Speaker 2: 0:03

This is the Rebel HR podcast, the podcast about all things innovation in the people's space. I'm Kyle Rode. Let's start the show.

Speaker 3: 0:14

Hello Rebel HR community. We are here podcasting at the State SHRM Conference in Iowa City, iowa, so extremely excited to bring you some content. Today With us we have Brenda LaMarche. She is with Honk Camp, payroll and Human Capital Management Services. She is the VP of HR Services and we're going to be talking all about her journey and how she is driving change in the HR space. Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:41

Awesome. Thank you for having me on today.

Speaker 3: 0:44

Well, we are so excited to have you. You happen to be right next to us in the booth, and so congratulations on being our first interview at the State Show Conference.

Speaker 2: 0:53

Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 3: 0:55

I want to start off with a question that I really love to ask this question to HR professionals, because the stories that come out are usually pretty interesting. What got you into the field of human resources?

Speaker 1: 1:07

So the field of human resources was introduced to me in high school. I have a mother that was a nurse and was demanding I go into nursing Unfortunately blood and I don't get along. Yeah me either. And a friend of mine, of our family family, said, well, how about human resources? And she took me up to the University of Iowa and actually showed me the University of Iowa's degree program in industrial relations and human resources. And I was sold, Went to college the next year at Iowa, did it in four years, got my degree and started my career.

Speaker 3: 1:43

I love it. So for all of you listening out there, brenda is what I call a unicorn. She actually went to school for HR which is pretty rare for many HR professionals and just never left.

Speaker 3: 1:57

I never left, so you have been in the field for a number of years. I'm sure you've seen so much change in the realm of the work that you do. What are some of those changes that you think are maybe most exciting for you coming up here in the future? What are you seeing kind of as you forecast out what's next for HR?

Speaker 1: 2:23

I love seeing some of the technology that's coming out that makes HR more effective and more efficient and stops us from spinning our wheels in the piles of paperwork. When I used to do speaking engagements, one of my favorite pictures that I would put in my speaking engagements was do you feel like this person? And it's a person sitting at a desk buried in paper. All you can see is their face. And in the way technology is changing and a lot of things are moving to more secured, more electronic ways, it really makes my heart go pitter patter to see more and more as I can help businesses move to an electronic format instead of paper.

Speaker 3: 3:04

Yeah, yeah, so that's one of those. You know, that's an area and, if I'm being perfectly honest in my job, yeah, there's some offices stacked full of paper and it's like an insurmountable task, and so that's one of those things. Like I think about it, it I'm like, yeah, I'd really like to do that, but finding the finding the time to do it, finding the kind of the motivation to to truly start to convert some of this paper to paper, which is a little bit daunting, so so, as you think about, you know, some of these kind of these technological advancements or this opportunity to reduce some of this frustration, what are some of the things you would recommend that we think about in our day-to-day?

Speaker 1: 3:48

I would say asking yourself why, over and over why? Why are we doing something this way? Is there an easier way? Is another question to be asking yourself as you're going through and working your day-to-days. I work with a lot of businesses that are going through transitions, that are growing and or have people that have left their businesses and their people that are coming in don't know how they used to do things, and so I spend a lot of time working with and consulting with businesses of all sizes and helping them to convert out of paper into an electronic format, and some of the strategies that we utilize is outsourcing, where most HR departments in today's world actually struggle because they just don't have the manpower to deal with everything that is being thrown at them, and having an outsourced partner that helps you with that day-to-day really, I have found, makes a huge difference for the customers.

Speaker 3: 4:49

Right right.

Speaker 3: 4:50

Yeah, I think it's a good call-out and I think about that in the same context of. You know, there's a lot of talk around AI right now. Right, you know everybody's talking about AI. You know what we're really talking about is it's a capacity issue. Right, it's like I don't have time to spend on this administrivia, but it still needs to get done. So how do I do this in a way that enables me to you know, function at my highest and best use in my job, and my argument is typically, if you're an HR professional for your company, your highest and best use is supporting the team.

