August 29, 2024 • 40 mins
On HR & Payroll... We speak about improving internal culture of a business often & HR & Payroll are no exception. Today's show covers many nuances of HR & payroll do's/don'ts as Angela Acres of Dominion Payroll & James Danella discuss this in depth. Terrific episode to learn from... be sure to tune in!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (02:10):
I'm great. Thank you for having me. I
You sure? Well, I have been inthe payroll HR industry for 21
(02:32):
years now, started right out ofcollege. So I was in business,
international business. ThoughtI was going to travel the world
and get paid to travel. Then 911hit, and no one was hiring
anybody for international work.So while my friends are working
at Barnes and Noble andStarbucks, I decided to take a
sales job working for one of thelarge funeral companies. And so
(02:55):
thought I'd do it for a year ortwo, didn't plan on getting into
sales. Ended up really loving itbecause I'm outgoing, but I'm
also really into numbers. I'mkind of a numbers nerd, so
payroll and analytics andtechnology is kind of my jam. So
really fell in love with theindustry. And like I said, It's
been 21 years, so worked, workedfor large one of the largest
companies out there, owned myown company and operated
(03:19):
basically between 10 years ownedand operated apparel, HR
company, and then I justrealized that I really missed
the sales side of things. Iwanted to be able to focus on
sales, be part of a team. It'skind of lonely at the top, and
wanted to be something biggerthan than what I was doing. And
so I started interviewing with abunch of different companies,
and found dominion and fell Inlove with them, and The rest is
(03:41):
history.
Yep,
(04:36):
I'll Say I'll pay you later. I
(05:02):
Yeah, I kind of feel like behindevery success is kind of a
horror story. So sometimes yougot to walk into the horror
story before you can make it asuccess. So I received a call
from a CPA last year saying Ihave a client that needs your
help. They're in desperate need.And I was like, okay, you know,
explain to me what happened.Well, they had one gallon. I was
(05:26):
doing everything for them, thepayroll, the HR, a whole wide
variety of employee management,and it was all being done in
house. So she kept everything inher head. She knew what her
processes were. She wasresponsible for all of it. There
was nobody else in the companythat knew it. Then she had a
death in the family, and shedidn't show up to work. So the
(05:47):
first week went by, they keptcalling her asking for help, and
she was just radio silent. Sothey reached out to the CPA. CPA
reached out to me. I went outthere and just I spent a whole
day, eight hours, just goingthrough her desk and her files
and the computer and just tryingto figure everything out. It was
a nightmare. Not it wasn'torganized, but I was able to
figure out what was going on.And they had somebody else kind
(06:08):
of teed up somebody that washelping with, you know, adding
up the manual timesheets to getinto payroll. So that gal kind
of was next in line to be ableto take over this role. So I
proceeded to train her andexplain to her all the different
processes that I was able tofigure out and get her back on
track temporarily. Ultimately,the goal wasn't just to get
somebody back in the samesituation, because they
(06:30):
recognized at that point thatwasn't the way to do things. And
so we talked about, let's put intechnology. Let's put in
processes. Let's have somechecks and balances where we
know what's going on. We buildeverything. We train you. We
record those trainings. Wedocument the processes. So that
way, even if this other personends up being sick or on
vacation and you need support,we understand exactly everything
(06:53):
that's going on. You have thatsupport from us. The other big
thing is the amount of time thatwas being spent. So that next
week that poor lady spent, Ithink she worked 70 hours that
next week just trying to manageall of the stuff. So by the time
we got our technology in place,we added timekeeping, we
automated the payroll, directdeposit. No, they weren't
(07:13):
printing their own checksanymore. They weren't paying
their own taxes. She wasn'thaving to figure any that out,
even figuring out over time andhow many hours each employee was
working all of that washappening. It got it down to
about an hour, hour and a half aweek that she was spending on
that process. So so that wasreally, you know, and then now
they've just continued to grow,and she's able to focus on so
many other things during herweek, versus having to spend
(07:34):
time in all of those manualprocesses. And they're
protected, because, again, ifshe is out sick or away from the
office, they can always come tous, and we have that documented
process as well. You
(08:19):
Wow, So
(08:42):
thank you.
(09:17):
I have another a new client thatjust started with us that
another one that was doingeverything internally, and they
actually the main buildingcaught on fire. They lost
everything. So that was a prettybig, yeah, so, you know, once
again, their, their CPA said youneed to get everything in the
cloud. You need to get it, youknow, off your desktop computer,
(09:40):
in one location, all the papergone. You know, all the paper
copies of everything was gone.Everything that was on that
computer was gone. So, you know,again, I feel like behind every
success story kind of has to bea horror story. But moving over
to us now, everything you knowthey do, all other onboarding,
is electronics, all of theirdocumentations and. Cloud all
(10:00):
their timesheets, all thepayroll. We back everything up
in encrypted way, so that way.And then two, the contact is
actually in Aruba this week. Ispoke with her last week, and
she's like, you know, I now cango on vacation. I don't want to
bring my laptop and work, but atleast I can go on vacation. So
if I need to do a little bit ofwork while I'm there, at least I
get to do the vacation versusbeing tied to my desk,
(10:25):
right? I mean, I
(12:24):
i That's, I mean, that's mypersonal story. So, you know,
when I was working for the bigbox, you know, payroll company,
I made really good money. Theythrew all the incentives, all
the, you know, all thecommissions and, you know, trips
and vacations and gifts and allthat kind of stuff. And I made
great money going into businessfor myself. Obviously, you know,
you don't do it for the money.You do it for the passion. So,
(12:46):
you know, that was a differentstory. And I made good money. I
got to the point I was doinggood for myself, but when I knew
that I wanted to get back intosales, I interviewed all of the
like everybody, just about thosecouple I knew I would never work
for, but I just interviewedeverybody out there to see,
okay, you know, where's theright fit for me? Where am I
gonna, you know, fit inculturally? Because once you've
been a business owner, you kindof have a different perspective.
