March 9, 2026 • 51 mins
Reilly DiPlacido - Founder & CEO of Triumph HR - an HR consulting and recruiting firm helping growing businesses build strong teams, stay compliant, and create workplaces where people and performance thrive.
She works closely with business owners and leadership to provide HR guidance from employee relations and compliance to talent strategy and leadership support. Reilly is passionate about simplifying HR so leaders can focus on growing their businesses and leading their teams with confidence.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/winning-business-radio--3075598/support.
She works closely with business owners and leadership to provide HR guidance from employee relations and compliance to talent strategy and leadership support. Reilly is passionate about simplifying HR so leaders can focus on growing their businesses and leading their teams with confidence.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/winning-business-radio--3075598/support.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Churchill said, those who failed to learn from history are
condemned to repeat it. Kevin Helen n believes that certainly
applies to business. Welcome to Winning Business Radio here at
W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com
and now your host, Kevin.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Helen Thanks everybody for joining in again today. I am
Kevin Hallanan and welcome back to Winning Business TV and
Radio on W four cy dot We're streaming live on
talkfo tv dot com, and of course we're streaming live
at Facebook and that's at Winning Business Radio. And we're
(01:09):
available after the live show on every platform where you
could possibly find a podcast, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple, and
the list goes on the mission of the show winning
business radio and TV, as regular viewers and listeners know,
is to offer insights and advice to help people avoid
the mistakes of others, to learn best practices. Those are
(01:29):
the how tos, the what tos, the what not tos,
and to be challenged and hopefully to be inspired by
the successes of others. Those are consultants, coaches, advisors, authors,
founders and owners, entrepreneurs, people with expertise. But you know,
virtually every successful person that I've ever talked to has
had some form of failure in their lives and careers.
(01:49):
So I say it every week. While we also get
our niee skinned once in a while, I'm driven to
keep those scrapes from needing major surgery. Let's endeavor to
learn from history so we don't repeat it. I've spent
the better part of my career equipping businesses to grow
from solopreneurs to small to mid sized companies all the
way up to the Fortune fifty. And I've seen some
of those companies win, and to a varying degree, I've
(02:10):
seen some fail. I've had the opportunity to rub elbows
with some of the highest performing people around and with
some who probably should have found other professions and my
own businesses too. I've had a lot of success, but
some failures as well, and I like to think I've
learned a lot from those experiences. So sure you're going
to hear a little bit from me, but mostly I
want you to hear from the guests. Those are experts, consultants, coaches, authors, advisors,
(02:31):
founders and owners and entrepreneurs. Today's no exception. My guest
is Riley de Placido, the founder and CEO of Triumph
HR and here's her bio. Riley Placido is the founder
and CEO of Triumph HR and HR consulting and recruiting
firm that helps growing businesses build strong teams, stay compliant,
and create workplaces where people and performance thrive. She works
(02:55):
closely with business owners and leadership teams to provide practical
HR guidance from yeah from employee relations and compliance to
talent strategy and leadership support. Riley's passionate about simplifying HR
so leaders can focus on growing their businesses and leading
their teams with confidence. She ends up earned a bachelor's
(03:15):
in psychology and business from Bridgewater State University and holds
the SHR m CP Industry designation. She's a former board
member of the New Haven Residential Treatment Center and currently
the co director of the food Pantry of the Society
of Saint Vincent de Paul. She resides in Attleboro, mass
with her husband Matt, and their two German shepherds, Bruski
and Bella, who I understands a handful. Riley, Welcome to
(03:37):
Winning Business Radio.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Hi, Kevin, thanks so much for having me today.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Thanks being of course, this is overdue, long overdue, So
let's start with your family. Tell us about Matt and
the kids.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Yeah, I know Bella and Bruski. As you said, the
little one is a handful. Matt and I have a
really cool story though, so we were both born and
raised and rent the Massachusetts We've known each other our
entire lives. Not many people get to say that about
their spouse, which is really fun to be able to
do so many different serendipitous things between us. Both of
our sisters had the exact same birthday and grew up
(04:13):
as friends, and then we knew each other the entire
time growing up. My dad rented an office space from
his dad for over twenty years. And they used to
go out to dinner at least once a month, hanging out.
So Matt and my father in law built my parents'
house about fifteen years ago at this point, and the
rest is kind of history from there. We got married
(04:34):
back in October of twenty twenty five, right around the
excuse me, October twenty twenty four, right around the same
time I launched the business. So so many good things
in our two German shepherds are wonderful. Bruski is a
very loyal good boy, especially for dad, and Vella is
about eighteen months and she is a little punk, all right.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
So I got to ask a little bit more about
you and Matt with her other boy as a girlfriends
in that time period. I mean, did you know where
you were destined to be together or was there one
specific time?
Speaker 4 (05:06):
So it's really cool. So he and I actually did
go out on a few dates, probably about fifteen years ago,
and then ultimately I decided to kind of I said
to my best friend at the point, if I got
involved with that, it would be really serious and I
wasn't ready for that. So fifteen years later, here we are.
So when we both look back kind of at the
(05:27):
paths of our life. We both will say that this
was absolutely destined for us to be together. It was
just a matter of time.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
That's cool. And I understand you're building a new house
and rent them back where it all started.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Yeah. So we've always said that we were the biggest
townies without living in rent them Massachusetts. But now we
officially own land and rent them Massachusetts, so we can
kind of say that we're townies, which is nice without
living there just yet. But we are building a house.
So we are building a duplex and my periods all
move in and live.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Next door to weyh. That's nice, really nice. Yeah, and
when will that be ready?
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Great question, Kevin. I'll let you know when.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I'm right, all right, make an announcement, Make an announcement. Yeah,
all right. So when you were younger, like high school ish,
what were your early interests back then?
Speaker 4 (06:17):
My early interest back then? I think if my parents
had one thing to say about me, two things. My
nickname growing up was Smiley Riley, which is very fitting
for who I am. And I think as we look
at the typical aspirations of a middle school high school er,
(06:37):
a lot of them get into sports, and that just
wasn't the thing for me, even as my husband will say, now,
you were the least athletic person I know, and it
is the most true thing. So I was the person
on the sidelines typically saying, but aren't we having fun?
When we were losing twenty to nothing and everyone's sitting
there staying, no, we're not having fun. How can you
(06:58):
even say that? So I would say most of my
fun times had to be just connecting with people, talking
and making friends.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
So you're a high eye yeah very yeah yeah samey.
Who were your early influencers?
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Ooh, my early influencers? So first person that comes to
my mind. I have three older sisters and each of
them are my early influencers, but especially my sister Sheila.
She was the next oldest know beyond me, and I
just copied every single thing she did. She is that
person who I would look up to as a little
girl and want to be like, and still to this
(07:37):
day I feel that way.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Cool. Now, did you have jobs when you're a kid
high school?
Speaker 4 (07:41):
I did so growing up in Rentham, Massachusetts. For those
of you who are familiar, we have an outlet here
in Rentham, Massachusetts. What we're well known for that was
my first job. I worked at Polo until probably I
was eighteen, and then from there went to college and
all throughout college I worked as well at Rockland, which
is a local regional banker. It was a great college job.
(08:04):
Then transition to Citizens Bank in their internal h R department,
and again the rest is history.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
So with working at Polo through high school and you
know at that time frame, what was a lesson learned
you could you could think about that you kind of
kept with you.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Yeah, I would say a lot of it. So the
role that I had when I was at Polo, I
was the cashier because I talked a lot, which is
a great role for me, and I think one of
the things that I would always learn from that was
a little bit of my competitive streak because they would
allow us to say, who is going to get the
most purchases today, who is going to have the most
(08:43):
X y Z sign ups? Things like that, and I
thrive and that type of an environment. So it was
nice for me to learn the aspects of a role
that I really do enjoy. And then where other people
may thrive, you know, folding close by themselves, more introverted,
not me. I'd be bored out of my mind. So
it was yes, I know. So it was really nice
(09:04):
to be able to learn for myself what I needed out.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Of a job. Where did you get the entrepreneurial book?
Speaker 4 (09:12):
So my dad owned his own business for my whole life.
So he was a toy sales broker, and I think
seeing him grow up or me grow up and him
grow up too, right in this space where he was
always self employed, he was the one who was going
out signing the deals, building his business, and how important
(09:35):
that was to us as a family and what that
meant like he would always say, I'm the one who's
putting bread on the table for us, and so it
was really nice to see that, and he always put
that inside of me, which was always really special. To
be able to now be on the other side and
have a business as well.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Did mom work?
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Mom did not, So she did work a little bit
at a jewelry story, she would say, for fun, so
that she could get some of the discounts, but and
mostly to get out of the house.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Front of the house, for sure, Yeah, for sure. All right.
So early in your career you said you went from
Rockland during college to Citizens Bank. How did you get
that role and it was an HR specialist promoted senior
HR specialist. Right.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Yeah, So when I was getting into Citizens Bank, even
going back when I was in college, I was getting
my psychology degree and I got into my junior year
and said, what the heck am I going to do
with this? And at that point in time, my professor
in industrial organizational psyche said, you love this, You thrive
in this type of environment. Go to the business school,
get an HR minor get an internship. See if you
(10:42):
liked it.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Good for them.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
At that point, I was juggling full time college internship
and working full time RUST exactly, so I thrive in
those times. So ultimately from there, I think it was
just this natural progression for me to find the HR
service specialist role at Citizens Bank with my banking history.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
I was at.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Citizens Bank for about I want to say a year,
and then quickly outgrew the roles that I was in,
and that's where I landed myself into a consultant opportunity.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
What was the best part of that position at Citizens
I learned.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
So much in such a short amount of time. In
learning too from a big organization like Citizens where they
have their HR functions very departmentalized and very different circles
of the influence and excellence, and that it was the
best experience for me to get the breadth and depth
of an HR function and to be able to work
(11:43):
with different entities such as pay roll, talent, acquisition, employee relations.
