RHR 154: "All In" HR with Chris Hanna

Chris Hanna: 0:00

People who are able to land a vest on their feet have multiple skills. The most important skill that I think is critical for everyone is to be adaptable. Can you do new things, a lot of talk about AI. If people are worried about that taking their jobs, you don't have to worry about that. If you actually do spend time learning AI, how to use it, that's a skill that's gonna be very, very valuable. Now in the years to come.

Kyle Roed: 0:20

This is the rebel HR Podcast, the podcast where we talk to HR innovators about all things people leadership. If you're looking for places to find about new ways to think about the world of work, this is the podcast for you. Please subscribe my favorite podcast listening platform today. And leave us a review revelon HR rebels Welcome back rebel HR listeners with us today we have Chris Hanna, he is the founder and CEO of hire for me Incorporated, a company that helps solopreneurs and entrepreneurs find and make that next critical hire, we're gonna be talking about all sorts of fun stuff. He also goes by stone cold, Chris Hanna, so welcome the show, Chris.

Chris Hanna: 1:03

Oh, I appreciate you having me here. And I love that entrance, I've never actually been called stone gold. So

Kyle Roed: 1:10

we were talking about all of the fun hobbies that we have. And pro wrestling came up. So I just you know, I wanted to pop you up there a little bit. So welcome the show. Thank you, I think, really excited for the conversation today. It's just before we hit record, it's already been a super fun combo. But I want to back up a little bit and give you an opportunity to let our listeners know your background. So what got you into the the hiring, training and leadership development space.

Chris Hanna: 1:39

So over the last 20 years, I've been building and leading teams across a variety of different industries. And I've always been in a kind of a leadership capacity, I was in car rental, I was in the corporate world of IP connectivity. I was eventually at one point then, you know, CEO of a real estate education company. And I worked with a lot of small business owners and entrepreneurs. And I would go to events, and I would support them through mentorship and coaching calls. And I kept hearing the same thing from a lot of small business owners. They're burnt out, they're frustrated, they need to hire, but they don't know how to hire or they've done it and they failed. And on one particular day, when I was at an event in Cleveland was three business owners, they all said the same thing to me. I wish somebody would just hire for me. And I'm driving home from Cleveland. And I thought, why don't I just create a company around this because I again, I've hired and promoted and led so many different people, I can hire for them, I can have them stop being the chief everyone officer stop wearing every single hat and every acronym under the books and just hire for them make their life easier. And so that's what I created in and that's what I've been doing in addition to consulting and other hobbies and stuff and side hustles that I have, but it's really been focused on just making their lives easier. Why? Why do something that you hate doing, I can just do it for you.

Kyle Roed: 2:58

I love that I love the title chief every one officer. And I think many of us probably have those individuals in our organizations that that want to be that. Or that or they have been that in the past. And they're just used to that.

Molly Burdess: 3:13

I so I understand and I get it.

Kyle Roed: 3:18

Yeah, and I you know, just to be blunt, I think some of them really suck at HR.

Chris Hanna: 3:26

Yes, absolutely.

Kyle Roed: 3:27

I mean, you know, it's an interesting dichotomy for me to think about, you know, the skill sets that make somebody really great at being an entrepreneur founder. You know, maybe they designed something, or they've got this patent or this, you know, this brilliant mind, that doesn't necessarily translate to HR success, or hiring success or training and development success. So I've got to believe that as you support these organizations, a lot of this is understanding those gaps in leadership, and then trying to kind of fill those in how do you how do you? How do you approach it when when you've got a new client or you've got, you know, a problem that you're trying to help one of your clients saw? Where do you where do you go with that? Where do you start?