Speaker 1: 5:28

Yes.

Speaker 3: 5:28

Not going through reams of paper and making sure that you're checking all these boxes on administration. So if you can outsource it and execute your highest and best use, that's what you should be thinking about.

Speaker 1: 5:39

Absolutely, and I think also there's a lot of fear with outsourcing yeah, and because it's an unknown for many, of fear with outsourcing yeah, and because it's an unknown for many, many companies of all different sizes no-transcript problems that all of us experience in today's world, where it's nearly impossible to hire teams and qualified staff. And AI is a great resource for us when it comes to being able to help with wording or being able to help. But one of my biggest caveats in the world of HR is great, use some of that, but you've got to trust and then verify, because you can't solely rely on AI. And you know, everybody's seen at the pictures where people have six fingers or you know it's a great example I like to just use for fun.

Speaker 1: 6:39

But you know AI is a great tool tool and it needs to be thought of as a tool to make something easier. I know that I have personally used ai to help with wording and in communications to try and make sure it's an at a level where multiple people of different education backgrounds can understand right, right, I like ai.

Speaker 3: 6:58

Uh, for that email where someone sends you like a shitty email and you're like, oh, you want to respond with a really like, like a, like a scathing response. This is a hack. Put that into chat, gpt, and take the email and say, hey, write me an email in a professional tone but say, like, screw you, it's perfect, it's beautiful, I love it, I love it. That's my favorite AI application. But you're absolutely right and I love that saying. I heard this, you know this, when I first started my HR career. It's the whole trust but verify.

Speaker 1: 7:30

You don't want to be untrusting, but you still need to have some level of verification that things are working correctly and that you into play too, not only when you have staff that you work with, that you're responsible for, but it also works in the same realm if you have an outsourced partner where you're trusting but verify and you confirm that, yes, they're doing what you need to be doing, it's consistent and it's working in the way that you planned and expected to be working. Absolutely, and it's something that we strive to do on a daily basis within our HR team, supporting customers, where we're reaching out and constantly working with them to make sure hey, are we doing what we need to be doing? How do we do it? Do we need to be doing something different, better, whatever, it's a partnership, right right, it's a partnership.

Speaker 3: 8:22

Yeah, so you know, I think it's a it's, it's a great call out in something you know, I would just say, as you're struggling to get everything done at HR, and I don't I actually don't know a single HR professional that would say, yeah, we got it all figured out. Yeah, we, we, we got plenty of time to get it done. Yeah, the reality is, we're all facing outsourcing, could be, could be an opportunity, and you know it's, it's, it can be a little bit, you know, daunting. I think, from you know, from from that standpoint. So, when you have a client or an HR professional come to you and say, hey, I, you know, I'm struggling with with X, y and Z, I think I want to outsource, struggling with X, y and Z, I think I want to outsource, what steps do you take to kind of figure out where you can be the most help and what might make the most sense to outsource? How do you help them take their steps?

Speaker 1: 9:15

So it typically starts with meetings and phone calls where we literally just kind of sit down and start talking to them about where are their pain points, what are their biggest challenges, what are some of the things that are frustrating them the most or that slow them down. Open enrollment's a classic example. As we start thinking, it is open enrollment season.

Speaker 3: 9:36

Yes, it is.

Speaker 1: 9:37

Everybody loves open enrollment season and I can't tell you how many people approach us on hey, do you have a solution that's going to make open enrollment easy for me and my employees? Of course I do, but we walk through on what is frustrating you. How is it frustrating? What are you doing today? Open enrollment doesn't have to be done on paper. Trying to move and shift to an electronic open enrollment option will save such significant amounts of time and frustration for the HR team as they move through that open enrollment process. Right, and that's one of the things that I think is such a tremendous help To take a few minutes. And yeah, setting up or initially transitioning to something like that is painful at first, but once it's set up it turns into a smoothly oiled machine and saves such an amount of time going forward. It's totally worth the pain to get something set up.

