In this episode, we talk about navigating wage and hour compliance. Listen too as we discuss the relaunch of Disrupt Buffalo in April 2024.
The guest today is Buffalo, NY-based Holly Nowak, President at HMN Resources, LLC.
Holly is a Human Resources Business Advisor with 20 years of professional experience including multi-state, multi-location, start-up human resources management, and client relations strategy. Her specialties include Employment Law Compliance, HR Policy and Process Development, HR Solution Navigation, Training and Development, Workplace Communication, Creative Problem Solving, start-up - Up Human Resource processes, Client Relations, and Account Management Strategy.
Questions for Holly include:
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In this episode, we talk about navigating wage and hour compliance. Listen too as we discuss the relaunch of Disrupt Buffalo in April 2024.
The guest today is Buffalo, NY-based Holly Nowak, President at HMN Resources, LLC.
Holly is a Human Resources Business Advisor with 20 years of professional experience including multi-state, multi-location, start-up human resources management, and client relations strategy. Her specialties include Employment Law Compliance, HR Policy and Process Development, HR Solution Navigation, Training and Development, Workplace Communication, Creative Problem Solving, start-up - Up Human Resource processes, Client Relations, and Account Management Strategy.
Questions for Holly include:
We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast and Iceni Media Inc.
Feature Your Brand on the HRchat Podcast
The HRchat show has had 100,000s of downloads and is frequently listed as one of the most popular global podcasts for HR pros, Talent execs and leaders. It is ranked in the top ten in the world based on traffic, social media followers, domain authority & freshness. The podcast is also ranked as the Best Canadian HR Podcast by FeedSpot and one of the top 10% most popular shows by Listen Score.
Want to share the story of how your business is helping to shape the world of work? We offer sponsored episodes, audio adverts, email campaigns, and a host of other options. Check out packages here.
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Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. I'm your host today, Bill Bannum, and in this episode we're going to talk about navigating, wage and our compliance. Listen to as we discuss the relaunch of Disrupt Buffalo in April 2024. My amazing, awesome, wonderful, super cool guest today is Buffalo, New York based Holly Novak, president at HMN Resources LLC. Holly is a HR business advisor with 20 plus years of professional experience, including multi-state, multi-location, startup HR management and client relations strategy. Her specialities include employment law compliance, HR policy process development, HR solutions, navigation and much, much more. Holly, how are you Welcome to the show today?
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. I very much appreciate the opportunity and the opportunity to get reconnected.
Speaker 2:Listen, Holly and I have actually known each other for quite a long time, but it's only been recently that we have reconnected. So Holly is a previous co-organiser of Disrupt HR Buffalo and an amazing co-organiser at that, and years ago HR Gazette covered Disrupt HR Buffalo. This was back in 2016,. I think we did some interviews, including with Janine Caposi, so that's in the first 100 episodes. Listen, so do check out that one. And Holly is a wonderful person, as I mentioned in the intro. Holly, why don't you tell everybody about yourself so they can also understand just how wonderful you are?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I am the founder and president of HMN Resources and we are a firm that specializes in HR for business and teams and kind of just born out of a desire to, you know, move into the space where you know, recognizing that foundations are important in HR but also how that crosses over and helps with, like you know, team dynamics and effective communication and just how those are all kind of interrelated and connected with.
Speaker 3:Some people try and segment off into siloed positions, so had a desire to do that. I've got Kim Brasco, who also was on the HMN team and has been here for over seven years, and together we help predominantly small and medium-sized businesses with their HR needs and very often, you know, we're designing things that can speak to kind of a full spectrum of needs that they might have in the HR function or for their HR function, whether it be building it up for the first time, maybe, you know, coaching and upskilling someone that wants to take over the HR function in their organization or working with their teams, maybe their managers, their leadership, to understand some of the core and basic concepts that are not only HR related but maybe based in like communication and effective communication in the workplace.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, wonderful. Thank you very much. Let's talk a bit more about how we connected that. So I got lucky.