(13:08):
And I just wanted to make sure,you know, wherever I landed was
going to be, where I was able tojust continue my career forever.
I didn't want to have to makeanother change realize something
wasn't as great as I thought itwould be. So, you know, dealing
with all these differentcompanies, some companies that
were larger, they didn't paymore, they had better benefits.
But I could, I could tell in theculture and talking to different
(13:29):
people in my research, you know,in looking up their reviews from
clients, you know, yeah, sure,they can pay you a lot of money,
but if it's not going to be agreat cultural fit for me, if
the clients aren't satisfied,it's going to make my job
miserable. Is it worth it? Andthere was a couple companies
that were pretty good that I wasimpressed with. But when I met
with dominion, within minutes ofwalking in the door, I was like,
(13:51):
this, this is it. And it wasbecause of the people. It was
the culture. You know, thesecond you walk in the door,
everyone greets you. There was aon their wall. There's a mural
that says, every little thingthat you do matter. So every
employee, when they walk in thedoor, they see that, but they
really believe it. I could tellit wasn't just a mural, that
that's how their culture is, theway the service people acted,
(14:12):
compared to, again, when Istarted my career and I looked,
I'd go into the service office,it was just a very toxic
culture, very apathetic. Iwalked in there, everybody was
energetic, you know, with eachother, working hard, happy to be
there, and so for me. And thenin looking up reviews, they had
really good client reviews, andI took a pay cut, but I was
(14:32):
happy to take that pick up,because I knew I would be, I
would be satisfied in my workand and I knew eventually I
could get to the point where Icould make more money. So it's
not all about the money, butobviously you got to put food on
the table. But for me, it wasmore important to have a culture
that I believed in, and to beworking with people that were
that loved what they did, thatdid a good job to get great care
of the clients. And you know,with that, I think that a lot of
(14:56):
people share that same desire.If you working for somebody that
you really believe in, do. Ittakes good care of you, takes
good care of the customers.You're willing to do that versus
just going to the largestcompany to get the most money
you
(15:28):
Oh, yeah, yeah. And,
and you mentioned that youthought that I was the owner
when I when you and I were firsttalking and getting to know each
other. But that's one thing thatI love about Dominion as well,
is that basically say, this isyour business. You need to run
it like it's your business. AndI go, Okay, I know how to do
that. I can, I can do that. Ican take ownership and and do
(15:48):
the things I need to do. And sothat I think that they, the fact
that they treat us that way andlet us really treat it as our
own business makes a differenceas well.
Thank you.
(16:18):
Yeah, yeah, so obviously, youknow you have to pay on time.
(17:17):
There's no if ands or but, so ifyour pay day is every Friday,
every other Friday fits in the20th whatever. It's documented
in your handbook. There's no wayto get around it. So, you know,
not making payroll isn't anoption. If a company doesn't pay
on time, they can go to theState's website, you know,
depending on what state you'rein, just look up, you know,
whatever your state is, and thenyou'll be able to find
(17:38):
information. There'll be a tabfor employer and a time for
employee. And there's alwaysresources there on who to reach
out to, if your employer,whether it's that they didn't
pay you on time or maybe theydidn't pay you correctly. So a
lot of times, if somebody'sdoing manual time sheets,
they're not calculating overtime properly, or their
rounding, I've seen companiesthat always want to round to
their favor. You know, you'resupposed to, if you're going to
(17:59):
round your time, you've got to,if they show up, you know, a
certain amount of time early,and you pay them extra, they
show up a little bit too late,you pay them less. But it's got
to work both ways, and I've seencompanies try to always work it
in their way. So if an employeeever sees a situation like that,
definitely go to your state'sincome tax or unemployment page,
and you'll have an employeeservice area there. From an
employer's point of view, that'swhere I deal with a lot more. I
(18:22):
don't deal with the employeesdirectly. I deal with the
employers. And what I see with alot of small businesses is they
get super excited so they starta new business. They've got that
entrepreneurial bug. They havethis vision for what they're
going to be able to do, and andthey believe in it, and they
should, but they get a littleambitious, a little over
ambitious, and so they know whatthey're capable of, but they put
(18:42):
the cart before the horse. So Ialways recommend grow
organically. Employees aregreat, but they're not a
commodity. You can't just hireand fire at a whim as you start
to make money and lose money.That's going to hurt you
culturally, and I've seen somany companies do that, where
they hire to plan for thefuture, which is great, but if
they over hire, and they end upnot getting as many clients as
(19:03):
they expect, and they can't makepayroll, they're gonna have to
let people go. And that really,really hurts. Because not only
does that hurt, the people thatare let go that now have to go
find a new job, but theneveryone else is looking at each
other, going, well, who's next?And maybe none of them are next.