Chris Hanna: 4:14

Well, first, I think to touch on an earlier point that you just said, like a lot of owners of companies are on founders, they they never really have gone through formalized training in leadership in any capacity. You know, right. So therefore, to lead people is sometimes foreign to them. They don't know what they don't know, which is not their fault sometimes. Right. But I think a lot of people have never gone through some of that training and some of that support that you might get through a corporate environment. Right. And so I think, bringing that into conversations that I have with with with prospects and clients, part of what my service is different is that not only will I hire for them, but I'll actually coach and I'll work alongside that business owner to mentor them over a period of months so that the person is set up for success because they need help and some more of how to onboard how to train, how to make sure they feel the person who's actually feels welcomed as part of the process, because I think far too often, we're left to fake it till we make it many times as leaders. And that sucks, because you're, you're, you're feeling inauthentic, you're maybe even feeling burnt out. And business owners sometimes want to give up, I think as well, whether it's like, maybe this is just not for me. And they're questioning a lot about themselves. So how can you make them feel like they are the right type of leader? I think you got to support them, and be there for them and kind of help them and course correct. And I share a lot of advice. And like I had, I've had this close client that I've talked to every single day this week, you know about issues that are not even related to people, but just because you build up that trust and rapport? Absolutely,

Kyle Roed: 5:50

I think it's a really important distinction on your approach. And I think one of the things that, you know, I would encourage our listeners to reflect on is the fact that you're not placing blame on the leader, right? You're you're coming at it from a standpoint of how do I help this individual that just hasn't had the exposure to some of these tools, processes, tech, processes, tactics, whatever. And then, and then do that in a way that you build trust with that individual and empower them to feel good about leadership? Right. I mean, that's, that's a really important distinction, I think, versus some of us who are like, Oh, they're just, they just suck as a leader. Right? Like, that's, that's not the right context approach. This

Chris Hanna: 6:38

is not the right context. But I also look back at myself, and I realized through my career, especially when I first started out, I sucked as a leader, I was absolutely terrible. I didn't have training, I didn't have support, I didn't have tell anyone tell me, don't do it this way. Because when I first became like an official leader, I was like, 2021, or whatever it was, you know, assistant manager at a rental car branch, I, I would, I would basically tell people what to do, as I do it my way or the highway type of mentality. And it was such a shitty way to do it. But that's what I didn't know any better. And then eventually, I had to learn through mistakes through people telling me, you know, hey, you shouldn't do it this way. I've also been fired twice in my career to which is very beneficial. And I think it's the best thing that ever happened for me, when like, I'm just trying to pass along some of the knowledge and the insights that I've gained. So then people don't have to make the same mistakes. And more importantly, you don't lose good people, because I had great people quit on me throughout my career. Like I sit there, and I still have some PTSD and nightmares about sometimes. Like, why did I screw that up? I have, I've learned a lot as I'm starting to age. Yes.

Molly Burdess: 7:51

Kyle and I were just talking about this the other day, and I think even as you grow in your leadership journey, I think you're all good leaders anyway, are always questioning like, did I do that? Effectively? Am I the best leader that I that I needed to be in that moment? I just think that's something that born good leader never goes away?

Chris Hanna: 8:11

Well, and I think that regret now, there's been so much talk about companies that are downsizing, laying people off or firing people, right. Good leaders probably also need to look at themselves and realize, is there anything that they could have done differently to avoid something like that happening? Because we all have a role in it. It's not just hrs responsibility, right? It's leaders at every level of an organization to take a look at themselves and figure out can we learn some lessons from whatever's happened here? Maybe we've hired the wrong person, maybe we didn't set them up for success. Maybe we didn't train them. Like, maybe we're just bad leaders. Like there's there's lots of things you got to get a little bit introspective on, I think. And just thinking

Molly Burdess: 8:51

about the dynamic from leadership and HR, I think HR has this huge opportunity to really challenge their leader on their team to make them question like, where are you the best that you could be, you know, how could you have done that differently and help them grow? I think HR has a lot of opportunity to add value in that arena.

Chris Hanna: 9:10

100%, like when I was, you know, CEO, and I was also kind of, I guess, a smaller company, about 30 people, I was also kind of like HR as well, right? And I had, you know, managers in the company come to me and say like, I think we need to fire someone. And I'm like, you know, this is just not working out. And I'm like, Okay, have you done everything in your power to make sure that, you know, we've trained them, we've coached them, we set them up for success. Like, don't just think like, we instantly get rid of them. Like, Let's make sure we've done everything that we're supposed to do before really making that call and look at yourself, like really, really look at yourself first. If it comes down to that being the decision. Sure, that's the decision. But you got to realize it's you own responsibility with that.

