 Happy Thursday everybody! It's the 4th Thursday of the month here on Geeksare Sexy. I'm your host, Jason Laduke, taking over from Michelle Davis, and we're here to talk about business in Las Vegas and how to be successful here in Las Vegas, whether you're a business owner, you're working for a business, or you're just looking for some tips to be successful in your personal life. We've got a bunch of great guests for you today. We've got Christy Lorenzo is going to come in, he's a CPA, and he's going to talk to us about some of the new things that have changed with this year's tax law, and he's going to give you give us some hints on what is settled, and you can count on and what you need to watch out for in the future. And then we're going to have Sonny Chabro on, and she's from the Douglas J. Green Memorial Foundation. She'll be here to tell us more about that and the great work they're doing in our community for our military members and military families here in Las Vegas. But first, to talk today about some HR stuff, is Greg Wilkin from Endunomo Consulting. That's right. Did I get it right? You got it right. Way to go. I prepared, but I wasn't sure I was preparing right. So Greg is the founder of Endunomo Consulting. He's passionate about helping organizations succeed and grow by improving their human resources. He started his career working for the U.S. Department of Labor and Education. I want to talk a little bit more about that. But you were developing workforce education policy, then you went to law school and became a lawyer, a practicing lawyer. That's right. And I'm still in recovery for that. Still in recovery? Well, that's a long road. I've got a couple friends who are doing that in there. I think it's one of those things you're never fully over. That's right. It's day by day, right? One day at a time, as they say. So please tell us how did you go from developing policy with the federal government labor and education policy to where you're at today? Yeah, well, thanks, Jason. It's great to be here. And I love the view. Boy, you've really taken me back a long way. But I think that I've always been interested in kind of how organizations work, how they succeed, and particularly how they use their human resources to be successful. So I started out working in the government doing policy, kind of gravitated towards employment of labor law and then more recently been in human resources. But the common theme throughout it is sort of using your employees to be successful. Yeah. And that's what this show is all about. That's what my company is all about is leadership and how do you build a team around you to be successful? I'm a big believer that we build teams around us to achieve things that are bigger than we can achieve on their own. And that's what HR is all about when you get into a into a larger business environment or even a small business is how do you build that team and how do you keep that team moving along while the team goes and focuses on getting the mission of the company done, right? Absolutely. And, you know, a lot of people in HR, a lot of people outside of HR, I think focus on the resources part of it. And I like to think about the human part of it, because that's really what it's all about. I agree. It's a no matter I was talking to some friends last night, there was a UNLVMBA mixer last night, and we were talking about really no matter what business you're in, it's always a people business, whether it's your customers, you know, even if you're in a tech company, you've got customers, you've got vendors, you're always on people business. You're always trying to help a person do something or solve a problem that they've got and keeping the human and human resources. Maybe that's the title of your new book, if that's not already taken. It probably is. And yeah, someday I'll write a book about all the stories I've collected. But that's, you know, on the bucket list. Well, thanks for being here today. There is a lot to be positive about in the economy right now. We're at the lowest unemployment levels, not just nationwide, but here in Nevada in over 10 years. And that's a big deal for Nevada, because we've been lagging a little bit behind the rest of the country on the unemployment numbers, but things are really starting to turn around. And even the national jobless claims came in, I saw the headline this morning, jobless claims that they reported yesterday or earlier today came in much lower, several thousand lower than they were expecting. So there's a lot to be positive about with the economy. Things are growing, businesses are starting. But with that, with unemployment being so low, our labor market gets a little tight. And that means employees have a lot more opportunities. So what are the some of the things that small business owners or even larger business owners, larger corporations need to think about in this labor market? What can they do to keep their employees around? Yeah, well, it's a great time to be an employee. It's a great time to be a business owner because the economy is doing so well. So I would say there are three things that you really want to focus on to retain your employees, focus on your hiring, your onboarding and how you take care of your employees once once you've hired them. And I'll talk a little bit about that in a little more detail, but your hiring process really ought to be focused on the employee. A lot of times hiring processes are focused on the company. And I think about, you know, if you're going to sell your house, you don't just put a sign in the front yard, home people show up. You get the house ready, you do everything you can to really make it an attractive place for buyers. It should be the same with if you're hiring employees, you want to attract the best, you want to attract people who are excited about coming to your company. So think about it from the very first time they put in their application or they even express interest onboarding, not just filling out forms, not just putting somebody at their desk on their very first day of work and saying, here's the employee handbook and come back in a couple of days. So make sure they've got a full schedule their first few days, weeks and even out until 90 days. So they feel like they're productive and focus on the little things. You know, the first day in the job, where are the bathrooms? Where are, you know, where