But truly just that foundation.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
And then what was behind the move to one Digital
And you mentioned a different role now HR strategy consultant.
Tell us about that role.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
So I transitioned from Citizens Bank. Before we became one Digital,
it was a company called Insight Performance and we got
then acquired by one Digital. Over the years, when I
started out at Insight Performance, I started out at an
HR coordinator level, so I was coming in and my
role was to support the consultants who were supporting the clients,
so really behind the scenes. Very quickly, I want to say,
(12:20):
within three months, I was then consulting with clients on
the front lines, which was so fun and exciting. When
I was at citizens and outgrew that role, I was
working with a recruiter and she really gave me two options.
Do you want to go into an HR generalist role
at one organization or here's this consultancy opportunity or you
(12:41):
could disguise the limit. I chose the HR consultancy opportunity,
which was wonderful. From after being an HR Services coordinator,
I then grew into the HR consultant role senior HR consultant,
and then this last role that I was in while
I was there was an HR strategy consultant. That was
a role that was created for me, and it was
(13:01):
hybrid between client relationship management and sales. So I had
the ability to learn what it was like to have
a quota, learn how to get out there, sell, prospect,
build business, and I had a big hand in building
our entire HR consulting function in the Connecticut space.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
That's awesome. That's awesome. Most important lesson learned from that role,
Oh most that's as hard as the questions get by
the way, I.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Know, I think there are a few. One I would
say is how much I truly love sales and client
relationships and I only learned that after I got out
of that role. And second to that is I truly
learned what it meant to collaborate with other individuals and
how sometimes that isn't always the easiest thing to do,
(13:53):
but it's the best thing to do.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
That's great. I love hearing that. All right, we're going
to take our first break right here. It's about quarter
after the hour, and we'll be back in about a
minute with Riley Diplasio.
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And now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin helenan
presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in
mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again
is Kevin Helena.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
All right, we're back again with rile Ley Laplacido, founder
and CEO of Triumph HR. What's behind the name Triumph?
Speaker 4 (16:07):
Yeah, it took me a long time, Kevin, to try
to figure out and land on Triumph, and it brings
in some of my Christian values. I went through numerous
amounts of different entities names what felt right, and then
when you think about Triumph, it feels so active, it
feels so assured, it feels so confident, and to be
able to help our clients really triumph over their challenges
(16:31):
is what we're here for.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
That's awesome. That's awesome. I knew it was something that good,
So all right, let's go back. You went over to
Boston Digital after that director people of Talent.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Yes, Yes, So once I was at Insight, which turned
into one Digital for a combined amount of about seven
or eight years, it was time for me to spread
my wings and figure out what might be next. This
has been my next role as an internal director of
people and culture. I worked with them internally, came on
they were a digital marketing organization here in Boston, and
(17:04):
helped them to get to the point over a two
year span where they were ready to sell and they
then got acquired by another firm, which was always their
goal at play. So it was really fantastic partnering with
that organization and also having some experience being that internal
director of people in culture. But within that time I
(17:25):
realized how much I love consulting, and so that brought
me to the next world that I was with in
source services, and I went there. They do ITHR and
finance consulting, and I came on as a senior HR
consultant and that was the time that I was there
for about a year and a half, really helping to
support mainly nonprofit organizations with their HR needs. And next came.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Try of all right, so we got to pause on that. Yes,
so what was the nextus of that? Why did you
want to be I mean, yes, she talked, talk about
the it's kind of in your blood and your parent,
your dad, et cetera. But what was the timing about.
I'm sure you didn't say, Hey, I'm going to get
married and start a business at the same time, right.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
You know I didn't, But it was really fascinating. The
entire time that I was at in Source, there was
a lot of desire for me to go out on
my own, and so I was talking about it endlessly,
and at the point where we were about to get married,
my husband a week before that lovingly said to me,
I love you so much. You are the only one
(18:34):
holding you back, and I cannot keep having this conversation
over and over again. So you either need to do
this and do it now, or we have to stop
talking about it. And now, Kevin, if you know anything
about me, I'm not really capable of stopping to talk
about things that I felt really passionate about. And it
(18:54):
really made me pause, and I said, am I going
to be happy if I stay where I am? And
we all knew what the answer was, and so love
and behold. A week before the wedding, I put in
my two week notice we got married, you.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Know, yeah, did you honeymoon right? Then?
Speaker 4 (19:11):
It was? We went right after we did a mini
moon up to New Hampshire which was very nice.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Nice. I love New Hampshire. Yeah, all right, so that
was October twenty four. Tell us about the company.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Yeah, so Triumph HR, which is so amazing. Today we
hired our seventh employee to be able to support our clients.
Last week we also hired another an individual on our
team and our team is just growing and our focus
is to help small to midsized companies. So either have
no HR or overwhelmed HR, make sure that they're incompliance,
that your employees are engaged, and that your culture is
(19:43):
what you want it to be. HR is something that founders, CEOs,
business owners do not get into business to do. I
know that, and it's something that so frequently keeps people
up at night. That's where we can come in so
we can take it off of your plate and make
sure that you can actually get some sleep knowing that
it's taken care of.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Now. I know you know this, you know this well.
But guys like Tim Kannely, who represent employers against employees,
we know that there are a lot of problems that
go on right and you help your clients avoid a
lot of those problems. So talk about, first of all,
who your typical clients are. I know you say small
to mid size ten through one hundred, but give us
(20:26):
give us an idea of the type of client you
may work with.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Yeah, So talking about our typical clients, as you identified,
they're typically between ten and one hundred, and we often
will support clients smaller than that too. So think about
your solopreneur who's ready to hire their first employee. Will
absolutely support them to get everything set up and ready
from the beginning. That proactive piece is really what we're
here for to make sure that there aren't those fire
(20:51):
drills where we need to bring employment law in at
the end. We're there to prevent that all from happening.
We're industry agnostic on purpose. We've had success with all
the for an industry. We really have a depth between both,
whether it be construction, HVAC, plumbing. We also work with
some pest control individuals or organizations nonprofits. We also I
(21:16):
have a sweet spot for digital marketing too. Just that
peace really aligns with my brain, which is so fun
to be able to work with them. But We also
work with financial institutions, benefits, insurance providers, brokers, things of
that nature. So we really spam the entire space daycare schools.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
When you first got started, what was the hardest part
of putting the shingle up and saying okay, we're real.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Yeah, I think the hardest part and I think a
lot of people can relate to this when you go
into business, it's the unknown. It's the I don't know
how to X whatever that is for each individual. For me,
I knew how to build an HR consulting business, meaning
I know how to do it the behind the scenes
of it. What I personally didn't know was quite honestly,
(22:10):
the tax piece, and that to me was the most daunting.
But here's the thing. You find the resources and the
support to get you through and to teach you all
of that. I have a wonderful CPA now, so I'm supported, right,
And if I could go back and tell that girl
two three years ago, how would they just do it?
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Go?
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Now? Start?
Speaker 3 (22:32):
So, how do you like running the business? You know, budget?
Now you're doing all that partnership stuff versus are you
doing less consulting?
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Yeah, so we're really trying to make the shift for
me to do less consulting over time, and I'm really
there for our consultants and clients as that overarching high
level relationship manager, but really not in as much of
the day to day. So shifting that focus to being
about the business and working on the business instead of
(23:04):
in the business has been really fun for me. I
love being able to be out there and do things
with you, Kevin, like networking and getting our name and
brand out there, educational content for our clients and prospects,
and also, as you said, the budgeting aspect. For me,
I love being able to see the numbers and to
be able to be behind the scenes knowing what we
(23:28):
need to be hitting, where we need to be going
and all that looks like it's something that really excites me.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Right, when should you make that next tire based upon
client out revenue, et cetera. Right? Yeah, right, And are
you doing the sales?
Speaker 4 (23:41):
I am, yes, Yeah, So that's a function that I
was really missing in the last role that I was in.
I love to be able to create great client relationships
and really solve problems for our prospects and clients, and
so the ability for me to be out there doing
that on a constant basis is something that's so exciting
in fun to me. Not only am myself doing sales
(24:02):
for the business, but we also have my HR strategy associate, Cacidy,
who's also starting to get involved in networking and business
development as well.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
All Right, I realize, I forgot to do something and
then we'll come back. We're about six minutes away from
the next commercial. I forgot to have you in the chat.