Maybe that you cut exactly whatyou needed to, and you're going
to grow, but that is alwaysgoing to be a fear in them, and
no employee wants to work forsomewhere that they don't feel
(19:23):
secure and stable. So I thinkit's really important to grow
organically. Only hire to whatyou need, not what you what you
envision. Do it slowly. Theother thing is, I see clients,
well, they'll get that one bigclient, that dream client that
brings in a lot of revenue. Sothey go, oh, man, I've got all
this money now, so I'm going todo all these big things. I would
(19:44):
say, don't, when you'rebudgeting, put that money aside.
Pretend like it doesn't exist.Budget based on all the rest of
your income. Because if you putall your eggs in one basket,
that client can leave at anypoint, and then now you're in a
similar situation where when itcomes when it's time to cut the
most. Sense of thing you've gotis usually your employees, and
that's an easy thing, easy tolet go, but it will hurt that
(20:05):
company culture and morale,which hurts your internal
culture, but also the clientscan feel that they will, they
will see that on the outside. Soit's going to hurt your ability
to grow and retain your currentclients. You
(20:38):
Yeah, so we, most of ourclients, we have them pay
directly out of their account.So we've got some risk in it,
because with Ach, there's a twoday process. So if they are
paying their employees, usually,let's say they pay every week,
or every two weeks. Usuallythere's they'll submit payroll
on Wednesday for a Friday paydate. But what happens is, we
initiate that ACH on Wednesday,but on Thursday, we're pushing
(21:00):
money to the employees, the sametime we're pulling money to us
to cover it. So that's where,again, you know, you get an NSF
one time, you know, slap on thehand. Second time, slap on the
hand. Third time, we no longerare doing direct deposit or same
thing with tax payments if theyNSF, you know, you know, sorry,
you're not gonna have to makeyour own tax payments, because
we can't take that liability onif it's a brand new business
(21:22):
that's just starting, wherewe're not certain that they're
going to be stable, we'll askthem to wire just to make sure
that we know that the funds aregoing to be there. But, yeah, we
usually, we're the ones thattake the risk on that, because
we're, you know, we're trustingthem that they have the money
available. So
(21:43):
Oh, NSF, I'm sorry, insufficientfunds, so that's when, yeah,
they they're spending moneywhere we go to pull the money,
and they don't have it in theiraccount. I
(22:06):
Yeah,
Exactly.
I Sure Do
(23:42):
there Oh, Yeah, I
(25:13):
Oh, 100% and I agree with you onpinnacle. We actually bank with
them at dominion, and I bankwith them personally, so I can
attest to how fantastic they doand compared to the rest of the
industry, I have seen withclients and internally, the same
thing where, and I feel likewhat often happens is, when
you're hiring somebody for aminimum wage job, you know, the
(25:33):
most baseline position,companies sometimes don't value
them enough. They think, oh, youknow, they're just a commodity.
They're doing something that,you know, that doesn't bring me
direct value, so I'm not goingto treat them with the same
respect and appreciation that Ido the rest of my team. And
that's really an unwise thing todo, because they have that, you
(25:54):
know, even maybe today, theydon't have the skills to be able
to be in a higher role, but theycan get there. And so I think
it's super important to from dayone when you hire them, that
they feel valued, they feelcherished, they see that career
path and there's an opportunityfor them to advance and that you
recognize the little things thatthey do, just like you would
everyone else. So I think it'simportant to recognize all
employees. Some companies don'trecognize anybody unless it's
(26:16):
something big, but to be on adaily basis looking for the good
in your employees, regardless ofthe level, is important, but
especially when it's in thelower level, because those are
the people that are going toeventually be able to grow and
to be something bigger withinyour company. And it's always
better to be able to hire fromwithin versus having to
continually look out there and,you know, replenish that that
lower level position becauseYou're having high turnover. I
(26:52):
yep, I love it.
I Oh, yeah, I
(27:50):
you. And I think an example, away to do that too, is every
time you see them say, Hey,thank you, you know, thank you
for doing this, you know. And Ido that internally with the
person in pack out, you know,somebody who is printing the
checks and packaging the checks.You know, on a daily basis, I'm
interacting with them, askingthem about their day, see how
they're doing, you know,thanking them for what they do.
(28:11):
If I'm out of business and I seea janitor, I'll say, Hey, thank
you for doing that. We reallyappreciate that, you know. And
those people will look at youlike what you know, because
often they're not gettingappreciated, and so I think
that's really key, bothinternally with our company, but
also when we when we're workingwith vendors, to just make sure
that they feel appreciated.
(28:37):
Mm, hmm. Uh, yeah, so I wouldsay the most important thing
(28:58):
when you're hiring and firing isto hire slow and fire fast. And
what I mean by that is so manypeople hire fast and fire slow
and they're just so they needsomebody. They need a body. They
need a warm body. Especiallytoday, ever since covid, it's so
much harder to find employees.So people often are saying, I
just need somebody with a pulseat this point. Okay, that's
great, but you don't you reallyneed to find the right person.
