get their work done rather than <laugh> just perspire and be angry, right? Those people needed to leave. It had nothing to do with, we could not have offered them anything else. And, and that’s okay.

And, and to allow that exit graciously is sort of another form of, of, of, of good management good appreciation and even good compensation, because the, that person having had a good experience with you being allowed to go gracefully wi with a cocktail party or whatever you want to do for them, but not with anger makes them a marketer for the company, essentially. They’ll be someone who is comfortable recommending friends to you. They may want to come back one day, and if they’re valuable, that, that, that would be something to consider, right? So, so even though you can’t keep everybody, you know, and again, I said, someone wrote me a note, said, I’ll never forget what you did for me and my family. And, you know, so for me that was a remarkable reward, frankly. Sometimes,

VANNOY:

And sometimes when you’re the entrepreneur, you’re the boss it can be lonely, right? And you can be unwittingly detached from what really goes on in the, in the water cooler conversations, how you treat that person on the way out the door. Don’t think for a second that they don’t have friends inside the, the organization that they’re gonna, they’re gonna share their experience with. And this is gonna, how you treat that person is gonna help retain the rest, or could accelerate the depar departure of the rest, right?

OMELIANUK:

Absolutely. and, you know, you do, you do bring up a, a gr great point with, with respect to the fact that entrepreneurship being the boss, being a founder, it can be an incredibly lonely thing. I I often talk about how, you know, you, you, you, you, if you haven’t investors, you, you can’t share with them how you’re feeling. Cause you might create a confidence crisis. Your spouse may have no idea what you’re talking about. You can’t share your weaknesses, you know, all of them anyway, with your team, though some vulnerability is seen as, as, as very beneficial. So, so it is one of the reasons, frankly, ink events are so successful because it’s one of the only times entrepreneurs get to talk to other entrepreneurs, the people who, who understand them. But all of this together you know, sort of ignores the fact that the same toll that employees are, are, are facing, is visited on the person who runs the shop too.

And, and so I, I would suggest that founders find their own ways of feeling appreciated, their own ways of compensating themselves, their own self-care. Because it’s incredibly difficult. You’re on all the time. There’s no backup. Often you’re the last line of defense that can be exhausting. It can be mentally draining. We can take that right out on the people we care about in ways we don’t even understand. That’s one of the fascinating things about entrepreneurship is, is, is how much psychology is involved in it. So it’s really important, I think, for, for founders to remember to take care of themselves even as they’re taking care of everyone else.

VANNOY:

Yeah. Well, well said. Let’s talk about another topic. Today’s employee they, they wanna grow, right? Today’s employee doesn’t see themselves signing up for a 30 year commitment to the company store, so to speak. They know that they’re valuable. They know that what the job market’s like, they know that they can move around. They want to do different things in a career. Therefore they want to choose steps in that path where they grow and they get better. And if that means they can grow with you, great, but they, they just want to grow. Can you, can you talk about this whole topic of training and, and maybe what you’ve seen change in, say, this last five years? And I’m really curious for your thoughts on how technology has impacted that, you know, given a pandemic.

OMELIANUK:

Yeah. I, I think there’s no question. You’re right. This is sort of the equivalent of the career path piece we just just talked about giving people access to training. And, and I think there, there, this sort of splits into two, two different things. One is, is, is training so they can do their job more effectively. And, and, and there’s a obvious payback for you when that’s the case. And, you know, whether that’s, you know sales training or training on software or, or things like that, that, that’s incredibly helpful. I think there’s another opportunity with training, and that’s a little bit broader and might, you know, more traditionally fall under sort of tuition reimbursement or, or, or, or something like that. But you talk about how people don’t see themselves in one role for a very long time. And, and in fact, you know, we hire, generally speaking not people but bodies to fill a slot.