When during the commercial break, type in the chat whatever
contact information you want, website, email, if you want to
put a phone, and we can do that too, that's
totally to you. But describe the individuals and what their
(24:30):
roles are on the team.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Yeah, So we have at this point in time, three
HR consultants. So those are the individuals who are really
there dedicated to each client. So if somebody is working
with us, you are going to get one HR consultant
to you and your team. That way, when you introduce
us to your leadership, your managers, and your employees, you
all know who you're working with, and we build that
(24:54):
relationship over time to truly become an extension of your
team and your business partner. Secondary to that, as I mentioned,
we have our HR Strategy Associate Cassidy. She helps to
do marketing, sales, enablement, and is getting involved in the
business development piece as well. We just hired an HR
Services Coordinator and so that is an individual who's there
(25:16):
to help to support all of the consultants and their
day to day work to make sure things are going
smoothly and any kind of behind the scenes processes that
we can help have her involved in for efficiency. And
then we do have our recruiter Courtney as well, so
Courtney is there to help our talent acquisition. When our
clients need to hire, we are there to be able
(25:36):
to support them. We have our own applicant tracking system
and not only do we post roles, we actively source
candidates as well, so we have some really cool tools
and functions to be able to find the right candidate,
not just do the post and prey like some organizations do.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Let's see what sets Triumph apart from other firms.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
One of the things that I consistently hear when we
ask this question to our clients of what made you
go with us? We love to hear why they consistently
say the relationship and trust aspect that we bring to
our work we are focused. I think HR oftentimes has
a connotation sometimes as being the police or bringing in
(26:23):
a different aspect of compliance, And of course we are
here to make sure that you are in compliance, but
we're here for your people. We're here for you. We
bring a warmth in a relationship aspect to every single conversation.
We feel like trust build in every interaction, and we're
here to build that proactive support for you and your clients,
(26:44):
knowing that you're going to get that trusted partnership that
your company deserves.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Excellent. Now, geography doesn't matter. You said, industry doesn't matter, right, correct,
all right, So starting at the top, what are some
of the problems that exist that would cause someone to
hire you.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
Yeah, So oftentimes if an organization is growing and they've
gotten to a place where maybe their process for that
growth has quickly gone beyond what they're able to keep
up with, that's a really perfect time to bring us in.
On the flip side of that, we don't often like
to talk about it, but many times organizations will come
(27:22):
to us when there might need to be a separation
within the organization that needs to happen, whether that be
one individual. Sometimes it's performance related or they need to
do a larger layoff of their organization. We can help
to support that. And not only can we have to
support that, but sometimes the HR function might be impacted
(27:42):
as part of that, and so we can step in
as that outsource fractionalized partner instead of having that full
time headcount to be able to support the new organization
and really keep the trains on the track. Additionally, we
oftentimes will work with organizations where maybe they themselves in
a little hot water. Maybe they're dealing with a really
(28:03):
complicated leave of absence or employee relations situation, or they're
realizing my team isn't thriving right now and I don't
know why, help me figure it out. We also will
work oftentimes with organizations where the owner the CEO is
still the one who's doing HR. In order for your
(28:26):
business to grow, at some point you need to delegate
that to the right expertise in individuals so that we
can have to support it, so you can focus on
the business growth and where your energy needs to be.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
So you are really a virtual, dedicated HR department. And
that's why I think you can say tailored HR solutions.
You can bring whatever they need right.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Absolutely, and that's our whole ideal is to be able
to meet the needs of our clients. When I look
at our client base, we have a digital healthcare marketing
client that their needs arely different from the bank that
we support, and so we can tailor everything to it.
Not only do we work in this space where there
might not be an HR person in the seat, we
(29:09):
also times will collaborate with the internal HR as well.
So that's important to know. And you're absolutely right, Kevin,
that we are typically remote. I think COVID really helped
to expand that perspective that we can help to support
clients anywhere throughout the US, but we are here in
Massachusetts and if somebody wants some on site support, we
are here to help to support that too.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Great. We're going to take our second break here. We'll
be back in another minute with Riley di Placida.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helenet on
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Speaker 2 (31:09):
And Now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helenan
presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in
mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again
is Kevin Helene.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
All right, we're back with Riley Deplasido, founder and CEO
of Triumph HR. You said that growth exposes HR problems
faster than companies expect. Yes, can you talk about that?
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Yeah, I think that it's so important. As you said, Kevin,
the organization that you were when you maybe had three
employees or five employees is not the same organization that
you need to have when you have twenty twenty five,
fifty fifty five and beyond employees, and your HR needs
to keep up with those aspects to be able to
help to support your growth. What helps you thrive when
(32:03):
you are an organization five years ago needs to continue
to evolve today. Your employees have different needs. They want
us be seen, heard and valued, and we need to
be able to make sure that we're doing that as
the employer, and we can help to support that. To
be able to do it, we need to be sure
that your processes and operations have kept up. Not only
(32:24):
are they operational, but they're efficient and they're effective, and
so we can come in and diagnose all of those
challenges and help to solve the problem and bring over.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Resolution from your experience. Just generally, how many businesses do
you believe are out of compliance? And in what ways?
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Oh goodness gracious, there, I would say more than not.
I honestly don't want to put a number to it
because we don't want to expose people too much. Ultimately,
I think that more businesses are out of compliance, even
if it's a small piece that you might not be
aware that you need to do. That's where we can
come in and we can be sure that all of
(33:05):
those buttons are tied up. I would say I have
not worked with one client over the span of a
decade who when we started working together, they were one
hundred percent compliant. There is it?
Speaker 3 (33:17):
What's a simple way they're that someone could be out
of compliance and not even aware of it.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
Sure, even right now, when you're posting a job, are
you posting the salary range? Do you need to be
Is that something that you might not necessarily even need
to be doing, but should you be doing? That's a
different conversation. What about your employee record retention? How does
that look when you're putting a file together for an employee?
Are you just putting all of the files into one
(33:42):
specific subfolder or are you actually sectioning it out? Where
does that I nine live? Does that need to be
separate from everything else? The answer is yes? What about
a background check? How all of those little nuanced pieces
that employers are doing their best? And I think that
that's something that's so we're into recognize everyone is just
doing their best and you're not meant to be an
(34:04):
HR expert. That's where we come in because we can
help you that expert for you.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
All right, So let's talk about some of the bullets
in the areas and just expand on these HR strategy
and operations.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
Yeah. So when we think about HR operations, oftentimes I
think from a perspective from the entire employee life cycle
from hiring to firing. What does that operational aspect to
look like? Do you have a workflow, what's the process?
Is it repeatable? Does it live in somebody's head? Is
it efficient? Is it effective? How does it make employees feel?
(34:37):
So all of those pieces are where we can come
in and really optimize the operations aspect of it. When
we think about HR strategy, I would say this really
blends into the people thriving aspect. Are your people engaged
and happy and if not, or we could get them
more engaged and happy. That's where the strategy piece comes in.
(35:00):
So that's where we can bring to life what makes
people thrive a your specific organization, because it's going to
be different for the organization down the street. So we
can come in and we can bring that strategy aspect
to it.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
So you would do the pay uh or give coaching,
or give direction or maybe even do the HR or
the payroll paperwork, but you don't do payroll.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
We don't do payroll. So that is something that you're
absolutely right, Kevin. We can help to support payroll, so
we work hand in hand with a lot of the
payroll individuals at our organizations, but we won't be the
individuals who are ever pressing the button. For a few
different reasons, mainly, the expertise that you need for payroll
is very different than the expertise that you need from
(35:47):
a people in culture aspect, and so Triumph HR is
built on that people in culture strategy of HR. And
so we want to leave the payroll to the payroll experts.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Very good, very good. It's also state specific, as you know,
you got it all right. So we talked a bit
about compliance, what about risk management?
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Yeah, you got it so right. Where As you know,
Tim Kennely has been a wonderful guest of the radio
show in the past, and he is an employment lawyer.
And so our job when we're partnering with somebody like
Tim and his clients is to help make sure that
you don't need to get to the place where you
need to work with legal counsel. We will partner with
(36:31):
somebody like Tim when there's the time and place for it.
There often been times. For example, I worked with him
on a really interesting drug screen scenario in Minnesota, so
I partnered very closely about that. But there are so
many different instances where we can help mitigate the risk. So,
say you do need to terminate somebody, unfortunately, how we
(36:54):
go about that and what we do and what we
make sure we do ahead of time is going to
severely a gate or risk from having a wrongful termination
claim or having something goes sideways afterwards.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Is consistency a big issue.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Huge, absolutely. I think many times again organizations and employers
are doing their best, but there's this thing called precedence
that lets you make a decision for one employee. You
then set sometimes an unintentional precedence of how you're going
to handle similar scenarios in the future. So if there's
inconsistency from employee to employee, there's oftentimes that opportunity for
(37:35):
one employee to say, well, why did Susie you get
this but I didn't? And is it because of my age?
Is it because of my gender? Is it because of
something else? And we want to make sure that there
isn't the ability.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
To have that question. All right, what about hiring and
talent strategy?
Speaker 4 (37:50):
Now, yeah, So oftentimes when you as an organization are
going to hire somebody, where do you start? What does
that look like? How do you approach it? So from
our perspective, we have a dedicated recruiter talent acquisition specialist, Courtney,
who her whole career has been focused on finding talent
(38:12):
for organizations and so we want to make sure that
we not only find you the right person for the role,
but the right person for the long term fit for
the organization as well. So we approach it in a
sense of making sure that your job posting is something
that candidates are really excited about, it's also compliant. We
then help to support the entire interview process from phone
(38:35):
screen to offer and everything in between well making sure
those managers feel really confident about interviews. Some managers will
go out there, you think that they're going to be great.
They get into an interview and you're like, you just
asked five illegal questions. We can't do that right. Or
they oftentimes will leave it and say I'm not sure
(38:58):
who's going to be the best fit, or they make
a bad hire that costs them some money and then
realize there has to be a better way, so we
can come in from the beginning and make sure that
we're well suited for that seamless process.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
And do you help with milestones of when hiring should happen,
et cetera.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Absolutely so we work with our clients off very frequently
about we're ready to make a higher or we need
to wait. Actually the revenue isn't supporting that right now,
we shouldn't be waiting with this is exactly what we
need to see when we need to see it, and
that will help us trigger that. We oftentimes will be
that conduit too between maybe the CEO and middle management
(39:38):
in having those conversations and explaining oftentimes to middle management
of here's why here's the why of why we want
to pause on bringing somebody on at the moment, and
here's when we're going to be ready to since they
have the extra context and communication around it.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Are you using assessments of any kind?