(29:21):
Take your time. It's better tohave an empty role and you
having to wear multiple hatsthan to hire the wrong person,
because then you've allowedsomebody into your culture that
can shift it, that person canhave a negative impact, and then
now you're struggling to okay,how do I get this person out of
here? And so taking your time todo multiple interviews, also,
sometimes I see that one personthinks that person is great when
(29:42):
they interview and then theyinterview with somebody else in
the company, and that personwill go, I see red flags, so I
would highly recommend havingmultiple people involved in that
conversation. I know DaveRamsey's company talks about how
interviewing the spouse, becausethey're like, Hey, you don't
want to let crate. You know,you're this employee, might be
great, but they're. Married toCrazy. Crazy is walking in your
door. So be careful about, youknow, the whole picture, not
(30:04):
just the employee that you'rehiring. So take your time.
Really make sure that they'rethe right culture fit, and then
if there's any issues, you gotto get rid of them right away
that you can't hold on.Obviously, you've got a
document. I'm a huge proponent,and I say this with my clients
all the time, because we doperformance reviews in our
system. We do write ups in asystem, I say it's super
important to do thoseperformance reviews, to do those
(30:25):
write ups, because if you letsomebody go, they're immediately
going to say, well, you let mego because of my gender, my
religious belief, my X, Y and Z.So you have to document those
things all along. But as soon asyou have enough documentation,
fire, because if you don't letthem go right away, a couple
things are going to happen.First off, that toxicity is
going to continue to infiltratethe office. Also, the rest of
(30:48):
the staff is going to seethey're all aware. They're not
dumb. They're seeing this personunderperforming, doing things
the way they're not supposed to,and if you're not letting them
go, that looks bad on you. Soyour other employees are looking
at you like, what's wrong withyou? Why is this person still
here? So that hurts the morale,so that you just gotta, you
gotta cut bait and bail as soonas you can, as soon as you
recognize that this is not agood fit.
(31:16):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah,
and everyone else knows it too.They're going, what's going on?
Why is this person still here?Why are they here in the first
(31:37):
place? So you know, you got totake your time with the hiring
and let them go As soon as yousee An issue.
Thank you.
(32:02):
Thank Yeah, so, like I hadmentioned in the beginning, I've
(32:44):
worked for the largest of thelarge. I've worked for the small
of the small. I've owned my owncompany. So I've kind of been,
you know, I've gone againstevery client, every payroll
company out there. I've hadclients come over from everyone
under the sun. And I will justsay it's well known that our
industry has a bad reputationfor customer service. We are not
known for great customerservice. I mean, we're, we're up
there with the cable company, asfar as you just know, if you're
(33:06):
calling them, you just, oh, Idon't want to make this call.
I'm going to be put on hold fora long time. I'm going to speak
to somebody in a foreigncountry, most likely, they'll
they're going to tell mesomething, or they're going to
say they're going to dosomething for me, and it's not
going to happen. And or the lefthand doesn't know what the right
hand is doing. Or, you know, Iremember, back in my days
working for the large publiclytraded company, clients would
(33:27):
say, I will call three times andtake the best of three answers,
because you get a differentanswer every time. So it just,
we're not known for greatcustomer service, really. And so
the thing, the real big thingthat got me to want to work for
dominion was because of thecustomer service, and that was a
reason why I started my ownbusiness as well. Because
business as well, because I sawthat issue, and we did. We had
that same culture that I see inDominion, so that no voicemail
(33:49):
policy. You pick up the phoneright away. You always, you
always get somebody. I spoke toa client, a new client, just
last week that had come overfrom another large company, and
they said last month, they wereon hold for three hours with
this payroll company, threehours. So, you know, I think
it's super important to putcustomers first, and that's
(34:10):
really our motto. Is servicefirst. No voice mail policy. If
you email us, we're going torespond and get something
resolved within 24 hours.Clients appreciate that. They
know that they're valued ourinternal culture, because it's
so healthy. We really have thatdesire to go above and beyond
when we're human. People makemistakes, but anytime I've seen
a mistake happen, the person whomakes a mistake takes ownership.
(34:32):
Every the team comes around andeverybody drops everything, and
they come alongside to get itresolved. And you know, and
clients see that and you know,and now they we've established a
loyal relationship, because theyfeel safe with us. They know,
you know you really care. If youmake a mistake, you're going to
take ownership and get itresolved. And so that's that's
gold.
(34:54):
I. It would be the same thing.It would be the customer
service. I mean, technology isgreat, technology is important,
but if you don't back it up withthe customer support, you know,
(35:15):
then it's I think that's areason why so many people,
unfortunately do their payrollin house, and they do all these
manual processes aroundonboarding and timekeeping is
they're just afraid of gettingburned. And if our industry
could do a better job of comingalong and supporting and putting
the clients first, I think a lotmore businesses would be
successful because they coulddelegate more of that, outsource
and focus on their corebusiness, versus having to deal
(35:36):
with all those manual processesfor fear of, you know, not being
supported properly.
Correct?
(36:00):
Yeah, Yeah, I so, Yeah, I
(36:58):
yeah, I
That's crazy.
(37:20):
Yeah,
(37:40):
Do no, this was great. Thank youfor having me on today.