Speaker 2:You guys invited me down to cover Disrupt Buffalo many years ago and, as regular listeners of this show will know that, I'm a big proponent of the Disrupt HR series. I've been involved with San Francisco and Toronto in different ways over the years, other chapters as well, and then in the last couple of years I got heavily involved with a bunch over in the UK. So I'm in the Caribbean, which is still to be launched, and Buffalo. So I'm proud to tell you, listeners, I'm one of the new co organizers of the Disrupted Child Buffalo chapter. It's an amazing chapter. The content over the years has been staggeringly good. So please do check out some of the past Disrupt Buffalo talks and Holly and the team did a fantastic job and it's been very humbling and the way that Holly's been helping. So, holly, I just want to start there. Thank you again for everything you've done to help us get things going again after the pandemic. What makes Disrupt a unique event in your mind? What makes it special? What's that community like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I guess that's a pretty interesting question, right, because the whole premise of it is to really try and present unique ideas or different ways of thinking about the HR profession or HR topics or talent topics or whatever. It's kind of a wide, a big bucket there of topics that we could have. I believe what makes it unique? Well, there's probably a few things, right, and it's a combination of those things, but what we found in running the event was definitely the length of time and the format of the presentation. So we had very experienced speakers that would come to us and struggle a little bit with the format, right, because you only have 15 seconds of slide. You've got five minutes total and it really forces you to distill down and really focus on the main points or main themes that you're trying to get across to the audience. So that was a challenge. I think that was interesting and we always did promote it as something like when we were looking at what was being submitted as topics and things, what were the topics that we felt like were kind of like things that people hadn't heard before. That might be an interesting take on something, and so I think the combination of really committing to that new, fresh ideas and the format itself makes it really unique, and Buffalo especially it definitely gained traction over the years.
Speaker 3:I think the last year that we did the event we had over I think, we had roughly 240 people in attendance and we included everyone in the HR community and kind of brought everyone together for something that was very fun and the opportunity to show a little personality, right. Sometimes we don't get that in the workplace, and so it really really was a fun event. And then, of course, covid right, and so I'd always viewed it I guess this is what makes it unique too I'd always viewed it as something that we'd get it started, we'd get it up and running and then we would be able to hand it over to the next organizers that were interested in and in running a disrupt HR event. So COVID happened. We were on that path. Covid happened, really the event.
Speaker 3:I think some of the uniqueness of it was the energy that was created because it was an in-person event, so it kind of fizzled out. And then I learned that the HR because I was picking it up, that Bill you were picking up and I was super excited about that because before COVID I was on the path of, okay, who's next? Who's next, who's grabbing the reins next? And so, as you mentioned, very happy to provide you with, you know, answer your questions, provide you with any information that you were looking for to make it successful. But yeah, so I think, in short, there's a combination of things that make this a unique event. It's an opportunity to show personality right, new ways of thinking about HR topics and the format itself, where it really forces the speakers to distill down to those most important points that they're trying to make related to their idea.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you've seen a lot of talks over the years. Disrupt HR Buffalo, maybe other disrupts as well, potentially. Can you maybe suggest one or two that folks should for sure check out?
Speaker 3:So there is one, and you know what I should have before I got on here with you, I should have gone back and confirmed what the name and the and I think this talk was out when we first you know, because the process with the licensing and all of that and I was I researched it a little bit and there was a topic that came out of I believe it was Denver, colorado's disrupt HR and the topic was about the title. I've had something to do with why HR should be having idea sex, right. And so you look at that and you're like, oh my gosh, right.
Speaker 3:The point of that talk was that our HR needs to be getting out and talking with other departments in the organization marketing, finance, operations and really that's the key to coming up with fresh, new ideas and different ways of looking at things and better ways to, you know, operate and put processes together. And it just struck me also being very interested in the creative problem solving world, that that's it. That's how you, that's how you do better ideation, that's how you become more innovative, and I really appreciated that topic and I think that's one that you know. If you go back on to the disrupt site hope, I don't know if that would still be up there, because this is we're probably talking like 2015 ish early 2016. But that was one that I always, my mind always thinks about when I think about. You know, disrupt HR and the desire to get it launched.
Speaker 2:So the next disrupt HR Buffalo listeners, if you are in the Niagara Western New York area or you want to travel from afar because you know it's going to be really cool, you should totally be there is Thursday, april the 11th. It's at the and I'm going to murder this pronunciation the Hof Brauhaus, which is like a big German beer hall, I believe, in the center of Buffalo, is just across the street basically from Holly's office. So when Holly Hyre was chatting about it she's like oh yeah, just there, look, you can see at the window. There it is. And before we hit record today, holly, holly, holly suggested that there might be kind of a pre event event office details to be confirmed and be worked out and whatnot. But we'll for sure add a link in the show notes around that to Holly do you want to add anything about your thoughts about, maybe, what that daytime piece could look like on the 11th of April?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, and it was funny, as you said, we were talking and I would just move my camera and I said there it is, I can see it. I can see it right now as I'm sitting at my desk talking with you. So you know, I have a space where I feel like we could get some people together and, you know, maybe have a little pre event. You know people are interested in getting together. We, you know, we do invite our HR coach workshop participants to a monthly session. We are our monthly session in April will be the Disrupt HR event. So we're thinking maybe later, like earlier in, later in the afternoon, but before the event we can meet up here at the office and then walk over to the events together. So if any, you know, if anyone's interested, we, like you said Bill, we'll put out more details, we'll put a link out to that. So people are, anyone is welcome to join. Wonderful, thank you very much.