Speaker 4 (39:58):
So when you say assessments, are you thinking disc or
PI assess y. Yeah, so we haven't really got into
the world of offering those to our clients just yet,
but I can certainly tell you my own personality assessment
styles which you hit the nail on the head from
a disc perspective. I am a HIGHDI which nobody would
be surprised about. But at the moment, we haven't necessarily
(40:21):
brought that to our clients.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
So we're the same by the way, Yeah, I'm slightly
more eye than dep But and then you talk about
employee engagement, what does that look like?
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Yeah, so how are your employees feeling about work right now?
And do you have individuals who are slowly unproductive behind
the scenes. Especially when you're in a remote environment, it
can be really hard to gauge somebody's engagement level. So
we can come in and we can help assess what
that engagement looks like right now. Sometimes that will just
(40:53):
be through different interviews and conversations. I often call it
my own type of what's the word on the street,
let's talk, let's get what's going on. Additionally, well, we
will do employee engagement surveys and then from there we'll
do employee engagement surveys. We will also be that third
party who can do that survey so people really trust
(41:17):
that it is anonymous and we're not trying to figure
out who said what. We don't have any skim in
the game. We're skiving The game though, is to make
sure that your experience is better than what it is
right now. And therefore that's what we will then do
next is we will assess the data, we will analyze it,
We'll come up with recommendations. We will work with c
suite to be sure those recommendations are feasible, make sure
(41:38):
they're communicated to the employees. But what our dedications are
and make sure all of those milestones are.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
H do you recommend programs events all the above? I mean,
what are the types of things that you would recommend
to encourage and solidify that engagement.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
It depends, as you said, definitely all of the above.
It can be different programs, it can be different e
and sometimes though, I will say the number one thing
that we always here and try to shift positively is
communication and how is the communication? And so sometimes that
doesn't need to be a huge initiative per se, but
(42:15):
it does need to be how is that information flowing
from individual to individual? Do we need to be implementing
more all hands or all staff meeting? What do those
look like? What's the format of those? Let's be sure
that that's productive, efficient and effective for everybody. And of
course we'll do some fun different cultural things as well.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Do you get into comp plans at all?
Speaker 4 (42:38):
So we do. We work with almost every single one
of our clients regarding compensation and whether that be just
their annual merit review process, but also making sure that
their market is competitor, they are competitive with the market
in certain roles or across the organization. We also work
a lot with making sure that you have a compensation
philosophy that you feel good about, that you're employe understand
(43:00):
and you can stand by and then executing on that
compensation philosophy.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
So you have access to that type of research to
know what is appropriate or expected in that market. We
do you do sales as well that those get more complicated,
but you do those two.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
So we do. I've worked on many different incentive compensation plans,
So we do work especially even c suite leadership level
incentive plans, bonus plans, commission plans, all of the above.
It really just depends on exactly what the organization needs.
And well, oftentimes an organization will come to us and
oftentimes say we need this, and then our first place is, well,
(43:38):
let's talk about your goals. What is it that you're
trying to do, what are you trying to incentivize here?
And then being able to build backwards from.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
That perfect and that probably leads into this next bullet,
which is leadership support.
Speaker 4 (43:50):
Yes, leadership support, that is really the bread and butter
of exactly what we do. So we sit on the
c suite of any client who would like us to
be there, and that is many of our clients, So
we are part of the c suite for many of
our organizations. That leadership support also doesn't just stop at
(44:12):
the c suite. That goes down to every leader within
the organization, managerial level, directors, whoever it might be, as
part of them. The client has the ability to give
us access to whoever they would like to within the organization,
So we even will help to support employees at the
employee level as well, so that support is truly there
(44:33):
for everybody throughout the organization.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
All Right, the last bullet and I have some more questions,
but culture development, and that's I'm curious how you go
about that.
Speaker 4 (44:41):
Yeah, it's so fascinating because I think this goes back
to a lot what we've already talked about of employee engagement.
But even when we think about culture development, have you
set goals? Have you set values? Have you set a vision?
Do you have competencies for your employees? Do they know
what they are? Do they know what that means? Care
about it? Do they want to? So really being able
(45:04):
to help assess what the current culture is. And again
I go back to what's the word on the street?
What are people feeling? What are people saying you as
an organization. I'll even say this, when we were in
the hiring process for a Triumph recently, there was a
candidate who asked us what is your culture? And luckily
I had my age or strategy associate on it with me,
and I said, I don't want to answer that. I
(45:25):
can tell you what I want the culture to be,
but let me have Cassidy answer it for you, and
luckily your answers were exactly the same, which is great,
but that doesn't always mean that that's going to be
the case. And so it's really important to have the
north star, but make sure everybody knows what that north
star is and is moving towards that together.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
What tools, software otherwise do you provide that help your
clients become enabled.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
Yeah, so a lot of the support that we will
provide we tailor everything and create everything for our clients.
We do have an applicant tracking system as I mentioned
for a hiring perspective, but we'll often say your car
are driver. So although we don't do payroll, we do
help a lot of our clients with payroll implementation. So
(46:10):
just recently we helped a digital healthcare marketing firm seventy
five employees go from one platform called Paycore to Paylocity,
and so we were really the ones who are spearheading
that entire transition. But again I go back to your
car our driver. We will make the recommendation for what
we're seeing that you may need, but we're happy to
(46:33):
be system agnostic, all right.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
A couple of last questions, can you share high level
examples of a couple of businesses without naming names, just example,
describe them and what you've helped them accomplish.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
Yeah. Absolutely So. The digital healthcare marketing firm that we
were just talking about seventy five employees. Back in Juni
or July of last year, their VP of HR decided
to go back into a different role within another organization.
They ideally would like to see what happens from an
acquisition standpoint in the future. They don't necessarily want to
(47:08):
be adding on the headcount, so therefore they outsourced their
HR function to us. Along with that, we uncovered so
many things that were not compliant the way that they
were being done. So everything may seem okay on the surface,
but when you get an expert in there and you
(47:29):
truly dig through what that looks like, we have the
ability to say there's risk here and we need to
mitigate that. And so even for example, we helped to
implement a new payroll transition because the one that they
were previously on was too risky for where they were in.
What was happening on a consistent basis. Their culture was
(47:49):
something that was not great. Unfortunately they had to do
some layoffs in restructuring within the last year. At this point,
I just did a word on the street read seeing
how people were feeling, and the culture has shifted to
be positive in a really good way. We now have
implemented all staff meetings. I have fallen into the position
(48:12):
of facilitating them because I think I love it a
little bit. I enjoy that and people will see to
me all the time, Kevin, You'll get this. They'll say,
I feel like I'm joining Riley's podcast or TV show
game every time she's there. Yeah. So that one has
been a really fascinating one where we've improved the culture,
got them to a more compliant space, and are consistently
(48:33):
working to optimize the trust of the HR function. Before
the last VP of HR, there was a lot of
transition within that HR function, so people already had a
question mark. And it's so nice to be able to
hear from people saying, you're the best HR person we've
ever had in our entire career.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
Love it all right, Who in the viewing and listening
audiences should reach out to you and why?
Speaker 4 (48:55):
Yeah? Absolutely, if you own a business or you know
anybody who does and you're sitting here and you're saying,
I have no idea if I'm compliant, what does that
even mean? That is absolutely a place for you to
reach out to me. If you were sitting here and
you were saying, I don't know if my employees are
engaged or not, how would I know? How can I tell?
(49:16):
What can we do about that? Reach out to me,
because we can absolutely put some assessments in place and
make sure everything is going smoothly. Or if you're in transition,
whether that be growth or you in the future unfortunately
may need to do some restructuring. We're here to help
to support that as well.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
Awesome and the easiest and best way for people to
reach you is.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
Yeah, my email address which is just Riley at triumphdashhr
dot com.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
Perfect and the website is the same.
Speaker 4 (49:42):
In the website Triumph dashahr dot com.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
All right, Well, we really appreciate you being here. I
know you're super busy, very high energy. I'm sure you
get a lot done in every minute, but appreciate you
being here and thank you for taking the time.
Speaker 4 (49:56):
Thanks Kevin, appreciate it, you.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
Bet, and thanks everybody for watching and listening. This is
a show about business sometimes and often business challenges. If
you've got concerns about the sales effectiveness of your company,
whether your sales team is you or small or large,
feel free to reach out to me. One of my
easy email addresses is kevinat Winning Business Radio dot com.
Our company is Winning Incorporated, part of Sandler Training. We
(50:19):
develop salespeople, sales and sales teams into high achievers, and
sales leaders into true coaches and mentors. We're not a
fit for everybody, but hey, maybe we should have a conversation.
Thank you every week to producer and engineer Wan for
another job well done. Thank you one. Be sure to
join us next week Monday March sixteenth, when my guests
will be Steve Devrees, a focal point business coach and
(50:41):
peer advisor to manufacturing companies. Until then, this is Kevin Hallanan.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
You've been listening to Winning Business Radio with your host,
Kevin Helena. If you missed any part of this episode.
The podcast is available on Top four Podcasting and iHeartRadio.
