0272: Increasing Employee Engagement Through HR Outsourcing with Chuck Cooper

Chuck Cooper with Whitewater Consulting. And you're listening to EA interviews.

EA interviews episode 272, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week, join Mario Ficcini for today's Expert Authority Effect interview. Every business needs people and clients and all these different things to make it work. But when is the last time you've looked at your human resources? What are you doing in that department? And have you ever thought about an outsourcing solution? I am excited to have founder of Whitewater Consulting, Chuck Cooper on today's episode and we're going to cover all this and more right after we thank our sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's free business book publishing course.

Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Chuck Cooper. Chuck, how are you feeling today?

I'm doing great. It's great to be with you today, Mario.

Oh, the pleasure is mine. I want to ask you about human resources outsourcing. Why is it the best thing you can do for your company?

I think there's several reasons for that, but I think there's some of the big things are business owners get into. They start their business with the idea that they have a product or service that is going to have an impact on the marketplace. Human resources is not something that most entrepreneurs and business owners are actually passionate about. So being able to focus on what you are really good at and passionate about and letting someone else that is passionate about helping handle the HR for you or for small business is something that's really impactful because it can actually help you be able to control your cost and it could also help mitigate your liability as being an employee employer.

What would you say is the biggest liability a small business has?

So it's really interesting. The people of the organization are typically the greatest asset that the small business owner would have. But anytime you start bringing people into the company, they also can bring about some liability as well. So there's just a lot of things from an employer standpoint that creates a lot of liability. As far as maybe it's just from a harassment standpoint the way people are managed, not having your managers trained to be able to do their job effectively are some things that really can create a lot of liability for you.

I'm going to just jump ahead right now and ask you like, what's the craziest story you've ever Heard of hr. You know, you don't need to say the company or the names or the people or whatever, but you just got my wheels spinning already. I normally do something like this about 20 minutes into it. But when you're talking about liability, I wasn't even thinking about the harassment in that and that's unfortunate and it shouldn't be in the workplace as far as I'm concerned. I was thinking just like, you know, if someone hurts themselves, the liability, you know, no fault of their own or the company's just, you know, things happen or whatever or they irritate a customer and they might get sued or something. But I'm sure you've got all kinds of stories. Why don't you tell us a few?

So probably the first thing that comes to mind, this goes back several years ago but is in a manufacturing facility. So you've got a lot of people working in close quarters. There was a disagreement that took place between two employees and hammers came out as a weight, as a weapon essentially. And so there was just a lot of liability that came from that employee that was injured. But then also it created an opportunity for there to, for a company to take a step back, look at their people and their people strategy that they had and do some training to effectively, you know, commute how to effectively communicate as well as put some policies and procedures in place. So that's just a sample of you know, kind of what we run into another situation that we had a few years ago.

I hope they didn't get smacked in the head.

Well, as you can probably guess, that was definitely, that's exactly what happened. So it was really unfortunate.

I mean you could hit them anywhere else but like, holy smokes, that's like you, that's like deadly.

It can be for sure. So it was, unfortunately everything ultimately resolved itself. But you know, those are just type of things that we, we do see. The one thing about HR is every day is a different day and you're never surprised by what you see in today's world.

Wow, that's, that's all on me. I asked you to share a story. I was not expecting that. But you were saying something else. You had another one.

Well, I think that, you know, it's in today's world it's really with as we look at small to mid sized companies, the, the fact that we have so many employees today that and people that are really looking for jobs, it's, we have some issues when it comes to providing a documentation to prove that you're legal to work in the country. And so we've seen so many unique things that have happened as it relates to providing of documentation. And it's really been, in some cases it's been really unfortunate because people have lost their jobs because the fact they didn't actually have legal documents to be able to verify that they could work. But it's one of the great thing is we've had some companies that we worked with where we've been able to identify those situations, actually help those people go about through that process and be able to provide the documents over time to be able to prove that they were legal to work in the US So there's opportunities there again, from a human resource standpoint to be able to help their employees. Even though they may not know exactly what needs to be done, we can give them guidance on how to, you know, provide that information.

It can definitely have a positive impact on people and their families and their lives.

Yeah, and you were saying earlier to mitigate cost. I also see the flip side of that is if you can mitigate the cost, you also increase the profits.

Exactly. So you. When you. Again, when you look at a business today, business owners are typically focused on growing revenue, controlling their costs and mitigating their liabilities. So when you can lower those overall costs and also give the business owner and their team the ability to really focus on the managing of the business and the growth of the business, growing the revenue is really important. So it creates the growth in revenue and controlling your costs, it drives the profits and it really increases the profitability of the organization.