Kyle Roed: 9:56

Absolutely, I think the exact interchange between Mala And I was I was like, Do you ever feel like you suck as a leader in Santa Fe? But But I think it's right. It's like the wisdom paradox. Like, the more that you learn, the more you realize you don't know anything, you know, it's, it's that like, and I do think, good leaders, they ask that question on a regular basis. And if you're not asking that question, then you probably should be because there's always something that you could be focusing on improving. And quite frankly, you know, the, we should need to be accountable to our people that we're leading. Right. And it is, like you said, it's, it's a, it's a big responsibility.

Chris Hanna: 10:36

Well, I think, ask yourself those questions. But more importantly, ask your team, ask your colleagues for feedback and advice as well. Like there's the value of 360 review for a reason, right? But just the even just asking point blank feedback, you know, hey, what am I doing right? What am I doing wrong? And more importantly, and I always ask this question, very direct, because I'm a direct speaker, how am I pissing you off? And then when you build that trust with some employees, where they can actually, like, really tell you how it is? That's really that's cool. Like, there's so many times that my eyes have just been like, blown, you know, wide open being like, I did not know that I was doing that. They already came across that way. We have I not say asked for that direct feedback.

Kyle Roed: 11:21

But to put that in my one on ones, how am I pissing you off? Let's give me like the last question. And every one on one for me. It was let's see what happens next week. My team? What do

Chris Hanna: 11:29

you do? They might, they might look at what the hell you doing? Or they might be like, No, I'm glad that you asked.

Kyle Roed: 11:35

Yeah, yeah.

Molly Burdess: 11:36

Well, let me tell you. Hopefully, we have another hour.

Chris Hanna: 11:40

I literally have heard someone say that before. Yeah. Yeah. And you're like, Okay, great. Let's just move this next meeting.

Kyle Roed: 11:49

Yeah, we should do an exercise. I'll ask Molly that question. Right now. We'll see what happens.

Molly Burdess: 11:53

We don't have enough cider for that.

Kyle Roed: 11:58

Yeah, yeah. All kidding aside, while you are good at that, like, like, and I think in your organization, small, small business, you do have a lot of people wearing a lot of different hats. Right. And, and fostering that, that development, and that kind of that coaching is, I think, a really critical, critical role.

Molly Burdess: 12:17

So So Chris, as you

Kyle Roed: 12:19

as you think about the work that you're doing, and kind of really, you know, doing some of this work for others? How do you decide where to focus? You know, do you go just hire great people, and let them flourish? Do you focus more on kind of the internal team and the training and kind of the gaps that you you observe, you know, what, what's your your recipe for success? As you're, as you're helping these organizations?

Chris Hanna: 12:45

Think it first starts always with that intake call? And doesn't that doesn't matter if I'm doing it as part of my own business? Or I've done it other businesses that I've worked with is like, really understand where there's a hiring manager or a small business owner? Who do they really need in their business? What is the skills? What are the gaps that are required? Like, I always say that if you can get like the must have criteria documented, like what are the three to five must have things that you're not going to compromise on? I found that's been my sweet spot to really ultimately zero in on finding the right candidate that works with a particular business or that I've hired through my career. Like, gotta find the stuff that you're not going to compromise on. Because I think far too often when it comes to hiring, whether it's, you know, a an HR or it's a business owner doing it themselves, we compromise because we're sometimes desperate, putting in a body, like, what are the things that we're just not willing to compromise on to make sure that it is the right hire? Like, I will also make sure that I'm utilizing video with every hire that I do as well. Instead of asking for a boring cover letter, I'm not asking for that crap. I'm asking for a video and give me one to two minutes of why you think you're the best fit, and why you're interested in this position. And that has been such a game changer for me over the last it five years that I've been doing this, where it's like, then I'm now actually hearing what the person is all about seeing their passion and ultimately finding out who reads instructions in a job posting, because a lot of people gloss over that hit the easy apply. Those little things have been just, I think so instrumental to helping find the right person.