For more information and questions, go to Winning Business Radio
dot com or check us out on social media. Tune
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Eastern Time, to listen live to Winning Business Radio on
(51:10):
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let's succeed where others have failed and win in business
with Kevin Helenan and Winning Business Radio
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
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(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Churchill said, those who failed to learn from history are
condemned to repeat it. Kevin Helen n believes that certainly
applies to business. Welcome to Winning Business Radio here at
W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com
and now your host, Kevin.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Helen Thanks everybody for joining in again today. I am
Kevin Hallanan and welcome back to Winning Business TV and
Radio on W four cy dot We're streaming live on
talkfo tv dot com, and of course we're streaming live
at Facebook and that's at Winning Business Radio. And we're
(01:09):
available after the live show on every platform where you
could possibly find a podcast, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple, and
the list goes on the mission of the show winning
business radio and TV, as regular viewers and listeners know,
is to offer insights and advice to help people avoid
the mistakes of others, to learn best practices. Those are
(01:29):
the how tos, the what tos, the what not tos,
and to be challenged and hopefully to be inspired by
the successes of others. Those are consultants, coaches, advisors, authors,
founders and owners, entrepreneurs, people with expertise. But you know,
virtually every successful person that I've ever talked to has
had some form of failure in their lives and careers.
(01:49):
So I say it every week. While we also get
our niee skinned once in a while, I'm driven to
keep those scrapes from needing major surgery. Let's endeavor to
learn from history so we don't repeat it. I've spent
the better part of my career equipping businesses to grow
from solopreneurs to small to mid sized companies all the
way up to the Fortune fifty. And I've seen some
of those companies win, and to a varying degree, I've
(02:10):
seen some fail. I've had the opportunity to rub elbows
with some of the highest performing people around and with
some who probably should have found other professions and my
own businesses too. I've had a lot of success, but
some failures as well, and I like to think I've
learned a lot from those experiences. So sure you're going
to hear a little bit from me, but mostly I
want you to hear from the guests. Those are experts, consultants, coaches, authors, advisors,
(02:31):
founders and owners and entrepreneurs. Today's no exception. My guest
is Riley de Placido, the founder and CEO of Triumph
HR and here's her bio. Riley Placido is the founder
and CEO of Triumph HR and HR consulting and recruiting
firm that helps growing businesses build strong teams, stay compliant,
and create workplaces where people and performance thrive. She works
(02:55):
closely with business owners and leadership teams to provide practical
HR guidance from yeah from employee relations and compliance to
talent strategy and leadership support. Riley's passionate about simplifying HR
so leaders can focus on growing their businesses and leading
their teams with confidence. She ends up earned a bachelor's
(03:15):
in psychology and business from Bridgewater State University and holds
the SHR m CP Industry designation. She's a former board
member of the New Haven Residential Treatment Center and currently
the co director of the food Pantry of the Society
of Saint Vincent de Paul. She resides in Attleboro, mass
with her husband Matt, and their two German shepherds, Bruski
and Bella, who I understands a handful. Riley, Welcome to
(03:37):
Winning Business Radio.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Hi, Kevin, thanks so much for having me today.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Thanks being of course, this is overdue, long overdue, So
let's start with your family. Tell us about Matt and
the kids.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Yeah, I know Bella and Bruski. As you said, the
little one is a handful. Matt and I have a
really cool story though, so we were both born and
raised and rent the Massachusetts We've known each other our
entire lives. Not many people get to say that about
their spouse, which is really fun to be able to
do so many different serendipitous things between us. Both of
our sisters had the exact same birthday and grew up
(04:13):
as friends, and then we knew each other the entire
time growing up. My dad rented an office space from
his dad for over twenty years. And they used to
go out to dinner at least once a month, hanging out.
So Matt and my father in law built my parents'
house about fifteen years ago at this point, and the
rest is kind of history from there. We got married
(04:34):
back in October of twenty twenty five, right around the
excuse me, October twenty twenty four, right around the same
time I launched the business. So so many good things
in our two German shepherds are wonderful. Bruski is a
very loyal good boy, especially for dad, and Vella is
about eighteen months and she is a little punk, all right.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
So I got to ask a little bit more about
you and Matt with her other boy as a girlfriends
in that time period. I mean, did you know where
you were destined to be together or was there one
specific time?
Speaker 4 (05:06):
So it's really cool. So he and I actually did
go out on a few dates, probably about fifteen years ago,
and then ultimately I decided to kind of I said
to my best friend at the point, if I got
involved with that, it would be really serious and I
wasn't ready for that. So fifteen years later, here we are.
So when we both look back kind of at the
(05:27):
paths of our life. We both will say that this
was absolutely destined for us to be together. It was
just a matter of time.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
That's cool. And I understand you're building a new house
and rent them back where it all started.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Yeah. So we've always said that we were the biggest
townies without living in rent them Massachusetts. But now we
officially own land and rent them Massachusetts, so we can
kind of say that we're townies, which is nice without
living there just yet. But we are building a house.
So we are building a duplex and my periods all
move in and live.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Next door to weyh. That's nice, really nice. Yeah, and
when will that be ready?
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Great question, Kevin. I'll let you know when.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I'm right, all right, make an announcement, Make an announcement. Yeah,
all right. So when you were younger, like high school ish,
what were your early interests back then?
Speaker 4 (06:17):
My early interest back then? I think if my parents
had one thing to say about me, two things. My
nickname growing up was Smiley Riley, which is very fitting
for who I am. And I think as we look
at the typical aspirations of a middle school high school er,
(06:37):
a lot of them get into sports, and that just
wasn't the thing for me, even as my husband will say, now,
you were the least athletic person I know, and it
is the most true thing. So I was the person
on the sidelines typically saying, but aren't we having fun?
When we were losing twenty to nothing and everyone's sitting
there staying, no, we're not having fun. How can you
(06:58):
even say that? So I would say most of my
fun times had to be just connecting with people, talking
and making friends.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
So you're a high eye yeah very yeah yeah samey.
Who were your early influencers?
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Ooh, my early influencers? So first person that comes to
my mind. I have three older sisters and each of
them are my early influencers, but especially my sister Sheila.
She was the next oldest know beyond me, and I
just copied every single thing she did. She is that
person who I would look up to as a little
girl and want to be like, and still to this
(07:37):
day I feel that way.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Cool. Now, did you have jobs when you're a kid
high school?
Speaker 4 (07:41):
I did so growing up in Rentham, Massachusetts. For those
of you who are familiar, we have an outlet here
in Rentham, Massachusetts. What we're well known for that was
my first job. I worked at Polo until probably I
was eighteen, and then from there went to college and
all throughout college I worked as well at Rockland, which
is a local regional banker. It was a great college job.
(08:04):
Then transition to Citizens Bank in their internal h R department,
and again the rest is history.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
So with working at Polo through high school and you
know at that time frame, what was a lesson learned
you could you could think about that you kind of
kept with you.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Yeah, I would say a lot of it. So the
role that I had when I was at Polo, I
was the cashier because I talked a lot, which is
a great role for me, and I think one of
the things that I would always learn from that was
a little bit of my competitive streak because they would
allow us to say, who is going to get the
most purchases today, who is going to have the most
(08:43):
X y Z sign ups? Things like that, and I
thrive and that type of an environment. So it was
nice for me to learn the aspects of a role
that I really do enjoy. And then where other people
may thrive, you know, folding close by themselves, more introverted,
not me. I'd be bored out of my mind. So
it was yes, I know. So it was really nice
(09:04):
to be able to learn for myself what I needed out.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Of a job. Where did you get the entrepreneurial book?
Speaker 4 (09:12):
So my dad owned his own business for my whole life.
So he was a toy sales broker, and I think
seeing him grow up or me grow up and him
grow up too, right in this space where he was
always self employed, he was the one who was going
out signing the deals, building his business, and how important
(09:35):
that was to us as a family and what that
meant like he would always say, I'm the one who's
putting bread on the table for us, and so it
was really nice to see that, and he always put
that inside of me, which was always really special. To
be able to now be on the other side and
have a business as well.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Did mom work?
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Mom did not, So she did work a little bit
at a jewelry story, she would say, for fun, so
that she could get some of the discounts, but and
mostly to get out of the house.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Front of the house, for sure, Yeah, for sure. All right.
So early in your career you said you went from
Rockland during college to Citizens Bank. How did you get
that role and it was an HR specialist promoted senior
HR specialist. Right.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Yeah, So when I was getting into Citizens Bank, even
going back when I was in college, I was getting
my psychology degree and I got into my junior year
and said, what the heck am I going to do
with this? And at that point in time, my professor
in industrial organizational psyche said, you love this, You thrive
in this type of environment. Go to the business school,
get an HR minor get an internship. See if you
(10:42):
liked it.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Good for them.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
At that point, I was juggling full time college internship
and working full time RUST exactly, so I thrive in
those times. So ultimately from there, I think it was
just this natural progression for me to find the HR
service specialist role at Citizens Bank with my banking history.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
I was at.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Citizens Bank for about I want to say a year,
and then quickly outgrew the roles that I was in,
and that's where I landed myself into a consultant opportunity.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
What was the best part of that position at Citizens
I learned.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
So much in such a short amount of time. In
learning too from a big organization like Citizens where they
have their HR functions very departmentalized and very different circles
of the influence and excellence, and that it was the
best experience for me to get the breadth and depth
of an HR function and to be able to work
(11:43):
with different entities such as pay roll, talent, acquisition, employee relations.
But truly just that foundation.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
And then what was behind the move to one Digital
And you mentioned a different role now HR strategy consultant.
