Summary
Ever wondered how small businesses can effectively manage HR without a full-fledged team? Join us as we uncover valuable insights with Reanna Werner, the innovative founder of HR Branches. She shares her journey as a chief problem solver, crafting HR solutions tailored for small businesses.
- Overview of HR Branches and its services
- The importance of HR for small businesses
- Understanding employee well-being and business well-being
- Challenges of HR compliance in small businesses
- Key HR strategies for a successful operation
- Keeping informed on federal and state HR changes
- Building effective leadership and company culture
If you need HR help, reach out at 719-244-9640 or visit www.hrbranches.com.
iTunes . Amazon. Spotify. Buzzsprout. RSS.
Randi Lynn Johnson: 0:13
All right, Welcome everybody. We're rolling along. We're in February now. Um and with us, if you remember, if you've been following along, we had Brian Werner told us all things taxes, but today we're super privileged to have Brian's other half, Reanna Werner. Welcome.
Reanna Werner: 0:33
Hello, hello, happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me in today.
Robin Pasley: 0:38
Of course, and Robin, I'm here! Reanna, thank you so much for coming in today. We're excited to hear what you have to tell us about HR compliance, how to do that. It's a big lift on the shoulders of business owners and, um, there's so many things to know and to stay in line with in order to not get in trouble but also to serve our companies and our employees as well. So thanks for being here and sharing your knowledge with us.
Reanna Werner: 1:15
My pleasure. Yeah, HR is such a complex beast.
Randi Lynn Johnson: 1:21
Yeah, so tell us, who are you?
Reanna Werner: 1:26
That's the ultimate question I'd like to figure out. You know, professionally I am the founder and chief problem solver of HR Branches. Hr Branches has been around serving Colorado small business for gosh almost the last eight years. We specialize in supporting small businesses with employment matters, employment decisions, making sure that businesses are protected through risk management, as well as quality leadership skills and capabilities. So it's a little bit of a wicked web that we do, but really all roads lead to risk management and risk mitigation through top-notch employment practices. Because unfortunately, your employees are your biggest asset but your biggest risk Sure.
Robin Pasley: 2:23
That's good yeah.
Randi Lynn Johnson: 2:26
So you're at HR branches and you own HR branches, right, I do own HR branches.
Reanna Werner: 2:33
It's my baby. It's my little baby. Yeah, not so little anymore. We've grown substantially. So my medium-sized baby.
Robin Pasley: 2:45
What's the scale of your company right now, your team and everything?
Reanna Werner: 2:48
Okay, so we are at a total of well, the whole team all together. We've got some big, exciting things happening this year, so we're a total of seven mighty, mighty amazing team members. Oh gosh, On average, we've been growing about 30% year over year. As I looked at just last week, we support about 5,000 local employees here regionally and then statewide about 7,500. Wow, that's awesome. Yeah, we do great work, yeah.
Randi Lynn Johnson: 3:25
So tell me more about HR branches. What do you guys do for businesses?
Reanna Werner: 3:31
Yeah, great question. We have a pretty basic business model. We're a membership-based organization. What our philosophy is is that understanding human resources practices isn't just a one-time project. We can come in and do a one-time project, but we would fail on our face. The reason why is we don't understand your business or your culture or the leadership philosophy, and so we believe in a long-term relationship with our clients, to where we get to know the leadership, the culture and the business itself, so employment can align perfectly with those best practices.
Reanna Werner: 4:09
So within each membership, the core foundation of who we are is we have an online HR platform called HR Branches Online. This is over 800 pages of tools, resources, documents, checklists everything you would ever need to know in order to self manage your own HR practices. But the problem is is you look at all this stuff and you're like I don't know what to do with it. So we always pair every membership with consulting time. So every single one of our members has their very own HR manager and their HR manager. You have their direct phone number, their direct email and you call them and they get to know you.
Reanna Werner: 4:51
When you combine the HR manager as well as the HR branches online, what you get is kind of power right, because the work's already done for you in HRBO and your HR manager, as well as the HR branches online which you get, is kind of power right, because the work's already done for you in HRBO and your HR manager can say hey, let's hop on HR branches online. We've got three options for you and you have the baseline From there. We're only customizing, so it gives you a lot of bang for your buck. And then, as you grow in your memberships, you receive additional benefits handbooks, audits, harassment prevention, training, and the list goes on and on.
Randi Lynn Johnson: 5:23
It's so great because what I'm hearing that you provide for businesses is so we know, like huge corporations they have in-house whole HR teams yeah, teams. But you guys are so well suited for small businesses where they don't maybe have that capacity to have a full thing. But you provide the resources.
Reanna Werner: 5:44
Absolutely Small business has been left behind in the world of HR. Unfortunately, most small businesses are expected to follow and adhere all of these rules, compliance laws. There's so many things that you have to implement within your business, but most of the time small business owners have no clue what they're supposed to do. I mean gosh. Many times a year I go and give presentations to our community on just basic compliance that you need to know in order to just manage your basic HR functions and every single time I get a hand in the air that says I didn't know about three quarters of the stuff. You were talking about.