If someone has never really looked at their HR before or considered outsourcing it, if they always thought they had to put it in house, keep it in house, so they just put it to the back burner because they didn't do anything with it. Because like you said for. And I. I love that you're that clear and transparent about. Because I. It wasn't on the top of my mind when, you know, I was like, I have a business now. I'm going all, all in. What do I need? I've always told my clients, clients, if you have no revenue, if you have no one to help, it's not really a business. It's an idea. The second you go, I can help you. And then you go, here's how much it is. And you go, excellent. Here's the money. I believe that's when it's, you know, the business starts as an idea in your head. But it's like, now what? Now you have to piece the puzzle together. If it's you and a couple other people, or even one or two to begin with, you're not generally thinking about, well, what do I do with my whole employee workforce? It's like, what workforce? So how do you handle businesses that are 10 employees or less versus 50 or more?

And that's, it's interesting we look at.

Those, those different size groups because when you're, when you're a entrepreneur and you're just getting started and you're going up to that 10 employee, 15 employee mark, you're really focused on just really establishing some policies and procedures, just really putting in the things in place that can help make sure that you're in compliance as it relates to being an employer. The other thing, when you outsource your HR a lot of times is you can use a company where they can actually use their buying power to be able to provide a much richer benefit plan for the employees. And what that allows a business owner to do as well is it allows them not only to be able to attract a high quality employee, but also helps you to be able to retain those employees, you know, for the, for the long term. So that's really kind of what we see with the smaller groups, but then you go to the larger groups when they get to be in, into that 25 to 100 employee range. Once again, it's all about mitigating that liability, but it's also about continuing to build your HR foundation into the organization and putting in place some processes so that as your company grows, you've got a foundation which, with which you can continue to grow in a very controlled way. We've all seen those companies that didn't have the foundation where they grew really quick, but because no foundation that their business crashed and then they would go up and then they'd come back down. So once you build the, build that foundation into your organization, you really can grow for the long term. And we've got clients over the years, we've been doing this for probably 21, 22 years now. Were companies that started with us when they were seven or eight employees, that are now 800 to 1,000 employees.

What would you say to someone that has the 5 or 10 or the 25 or 50, what do they need to do differently to grow to that next amount? So everyone wants that fast growth, but like you said, you don't want the fast growth and then come crashing down. And the fast growth, and I guess you could argue, you know, just like the stock market, it goes up, it comes down, but it comes down to a higher point than it originally was. When you know you're growing at a certain rate, how long should you stay.

At a certain level before you go? Let's crank it up again to ensure the stability without.

Being too hesitant to make another push for it.

Yeah, I think that's something that every.

Business and every business owner and their leadership team have to evaluate that. And that's part of, you know, having a strategy in place for the long term and being able to re kind of have not only have the goals and have the vision, but also have that time where you can actually work on your business versus working in your business. And I think that's really important for the leadership teams to take a step out, to really look at where they are and know that there's going to be times where you are going to see that growth, but then there's times where it's going to plateau or maybe even come down a little bit. And sometimes that's good because that gives you a chance to catch your breath, kind of reevaluate your processes and then be able to implement or make some minor tweaks so that you can prepare to grow again. So I don't know that there's a specific time frame, but I think that as you go through that cycle, I think it's really important that you're revisiting that those processes on at least on a semiannual to annual basis. If you're seeing significant growth, you know, a 20, 30, 40% growth.

Okay, that's a great answer. I appreciate that. So we've talked about a lot of good things, and I want to ask you, if you were to surmise the top three things that every business owner should consider with hr, what would you say they are?

I think when it relates to hr, I think you've really got to. You need to be focused just on overall the company culture. And I think that how engaged your employees are, a couple of things you really want to be measuring. And then another thing is just looking at your employee base and your turnover. I think those are probably the top three. The other item that I would mention there, Mario, is that I think as a leadership team, that you need to be pulling your leadership team together on a regular basis so that you all are on the same page, you all have got the same vision for the organization, you're having consistent communication, and that you're able to communicate where the organization's going throughout, you know, from top to bottom, so that everybody is aware, everybody's engaged, and we're all Working direct, working together in the same direction to accomplish the same goal.

That's great because I think there's a lot of companies who don't.

I think.