Tell us about that role.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
So I transitioned from Citizens Bank. Before we became one Digital,
it was a company called Insight Performance and we got
then acquired by one Digital. Over the years, when I
started out at Insight Performance, I started out at an
HR coordinator level, so I was coming in and my
role was to support the consultants who were supporting the clients,
so really behind the scenes. Very quickly, I want to say,
(12:20):
within three months, I was then consulting with clients on
the front lines, which was so fun and exciting. When
I was at citizens and outgrew that role, I was
working with a recruiter and she really gave me two options.
Do you want to go into an HR generalist role
at one organization or here's this consultancy opportunity or you
(12:41):
could disguise the limit. I chose the HR consultancy opportunity,
which was wonderful. From after being an HR Services coordinator,
I then grew into the HR consultant role senior HR consultant,
and then this last role that I was in while
I was there was an HR strategy consultant. That was
a role that was created for me, and it was
(13:01):
hybrid between client relationship management and sales. So I had
the ability to learn what it was like to have
a quota, learn how to get out there, sell, prospect,
build business, and I had a big hand in building
our entire HR consulting function in the Connecticut space.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
That's awesome. That's awesome. Most important lesson learned from that role,
Oh most that's as hard as the questions get by
the way, I.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Know, I think there are a few. One I would
say is how much I truly love sales and client
relationships and I only learned that after I got out
of that role. And second to that is I truly
learned what it meant to collaborate with other individuals and
how sometimes that isn't always the easiest thing to do,
(13:53):
but it's the best thing to do.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
That's great. I love hearing that. All right, we're going
to take our first break right here. It's about quarter
after the hour, and we'll be back in about a
minute with Riley Diplasio.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene on
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Speaker 2 (15:40):
And now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin helenan
presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in
mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again
is Kevin Helena.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
All right, we're back again with rile Ley Laplacido, founder
and CEO of Triumph HR. What's behind the name Triumph?
Speaker 4 (16:07):
Yeah, it took me a long time, Kevin, to try
to figure out and land on Triumph, and it brings
in some of my Christian values. I went through numerous
amounts of different entities names what felt right, and then
when you think about Triumph, it feels so active, it
feels so assured, it feels so confident, and to be
able to help our clients really triumph over their challenges
(16:31):
is what we're here for.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
That's awesome. That's awesome. I knew it was something that good,
So all right, let's go back. You went over to
Boston Digital after that director people of Talent.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Yes, Yes, So once I was at Insight, which turned
into one Digital for a combined amount of about seven
or eight years, it was time for me to spread
my wings and figure out what might be next. This
has been my next role as an internal director of
people and culture. I worked with them internally, came on
they were a digital marketing organization here in Boston, and
(17:04):
helped them to get to the point over a two
year span where they were ready to sell and they
then got acquired by another firm, which was always their
goal at play. So it was really fantastic partnering with
that organization and also having some experience being that internal
director of people in culture. But within that time I
(17:25):
realized how much I love consulting, and so that brought
me to the next world that I was with in
source services, and I went there. They do ITHR and
finance consulting, and I came on as a senior HR
consultant and that was the time that I was there
for about a year and a half, really helping to
support mainly nonprofit organizations with their HR needs. And next came.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Try of all right, so we got to pause on that. Yes,
so what was the nextus of that? Why did you
want to be I mean, yes, she talked, talk about
the it's kind of in your blood and your parent,
your dad, et cetera. But what was the timing about.
I'm sure you didn't say, Hey, I'm going to get
married and start a business at the same time, right.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
You know I didn't, But it was really fascinating. The
entire time that I was at in Source, there was
a lot of desire for me to go out on
my own, and so I was talking about it endlessly,
and at the point where we were about to get married,
my husband a week before that lovingly said to me,
I love you so much. You are the only one
(18:34):
holding you back, and I cannot keep having this conversation
over and over again. So you either need to do
this and do it now, or we have to stop
talking about it. And now, Kevin, if you know anything
about me, I'm not really capable of stopping to talk
about things that I felt really passionate about. And it
(18:54):
really made me pause, and I said, am I going
to be happy if I stay where I am? And
we all knew what the answer was, and so love
and behold. A week before the wedding, I put in
my two week notice we got married, you.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Know, yeah, did you honeymoon right? Then?
Speaker 4 (19:11):
It was? We went right after we did a mini
moon up to New Hampshire which was very nice.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Nice. I love New Hampshire. Yeah, all right, so that
was October twenty four. Tell us about the company.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Yeah, so Triumph HR, which is so amazing. Today we
hired our seventh employee to be able to support our clients.
Last week we also hired another an individual on our
team and our team is just growing and our focus
is to help small to midsized companies. So either have
no HR or overwhelmed HR, make sure that they're incompliance,
that your employees are engaged, and that your culture is
(19:43):
what you want it to be. HR is something that founders, CEOs,
business owners do not get into business to do. I
know that, and it's something that so frequently keeps people
up at night. That's where we can come in so
we can take it off of your plate and make
sure that you can actually get some sleep knowing that
it's taken care of.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Now. I know you know this, you know this well.
But guys like Tim Kannely, who represent employers against employees,
we know that there are a lot of problems that
go on right and you help your clients avoid a
lot of those problems. So talk about, first of all,
who your typical clients are. I know you say small
to mid size ten through one hundred, but give us
(20:26):
give us an idea of the type of client you
may work with.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Yeah, So talking about our typical clients, as you identified,
they're typically between ten and one hundred, and we often
will support clients smaller than that too. So think about
your solopreneur who's ready to hire their first employee. Will
absolutely support them to get everything set up and ready
from the beginning. That proactive piece is really what we're
here for to make sure that there aren't those fire
(20:51):
drills where we need to bring employment law in at
the end. We're there to prevent that all from happening.
We're industry agnostic on purpose. We've had success with all
the for an industry. We really have a depth between both,
whether it be construction, HVAC, plumbing. We also work with
some pest control individuals or organizations nonprofits. We also I
(21:16):
have a sweet spot for digital marketing too. Just that
peace really aligns with my brain, which is so fun
to be able to work with them. But We also
work with financial institutions, benefits, insurance providers, brokers, things of
that nature. So we really spam the entire space daycare schools.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
When you first got started, what was the hardest part
of putting the shingle up and saying okay, we're real.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Yeah, I think the hardest part and I think a
lot of people can relate to this when you go
into business, it's the unknown. It's the I don't know
how to X whatever that is for each individual. For me,
I knew how to build an HR consulting business, meaning
I know how to do it the behind the scenes
of it. What I personally didn't know was quite honestly,
(22:10):
the tax piece, and that to me was the most daunting.
But here's the thing. You find the resources and the
support to get you through and to teach you all
of that. I have a wonderful CPA now, so I'm supported, right,
And if I could go back and tell that girl
two three years ago, how would they just do it?
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Go?
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Now? Start?
Speaker 3 (22:32):
So, how do you like running the business? You know, budget?
Now you're doing all that partnership stuff versus are you
doing less consulting?
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Yeah, so we're really trying to make the shift for
me to do less consulting over time, and I'm really
there for our consultants and clients as that overarching high
level relationship manager, but really not in as much of
the day to day. So shifting that focus to being
about the business and working on the business instead of
(23:04):
in the business has been really fun for me. I
love being able to be out there and do things
with you, Kevin, like networking and getting our name and
brand out there, educational content for our clients and prospects,
and also, as you said, the budgeting aspect. For me,
I love being able to see the numbers and to
be able to be behind the scenes knowing what we
(23:28):
need to be hitting, where we need to be going
and all that looks like it's something that really excites me.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Right, when should you make that next tire based upon
client out revenue, et cetera. Right? Yeah, right, And are
you doing the sales?
Speaker 4 (23:41):
I am, yes, Yeah, So that's a function that I
was really missing in the last role that I was in.
I love to be able to create great client relationships
and really solve problems for our prospects and clients, and
so the ability for me to be out there doing
that on a constant basis is something that's so exciting
in fun to me. Not only am myself doing sales
(24:02):
for the business, but we also have my HR strategy associate, Cacidy,
who's also starting to get involved in networking and business
development as well.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
All Right, I realize, I forgot to do something and
then we'll come back. We're about six minutes away from
the next commercial. I forgot to have you in the chat.
When during the commercial break, type in the chat whatever
contact information you want, website, email, if you want to
put a phone, and we can do that too, that's
totally to you. But describe the individuals and what their
(24:30):
roles are on the team.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Yeah, So we have at this point in time, three
HR consultants. So those are the individuals who are really
there dedicated to each client. So if somebody is working
with us, you are going to get one HR consultant
to you and your team. That way, when you introduce
us to your leadership, your managers, and your employees, you
all know who you're working with, and we build that
(24:54):
relationship over time to truly become an extension of your
team and your business partner. Secondary to that, as I mentioned,
we have our HR Strategy Associate Cassidy. She helps to
do marketing, sales, enablement, and is getting involved in the
business development piece as well. We just hired an HR
Services Coordinator and so that is an individual who's there
(25:16):
to help to support all of the consultants and their
day to day work to make sure things are going
smoothly and any kind of behind the scenes processes that
we can help have her involved in for efficiency. And
then we do have our recruiter Courtney as well, so
Courtney is there to help our talent acquisition. When our
clients need to hire, we are there to be able
(25:36):
to support them. We have our own applicant tracking system
and not only do we post roles, we actively source
candidates as well, so we have some really cool tools
and functions to be able to find the right candidate,
not just do the post and prey like some organizations do.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Let's see what sets Triumph apart from other firms.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
One of the things that I consistently hear when we
ask this question to our clients of what made you
go with us? We love to hear why they consistently
say the relationship and trust aspect that we bring to
our work we are focused. I think HR oftentimes has
a connotation sometimes as being the police or bringing in
(26:23):
a different aspect of compliance, And of course we are
here to make sure that you are in compliance, but
we're here for your people. We're here for you. We
bring a warmth in a relationship aspect to every single conversation.