Reanna Werner: 6:28
How do I find out about it? And the sad answer is is that you have to piecemeal it all together and have some sort of baseline knowledge on how all of these laws and rules and requirements fit together, both federally and statewide. Oh my goodness.
Randi Lynn Johnson: 6:45
That's a lot.
Reanna Werner: 6:47
It's scary when you actually dig deep down into it and have a clear understanding of everything that impacts your business employment-wise everything that impacts your business employment wise.
Randi Lynn Johnson: 7:03
So would you just tell us a little bit about what it means to employee wellbeing and, ultimately, business wellbeing, to have a good HR system in place?
Reanna Werner: 7:13
I love the term wellbeing. I think that's an important word to use to describe employment practices. When you look at compliance, really, the true essence is that law or that rule was put into place to protect your employees, right, but you also have the health and the well-being of a business too. And you, as a small business owner I'm assuming I'm talking to mostly small business owners here is that you have to figure out a balance between both. Right, I do truly believe that employees, as a small business owner, you invest in bringing employees into your business as an investment. Right, there is no way a business owner can afford to employ an employee without seeing a return on that investment. But, just like a computer, you have to take care of that investment. Right, you have to run those continuous updates, aka training. You have to make sure that you've got solid communication happening, expectations. You don't go into your computer and say, well, you know, I really want my computer to do jumping jacks, but instead it's putting out data input. Right, you have to set those expectations and those communication standards and that training.
Reanna Werner: 8:25
You have to be able to set your employees up for success, because us as leaders are only leaders. Success factors is the success of others. So we will never be successful without the success of our team members, and I think that you have to keep that intentional in your mind. So, while we can go down the path of compliance and doop-a-doop-a-doop-a-doop-a-doop, when it comes to the best interests of your business, I truly believe it's investing into your employees, and when you have good, productive employees who are happy and thriving and see a future with you, your compliance risks are going to be mitigated as well. Of course, there's certain aspects you need to still adhere to, but healthy, happy employees is the beginning, and I don't mean happy just like do whatever your employees want you to do. There's a delineation right. You can't allow your employees to walk all over you. Oftentimes that shows favoritism, because what one employee wants from you is not what another employee wants from you. You do have to have consistency in your practices as well.
Robin Pasley: 9:39
Wow, that's so fantastic, so much stuff to keep up with and that's so great that you have. I love that you have a like a platform, as well as this person to person consultation as well. You know they sound like they go hand in hand um two tools in one speak.
Reanna Werner: 9:58
They definitely are. Um, it's funny. It was a happy little mistake of mine when I first created HR branches. I sat down at my computer all those years ago and I started creating HR branches online and I had the silly, naive thought in my mind that I was going to create the online platform and then I was going to sit on a beach, drink Mai Tais and watch the money roll in.
Randi Lynn Johnson: 10:20
Boy.
Reanna Werner: 10:24
It didn't work out. As I started launching the platform, I realized that I was missing one critical component of what I was launching, and that was that human element. There's just so many parts and pieces to connect and people want to talk to people, about their people, Right? So once I quickly implemented the HR manager to you know, support HR branches online. That's when the business model really made sense.
Reanna Werner: 10:55
Oh, that's great, yeah, but no more beach for me. That's great, yeah, but no more beach for me Not yet. I don't know if I could sit on a beach 24-7. I'd get really bored. I know I was going to say me too, I don't sit, still well.
Randi Lynn Johnson: 11:13
Yeah, good, well could you tell? Our listeners if they're, you know, because I'm sure they have some sort of HR thing in place that you just have to when you have employees and things. But if there's somebody and maybe their systems aren't quite shored up or they can, you give them just three things that they should be thinking about and if they need help, we're going to send them to you, but three things for them to be thinking about.
Reanna Werner: 11:42
You know, this year is going to be a critical year in employment, and it's interesting because, as we're sitting here talking, president Trump is getting inaugurated into his second term, literally as we're talking and from what I'm hearing, as I keep my ear to the ground, and what he's said is that he is going to sign a record setting amount of executive orders, and just today alone, much less you know, his first 90 days or 100 days of presidency. We're going to have to keep our ear to the ground on these executive orders, federally speaking. So this is number one watch the feds, because there's going to be a lot of activity. What I find interesting is that I'm not speaking politically, I'm just speaking. You know administration wise and administration philosophies. This administration coming in is going to be more business friendly. It just is. I don't care about your political stance and I hope you don't care about mine, it just is. Now, with that said, we're probably going to see some reversals from rules and requirements from the last presidency or the last administration. So we're going to see some rewinding of history, but we are also going to see a huge emphasis in immigration.
Reanna Werner: 13:14
Now, as we know, border control is a top priority of this incoming administration. Of this incoming administration, the first level of defense for immigration is border control. Second level of defense is employment. Employers are looked at and relied upon to police immigration. That's the I-9 form right. So you have to make sure that your I-9s are in tip-top condition over the next four years and going forward. So that's going to be a big one. So keep an eye on the agenda and objectives of this presidency, especially in the first hundred days. We're going to see a lot of change.