The leader, it's themselves might not know what they're doing. They're just, you know, you can have the success but like you said, those plateaus, if you don't put out a new dream out there, a new vision, a new goal to go after, it'll stay the plateau. And I think there's a lot of people who have had the success but then it's like, how do you get that back once you've attained it? And if the leader doesn't know it, how in the world is the staff going to know it?

Exactly. And we've seen that even this last year as we've gone through the pandemic, there's a lot of small to mid sized companies that, where they've had to pivot because just to be able to continue to generate revenue. And so as a leadership team and particularly just as an entrepreneur, if you're trying to make those decisions in a vacuum, it is, it can almost be more than what you can handle and you're almost paralyzed in the fact that you can't really, you don't know where to go or how to, what needs to be done next. And I think, honestly I think that's one of the big values that peer groups can provide to these small business owners is the fact that it gives them a community and a sounding board with which they can put some ideas out on the table, get some feedback and then go back to their organization, pull their leadership team together and have a constant and consistent communication as, and with some clarity as to where they're going. And I think that's, that's, we've seen companies over the last year that have done that, that are far, they've grown so much in the last year even with the pandemic, you know, they're still growing at 40% year over year. So we've seen the results of what can happen when they have clear, consistent communication and vision.

How did you start the company? What were you doing before and what made you say I want to do it on my own?

So I have, I grew up in a family owned business several years ago and along the way have started and built some small businesses along the way. For several years after I moved to the North Carolina, uh, we, I worked specifically with small and mid sized companies in the HR outsourcing world. And when I took a step back and really looked at A couple of years ago, exactly what I wanted to do and who I wanted to work with. Setting money aside, I really felt like that the small to mid sized business owner ultimately are my heroes. They are ones that, they've taken a crazy amount of risk. They've invested a lot of time and resources into something that they believed in. They've hired people. The fact is, most, if you look at small businesses today, they were the ones that generate the majority of the jobs we have in the US and so the impact that they have on our economy and on our country, it's huge. And so those are the, those are the people that I wanted to be able to serve and to help support. And that's the reason that I started Whitewater Consulting was to help be that support service to, to those business owners. And it doesn't just focus specifically on hr. We ultimately are a business consulting practice that really specializes in human resources. But it's amazing over time how the conversations steer into many other things besides hr. So it's just a matter. I love the idea of being able to help these small business owners become more successful.

Yeah, it's interesting because almost everyone I have on the show, it's like, what's your core business? And they, you know, obviously you know the core business. But then it's like, well, what else do you do? And myself included, it's like you have your core competency. But over the years, I think just naturally, the way entrepreneurs are, successful ambitions, ones like ourselves, you pick up other things and it's like, well, we can help you with this, this, this, this, that there's so many things you can help with. And I, when we're doing marketing campaigns for companies, that's why it's so important to know what is the core competency. Because, you know, we're special, we can handle more than one thing. And the conversations always do go in 500,000 different directions. You know, there is a period of time when people are like, oh, what's your, you know, what do you do? I'm like, I'm a firefighter. It's like, oh, really? Did you go to school for that? No. But when you deal with what I deal with on a regular basis, it's might as well be. And everything.

Well, you know, and that's kind of where I came up with the name Whitewater was the fact that, oh my.

Gosh, you read my mind. I was, I was gonna ask you where the name came from. Oh my gosh, I'm sorry. Please continue. I literally was like, so Tell me about how you got the name. I'd love to know that.

So the story is that many years ago, whenever I was in middle school, my dad and brother and another gentleman, there's four of us, we took a trip to Canada, and there was. We were both in canoes for three weeks. We didn't see anyone. And along that journey, we were literally having to read maps back in those days to try to navigate the lakes and the rivers that we were on. We were expecting at the time to go through two sets of rapids. And my dad and I were in one canoe, and we went through the first set of rapids. Everything was great. We were going to the second set. What we've learned, as we approached it, it wasn't a rapids, it was a set of waterfalls. And so we began navigating very, very quickly on how to get out of danger and get to safety. And so we were having. We were struggling, and the gentleman that was in the other canoe began to give us instructions on what needed to be done and how to do it. And within a matter of just probably a minute, we went from being in danger to being completely safe. And so that. As I thought about the company and working with business owners, I wanted to be that. I want to be the man that was in the other boat, to be able to use the experience that he had, to be able to give order, to give instructions and help give guidance to my clients on how to help navigate the waters that they were going to be in. Because small business owners have no idea when they go to work each day, what they're going to be faced with.

Wow.