We feel like trust build in every interaction, and we're
here to build that proactive support for you and your clients,
(26:44):
knowing that you're going to get that trusted partnership that
your company deserves.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Excellent. Now, geography doesn't matter. You said, industry doesn't matter, right, correct,
all right, So starting at the top, what are some
of the problems that exist that would cause someone to
hire you.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
Yeah, So oftentimes if an organization is growing and they've
gotten to a place where maybe their process for that
growth has quickly gone beyond what they're able to keep
up with, that's a really perfect time to bring us in.
On the flip side of that, we don't often like
to talk about it, but many times organizations will come
(27:22):
to us when there might need to be a separation
within the organization that needs to happen, whether that be
one individual. Sometimes it's performance related or they need to
do a larger layoff of their organization. We can help
to support that. And not only can we have to
support that, but sometimes the HR function might be impacted
(27:42):
as part of that, and so we can step in
as that outsource fractionalized partner instead of having that full
time headcount to be able to support the new organization
and really keep the trains on the track. Additionally, we
oftentimes will work with organizations where maybe they themselves in
a little hot water. Maybe they're dealing with a really
(28:03):
complicated leave of absence or employee relations situation, or they're
realizing my team isn't thriving right now and I don't
know why, help me figure it out. We also will
work oftentimes with organizations where the owner the CEO is
still the one who's doing HR. In order for your
(28:26):
business to grow, at some point you need to delegate
that to the right expertise in individuals so that we
can have to support it, so you can focus on
the business growth and where your energy needs to be.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
So you are really a virtual, dedicated HR department. And
that's why I think you can say tailored HR solutions.
You can bring whatever they need right.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
Absolutely, and that's our whole ideal is to be able
to meet the needs of our clients. When I look
at our client base, we have a digital healthcare marketing
client that their needs arely different from the bank that
we support, and so we can tailor everything to it.
Not only do we work in this space where there
might not be an HR person in the seat, we
(29:09):
also times will collaborate with the internal HR as well.
So that's important to know. And you're absolutely right, Kevin,
that we are typically remote. I think COVID really helped
to expand that perspective that we can help to support
clients anywhere throughout the US, but we are here in
Massachusetts and if somebody wants some on site support, we
are here to help to support that too.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Great. We're going to take our second break here. We'll
be back in another minute with Riley di Placida.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helenet on
W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com.
Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up
right here on Winning Business Radio.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
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in Wealth Management focuses on deep planning, integrating your business
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work and your mind at ease. Go to Bestinwealthmanagement dot
(30:17):
com for more information. Advisory service is offered through Commonwealth
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and let our family advise your family. That's Bestinwealthmanagement dot
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Speaker 2 (31:09):
And Now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helenan
presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in
mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again
is Kevin Helene.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
All right, we're back with Riley Deplasido, founder and CEO
of Triumph HR. You said that growth exposes HR problems
faster than companies expect. Yes, can you talk about that?
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Yeah, I think that it's so important. As you said, Kevin,
the organization that you were when you maybe had three
employees or five employees is not the same organization that
you need to have when you have twenty twenty five,
fifty fifty five and beyond employees, and your HR needs
to keep up with those aspects to be able to
help to support your growth. What helps you thrive when
(32:03):
you are an organization five years ago needs to continue
to evolve today. Your employees have different needs. They want
us be seen, heard and valued, and we need to
be able to make sure that we're doing that as
the employer, and we can help to support that. To
be able to do it, we need to be sure
that your processes and operations have kept up. Not only
(32:24):
are they operational, but they're efficient and they're effective, and
so we can come in and diagnose all of those
challenges and help to solve the problem and bring over.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Resolution from your experience. Just generally, how many businesses do
you believe are out of compliance? And in what ways?
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Oh goodness gracious, there, I would say more than not.
I honestly don't want to put a number to it
because we don't want to expose people too much. Ultimately,
I think that more businesses are out of compliance, even
if it's a small piece that you might not be
aware that you need to do. That's where we can
come in and we can be sure that all of
(33:05):
those buttons are tied up. I would say I have
not worked with one client over the span of a
decade who when we started working together, they were one
hundred percent compliant. There is it?
Speaker 3 (33:17):
What's a simple way they're that someone could be out
of compliance and not even aware of it.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
Sure, even right now, when you're posting a job, are
you posting the salary range? Do you need to be
Is that something that you might not necessarily even need
to be doing, but should you be doing? That's a
different conversation. What about your employee record retention? How does
that look when you're putting a file together for an employee?
Are you just putting all of the files into one
(33:42):
specific subfolder or are you actually sectioning it out? Where
does that I nine live? Does that need to be
separate from everything else? The answer is yes? What about
a background check? How all of those little nuanced pieces
that employers are doing their best? And I think that
that's something that's so we're into recognize everyone is just
doing their best and you're not meant to be an
(34:04):
HR expert. That's where we come in because we can
help you that expert for you.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
All right, So let's talk about some of the bullets
in the areas and just expand on these HR strategy
and operations.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
Yeah. So when we think about HR operations, oftentimes I
think from a perspective from the entire employee life cycle
from hiring to firing. What does that operational aspect to
look like? Do you have a workflow, what's the process?
Is it repeatable? Does it live in somebody's head? Is
it efficient? Is it effective? How does it make employees feel?
(34:37):
So all of those pieces are where we can come
in and really optimize the operations aspect of it. When
we think about HR strategy, I would say this really
blends into the people thriving aspect. Are your people engaged
and happy and if not, or we could get them
more engaged and happy. That's where the strategy piece comes in.
(35:00):
So that's where we can bring to life what makes
people thrive a your specific organization, because it's going to
be different for the organization down the street. So we
can come in and we can bring that strategy aspect
to it.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
So you would do the pay uh or give coaching,
or give direction or maybe even do the HR or
the payroll paperwork, but you don't do payroll.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
We don't do payroll. So that is something that you're
absolutely right, Kevin. We can help to support payroll, so
we work hand in hand with a lot of the
payroll individuals at our organizations, but we won't be the
individuals who are ever pressing the button. For a few
different reasons, mainly, the expertise that you need for payroll
is very different than the expertise that you need from
(35:47):
a people in culture aspect, and so Triumph HR is
built on that people in culture strategy of HR. And
so we want to leave the payroll to the payroll experts.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Very good, very good. It's also state specific, as you know,
you got it all right. So we talked a bit
about compliance, what about risk management?
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Yeah, you got it so right. Where As you know,
Tim Kennely has been a wonderful guest of the radio
show in the past, and he is an employment lawyer.
And so our job when we're partnering with somebody like
Tim and his clients is to help make sure that
you don't need to get to the place where you
need to work with legal counsel. We will partner with
(36:31):
somebody like Tim when there's the time and place for it.
There often been times. For example, I worked with him
on a really interesting drug screen scenario in Minnesota, so
I partnered very closely about that. But there are so
many different instances where we can help mitigate the risk. So,
say you do need to terminate somebody, unfortunately, how we
(36:54):
go about that and what we do and what we
make sure we do ahead of time is going to
severely a gate or risk from having a wrongful termination
claim or having something goes sideways afterwards.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Is consistency a big issue.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Huge, absolutely. I think many times again organizations and employers
are doing their best, but there's this thing called precedence
that lets you make a decision for one employee. You
then set sometimes an unintentional precedence of how you're going
to handle similar scenarios in the future. So if there's
inconsistency from employee to employee, there's oftentimes that opportunity for
(37:35):
one employee to say, well, why did Susie you get
this but I didn't? And is it because of my age?
Is it because of my gender? Is it because of
something else? And we want to make sure that there
isn't the ability.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
To have that question. All right, what about hiring and
talent strategy?
Speaker 4 (37:50):
Now, yeah, So oftentimes when you as an organization are
going to hire somebody, where do you start? What does
that look like? How do you approach it? So from
our perspective, we have a dedicated recruiter talent acquisition specialist, Courtney,
who her whole career has been focused on finding talent
(38:12):
for organizations and so we want to make sure that
we not only find you the right person for the role,
but the right person for the long term fit for
the organization as well. So we approach it in a
sense of making sure that your job posting is something
that candidates are really excited about, it's also compliant. We
then help to support the entire interview process from phone
(38:35):
screen to offer and everything in between well making sure
those managers feel really confident about interviews. Some managers will
go out there, you think that they're going to be great.
They get into an interview and you're like, you just
asked five illegal questions. We can't do that right. Or
they oftentimes will leave it and say I'm not sure
(38:58):
who's going to be the best fit, or they make
a bad hire that costs them some money and then
realize there has to be a better way, so we
can come in from the beginning and make sure that
we're well suited for that seamless process.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
And do you help with milestones of when hiring should happen,
et cetera.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Absolutely so we work with our clients off very frequently
about we're ready to make a higher or we need
to wait. Actually the revenue isn't supporting that right now,
we shouldn't be waiting with this is exactly what we
need to see when we need to see it, and
that will help us trigger that. We oftentimes will be
that conduit too between maybe the CEO and middle management
(39:38):
in having those conversations and explaining oftentimes to middle management
of here's why here's the why of why we want
to pause on bringing somebody on at the moment, and
here's when we're going to be ready to since they
have the extra context and communication around it.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Are you using assessments of any kind?