Molly Burdess: 14:20

Then you utilize that in your pre frame process. Absolutely. Okay.

Chris Hanna: 14:24

If you do not submit a video, you do not move forward in the process. And so there's less people who are going to ultimately, you know, kind of come through, but I'm now talking to the people who actually truly want it who read instructions, because you have no idea how many people just like will not read instructions. Right? But like I can imagine the level of creativity to that's interesting.

Molly Burdess: 14:49

You Yeah, I'm gonna be honest, I don't know about you guys, but I stopped reading cover letter about three years ago.

Kyle Roed: 14:55

I don't even know why people submit them.

Chris Hanna: 14:58

i It makes no sense to start with your email. Media and or something or whatever, right? It's useless. But a video. It's such a game changer for me and it made a world of difference. Yeah,

Kyle Roed: 15:08

yeah, cover it now it's funny. It's like people are complaining about cover letters and like the, you know, the AI cover letters where they're, they're literally having AI write cover letters for them. Or you can tell like it's a copy pasted, like you Googled cover letter and then they just like filled in the blanks. And it's just like

Molly Burdess: 15:25

that we're going to call it and insert job title here. Yeah.

Chris Hanna: 15:32

You get some of those, or you get it just in their email and stuff as well. Like, I think it's like the video pieces underutilized, I think as as a tool still by a lot of companies. But like I've been having now people who are like looking for jobs, come to me and ask for advice on like, how to find a job. And I'm saying, why don't you try and do something to stand out? Maybe Why don't you send a video in proactively are included as a link is part of like your resume of some sort. And so I've now just sat on some, like free calls with people and like, let's just record some content together. And I'll just, you know, kind of almost like a video resume for yourself, and like, one to two minutes. And it's, it's amazing that, you know, some of the people are like, wow, I never thought about that. But that's way better than me trying to, like, you know, just send in a piece of paper and hope that it works out. Because you got to stand out. I say that to candidates all time, you have to be the person that stands out and is different.

Molly Burdess: 16:23

From me after share aside from you know, your reduced application, have you noticed any other challenge about that process?

Chris Hanna: 16:32

Yeah, you're gonna get some people who are just gonna say, like, I'm not submitting a video, like, I'm only gonna answer these questions in an interview. And I was like, okay, like, see you later. So I think that's a challenge. The other challenge that I've had so like, obviously, I've got an applicant tracking system right in place, but you know, some of the the job boards that you put it on, it might be hard to like, say upload a video, some people still can't figure out how to like upload a video onto YouTube and make it unlisted. So like, I do have to, you know, send some pre, you know, templates to people like, Hey, this is how you should fill it out. This is how you can do it. So some people struggle from the technology side, I do find that is a case sometimes. But the people who really want it, they're persistent, which is really cool. When I see the person's like, Oh, I've tried this way, this way, this way, and it didn't work. It's like, well, I know you really want this job. So like this, like, I'll give you a bit of flex here as we're trying to figure this out. So I think that's been beneficial. I was

Molly Burdess: 17:23

looking at your LinkedIn profile earlier. And I noticed you have a video as your your profile picture, which I didn't even know you can do. Yeah, so that's

Chris Hanna: 17:30

creator mode. For LinkedIn. Like I'm a big believer in the power of LinkedIn. And every person who's on there should really just have creator mode enabled because it accesses gives you more features, essentially, and one of them is the 32nd video. So people land on it. I change it out almost every month, to be honest, as well as I'm starting to shift and change things around. It's, I also I just love video, like, I created 143 videos and four hours a couple of weeks back. I've got Twitter 50 videos that have batch created that obviously you're promoting hire, for me promoting come my own, you know, my consulting business that I have, like, I'm all in on video. All in. That's good.