Well, I'm glad it turned out good for you, and I think it's great. Your passion is definitely coming through. Your passion is definitely coming through it.

Definitely.

Over the years, Mario, it's been interesting. We've gone through some. Some good times. We've also gone through some very, very difficult and challenging times. And to learn from some of those mistakes that were made, it really. I want to be able to use the mistakes that I've made over the years to be able to share that with my clients to. So that they can learn from it as well and not make those same mistakes.

And I know they're appreciative of that. It's reminded me of that quote. It's like experience is learning from your own mistakes, wisdom is learning from others.

Absolutely. That's. I love that quote. And I think that that's something that is so applicable in the work that we do.

Whoever said it smarter than me it wasn't me, but it just resonates because it's like so many people. You can learn from your own mistakes. And I remember in high school and college, it's like, oh, yeah, you know, I'm so glad I learned what I did. But then shortly after, I was like, let's learn from everyone else, because this is getting a little tiring, and I'm very young.

So. Speaking of success stories, helping people, tell me about your biggest success story and transformation you've been able to give to, I'll say, maybe even a couple of your clients, because I have a feeling you have. If I were to, say, narrow it down to one, you'd be like, oh, my gosh, there's so many.

Yeah, it's been really interesting because even over the last couple of years, you know, there's been a couple of stories that I can think about that where we've had some really big success. But if I look back over the last 20 years, you know, there's a couple of companies that, again, started with me when they were, you know, very, very small, seven to 10 employees. When we help them build their HR foundation as an organization. Those companies today, you know, have grown over the years to where they're now. One's about 800 employees, the other one's a little bit over 1,000 employees. And so to be able to maintain that relationship with the leadership teams and be able to, you know, enjoy and kind of be their cheerleader along the way has been a lot of fun to be a part of. Even though they outgrew the services that I was able to provide, I think that's a huge success whenever I look back over that time to see how they've grown in the last couple of years. You had a company last year that we started working with, and we were able to generate some savings, some financial savings for them, where they probably say probably around 60 to 70,000 a year, but they took part of those funds and reinvested those back into hiring a very strategic leader for their organization. And what happened was we did this early enough in the year that they were actually able to grow at over 40% last year through the pandemic. So to be able to see, you know, help them generate the savings and see the growth they've had, it's just been really cool to be a part of that journey with them.

Wow, that is fantastic. Congratulations.

Well, thank you. That's like. It's. A lot of that is just comes from the collaboration with their leadership team, and they're the Ones that have actually implemented everything so they get, they get the credit for what's been done.

But like you said earlier on, you're in the other boat guiding them.

We certainly have done that from time to time. And, you know, we just, I think a lot of times it's just a matter of looking at internal processes and kind of where money is being invested or spent during that time and looking at things from a different prism and seeing things differently and making some recommendations helps generate some of those savings for our clients.

Well, I know they, they appreciate it because there isn't a business out there that wouldn't want to be saving more money, making more money and having it easier in the process because you can have the passion, I believe, you know, it's why we all started our companies. But there's times it's like, man, it would be nice if everyone else is taking care of this because ultimately, you know, the buck stops with you when it's your company.

That's exactly right. And again, there's just a lot of times that, you know, there are things that they are really passionate about and that's where they need to be spending, you know, investing their time. And again, if there's opportunity, if there's opportunities from an HR or from any other operations within the business that it's not core to their, to their business, they need to be looking at ways to be able to outsource that. So we're definitely a believer in the outsourcing model and I think that it's served a lot of companies very, very well.

Well, I'm glad you're there, forum, because I know there I had nothing like you when I started and there's a lot of people who didn't either. So thank you for being an option and having the heart and the passion to be helping the right people.

That's an honor to be a part of it.

So we're going to do what I mentioned earlier, the wheel of whatever.

This is where I ask an off the wall question.

Has a good spin.

Yellow or black?

I go black.

Oh, good. It stopped on black. Look at that. I always say it stops where it needs it to, and if not, I'll just spin it a little bit.

So my question for you with your business, what do you like to do outside of business? To have fun. So that way when you come back for business, you're fully engaged and fully present for it.

So there's, I guess at the end of the day, it really requires me to get out of my office and to break Away from work, and that means I need to find a place to go. And oftentimes we will do. My wife and I will break away and go to Charleston, South Carolina, for a long weekend. We're coming up also to a time of the year where sports has been one of my getaways as well. So for nascar, for those are NASCAR fans. That's something that I really enjoy watching and being a part of as well. And we're here in the Carolinas, so we have. This is NASCAR country in this area.