Speaker 3: 10:37

Yeah, and I would, you know, just like a real-world example of that.

Speaker 3: 10:40

You know there's so many processes that you know, in my current role, when I joined the company a number of years ago, we were doing them on paper, right, and it was, you know.

Speaker 3: 10:52

Or we were kind of using the technology tool, but we were allowing paper for some cases.

Speaker 3: 10:59

Or some people were using the mobile app but some weren't. You know, the reality is like the more kind of flexibility you have related to, like paper enrollment as an example, just using that as an example the more complexity you're actually putting on yourself, right and and, while it might be comfortable because you're used to doing it that way, or or your employees are used to doing it that way, by taking the time to invest in building a process, a system, making it tech-enabled, and then spending the time on training your team how to use it, as opposed to helping your team do the actual thing, you're going to save yourself so much headache and hassle on the back end because the problem is you've got this trailing administrative workload that just bubbles up when you don't have a consistent process, so daunting up front, but my argument would be worth it on the back end. But you have to be willing to be aware of what is this time investment up front. What is the integration and implementation look like how do I train, how do you support and all that stuff.

Speaker 3: 12:04

So I'm assuming you help clients think through these projects and what this actually takes.

Speaker 1: 12:09

Absolutely. And in addition to that, you know, what we typically do is we actually handhold our clients through the entire process and you know, for those that are choosing our HR services, we actually will do the setup and everything and then run open enrollment, for example, for them. And so not only it was painful at first to get everything set up and collect all of the information, but then I've had clients come back that say, oh my God, I didn't have to run the entire open enrollment, track down the employees, get the information to the carriers. You were just a lifesaver for me over the last two months. Yeah, and that's where outsourcing really truly can make a difference in that HR team, when it comes to trying to just manage the nightmare of what I call open enrollment.

Speaker 3: 12:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is so. This is such a timely topic because, like I'm literally doing this right now, I'm like, oh God, we you know, and we're doing carrier transitions and all the, all the stuff you know, and everything that goes along with it, and having that like partner, to walk you through it, to help make sure everything's working to, to run the audits, to validate and then help you out with the actual change management.

Speaker 3: 13:23

So nice, so worth the investment. So I'm curious. So you've done this HR gig for a while. It's been your focus, your passion, you know you literally built a business around it. If you had a magic wand and you could wave it and fix anything in the world of HR, what would that thing be? What would it be? I'm just fascinated to hear your perspective.

Speaker 1: 13:58

Wow.

Speaker 3: 14:07

So I can see it's like you're running through the like. Well, I've got 27 different points that I would make here, but I have to pick one.

Speaker 1: 14:14

Right, that's exactly what's going through my head is oh, I can't really say that um you could say whatever you want.

Speaker 3: 14:20

Well, you know, this is, this is.

Speaker 1: 14:22

You know, there's no rules here I mean you know, maybe your company cares no, no, I really can't say some what popped into my head. Ultimately, if I had a magic wand and there was one thing that I could fix, I would actually wish that some of the required reporting that employers have to do and have to maintain, even with a system, has reached a level of such an obnoxious, ridiculous, stupid level that the governments are requiring, and that each state is different. That's what my magic wand would fix.

Speaker 1: 15:03

Oh yeah Is that we have one set of requirements that apply to all states and we didn't have. I'm a high five you on that one.

Speaker 3: 15:09

We're high fiving for those that are listening. We are high fiving by the microphone, because I could not agree more.

Speaker 1: 15:15

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 15:15

And as a multi, I'm a multi-state employer, international right, so it's like these regulations are crazy, it's insane, so yeah. Now it is job security to some extent for your company, but I agree.

Speaker 1: 15:30

It is and the multi-state is just such a level of ridiculous challenge and even clear down to the ACA reporting. Yeah, level of ridiculous challenge and even clear down to the aca reporting. It's, you know, the employees aren't even fined anymore, but the employers still have to do the stupid reporting, and that's how I feel about that reporting right, just in general.