Kyle Roed: 18:16

I can have some fun with that. Yeah, do you have like performative videos that come to like people who are like, they're like, you know, wearing a wig and like,

Chris Hanna: 18:25

so I have, I have a bunch of those, like, scripted out that I plan to do. And I'm also guilty of some ones where as long as they don't hopefully trip up some copy, you know, writing thing or blog or whatever, where I'm like, I'm going to add in some other fun stuff, but I just I've always been a person who loves to speak and I love to perform. When I was a kid I used to like act as a kid and stuff quite a bit. Right. But I would I just I love video. And I know my wife says to me too, because sometimes my videos sound like wrestling promos, because I kind of get over the top or I'd like to have my music like if I could enter a room to some sort of theme song. Yeah, right.

Kyle Roed: 19:07

Yeah, like like the like. Yeah, the Yeah, stone cold. There you go. See? See? We're coming full circle here. So yes, exactly. So would you be the star the heels? Is that what they call it? Right. So which one are you

Chris Hanna: 19:22

at? All right. I would always want you to heal. Whenever I played. Whenever I'm wrestling with my brothers, you again, they're in their mid 30s. I'm always the bad guy because you can have more fun being the bad guy. I think I like that role actually, throughout my career to where like, I just love to challenge things. I like to challenge process. Like, talk about you know, rebel, right? Yeah. I think that has been me. And it's probably bitten in the ass a couple of times. Like I said, I have been fired twice. I think the reason for that is because I will try and rock the boat and try things that I probably maybe it doesn't fit the norm right but you got to do things differently.

Kyle Roed: 20:00

Absolutely, yep. And perfect the pile driver that's got absolutely.

Chris Hanna: 20:05

Uncle center, the sweet chin music like, although it's getting tougher on the knees as the older I get, but no, I gotta do it. Yeah, there you go.

Molly Burdess: 20:15

I love that you've owned that you've been fired twice. But yeah, I've never been through that. And I'm like, I don't know how to deal with and if I did, like I could, what advice do you have for people, you know, that have or are going through that and

Chris Hanna: 20:28

how to move forward? Well, I think the first thing is what you just ended with their move forward. You can't get anywhere in life, if you're staring at the rearview mirror. If you're living in the past, constantly thinking about what happened, it happened decision was made, you're no longer part of an organization look at as an opportunity to find what's best for you. The first time I got fired in 2011, I was devastated. I was only wrapped up in my role. I didn't know what I was after that, like I was a manager. And now who am I, I had honestly some PTSD with it too. Or like I would go and interview for other jobs, I would below the interview. Because I was so worried that that job reminded me of the job that I got fired from that I was really successful. So the advice I would say is, you can reinvent yourself. Right, you can move forward to something else. But you have to have the right mindset, you have to continually put yourself out there, but also realize this, there is no such thing as loyalty. So the more than you can invest in yourself, gain new skills, even try and create different income streams for yourself, the better position you are going to be to survive when chaos happens. Sometimes you have a job for no fault of your own, like the company just goes through a challenging period, a lot of people are going through that. People who are able to land a vest on their feet have multiple skills, the most important skill that I think is critical for everyone is to be adaptable. Can you do new things? Right? Like a lot of talk about AI? People are worried about that taking their jobs? Well, you don't have to worry about that. If you actually do spend time like learning AI how to use it. That's a skill that's gonna be very, very valuable. Now in in the years to come? Yeah, absolutely. You know, I

Kyle Roed: 22:17

think it's, it's interesting, I want to I want to talk about this a little bit more you mentioned, you know, loyalty, right? So the word and and, I mean, we use that word a lot nature, right? We're looking for employee loyalty, we want to be loyal to our employees. You know, when you're here your family, right? It's like the Olive Garden. Which that's probably another that's another whole nother podcast, the use of the term family? And yes, absolutely.

Chris Hanna: 22:43

Oh, my eyes are on.