Well, very nice.

Always.

Always. Sometimes I ask some potent stuff, but I already threw one extra in. But I like to know, you know, and so does the audience like to know behind the scenes, you know, I'm into boating, and I like being with family and friends and.

Sure.

Because we don't do business 24 7.

No. And I'm really fortunate, Mario. I've got a great family that's all close by. I mean, relatively close to us right now, where we've got three kids that are all, you know, grown and married. They've all got their kids. So this. Over the last five years, we've been blessed with eight grandkids, and we spend a lot of time with them as well. So they're my pride and joy with the life and the legacy that we're building.

Yeah. And that's so. I mean, I'm on the same page. It's like, you know, faith, family, you know, business is good, and I think a lot of people forget the reason you do it. And you do work hard and you invest and do the strategies so you can have more of that freedom in that time. It's not to work more. You might have to for a little bit. But my goal was never to be working 24 7. It was like, how can I work the least and still get the output?

Exactly.

And I'm guilty. I used to be. I used to be one of those workaholics, and I had a gentleman many years ago that told me, said, look, when you get to the end of your life, you're not going to be wishing that you spent more time at work. And that really resonated with me at that point.

Yeah, that's true. That's true. Well, I thank you for everything you've shared so far. We're going to thank our sponsor and come back for the imperfect action run. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours. And it's true. And that's why you should visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what, don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Lori, I went from having.

An idea and a possibility to actually.

Getting my book published.

Or Catherine, thank you for making my.

Mom number one best selling author.

Or Mary Alice what he got done.

For me in three days regarding my book launch.

Unmanageable.

John Cody I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful in getting me where I needed to go with promoting my books.

Rocio there's no way in the world I would have been able to do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past. It didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process.

Adele if you're looking for an amazing business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficini or Bill Benner.

I can't make a higher recommendation than to work with Mario Ficini. He has been great for me and right now I won't work with anybody.

Else except for Mario.

Hey, their words, not mine. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com to get started now and I look forward to hearing your transformation as the next video success story. Once again, that's free businessbook publishingcourse.com and we are back with the imperfect action round. Chuck, are you ready to take imperfect action?

Yes, I am.

All right, I have three questions for you. 60 second or less answers. The first one is what is the fastest path to the profits?

Fastest path to the profits is probably from a business, from my perspective is really.

Over. Really over promising. I'm sorry, under promising and over delivering is probably the best thing that I can recommend for our clients and from a business perspective is to be able to do that.

All right, number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

We oftentimes, Mario, we see a lot of our clients right now the struggle from a leadership team, everybody being synced up and on the same page as relates to the vision and where the company is going and the communications. And I think that the best way to fix that is for leadership to come together and to find a few hours or a day to work on the business and reach a point where they are all have clarity as to where the organization is going so that they can lead their team effectively.

Very good. Number three what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

I think it's continuing to be a resource for them, maintaining communications, maintaining a relationship and growing that relationship. And ultimately the goal is to become their trusted advisors so that when they have a need, they reach out to you. And that's really what we are trying to do over the next 10 years is to be able to be that trusted advisor to our clients.

Excellent goal. What books would you recommend to Expert Authority World that have made a difference on your life?

I think there's. That's a great question. I think there's a couple of books. There's one for entrepreneurs. It's called Running with your Head down or Running with My Head down is one book that I would recommend. Another book is a book by Paul Sarvati called Taking Care of youf People. I think those are two books that I think every business owner should have a read. And then the other one, anything that has to do with eos, which is a operational system that helps small businesses deal with conflict. Those are probably three or three books that I would recommend to them.

Thank you for those.

I want to ask you where would you like people to go to learn more?

So our website is whitewaterconsulting.net and for the listeners, they can certainly go to our landing page, which is whitewaterconsulting.net.

Expertauthority and there they can find some free tools and some additional information about I think could add some benefit to our listeners.

Well, thank you for that and it has been a pleasure. I appreciate your time and expertise. This was a really great one.

Thank you so much Mario. It's been a pleasure.

All right, Expert Authority World, we have another great episode here today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day and God bless.

You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate and qualify leads while increasing profit for you 24? 7 and if so, how well are you promoting it? With the Expert Authority Effect publishing method, it's easier and faster than ever. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.com to get started now. Once again, that's freebusinessbookpublishingcourse.Com hey, thanks for listening to today's episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven't done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show, and also be sure to check out eainterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you tomorrow.