(38:41):
Sure my best way to reach me,honestly, is my cell phone,
because I am out and about a lotduring the day. So I'll give it
out Sure, 615-295-0894, orAngela a at dominion,
payroll.com Again, that's Angelaa at Dominion payroll.com do
(39:05):
that's a Great question. Yeah,we're in all 50 states,
so yeah,
I'm great. Thank you for having me. I
You sure? Well, I have been inthe payroll HR industry for 21
(02:32):
years now, started right out ofcollege. So I was in business,
international business. ThoughtI was going to travel the world
and get paid to travel. Then 911hit, and no one was hiring
anybody for international work.So while my friends are working
at Barnes and Noble andStarbucks, I decided to take a
sales job working for one of thelarge funeral companies. And so
(02:55):
thought I'd do it for a year ortwo, didn't plan on getting into
sales. Ended up really loving itbecause I'm outgoing, but I'm
also really into numbers. I'mkind of a numbers nerd, so
payroll and analytics andtechnology is kind of my jam. So
really fell in love with theindustry. And like I said, It's
been 21 years, so worked, workedfor large one of the largest
companies out there, owned myown company and operated
(03:19):
basically between 10 years ownedand operated apparel, HR
company, and then I justrealized that I really missed
the sales side of things. Iwanted to be able to focus on
sales, be part of a team. It'skind of lonely at the top, and
wanted to be something biggerthan than what I was doing. And
so I started interviewing with abunch of different companies,
and found dominion and fell Inlove with them, and The rest is
(03:41):
history.
Yep,
(04:36):
I'll Say I'll pay you later. I
(05:02):
Yeah, I kind of feel like behindevery success is kind of a
horror story. So sometimes yougot to walk into the horror
story before you can make it asuccess. So I received a call
from a CPA last year saying Ihave a client that needs your
help. They're in desperate need.And I was like, okay, you know,
explain to me what happened.Well, they had one gallon. I was
(05:26):
doing everything for them, thepayroll, the HR, a whole wide
variety of employee management,and it was all being done in
house. So she kept everything inher head. She knew what her
processes were. She wasresponsible for all of it. There
was nobody else in the companythat knew it. Then she had a
death in the family, and shedidn't show up to work. So the
(05:47):
first week went by, they keptcalling her asking for help, and
she was just radio silent. Sothey reached out to the CPA. CPA
reached out to me. I went outthere and just I spent a whole
day, eight hours, just goingthrough her desk and her files
and the computer and just tryingto figure everything out. It was
a nightmare. Not it wasn'torganized, but I was able to
figure out what was going on.And they had somebody else kind
(06:08):
of teed up somebody that washelping with, you know, adding
up the manual timesheets to getinto payroll. So that gal kind
of was next in line to be ableto take over this role. So I
proceeded to train her andexplain to her all the different
processes that I was able tofigure out and get her back on
track temporarily. Ultimately,the goal wasn't just to get
somebody back in the samesituation, because they
(06:30):
recognized at that point thatwasn't the way to do things. And
so we talked about, let's put intechnology. Let's put in
processes. Let's have somechecks and balances where we
know what's going on. We buildeverything. We train you. We
record those trainings. Wedocument the processes. So that
way, even if this other personends up being sick or on
vacation and you need support,we understand exactly everything
(06:53):
that's going on. You have thatsupport from us. The other big
thing is the amount of time thatwas being spent. So that next
week that poor lady spent, Ithink she worked 70 hours that
next week just trying to manageall of the stuff. So by the time
we got our technology in place,we added timekeeping, we
automated the payroll, directdeposit. No, they weren't
(07:13):
printing their own checksanymore. They weren't paying
their own taxes. She wasn'thaving to figure any that out,
even figuring out over time andhow many hours each employee was
working all of that washappening. It got it down to
about an hour, hour and a half aweek that she was spending on
that process. So so that wasreally, you know, and then now
they've just continued to grow,and she's able to focus on so
many other things during herweek, versus having to spend
(07:34):
time in all of those manualprocesses. And they're
protected, because, again, ifshe is out sick or away from the
office, they can always come tous, and we have that documented
process as well. You
(08:19):
Wow, So
(08:42):
thank you.
(09:17):
I have another a new client thatjust started with us that
another one that was doingeverything internally, and they
actually the main buildingcaught on fire. They lost
everything. So that was a prettybig, yeah, so, you know, once
again, their, their CPA said youneed to get everything in the
cloud. You need to get it, youknow, off your desktop computer,
(09:40):
in one location, all the papergone. You know, all the paper
copies of everything was gone.Everything that was on that
computer was gone. So, you know,again, I feel like behind every
success story kind of has to bea horror story. But moving over
to us now, everything you knowthey do, all other onboarding,
is electronics, all of theirdocumentations and. Cloud all
(10:00):
their timesheets, all thepayroll. We back everything up
in encrypted way, so that way.And then two, the contact is
actually in Aruba this week. Ispoke with her last week, and
she's like, you know, I now cango on vacation. I don't want to
bring my laptop and work, but atleast I can go on vacation. So
if I need to do a little bit ofwork while I'm there, at least I
get to do the vacation versusbeing tied to my desk,
(10:25):
right? I mean, I
(12:24):
i That's, I mean, that's mypersonal story. So, you know,
when I was working for the bigbox, you know, payroll company,
I made really good money. Theythrew all the incentives, all
the, you know, all thecommissions and, you know, trips
and vacations and gifts and allthat kind of stuff. And I made
great money going into businessfor myself. Obviously, you know,
you don't do it for the money.You do it for the passion. So,
(12:46):
you know, that was a differentstory. And I made good money. I
got to the point I was doinggood for myself, but when I knew
that I wanted to get back intosales, I interviewed all of the
like everybody, just about thosecouple I knew I would never work
for, but I just interviewedeverybody out there to see,
okay, you know, where's theright fit for me? Where am I
gonna, you know, fit inculturally? Because once you've
been a business owner, you kindof have a different perspective.