Kyle Roed: 22:46

So but I want to dig into that a little bit. So so what what is your perspective on on, you know, kind of company loyalty. But both

Chris Hanna: 22:54

ways? Well, obviously, from the company sides of the employee side, like you're only as good as kind of your last day and performance, right. But like, there is no such thing as loyalty. And I don't think there is a problem with the fact that employees themselves don't have to be 100% all in loyal to an employer either. Like you should be able to kind of moonlight and have other jobs or positions and stuff too. But I have seen companies and I know of companies who don't who frown upon you doing something else, as long as it doesn't compete against like your time that you're there. I personally have no problem with with someone having a part time job or something else was a side hustle. But companies are against that. The also thing I think it's important for business owners and leaders to really realize is that sometimes it's a pitstop for someone, it can be just a job, it doesn't have to be a career, as long as they're not going out and like slamming the company or the people or whatever, and like having a bad attitude, because that's obviously contagious and really negative. Like, it doesn't matter if someone's only there for a couple of years, or they're only getting it to maybe leverage to something else. Because I think that's the world that we live in now. People don't stick around in companies for what 2030 plus years as much as they used to. It is rare. I think as business owners as leaders, HR professionals, you need to be okay with that. So like while they're there in may only be for a season. Do your best to help them support them. Make sure that they're successful. So whenever someone would come and say, I decided to quit I'm moving on to another role make another company make good for you. That's totally fine. Because you know what, that that's the right thing for you. Like, I totally respect that decision. It sucks if you lose somebody really good. But don't hold somebody back. Absolutely. I thoughts on it. Really? Yeah.

Kyle Roed: 24:44

I think this is a really interesting topic. It's something we don't talk about much. mean I literally went to one of my last companies we literally had a no second job policy. Right. You know, it's like it, but people still had them, you know, but it was just one of these like archaic policies. is like where you're where your most important job, right? Which is just kind of I don't know, it's, it's, it's weird. It's a weird,

Chris Hanna: 25:10

I think it's like so old school, honestly to have that. Like, it's the old school leaders who are the ones who don't believe in like working from home. Like, it's just it's the ones that just can't see that the world has changed and evolves. And we need to change our management practices as well. Like, sometimes you also maybe just need to pay people enough money, so they don't have to go and, you know, work a part time job or trying to assign us like, they maybe wouldn't have to do that. Like this, I would just like working full time. And I was doing another job almost full time to make ups, you know, more income for myself. And it's just like, I was killing myself. And I'm like, if I just would have got paid normal decent wage, I've been fine. I wouldn't have done it. Like, I had to do it. So it's almost a necessity. But then it was looked down upon like, Well, you got to choose between the two. That's like, that's bullshit. Absolutely, Jamie,

Kyle Roed: 26:06

we're worse. There you go.

Molly Burdess: 26:07

Yeah, I definitely really empowering about accepting the fact that some people will only be in your organization for thievin. And just changing that mindset to, okay, while they're here, I'm going to help them grow in every way possible, right. So that way, they're ready for their next, whatever that is that they're passionate about. And then you know what, maybe they maybe they go either way left a huge impact on their lives, I think, again, just something super empowering about accepting that fact.

Chris Hanna: 26:37

Well, and I remember many times during my career where I either work with your HR partner, or you know, trying to hire people, myself, or I'm like, This person is probably only gonna be here for a year based on, you know, their experience their skill set, but maybe we can turn this into an experience that they want to stick around, they want to evolve into a role that we don't even have yet. And then we can like build something for them that's going to help them continue to be part of this. Most of them said the word family. I don't want to say family, but part of this company or group, you know,

Kyle Roed: 27:08

by the way, this is this podcast is not sponsored by Olive Garden. That's a trademarked term. I think so. But great. Yeah. I think it's really powerful. And it's a it's, you know, going back to the skill of being adaptable, as well, as I think where we started this conversation, helping leaders understand this is this is the landscape that we're operating. Right? You know, and there are people who still want to work for the same company for a long period of time. And that that is one of their primary motivations is to have that stability. But there are also people who are like, forget this, you know, and I think, you know, there's, there's calculus here, right? If you look at the numbers, job hoppers earn more money over time, right? They just do. So if you're not keeping up with the, you know, that that level of pay rate, you're just gonna have that risk inherently in your human resources systems. And it's just, it's just a probabilistic bet, right, that somebody makes Okay, well, I got a 5% Raise this year at my current company, if I go over here, I'm gonna make 10% more. And depending upon where they're at in the income ladder, and what their expenses are, that might be a very easy decision for them to make.