Speaker 4 (39:58):
So when you say assessments, are you thinking disc or
PI assess y. Yeah, so we haven't really got into
the world of offering those to our clients just yet,
but I can certainly tell you my own personality assessment
styles which you hit the nail on the head from
a disc perspective. I am a HIGHDI which nobody would
be surprised about. But at the moment, we haven't necessarily
(40:21):
brought that to our clients.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
So we're the same by the way, Yeah, I'm slightly
more eye than dep But and then you talk about
employee engagement, what does that look like?
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Yeah, so how are your employees feeling about work right now?
And do you have individuals who are slowly unproductive behind
the scenes. Especially when you're in a remote environment, it
can be really hard to gauge somebody's engagement level. So
we can come in and we can help assess what
that engagement looks like right now. Sometimes that will just
(40:53):
be through different interviews and conversations. I often call it
my own type of what's the word on the street,
let's talk, let's get what's going on. Additionally, well, we
will do employee engagement surveys and then from there we'll
do employee engagement surveys. We will also be that third
party who can do that survey so people really trust
(41:17):
that it is anonymous and we're not trying to figure
out who said what. We don't have any skim in
the game. We're skiving The game though, is to make
sure that your experience is better than what it is
right now. And therefore that's what we will then do
next is we will assess the data, we will analyze it,
We'll come up with recommendations. We will work with c
suite to be sure those recommendations are feasible, make sure
(41:38):
they're communicated to the employees. But what our dedications are
and make sure all of those milestones are.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
H do you recommend programs events all the above? I mean,
what are the types of things that you would recommend
to encourage and solidify that engagement.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
It depends, as you said, definitely all of the above.
It can be different programs, it can be different e
and sometimes though, I will say the number one thing
that we always here and try to shift positively is
communication and how is the communication? And so sometimes that
doesn't need to be a huge initiative per se, but
(42:15):
it does need to be how is that information flowing
from individual to individual? Do we need to be implementing
more all hands or all staff meeting? What do those
look like? What's the format of those? Let's be sure
that that's productive, efficient and effective for everybody. And of
course we'll do some fun different cultural things as well.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Do you get into comp plans at all?
Speaker 4 (42:38):
So we do. We work with almost every single one
of our clients regarding compensation and whether that be just
their annual merit review process, but also making sure that
their market is competitor, they are competitive with the market
in certain roles or across the organization. We also work
a lot with making sure that you have a compensation
philosophy that you feel good about, that you're employe understand
(43:00):
and you can stand by and then executing on that
compensation philosophy.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
So you have access to that type of research to
know what is appropriate or expected in that market. We
do you do sales as well that those get more complicated,
but you do those two.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
So we do. I've worked on many different incentive compensation plans,
So we do work especially even c suite leadership level
incentive plans, bonus plans, commission plans, all of the above.
It really just depends on exactly what the organization needs.
And well, oftentimes an organization will come to us and
oftentimes say we need this, and then our first place is, well,
(43:38):
let's talk about your goals. What is it that you're
trying to do, what are you trying to incentivize here?
And then being able to build backwards from.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
That perfect and that probably leads into this next bullet,
which is leadership support.
Speaker 4 (43:50):
Yes, leadership support, that is really the bread and butter
of exactly what we do. So we sit on the
c suite of any client who would like us to
be there, and that is many of our clients, So
we are part of the c suite for many of
our organizations. That leadership support also doesn't just stop at
(44:12):
the c suite. That goes down to every leader within
the organization, managerial level, directors, whoever it might be, as
part of them. The client has the ability to give
us access to whoever they would like to within the organization,
So we even will help to support employees at the
employee level as well, so that support is truly there
(44:33):
for everybody throughout the organization.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
All Right, the last bullet and I have some more questions,
but culture development, and that's I'm curious how you go
about that.
Speaker 4 (44:41):
Yeah, it's so fascinating because I think this goes back
to a lot what we've already talked about of employee engagement.
But even when we think about culture development, have you
set goals? Have you set values? Have you set a vision?
Do you have competencies for your employees? Do they know
what they are? Do they know what that means? Care
about it? Do they want to? So really being able
(45:04):
to help assess what the current culture is. And again
I go back to what's the word on the street?
What are people feeling? What are people saying you as
an organization. I'll even say this, when we were in
the hiring process for a Triumph recently, there was a
candidate who asked us what is your culture? And luckily
I had my age or strategy associate on it with me,
and I said, I don't want to answer that. I
(45:25):
can tell you what I want the culture to be,
but let me have Cassidy answer it for you, and
luckily your answers were exactly the same, which is great,
but that doesn't always mean that that's going to be
the case. And so it's really important to have the
north star, but make sure everybody knows what that north
star is and is moving towards that together.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
What tools, software otherwise do you provide that help your
clients become enabled.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
Yeah, so a lot of the support that we will
provide we tailor everything and create everything for our clients.
We do have an applicant tracking system as I mentioned
for a hiring perspective, but we'll often say your car
are driver. So although we don't do payroll, we do
help a lot of our clients with payroll implementation. So
(46:10):
just recently we helped a digital healthcare marketing firm seventy
five employees go from one platform called Paycore to Paylocity,
and so we were really the ones who are spearheading
that entire transition. But again I go back to your
car our driver. We will make the recommendation for what
we're seeing that you may need, but we're happy to
(46:33):
be system agnostic, all right.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
A couple of last questions, can you share high level
examples of a couple of businesses without naming names, just example,
describe them and what you've helped them accomplish.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
Yeah. Absolutely So. The digital healthcare marketing firm that we
were just talking about seventy five employees. Back in Juni
or July of last year, their VP of HR decided
to go back into a different role within another organization.
They ideally would like to see what happens from an
acquisition standpoint in the future. They don't necessarily want to
(47:08):
be adding on the headcount, so therefore they outsourced their
HR function to us. Along with that, we uncovered so
many things that were not compliant the way that they
were being done. So everything may seem okay on the surface,
but when you get an expert in there and you
(47:29):
truly dig through what that looks like, we have the
ability to say there's risk here and we need to
mitigate that. And so even for example, we helped to
implement a new payroll transition because the one that they
were previously on was too risky for where they were in.
What was happening on a consistent basis. Their culture was
(47:49):
something that was not great. Unfortunately they had to do
some layoffs in restructuring within the last year. At this point,
I just did a word on the street read seeing
how people were feeling, and the culture has shifted to
be positive in a really good way. We now have
implemented all staff meetings. I have fallen into the position
(48:12):
of facilitating them because I think I love it a
little bit. I enjoy that and people will see to
me all the time, Kevin, You'll get this. They'll say,
I feel like I'm joining Riley's podcast or TV show
game every time she's there. Yeah. So that one has
been a really fascinating one where we've improved the culture,
got them to a more compliant space, and are consistently
(48:33):
working to optimize the trust of the HR function. Before
the last VP of HR, there was a lot of
transition within that HR function, so people already had a
question mark. And it's so nice to be able to
hear from people saying, you're the best HR person we've
ever had in our entire career.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
Love it all right, Who in the viewing and listening
audiences should reach out to you and why?
Speaker 4 (48:55):
Yeah? Absolutely, if you own a business or you know
anybody who does and you're sitting here and you're saying,
I have no idea if I'm compliant, what does that
even mean? That is absolutely a place for you to
reach out to me. If you were sitting here and
you were saying, I don't know if my employees are
engaged or not, how would I know? How can I tell?
(49:16):
What can we do about that? Reach out to me,
because we can absolutely put some assessments in place and
make sure everything is going smoothly. Or if you're in transition,
whether that be growth or you in the future unfortunately
may need to do some restructuring. We're here to help
to support that as well.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
Awesome and the easiest and best way for people to
reach you is.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
Yeah, my email address which is just Riley at triumphdashhr
dot com.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
Perfect and the website is the same.
Speaker 4 (49:42):
In the website Triumph dashahr dot com.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
All right, Well, we really appreciate you being here. I
know you're super busy, very high energy. I'm sure you
get a lot done in every minute, but appreciate you
being here and thank you for taking the time.
Speaker 4 (49:56):
Thanks Kevin, appreciate it, you.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
Bet, and thanks everybody for watching and listening. This is
a show about business sometimes and often business challenges. If
you've got concerns about the sales effectiveness of your company,
whether your sales team is you or small or large,
feel free to reach out to me. One of my
easy email addresses is kevinat Winning Business Radio dot com.
Our company is Winning Incorporated, part of Sandler Training. We
(50:19):
develop salespeople, sales and sales teams into high achievers, and
sales leaders into true coaches and mentors. We're not a
fit for everybody, but hey, maybe we should have a conversation.
Thank you every week to producer and engineer Wan for
another job well done. Thank you one. Be sure to
join us next week Monday March sixteenth, when my guests
will be Steve Devrees, a focal point business coach and
(50:41):
peer advisor to manufacturing companies. Until then, this is Kevin Hallanan.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
You've been listening to Winning Business Radio with your host,
Kevin Helena. If you missed any part of this episode.
The podcast is available on Top four Podcasting and iHeartRadio.
For more information and questions, go to Winning Business Radio
dot com or check us out on social media. Tune
in again next week and every Monday at four pm
Eastern Time, to listen live to Winning Business Radio on
(51:10):
W four CY Radio, w four cy dot com. Until then,
let's succeed where others have failed and win in business
with Kevin Helenan and Winning Business Radio
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