(13:08):
And I just wanted to make sure,you know, wherever I landed was
going to be, where I was able tojust continue my career forever.
I didn't want to have to makeanother change realize something
wasn't as great as I thought itwould be. So, you know, dealing
with all these differentcompanies, some companies that
were larger, they didn't paymore, they had better benefits.
But I could, I could tell in theculture and talking to different
(13:29):
people in my research, you know,in looking up their reviews from
clients, you know, yeah, sure,they can pay you a lot of money,
but if it's not going to be agreat cultural fit for me, if
the clients aren't satisfied,it's going to make my job
miserable. Is it worth it? Andthere was a couple companies
that were pretty good that I wasimpressed with. But when I met
with dominion, within minutes ofwalking in the door, I was like,
(13:51):
this, this is it. And it wasbecause of the people. It was
the culture. You know, thesecond you walk in the door,
everyone greets you. There was aon their wall. There's a mural
that says, every little thingthat you do matter. So every
employee, when they walk in thedoor, they see that, but they
really believe it. I could tellit wasn't just a mural, that
that's how their culture is, theway the service people acted,
(14:12):
compared to, again, when Istarted my career and I looked,
I'd go into the service office,it was just a very toxic
culture, very apathetic. Iwalked in there, everybody was
energetic, you know, with eachother, working hard, happy to be
there, and so for me. And thenin looking up reviews, they had
really good client reviews, andI took a pay cut, but I was
(14:32):
happy to take that pick up,because I knew I would be, I
would be satisfied in my workand and I knew eventually I
could get to the point where Icould make more money. So it's
not all about the money, butobviously you got to put food on
the table. But for me, it wasmore important to have a culture
that I believed in, and to beworking with people that were
that loved what they did, thatdid a good job to get great care
of the clients. And you know,with that, I think that a lot of
(14:56):
people share that same desire.If you working for somebody that
you really believe in, do. Ittakes good care of you, takes
good care of the customers.You're willing to do that versus
just going to the largestcompany to get the most money
you
(15:28):
Oh, yeah, yeah. And,
and you mentioned that youthought that I was the owner
when I when you and I were firsttalking and getting to know each
other. But that's one thing thatI love about Dominion as well,
is that basically say, this isyour business. You need to run
it like it's your business. AndI go, Okay, I know how to do
that. I can, I can do that. Ican take ownership and and do
(15:48):
the things I need to do. And sothat I think that they, the fact
that they treat us that way andlet us really treat it as our
own business makes a differenceas well.
Thank you.
(16:18):
Yeah, yeah, so obviously, youknow you have to pay on time.
(17:17):
There's no if ands or but, so ifyour pay day is every Friday,
every other Friday fits in the20th whatever. It's documented
in your handbook. There's no wayto get around it. So, you know,
not making payroll isn't anoption. If a company doesn't pay
on time, they can go to theState's website, you know,
depending on what state you'rein, just look up, you know,
whatever your state is, and thenyou'll be able to find
(17:38):
information. There'll be a tabfor employer and a time for
employee. And there's alwaysresources there on who to reach
out to, if your employer,whether it's that they didn't
pay you on time or maybe theydidn't pay you correctly. So a
lot of times, if somebody'sdoing manual time sheets,
they're not calculating overtime properly, or their
rounding, I've seen companiesthat always want to round to
their favor. You know, you'resupposed to, if you're going to
(17:59):
round your time, you've got to,if they show up, you know, a
certain amount of time early,and you pay them extra, they
show up a little bit too late,you pay them less. But it's got
to work both ways, and I've seencompanies try to always work it
in their way. So if an employeeever sees a situation like that,
definitely go to your state'sincome tax or unemployment page,
and you'll have an employeeservice area there. From an
employer's point of view, that'swhere I deal with a lot more. I
(18:22):
don't deal with the employeesdirectly. I deal with the
employers. And what I see with alot of small businesses is they
get super excited so they starta new business. They've got that
entrepreneurial bug. They havethis vision for what they're
going to be able to do, and andthey believe in it, and they
should, but they get a littleambitious, a little over
ambitious, and so they know whatthey're capable of, but they put
(18:42):
the cart before the horse. So Ialways recommend grow
organically. Employees aregreat, but they're not a
commodity. You can't just hireand fire at a whim as you start
to make money and lose money.That's going to hurt you
culturally, and I've seen somany companies do that, where
they hire to plan for thefuture, which is great, but if
they over hire, and they end upnot getting as many clients as
(19:03):
they expect, and they can't makepayroll, they're gonna have to
let people go. And that really,really hurts. Because not only
does that hurt, the people thatare let go that now have to go
find a new job, but theneveryone else is looking at each
other, going, well, who's next?And maybe none of them are next.