Chris Hanna: 28:20

I think this comes back to what you talked about with like having a one on one with your team. Like this is where more leaders need to have one on ones with their with their people. Like it's the most underutilized tool, I think that for a lot of people is having one on ones because you need to understand what actually motivates the people that you have on your team. If it's just money. Well, you're probably you got some problems. Yeah, I think there's some challenges there. Right. But like, maybe they're motivated by having a flexible work life balance, like a certain schedule, like I had a top performer at one point in my career, where I felt like, oh, okay, I'm just gonna, you know, try and throw money at them. And then I don't care about the money, I don't care about the promotion, I just want to work 30 hours instead of 40 hours a week. And I said, Okay, we'll do that. And this person was more productive than most people on the team working less hours, and getting more done, because they were all in and just like, motivated by that. So you got to find out what meant what actually appeals to somebody. Like, for me, what I care about more than anything else more than money is just feeling happy and fulfilled. That's what I want. I want to feel like, you know, I made an impact. Because, yeah, the money will come. But like, I just want to feel happy at the end of the day. I don't want to be miserable. I think a lot of people have just different you know, things that stand out to them that it's that's important. Absolutely.

Kyle Roed: 29:40

Yeah. And you don't know unless you ask right. Or you facilitate that time and that connection point.

Chris Hanna: 29:45

Yeah, don't think that by feeding them pizza is gonna motivate them either.

Kyle Roed: 29:49

I do love good pizza.

Chris Hanna: 29:50

I like pizza too, but it's not the thing that's gonna keep you long term. works for them.

Kyle Roed: 29:57

Tacos Yeah, taco taco bar. Yeah. We fixed it. We fixed morale tacos for everything. Absolutely, yeah, I think you know, I think it's really interesting. Also, you know, I'm curious. So and we haven't touched on this. So I want to touch on this briefly. So you're, you're an avid poker player. Right? That's, that is your that's your side hustle. That's, you know, kind of your, your sweet passion. Yeah, I'm curious. Because that's a very probabilistic, you know, activity. Do you think about recruiting and retaining in the same context that you think about the probability of winning a poker hand? Is that how your brain interprets some of the work? You do?

Chris Hanna: 30:39

I would say, so. Yeah, I definitely use my poker skills to also in business all the time, right? Like reading people reading situations, like when I'm interviewing somebody, like, I'm trying to pick up some tails. Like, I'm trying to figure out what you know, are they feeding me a lot of bullshit here, like, is this actually real or not to write, but like, you're doing the math also, in a lot of ways in trying to be strategic with, with, you know, with hiring, like I need to, you know, be in enough pots, and you know, have enough, you know, times where I'm seeing the hands to kind of understand where I'm sitting, where I'm at, have enough conversations. I think that's critically important. Like, I use poker, and I have literally used poker with teams throughout my career where like, we're gonna sit down and we're gonna play the game, but I'm gonna also like use it as a way to teach you other stuff. Or I'm going to use poker as a way to like, lead a talk or a trading session in some way to I just really, really passionate about it for the last, whatever, 20 years or whatever it's been, but it's you can learn a lot from from games. Absolutely.

Kyle Roed: 31:43

Yeah, it's, it's an interesting, it's a really interesting skills. I'm a terrible poker player, because I like my tells her like, it's hardly you know, what I, I can't, I can't like fake it. She's like, I get a good hand. And I'm like, immediately I'm like, yeah, he all my face. Or Oregon, a bad hand. I'm just like, you know, but yeah. So good for you. You probably better

Chris Hanna: 32:06

like it's it the hardest people to play against when you're playing poker are the people who maybe don't have as much experience or don't know what they're doing. Like because a call hands that they shouldn't. And I think anything happens in business too. But like, I remember, like, I was invited something a few weeks back, I'm like, oh, bring your poker set. We're going to play poker. And some of the people didn't know how to play. Am I okay, great. I was out and like four hands, because the people who didn't know how to do it, were were honestly crushing me. And I'm thinking I played with, you know how to play poker. And they don't know. But like, You got to get in the right room. And I think the same thing happens with like in business, like be in the right room with the right people. And you'll then you hopefully, you'll thrive and not be kicked out of the game.