is the break room? How do you use the copy machine? Where do you park? The first day on the job is stressful enough without having to worry about those little things. And then most importantly, once they're hired, do everything you can to check in with them, see how they're doing, give them regular feedback, particularly at the very beginning, you know, every week, every couple of weeks, and positive if they're, you know, if they're kind of getting off track a little bit. So so that they feel as though they've made the right decision in coming to your company. Okay, great. One of the things I like to think about my business is just me right now. But when I've been involved, when I was in the Air Force involved in bringing people into the squadron in some of the things we did where we had some authority to hire outside of a normal personnel process, one of the things I always like to think about was not just what am I hiring them for today, but what can I grow them into in the future? Right. And giving them kind of a development path that I can talk to them about in that first 90 days and give them some encouragement of I'm invested in your future. We want you to have a future here. You're not, you're not just here to fill a seat. Is that, is that kind of along the lines that you're talking about? Absolutely. And particularly for small businesses, because small businesses, startups, growing businesses, you may not be able to compete just in terms of compensation and benefits. And the bigger companies may be able to offer more generous benefit and comp packages. So everything you can do to help employees feel as though they're part of the organization, they're part of the mission, developing them, suggesting opportunities for training if you can, whether it's paid training or there's a lot of free online resources. And just having those conversations with, with employees about where do you see yourself going? What is it that you like about work? What is it that you find challenging? What would you like to do in your, you know, in the next role, hopefully within this company? There, so there are a lot of things that you can do that don't directly hit your bottom line and come out of your expenses. And my experience is, and I think the literature backs this up, is that employees don't quit a lot of times over money or they don't quit because of the job they're doing. Employees don't quit a company, they quit a boss as the saying goes, right? Exactly. Yeah, all the research says usually the number one reason employees leave is because they didn't like their manager, their supervisor, their direct, their direct boss. Yeah. And so if your employees are already leaving in some ways, it's a little too late. It's a little too late to have that conversation with the employee who's already left about your future here and how we want to develop you. But one of the things you and I talked about that you may be able to do to stem the tide if some of your employees are starting to leave is implement some kind of recognition program in your company if you don't already have one. Can you tell us more about that? Yeah, well, there are a few things. Recognition programs and you know, we use the term recognition program makes it sound a little bit more formal than it is. It can be in a lot of good online resources but recognition is simply talking to your employees to find out what's on their mind, what do they like about their job and having your supervisors, your managers do that if you've gotten to the point where you have enough employees where they're managed. So recognition really is just simply talking to employees and finding out how it's going, what they like, maybe some challenges that they're facing. And as you grow, you can add a more formal program. A couple of other things that you can do when you talked about employees who are leaving. I would really recommend that you have an exit interview program. For sure. And now that doesn't help the employee, doesn't get them to come back. But if you do exit interviews, you find out why employees are leaving and you can make changes to prevent that. There's a new kind of a concept that's going around in human resources. It's called stay interviews. And it's much like exit interviews but you do them with employees while they're still there to find out what might cause them to leave. And you have those regular discussions or your managers have those discussions and that really does help your lower your turnover because you're getting employees and identifying issues that might cause them to leave before they do so. That's awesome. So what I'm hearing is throughout the course of our interview is get out from behind your desk, talk to your employees, put your phone down, get to know the people who are working for you and figure out where they want to head in their lives and see if you can help them get there. It really is as simple as that. It's not rocket science. It's some very basic things, a little hard to do. You've got a lot to do. If you're a small business owner, you've got to keep the lights on. You've got to keep customers coming in. But the basic things with your HR practices will really make a difference. Well, and that's something that you can help businesses with with their HR practices. That's what your company is all about is helping people who need some help with it. So why don't you tell our viewers where they can find you if they need some of your help? Yeah, and I'm glad you got the name of the company. It's called Endenamo. That stands for it's the Greek word for empowerment. And my company helps to empower you to be more successful. www.endenamo.com is the website. Greg.wilken at endenamo.com or you can call me directly 651-270-4273. I'd love to talk to you, help you out with any HR issues that you might have and really give you the time to focus on growing your business and not worrying about the HR problems that might come up. And that's what it's all about being a leader and being a decision maker and getting the pros to help you with the nuts and bolts when you need it. So thank you for coming, Greg. Great to have you. We're going to bring you back in a little while for our panel discussion. Stick here. We're going to have Christy Lorenzo here. He's going to be telling you all the myths and the reality about the new tax law that passed at the end of last year. Stick around.