Reanna Werner: 13:55
Okay, watch the feds. Watch the feds Exactly. Do you have another one for us? Number two would actually be watch the state. Interestingly enough, we have a state administration who does have differing philosophies from the feds, which is going to create. We had cohesiveness last week in the federal and the state administration. Now we're going to see a little bit of a butting of the head Because of that.
Reanna Werner: 14:30
You're going to have to take a watchful eye and understand how state requirements and laws are impacted by federal and vice versa. As an employer, you really want to take the position on any compliance matters where you see conflicting rules. Whichever rule best benefits the employee is the rule you go with. Okay. So a good example is here in the state of Colorado we have paid medical leave. Now, right, the family program. At the state level you have FMLA Family Medical Leave Act. They're similar but they're also conflicting.
Reanna Werner: 15:09
Right, state of Colorado has a lot more employee favorable outlook because it applies to all employers in the state of Colorado, it's paid leave and it has a few extra provisions that also benefit employees. Fmla, which is through the Fed side, only goes into effect after you have 50 employees. It's unpaid, so the state legislation or state requirement would best benefit the employee. So you go with the state perspective. So we're going to see a lot of that too and it's going to be a little confusing. Okay, which applies Always go with the most employee favorable perspective or philosophy. Interesting, I feel like I'm making your head spin here. It's fine, this is great.
Randi Lynn Johnson: 15:55
And I know that we're recording it because I can just go back For sure. Do you have a third?
Reanna Werner: 16:02
Yeah, it kind of circles back around. Number three really circles back around to the beginning of our conversation. Be mindful of your culture. Develop yourself as a leader. The stronger leader you are, the better your business will be. Employment wise.
Reanna Werner: 16:21
If you, let's put it this way, culture and leadership go hand in hand. All right, the way you show up as a leader creates the company culture. Why? Because our team members emulate us. They don't listen to us. If I walk into work and say be happy every day at work, my team members are going to be like screw you, right. But if I go to work happy every single day and I share a jovial environment where people want to be, that will bring the happiness into the environment. Um, be mindful of how you show up. Be mindful of how you act. Be mindful of how you communicate with your team members. Um, your culture is everything, and culture isn't a set of words on the wall. It's a feeling that your employees get when they work with you and then it filters through to the feeling of your customers, because how your employees feel about working with you will eventually resonate within your customer base and, honestly, a good quality leadership philosophy resulting in a good culture is going to mitigate most risk for you.
Robin Pasley: 17:38
Wow, wow, that's fantastic. What a 30,000 foot view, but what a view that really helps establish who you want to be as a business owner.
Reanna Werner: 17:49
Yeah, absolutely yeah, and I think it's you have to be intentional. I I've met so many leaders who are good people, um, who believe that they're good leaders and they have the potential to be. They just don't pay much attention to it. They don't intentionally develop themselves as a leader and so you kind of end up, uh, flapping in the wind and using your gut, and that's tough to do.
Robin Pasley: 18:16
And having that approach where you're mindful what you just said is so important, mindful of they watch what I do, they listen to what I say, they don't just do what I say to do do what I say to say you know say what I say, to say you know this, this idea of being a better example as a leader and thinking about your culture that you're developing all the time.
Reanna Werner: 18:38
That's really important. Yeah, oftentimes we do employee engagement surveys for our clients and two of my favorite questions to ask is describe your leader in three words and then describe your culture in three words. And it's amazing how they're never really the same words but there's a lot of congruency between the two. Yeah, you know I've seen the leader's words will be direct, communicator, fast, paced and emotional. And then you look at the words of the culture and it's demanding, harsh, I can't keep up overworked, you know. It's interesting how it filters through. So if you ever get a chance, ask your employees honestly those three words that describe you as a leader in the culture. It'll tell you a lot.
Randi Lynn Johnson: 19:35
Yeah, that's great. Well, thank you for that and thank you for joining us. If people need HR help, where can they find you?
Reanna Werner: 19:45
Um, they can find us at hrbranches.com or just give us a call. We're people people. We much rather talk with you. So give us a call at 719-244-9640 and we'll be able to help you out. It's very easy to get set up with us, but definitely stalk us online and learn a little bit more about who we are.
Randi Lynn Johnson: 20:05
And one last thing I wanted to mention. You guys have recently rolled out a podcast have recently rolled out a podcast.
Reanna Werner: 20:19
Yes, we have. As of last week, january 15th, we rolled out and launched our very first podcast episode for the show Show Me Yours. Show Me Yours is all focused on us having candid conversations with business owners about their number one mistake that they've made in business, lessons learned and, just vulnerably and with a little bit of laughter, sharing all of the business bloopers that we've had.
Reanna Werner: 20:48
And yeah it's been great. It's turned out to be a lot of fun. We just had a commercial that's going to be launching for the podcast and, yeah, lots of good stuff in our show notes as well, so that people can pop over and give you guys a listen. Wonderful, and Robin, we're going to have to have you come and join us in grandma's living room, ah good.
Randi Lynn Johnson: 21:12
And thank you all for listening and we'll catch you next time. Thank you.
*Recorded in our studio at 616 N. Tejon St., Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80903