Maybe that you cut exactly whatyou needed to, and you're going
to grow, but that is alwaysgoing to be a fear in them, and
no employee wants to work forsomewhere that they don't feel
(19:23):
secure and stable. So I thinkit's really important to grow
organically. Only hire to whatyou need, not what you what you
envision. Do it slowly. Theother thing is, I see clients,
well, they'll get that one bigclient, that dream client that
brings in a lot of revenue. Sothey go, oh, man, I've got all
this money now, so I'm going todo all these big things. I would
(19:44):
say, don't, when you'rebudgeting, put that money aside.
Pretend like it doesn't exist.Budget based on all the rest of
your income. Because if you putall your eggs in one basket,
that client can leave at anypoint, and then now you're in a
similar situation where when itcomes when it's time to cut the
most. Sense of thing you've gotis usually your employees, and
that's an easy thing, easy tolet go, but it will hurt that
(20:05):
company culture and morale,which hurts your internal
culture, but also the clientscan feel that they will, they
will see that on the outside. Soit's going to hurt your ability
to grow and retain your currentclients. You
(20:38):
Yeah, so we, most of ourclients, we have them pay
directly out of their account.So we've got some risk in it,
because with Ach, there's a twoday process. So if they are
paying their employees, usually,let's say they pay every week,
or every two weeks. Usuallythere's they'll submit payroll
on Wednesday for a Friday paydate. But what happens is, we
initiate that ACH on Wednesday,but on Thursday, we're pushing
(21:00):
money to the employees, the sametime we're pulling money to us
to cover it. So that's where,again, you know, you get an NSF
one time, you know, slap on thehand. Second time, slap on the
hand. Third time, we no longerare doing direct deposit or same
thing with tax payments if theyNSF, you know, you know, sorry,
you're not gonna have to makeyour own tax payments, because
we can't take that liability onif it's a brand new business
(21:22):
that's just starting, wherewe're not certain that they're
going to be stable, we'll askthem to wire just to make sure
that we know that the funds aregoing to be there. But, yeah, we
usually, we're the ones thattake the risk on that, because
we're, you know, we're trustingthem that they have the money
available. So
(21:43):
Oh, NSF, I'm sorry, insufficientfunds, so that's when, yeah,
they they're spending moneywhere we go to pull the money,
and they don't have it in theiraccount. I
(22:06):
Yeah,
Exactly.
I Sure Do
(23:42):
there Oh, Yeah, I
(25:13):
Oh, 100% and I agree with you onpinnacle. We actually bank with
them at dominion, and I bankwith them personally, so I can
attest to how fantastic they doand compared to the rest of the
industry, I have seen withclients and internally, the same
thing where, and I feel likewhat often happens is, when
you're hiring somebody for aminimum wage job, you know, the
(25:33):
most baseline position,companies sometimes don't value
them enough. They think, oh, youknow, they're just a commodity.
They're doing something that,you know, that doesn't bring me
direct value, so I'm not goingto treat them with the same
respect and appreciation that Ido the rest of my team. And
that's really an unwise thing todo, because they have that, you
(25:54):
know, even maybe today, theydon't have the skills to be able
to be in a higher role, but theycan get there. And so I think
it's super important to from dayone when you hire them, that
they feel valued, they feelcherished, they see that career
path and there's an opportunityfor them to advance and that you
recognize the little things thatthey do, just like you would
everyone else. So I think it'simportant to recognize all
employees. Some companies don'trecognize anybody unless it's
(26:16):
something big, but to be on adaily basis looking for the good
in your employees, regardless ofthe level, is important, but
especially when it's in thelower level, because those are
the people that are going toeventually be able to grow and
to be something bigger withinyour company. And it's always
better to be able to hire fromwithin versus having to
continually look out there and,you know, replenish that that
lower level position becauseYou're having high turnover. I
(26:52):
yep, I love it.
I Oh, yeah, I
(27:50):
you. And I think an example, away to do that too, is every
time you see them say, Hey,thank you, you know, thank you
for doing this, you know. And Ido that internally with the
person in pack out, you know,somebody who is printing the
checks and packaging the checks.You know, on a daily basis, I'm
interacting with them, askingthem about their day, see how
they're doing, you know,thanking them for what they do.
(28:11):
If I'm out of business and I seea janitor, I'll say, Hey, thank
you for doing that. We reallyappreciate that, you know. And
those people will look at youlike what you know, because
often they're not gettingappreciated, and so I think
that's really key, bothinternally with our company, but
also when we when we're workingwith vendors, to just make sure
that they feel appreciated.
(28:37):
Mm, hmm. Uh, yeah, so I wouldsay the most important thing
(28:58):
when you're hiring and firing isto hire slow and fire fast. And
what I mean by that is so manypeople hire fast and fire slow
and they're just so they needsomebody. They need a body. They
need a warm body. Especiallytoday, ever since covid, it's so
much harder to find employees.So people often are saying, I
just need somebody with a pulseat this point. Okay, that's
great, but you don't you reallyneed to find the right person.