Speaker 3: 15:45

But, um, yeah, but we jump through the giant flaming hoops because that's what we do. We're here to solve these problems for our companies, but my argument is it does take you, it takes you away from some of the value add right, that, or? Or the highest and best use right, like it's it's. And that's where I think getting back to the heart of this conversation, where we're going, is being open-minded to changing the things that you do, identifying those pain points and then actually coming up with solutions.

Speaker 3: 16:11

I think the other challenge that you know from my standpoint and my seat we're also going in my company, going through budget conversations right now is validating that the cost is worth it, right, um, but but the reality is that that, um, you know it's an investment in your systems, it's an investment in your people, it's an investment in, in, in human resources, but that's not always easy to validate. So, as, as HR professionals are kind of like, yeah, I'd like to outsource this easy to validate. So, as HR professionals are kind of like, yeah, I'd like to outsource this, or I'd like to outsource that, but there's not a budget for it, or I need to cost justify this with my CFO. What advice would you give them as they're trying to make the pitch to their groups?

Speaker 1: 16:49

In today's world, the easiest cost analysis to make the pitch is what is it going to cost you to have staffing to cover what you need the outsourcing vendor to do?

Speaker 2: 16:57

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:58

Because you know, especially with the labor regulations changing January for exempt level of positions, for the salary threshold, many employers are struggling with how do we deal with that? And more and more employers are actually starting to take a look at is outsourcing actually a viable solution to help us afford to be able to continue to provide the right services to our employees? And that's how you approach it through the CFO. It's got to be dollars and cents, it can't just be philosophy and would be nices.

Speaker 3: 17:30

As much as we love waxing poetic and human resources, it does come down to dollars and cents. The good news is, we have access to all those reports, so we should be able to work it. Here's a hack for anybody that's struggling with that. Just go find the nerdiest cost accountant in your company that loves doing nothing more than analytics and tell them hey, I'm trying to cost justify this. Can you help me figure out how to do this? They'll pretty much do it for you. And then you can tell your CFO hey, so-and-so helped me with it, and they're like oh well, then it's probably legit. There's a hack, all right. With that being said, we have time for one more question. So I have one more question for you, brenda when?

Speaker 1: 18:09

does HR need to rebel? Ooh. Where does HR need to rebel? Oh, that's another really tough question. I should have known that one was coming.

Speaker 3: 18:21

I should have prepped you on that one. I didn't know. Yeah, I should have known that was coming.

Speaker 1: 18:27

Where does HR need to rebel? Hr needs to rebel on, I think, a little bit on the culture in the workplace. Over the last four, five years, I would say, cultures have changed a lot and I think that there's a lot of confrontational situations that are occurring more in the workplace today than what used to be occurring previously, and HR needs to rebel a little bit and put their foot down on what's acceptable and what's not acceptable in the workplace.

Speaker 3: 19:04

I like that. Yeah, absolutely yeah. Be comfortable advocating for the right thing.

Speaker 1: 19:09

Yes, yeah, and you can't just tell people anymore do what's right, because it's interesting anymore.

Speaker 3: 19:21

Do what's right because it's interesting. What's right may not be known. Yeah, yeah, that's a. That's a little bit vague, right. Right, I love it. Uh, brenda, thank you so much for joining us. How can our listeners connect with you, learn more about the work that you do and find your company?

Speaker 1: 19:31

um, check us out at honcamppayrollcom. Uh, we are a h HR payroll and outsourcing vendor and provider payroll service bureau and we work with companies nationwide in the United States.

Speaker 3: 19:44

Awesome. We will have that information in the show notes. Thank you so much for spending some time with us.

Speaker 1: 19:50

Thank you.

Speaker 2: 19:52

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 rebelhumanresourcescom. The views and opinions expressed by Rebel HR podcast are those of 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.

Speaker 1: 20:21

Baby.