Cindy Borrelli: A Better Workplace

Thank you for listening to the Business Blast podcast. So for all my listeners out there that have been wanting to do your own podcast, I'd like to introduce to you Anchor. Anchor is a one-stop shop for recording, hosting, distributing, and monetizing your podcast. So before I found Anchor, I had never actually done a podcast because all the research that I had gathered made it seem very complex. Then I found Anchor, and Anchor makes podcasting extremely simple. So if you want to do your own podcast, go to anchor.fm/start. I can't wait to hear your podcast. Welcome to the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode. All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Cindy Borrelli with us. She is an outsourced HR consultant who specializes in compliance, the employee lifecycle, and change management. She focuses on results, delivering peace of mind, and a better workplace. So welcome to the show, Cindy.

Hi, Tyler. Thanks for having me.

Of course. Grateful to have you here. We'll dive into the first one. The first question I have for you, Cindy, is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?

There are so many stories that I could share, but I will— I'll stick with one that's kind of a feel-good. It's just realizing that little things that we don't think about can have a much larger meaning. As raising my single— my son as a single mom, I found it really easy to relate with other single moms. No issues with ever having his friends come to the house for a sleepover. And taking him into the women's restroom was no problem. And I never considered how difficult it must be raising daughters as a single dad until I started dating one. He didn't have time to schedule the playdates, or he didn't feel comfortable having the girls, uh, have sleepovers because he didn't want other parents feeling awkward having their children sleeping you know, over with friends and it's just a dad, and trips to the bathroom ended with a lot of questions for him. Um, so I didn't think about that, and we were married last year, and the girls' mom recently told me that she has seen so many positive changes in them in just this last year. Um, so that was a huge impact for me to know that just being present in their lives, doing the same thing that is a part of a normal routine for me, really, really helped them. And it's taught me to be more observant and consider how uncomfortable someone else's shoes might be.

Wow. I have never thought about that scenario in that way either. That is very insightful.

Wow.

Thanks for sharing that.

Yeah.

The next one I have for you is what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?

Again, focusing on little, little things can have a huge impact. This can relate to solving retention issues or reducing healthcare costs, preventing employee burnout, finding a work-life balance. A lot of companies say that benefits aren't within their budget, but when I hear something like that, I wonder if at the same time they're making that comment, they stop to consider that the average cost to hire a good employee is about $4,100. Hiring a bad employee costs about 3 times that amount, and a disengaged employee runs about an average of an additional 34% of the employee's salary. So if employers would just take the time to reinvest, you know, maybe 10% of an employee's salary into an employee benefit or some type of development program, they'd begin to see some improvements in their bottom line and performance and quality of work.

And what is your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry-specific.

Don't seek too much advice. When I first started my business, I was overwhelmed by the amount of different advice I would get. I could ask 10 people the same question and I would get 10 different answers. And starting a business, it's like, you don't, it's so overwhelming, you don't know what to believe. What you heard yesterday is different from what you'd hear today. And I would feel a lot like I would just have to go home and reinvent the wheel because somebody else said something so different. So what I did is I learned to cherry-pick the tidbits that I found most useful from each person's advice, what worked for them, and I learned to make it my own. And do things my way that worked for what I wanted to deliver for my clients and what worked best with my personality and what I wanted to represent.

And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?

Avoid the comfort zone. I think it's far too easy to get comfortable in a situation and end up overstaying your welcome. I was with a company for 17 years and not so much because I enjoyed working with the company after about 10 years, it's just, it was comfortable for me. So I would tell myself, don't ever get so comfortable that you can't see when a situation isn't right.

And in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?

Happiness, it's kind of a relative term. It means different things to different people. So the key for me would be to stop defining it. I think we can, we get caught up in, in, you know, the rat race and, you know, working so hard to do this, that, or the other, and We end up wasting time and energy on achieving what we think is happiness that we really miss out on so many of the happy moments in life that are tangible, that are in the now. It's like my sister, she's a photographer and she prefers not to do poses. She likes the candid moments. And that's when you really capture what something means.

And what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?

Well, I read a lot of boring compliance and HR and insurance stuff, so I won't go there. I recently read Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives by Tim Hartford. And it really— it— I read it at a good time in my life. Everybody tries so hard to be organized and, and remove clutter and try to make sense out of everything, when sometimes the creativity is sparked from the mess that's there. So it served a good message for me in that instead of trying to move everything aside so I can see my desk, let the stuff that's all over the desk generate a new idea or a better way of doing things. Take an opportunity to use the challenge that you're presented with to improve yourself and be better. I went to a workshop one time on a sales presentation, and the instructor was very rigid in his method. And he was, you know, telling everybody that if you ever don't make the sale, go back and see where you fell off your plan and get back on it. And that didn't make sense for me. And I raised my hand and I said, why would you do that? Why would you not take that opportunity to figure out how to make yet one more situation work in your behalf? Isn't that self-improvement? He didn't quite know what to say. So that book really helped me understand that being organized isn't always the best way to be creative.

And what is your favorite quote and why?

I actually have two. I have one on the back of my business card that says, "Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work," and that's by Aristotle. Just, it's not just enough to know how to do something. It's, you gotta enjoy doing it. And when you do, it really, really comes through in the end. And the other is from my favorite movie, "After all, tomorrow is another day," from Gone with the Wind. It's just a reminder that sometimes when we're dealing with a situation where there's no immediate solution, sometimes the best thing to do is just put it off until tomorrow and come back and regroup and and take it on with a fresh mind because a clear, rested mind functions much, much better than one that's distraught and exhausted.

Yes. Thank you so much for coming on, Cindy. The last question I have for you before we let you go is where is the best place for people to find and/or connect with you online?

My website, which is KeystoneHRConsulting.com.

Perfect. Thanks again for joining us. We appreciate it.

Thank you, Tyler. I appreciate you having me on.