Kyle Roed: 32:48

There you go. Just stop. Just don't get kicked out of the game. That's the that's the that's the point of the game. Yeah, there you go. There you go. Perfect. This has been a just a wonderful, wonderful conversation. We've touched on a lot here. From pro wrestling to poker to to leadership success. So

Chris Hanna: 33:11

what's that? Who knew? Who knew?

Kyle Roed: 33:15

We got to that was my goal to begin this podcast. By the way. I'm like, How can I check the box? I'm getting to all these topics. So I'm happy

Molly Burdess: 33:21

30 minutes, gentlemen. Well,

Kyle Roed: 33:26

I do want to shift gears. I want to get into the rebel HR flash round. And I'm fascinated to hear your responses here. Chris, are you ready? All right. Question number one, where does HR need to rebell they

Chris Hanna: 33:37

need to stop focusing on the shift of being more policy and procedure based and back to people based. Absolutely. Hey, anymore.

Kyle Roed: 33:48

That's why we exist.

Chris Hanna: 33:50

In my opinion.

Kyle Roed: 33:53

Yeah, yeah. But you know, I mean, you know, if there's anything that retains employees, it's a wonderful handbook. I mean, everybody loves them. It's their favorite thing. That's just how you drive engagement. Right?

Chris Hanna: 34:05

That's right. Just read a 4050 page handbook.

Kyle Roed: 34:08

Yep, that's it. That's it, and everybody does every mission accomplished. Yeah. All right. Question number two, who should we be listening to?

Chris Hanna: 34:21

I would say that we should. HR professionals should be listening to Alex or Mozi and Gary Vaynerchuk. And it's very different for me to say that for them, but because those are people who are creating content nonstop. And I think the more that HR professionals can learn from people like that, who are business owners, who are creating content, not just creating content and documenting content and documenting process, they can pick up a lot of tips and tricks, and let's let some HR people really should let their personality shine. Because there's this like stigma that people in HR not fun and I think YouTube just proven that's not the case. So then we got to get more people to do that.

Molly Burdess: 34:58

Work at

Kyle Roed: 35:00

But the Fu and fun itself, you know, amen. I just did a I just did a speech on that, that yeah, that's I'm with you 100% We can be fun too. We should be fun and but we should, we should just be authentic. Right? I love Gary Vee, by the way. He's like, he's he's one of my he's one of my people that I aspire to be like so yeah, that. I don't know, Alex, check that one out. All right, last question. So ton of great content here. I know you do it to a ton of work. And speaking consulting support business, how can our listeners connect with you and and learn more and follow what you're doing.

Chris Hanna: 35:40

So on the hiring side, they can visit the website higher for me.ca. The four is the number four. So that's, that's one way, Chris hanna.ca where you can see a lot of my, you know, my talks, whether it's stuff on my podcast, the Chris Hanna show, you can find more information about all the different stuff that I do is I call myself the all in solopreneur. And then, if you want to follow me on social media, big on LinkedIn, that's my biggest, you know, fake place where I've really focused shooting a lot of video content. But Instagram and Tiktok are the other two as well as what's Chris Hanna show is the username for that too.

Kyle Roed: 36:13

Awesome, and we'll have all that information in the show notes. So open up your podcast player. Check it out, Chris. It's just been an awesome getting to know you. I can't wait to follow you. Now. I'm gonna be following all these videos. I don't have tick tock. I'll have to. I'll have to see how to do that. Molly, maybe you can. I'm

Chris Hanna: 36:28

just certainly starting on tick tock stuff. But I've started Yeah, I think that video is where it's at.

Kyle Roed: 36:33

That's good. That's good. I love it. All right, Chris. Well, I really appreciate you being here and have a great rest your day. Awesome. Thanks, Chris. All right. That does it for the rebel HR podcast. Big thank you to our guests. Follow us on Facebook at rebel HR podcast, Twitter at rebel HR guy, or see our website at rebel human resources.com. The views and opinions expressed by rebel HR podcast are those the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any of the organizations that we represent. No animals were harmed during the filming of this podcast. Baby