And the fact is people are multidimensional the slot might not be. And, and, and by giving people more access to more opportunities to learn to, to, to, to, to master a, a new skill to, to sort of just broaden even their horizons. All of those things have a payback effect. In, in the job you might discover, and this is one of my personal favorite things to do, is, is what other talents and skills your team has outside of the reason you hired them. So just a, you know, a, a really quick example, and again, that had that sort of non-compensation payoff. We were, we were creating a new television show in, in my former job. And it, it turned out that the person who was our, our content marketing person was a musician and, and a composer and had written all sorts of music.

 The opportunity to give that person credit on screen for a composition they wrote and performed on a television show with the minimum payment that required was worth so much more to that individual than anything we could have ever paid them for their content marketing job, right? Yeah. That was their hobby. Their hobby was being recognized in a very different way. So I think as we think about training, you know there, there, there’s the specifics of doing a job better, and that is in your best interest, and you should look to provide as much of that as you can possibly afford. I I would say technology as, as you mentioned, has, has made that easier. People don’t have to go off for the day to an offsite, to some, some windowless room somewhere. Where, where, where someone who’s an instructor teaches them how to do something.

There’s lots of opportunity with various technology products to, to, to create learning that people have access to, again, when they have access to need to have access to it that they can finish at their own pace and provides them a way to, to level up in, in their role. I, I think it was, you know Richard Branson, you know, said, train people well enough so that they can leave and take any job they want, but then also treat them well enough that they don’t want to go anywhere. I think, you know, that’s not a, you know, that seemed to have worked out well for him as a philosophy.

VANNOY:

Yeah. You know, I, I hate to to to say it, but I, I, I’ve literally talked to entrepreneurs in, in, in, in, God bless, they, every entrepreneur, they, they work their face off, right? So they’re an expert in their field. They might not be expert in payroll and HR and compliance. That’s why they work with, with folks like us. But I, I, I’ve talked to people literally afraid of, well, if I, if I train ’em how to do that, this, then I’m just gonna train on how to, how to leave. And I think they didn’t realize they were, they were literally accelerating the exit for these employees because they were, they were starving for this development, right? And going back to our prior two topics of recognition and fair pay, all these things are intertwined, right? And, you know, people young in the, in their career do free internships all the time, right?

Because they, they are developing the skills. They know it’s gonna help them in the long run. I’m not suggesting in any way you don’t have to pay people fairly, but you don’t have to give a raise, or you might, it might, it might not cost as much as you think to provide the training, as long as you’re doing the other things, including recognition, and they see themselves as a, a place that they’re behind the mission, they’re growing in their developing the, the, the, these are all totally, totally intertwined, I would say. Couldn’t agree more on the Richard Branson quote. If, if you’re not developing your people, someone else is going to.

OMELIANUK:

That’s right. And, and, you know, as entrepreneurs, we have growth mindset to a large extent. But sometimes it gets shut off at a certain place, right? And suddenly we decide we can’t see that there’s an ROI on training, for example, when, when in fact there is, you know, that training can help take you to the level you’re at, which makes you nervous about spending on it to the next level. And may, may have made that training seem like a silly little investment in the end, right? That I’m so grateful I’d done that because we’re, we’ve now, you know in increased our productivity by 20% and our, our, our, our, our top line by 20% or what have you. And, and it’s just something to think about because we do sort of get lock in at, at, at a moment, right?

There’s always, I, I do this myself. I just had a conversation with someone. Do we really have to pay them that much to do this job for us? And, and, and of course, yeah, we do. But my people wouldn’t have come to me without it if, if that weren’t the case. And, and by not, by not fighting over those few dollars we created a lot of goodwill. It’s, by the way, just really quickly, a, a, a another thing we often do here is we’ll have a start date for somebody that just seems to make sense with the calendar. And, and then often not have them officially start you know, for a week. And, and so essentially it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a paycheck, and in that time, there’s some onboarding and stuff like that ultimately. So it’s not just money out the door, but again, it creates a buffer, buffer for folks, creates a little good will. And, and it lets them know that this is not just a transaction but something more, more valuable than that.