(29:21):
Take your time. It's better tohave an empty role and you
having to wear multiple hatsthan to hire the wrong person,
because then you've allowedsomebody into your culture that
can shift it, that person canhave a negative impact, and then
now you're struggling to okay,how do I get this person out of
here? And so taking your time todo multiple interviews, also,
sometimes I see that one personthinks that person is great when
(29:42):
they interview and then theyinterview with somebody else in
the company, and that personwill go, I see red flags, so I
would highly recommend havingmultiple people involved in that
conversation. I know DaveRamsey's company talks about how
interviewing the spouse, becausethey're like, Hey, you don't
want to let crate. You know,you're this employee, might be
great, but they're. Married toCrazy. Crazy is walking in your
door. So be careful about, youknow, the whole picture, not
(30:04):
just the employee that you'rehiring. So take your time.
Really make sure that they'rethe right culture fit, and then
if there's any issues, you gotto get rid of them right away
that you can't hold on.Obviously, you've got a
document. I'm a huge proponent,and I say this with my clients
all the time, because we doperformance reviews in our
system. We do write ups in asystem, I say it's super
important to do thoseperformance reviews, to do those
(30:25):
write ups, because if you letsomebody go, they're immediately
going to say, well, you let mego because of my gender, my
religious belief, my X, Y and Z.So you have to document those
things all along. But as soon asyou have enough documentation,
fire, because if you don't letthem go right away, a couple
things are going to happen.First off, that toxicity is
going to continue to infiltratethe office. Also, the rest of
(30:48):
the staff is going to seethey're all aware. They're not
dumb. They're seeing this personunderperforming, doing things
the way they're not supposed to,and if you're not letting them
go, that looks bad on you. Soyour other employees are looking
at you like, what's wrong withyou? Why is this person still
here? So that hurts the morale,so that you just gotta, you
gotta cut bait and bail as soonas you can, as soon as you
recognize that this is not agood fit.
(31:16):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah,
and everyone else knows it too.They're going, what's going on?
Why is this person still here?Why are they here in the first
(31:37):
place? So you know, you got totake your time with the hiring
and let them go As soon as yousee An issue.
Thank you.
(32:02):
Thank Yeah, so, like I hadmentioned in the beginning, I've
(32:44):
worked for the largest of thelarge. I've worked for the small
of the small. I've owned my owncompany. So I've kind of been,
you know, I've gone againstevery client, every payroll
company out there. I've hadclients come over from everyone
under the sun. And I will justsay it's well known that our
industry has a bad reputationfor customer service. We are not
known for great customerservice. I mean, we're, we're up
there with the cable company, asfar as you just know, if you're
(33:06):
calling them, you just, oh, Idon't want to make this call.
I'm going to be put on hold fora long time. I'm going to speak
to somebody in a foreigncountry, most likely, they'll
they're going to tell mesomething, or they're going to
say they're going to dosomething for me, and it's not
going to happen. And or the lefthand doesn't know what the right
hand is doing. Or, you know, Iremember, back in my days
working for the large publiclytraded company, clients would
(33:27):
say, I will call three times andtake the best of three answers,
because you get a differentanswer every time. So it just,
we're not known for greatcustomer service, really. And so
the thing, the real big thingthat got me to want to work for
dominion was because of thecustomer service, and that was a
reason why I started my ownbusiness as well. Because
business as well, because I sawthat issue, and we did. We had
that same culture that I see inDominion, so that no voicemail
(33:49):
policy. You pick up the phoneright away. You always, you
always get somebody. I spoke toa client, a new client, just
last week that had come overfrom another large company, and
they said last month, they wereon hold for three hours with
this payroll company, threehours. So, you know, I think
it's super important to putcustomers first, and that's
(34:10):
really our motto. Is servicefirst. No voice mail policy. If
you email us, we're going torespond and get something
resolved within 24 hours.Clients appreciate that. They
know that they're valued ourinternal culture, because it's
so healthy. We really have thatdesire to go above and beyond
when we're human. People makemistakes, but anytime I've seen
a mistake happen, the person whomakes a mistake takes ownership.
(34:32):
Every the team comes around andeverybody drops everything, and
they come alongside to get itresolved. And you know, and
clients see that and you know,and now they we've established a
loyal relationship, because theyfeel safe with us. They know,
you know you really care. If youmake a mistake, you're going to
take ownership and get itresolved. And so that's that's
gold.
(34:54):
I. It would be the same thing.It would be the customer
service. I mean, technology isgreat, technology is important,
but if you don't back it up withthe customer support, you know,
(35:15):
then it's I think that's areason why so many people,
unfortunately do their payrollin house, and they do all these
manual processes aroundonboarding and timekeeping is
they're just afraid of gettingburned. And if our industry
could do a better job of comingalong and supporting and putting
the clients first, I think a lotmore businesses would be
successful because they coulddelegate more of that, outsource
and focus on their corebusiness, versus having to deal
(35:36):
with all those manual processesfor fear of, you know, not being
supported properly.
Correct?
(36:00):
Yeah, Yeah, I so, Yeah, I
(36:58):
yeah, I
That's crazy.
(37:20):
Yeah,
(37:40):
Do no, this was great. Thank youfor having me on today.
(38:41):
Sure my best way to reach me,honestly, is my cell phone,
because I am out and about a lotduring the day. So I'll give it
out Sure, 615-295-0894, orAngela a at dominion,
payroll.com Again, that's Angelaa at Dominion payroll.com do
(39:05):
that's a Great question. Yeah,we're in all 50 states,
so yeah,
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