VANNOY:

That’s interesting. Scott, I’m looking at the clock. I got a couple more topics that we should get through. I could stay on that one forever. I, I think training is perhaps one of the most underrated, undervalued things that entrepreneurs need to do more of. So talk to us about time off. The, the boy, the, the, the, the climate has changed a whole bunch and just accelerated by a pandemic, right? So help entrepreneurs think how should they be thinking about time off for employees and how to manage that.

OMELIANUK:

I think I think time off is incredibly important, right? I, I think Americans do an awful job at taking their time off, even the time that is allotted to them. So if you work at a company that affords you a week or two weeks or four weeks of vacation, most people take less than half of what they’re en entitled to. But the fact is that that time away is a recharge for folks. And, and so we see companies now doing things, if you’ve put all of these other pieces into place, the mission the passion, the fair compensation, the conversations things like unlimited paid time off are, are an opportunity. Again, people know what the work product they need to deliver is, and that’s what you’re compensating for, right? You’re not compensating them for sitting in a chair for seven and a half or eight hours or whatever it is a day for five days a week, you’re comp.

So it’s a mind shift for us too, on, on how are we compensating? Are we, yes, we’re paying someone by the hour, but really that’s just an efficient way of calculating how long this job will, will take. We’re paying for the, the job. And so if they get the job done, it doesn’t matter if they take two days off at the end of that week they got the job done the overhead’s still the overhead let them go. It’s okay, right? And, and we see, I think there’s something like almost two thirds of the companies in our best workplaces list. And out, out of the thousands of companies that apply, by the way, we take just the top 10%, make the best workplaces list. I think two thirds of the companies offer unlimited paid time off. I think something like almost 90% of the companies now have paternity leave, not just maternity leave.

 And, and, and folks are extending that as well. We see companies giving time off to do community service. We know that some form of social responsibility really matters to co consumers. We know it matters to employees too, and giving them a day to go and do a service project is a great thing. We also know, and plenty of research to back it up, that that, you know, doing volunteer work actually makes people feel better about themselves relative to almost anything else. So that that’s a win for the person individually, and they bring that attitude back to the office.

VANNOY:

I love that so much because even Scott, so sometimes it’s easy to say, Hey you know our, our mission is we’re, we’re building X, but we’re really here to change lives and, and get behind something inspirational. Sometimes it’s just hard to come up with. You’re in a mature industry that’s been commoditized in, in it feels almost insincere and shallow to say a mission statement that’s too aspirational. There’s nothing wrong with saying, Hey, part of our value system at this company, we might be in a commodity business, but we give back to the community. And that’s why X percent of our time is dedicated to for PTO, for a charity of your choice. Or we get, we, we go to the food bank, or whatever the case may be. You can, you can really impact mission alignment of the company doing something that has nothing to do with your kind of core mission.

OMELIANUK:

Absolutely. And, and, and frankly, it’s only all the more important in a commodity business, right? Where if price isn’t the issue, what is it makes someone want to do business with? You find that thing, right? And, and, and that, that, you know, frankly, that allows you to survive when, when things tank it allows you to survive when consumer behavior changes. Having that differentiator, especially in a commodity business, is important. And spending time on what that is is, is, is, is worthwhile, I think because you’re right, it, it does make a difference in the end. And by the way, you know, there, there are other, other kinds of, of, of time too, right? So giving people the tools to work more efficiently, gives them more time you know, helping them. I, I actually just offered a colleague of, of mine time with a productivity coach who’s incredibly talented person an incredibly dedicated, utterly on the way to burnout because they just don’t know how to compartmentalize and take time for themselves, right? So there are other ways to think about time as well. It just doesn’t have to be time out of, out of the office.

VANNOY:

Entrepreneurship in many ways is, is a bit of a race. It’s, it, it, the, the metaphors to athletics are, are pretty clear sometimes in, in all sports they have a break. Basketball, football, there’s a halftime where they literally go in and they rest, right? Because not even the best trained athletes in the world, the most gifted athletes in the world can run at 100% for an hour straight. They can’t do it, right? So if you’re a marathoner, you have to have a pace. If you’re a sprinter, you do it in short bursts, and you rest in between. And I think we have to have that same, same mentality at work.

OMELIANUK:

Yeah. I mean, there, there was Will Chamberlain, but there hasn’t been Will Chamberlain since, will Chamberlain <laugh>, right? Who, who actually played more miss on average than were in a game because of overtime. But you’re absolutely right. It it, there’s another aspect really quickly though, of entrepreneurship too. So not only I, is it a race? And this to me is, is, is one of the positives, is that you are an entrepreneur because you are a creative person. You, you, you had an idea, you figured out how to get that idea off the ground. You figured out how to convince people. Your idea was valuable. You figured out how to price for that. You figured out how to get other people aligned with you to execute on that idea. You’re a very creative person. This is just one more way you have to access your creativity. Everything we’ve talked about today is just one more you know way of executing one of the fundamentals you already have. And, and so I’m optimistic for everybody who’s a successful entrepreneur, that this is, this is just another thing. Crack and your creativity will help you crack it.

VANNOY:

Yeah. Yeah. Agree. let’s talk about flexible schedule. So we’ve done a lot of content blogs eBooks, white papers videos, lots of webcasts like this. Talking about this subject from your perspective, you, you get to see the most successful, the fastest growing the best places to work small and mid-sized companies. What, what are you seeing for the, the best in class when it comes to flexible schedules in, in location

OMELIANUK:

As possible? Right? That’s the answer as possible. Mm-Hmm. Mindful of the fact that not all businesses are the same. You know, my spouse is a gynecologist. She can’t do what she does from a remote location, right? A, a server at a restaurant can’t do that job from a remote location.

And in fact, different jobs in different departments within a co company will have different requirements. But we do see where it’s possible flexible schedule, asynchronous work hours using tools and technology that let you work together while apart are valuable to a lot of people. They’re gonna be folks who wanna be in a city and want to come to the office. I like being in the office. I don’t, I don’t like having my home be my office. I like the separation of the two other people aren’t, aren’t, aren’t that way. Other people are earlier in, in the arc of their career and, and their lives, frankly, where moving around the globe might be the most interesting thing to them. And if they’re allowed to do that, they’re a willing and very dedicated employee. It, it can work. We are in the process right now of telling the story of a, an American company that had probably three quarters of its employees in, in Ukraine.

 And when the war started, obviously most of them left the country. They now have offices or not offices, they have employees, I should say, all over the globe, staying in different places. They’re still making it work. They still made the ink 5,000 despite that. So it’s possible people have an expectation suddenly, and again, this is just the work life balance or imbalance, the idea that I have to follow my bliss even as I have to make a paycheck. And my willingness as an employer to give them the bandwidth to do both of those things, that ultimately pays off for me. Again, not everyone can do that. You’re on a production line and a quality manager, you’ve gotta be there. But if you’re on the marketing team, maybe you don’t need to be, you’re on the software team, maybe you don’t need to be. And so you have to look at each department you have, what your industry is, what your responsibilities are, and then make the decisions on a case by case basis. Frankly, that’s how I would think about the remote work movement.

VANNOY:

Yeah, it, we, so we’ve done studies on this where you look at employee engagement in the, the, if, if you have on one end full-time work only if you work in the office only, another one is work from home only. They’re about the same level of employee engagement. The highest level of employment engagement is the in the middle where there’s flexibility in the, in the, basically, the more choices the employees have, the more they’re engaged, right?

OMELIANUK:

That’s right. And you know, by the way, that, that could be freedom at a workplace too, right? Not monitoring someone every minute, letting them come and go as they need to not being worried that they’re at a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the afternoon or picking up a child early because they ha they had to. I think flexibility, I is the most important thing in the schedule and location equation. There’s, there’s, there’s, it’s the only right answer, frankly. Now

VANNOY:

And, and the data backs all that up. This is not just a dichotomy of work from home versus work from the office. The, the word is flexibility, and it’s all of it. It’s, it’s the hours you work, it’s, hey, I mean, during a pandemic, I might have had loved ones that I, I couldn’t, maybe I was quarantined, I couldn’t leave. But there’s still aspects of my job I could have done remotely. Maybe it’s not covid related, but I’ve I just have other responsibilities in, in this crazy world we’re living in right now, that I can still put in my 40 hours a week, my 30 hours a week, whatever it is. It just has to be at different times. I can still come in, right? So, right. There’s lots of solutions here. And,

OMELIANUK:

And by, by the way, as you pointed out, like some, some of these accommodations we need to make because of how upside down the world is right now, not just because it’s the employee, right? So, I I, I, I lost my heat and hot water in the middle of winter. I went for a week without it because we couldn’t get anyone to come. But, you know when, when we finally did, everyone here damn knew, well, <laugh> was gonna be home that day, right? There are companies, by the way, who, who have a, a benefit of a, of a handyman for, for the staff to access, or a personal assistant for the staff to access. Because we realize now suddenly the world is so much more complicated than it was just two years ago. And, and that, that that employee who can help the employ other employee you know, suddenly pays itself. I don’t have to be home for the heat and hot water guy if the company has a handyman to do it for me,

VANNOY:

Right? Amazing. Right. The, the, if I had to summarize here, cause I know we’re at time the way employers, entrepreneurs should be thinking about whether it’s fair compensation recognition, training, time off, flexibility of schedules and location. I think the word is creativity. And I think you hit the nail on the head, Scott. Most entrepreneurs are creatives. They’re, they’re creating something from nothing in, in. I think we need to apply that same level of creativity for how we, how we treat employees, how we align them to missions, how, how we we recognize them, pay them develop them and give them as many options as possible. Is there anything you’d wanna say in closing?

OMELIANUK:

Yeah. I, I, other than to agree with your agreement, <laugh>? No. You know, there was a time when an MBA might have seemed like the most valuable business degree. Nowadays, it feels like it’s a certified social workers degree that might be more valuable. But ultimately, really what it is, is, is about you know doing what you do best. And, and, and part of that is that creativity and then acknowledging the human in, in everything else, right? And that, that, that, that people are just people. Sure. They’re gonna be those who take advantage of you just as you’re gonna be those who give you that extra effort. And, and that, that’s part of it. But in all of it, we’ve just gotta acknowledge that we’re, we’re, we’re working with and for and among people that are unpredictable. But ultimately the best success with unpredictability is, is to have the creative solution when you need it. And that is exactly what every entrepreneur I’ve ever met has had.

VANNOY:

Yeah. Very good. Scott, in closing, anything you’d wanna say about you or your role at Inc and how you help growing companies?

OMELIANUK:

I just would say that, you know, Inc is here to support American Small business and the American entrepreneur. And we got a bunch of programs that recognize them, like fast growth programs, like companies that recognize that, that sort of social responsibility that companies do beyond the profit, the best workplaces that, that we have. But ultimately, our, our greatest asset I is, is our audience, which is, is, is is entrepreneurs and, and which we love nothing more than getting together however we can, whether that’s through a story or, or an at an event. So if you get the opportunity to engage with Inc, I, I’d encourage it because I guarantee you there’ll be some piece of learning. You’ll walk away from some bit of inspiration, some other founder will have given you some other goal that you’ll see someone pursuing that will drive you forward in, in a really virtuous circle.

VANNOY:

And I can, I can vouch for that. I grew up in an entrepreneurial home and I’ve been involved in businesses. I was the founder of a business that got a couple of your awards and I plugged into that network and it’s, it’s impressive and value add indeed. So Scott, thank you so much for joining us today and for everyone else. If if you need help, these are complex issues in if you’re an entrepreneur, you’re probably an expert in what you do but it’s not intuitive to know what is legal in the eyes of the law when it comes to the Fair Labor Standards Act and overtime rules and local tax laws. This is, this is, this is complex stuff, and we’re here to help in a fractional way that doesn’t require you to hire a full-time SHRM certified HR professional. So if there’s any way we can help, we’d love to, to to do so. Otherwise, until next week’s show, Scott, thanks for joining me today.

OMELIANUK:

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

VANNOY:

And thanks to everyone for joining. We’ll talk to you next week. Thanks.