Speaker 2:So we are. We're recording this particular episode actually at the very end of 2023, expecting it to go out probably in February or early March, closer to the buildup of the actual event on April 11th, but so far we do have some focus confirmed. So Folks involved include my mate, jack Martin, who's the president at J Fitzgerald group, based in Lockport in Western New York. Pauline James, who's the founder and president of anchor HR services. She's coming down from Toronto. She's done various talks up there.
Speaker 2:The awesome Pat Whelan, who's the president, the CEO of the Canadian American Border Trade Alliance, apparently who Pat doesn't know in Buffalo ain't worth knowing apparently With Buelling, who's the president of the Pidello Inc and also a co-host with me of the people and performance podcast. So he gets on this show quite a lot as well and he does lots of things here with us at HR Cosette. And just a few more for you a wonderful lady who started an awesome food business a few years ago called redonic. Rita secret, who's another person coming down from Toronto. She is the learning leader.
Speaker 2:Hemsley Fraser and, yeah, and yours truly, I'm hoping, if everything works out, I'll be doing a talk there at that buffalo, which is nerve-wracking but also lots of fun. Okay, so let's change focus a little bit now. We've got about five or six more minutes for this particular conversation today and I want to understand a bit more about HMN resources. With over 35 years of experience, you guys focus on simple, sustainable and well coordinated Solutions. How do you ensure that your HR solutions remain adaptable in the face of evolving business landscapes and workforce dynamics?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's a great question, bill, and it really boils down to the foundations right and getting the foundations right. One of those is that you know we have to recognize our workforces as human beings right, and I think that's been even more pressed upon us through the, through COVID, right, and and adapting and learning about more about people and the you know what they have going on in their whole lives, how we could be more supportive as employers. And then there's guide rails. You know there's the concept that there are some guide rails that are just unchanging, that we have to work within, and those are typically very foundational concepts which go back to you know, how our workplaces are formed based on. You know, the regulations that we have to adhere to, and I kind of sometimes describe those as like baselines, and then if we have ideas or things we want to do, let's recognize those guide rails or baselines and then use those as like, and then we can jump off from there, right, as long as we are, as long as we're, as we're adhering to those, and I think it's also. You know, the workplaces might evolve but, as I've said, we're working with human beings, so there are always basic communication skills and reinforcement, and a lot of it really is just getting back to basics and those basics don't change, right? We, you know, we even I can give you an example of even.
Speaker 3:You know we've had, and we've had a little bit of a pendulum swing with this and a lot of we experienced that in HR. There's a lot of pendulum swinging right. So, years ago, with performance reviews, oh, maybe we don't want to do these anymore. You know, if we are, especially if we were talking about an annual review, right, oh, okay, we don't, this isn't working. It's like once a year, it's not helpful, we're going to just not do these. And then the pendulum swung back a little bit and said, hey, now, you know, we still need to have something like a check-in, right, because we get so caught up in talking about what we need to get done. We don't talk about the how, we don't talk about, we don't spend time to just set aside and give people, you know, feedback or whatever you want to call it right. So now it's like, okay, yeah, we still need to set aside this time, but we're going to do it more frequently and we're going to do it with, you know, maybe at times a little more informally, even if we have a more formal one a couple times a year.
Speaker 3:So the pendulum, the pendulum swings right, and I think another example of that is remote work and hybrid work. So we, our pendulum was forced right to have people working remotely. We found that this can be a highly, you know, favored and even a time's effective way for some of our workforce to be able to work. But the pendulum swinging back right, even the people that it seems all the studies I've looked at is that people don't necessarily want some people are, but a lot of people would like a hybrid setup so that they can work with other people, and so we've seen that pendulum swing back a little bit from its other position. So you can see that, though, even with those, there are still basic principles that get applied.
Speaker 3:So human beings are human beings, right.
Speaker 3:Generally speaking, we like to interact and engage and be around other people.
Speaker 3:So being 100% remote doesn't work for everyone. Right, and the opportunity to engage with colleagues in person certainly you can have more effective communication. You can have those you know will drop back to disrupt HR, right? That whole premise of that talk on having IDSX right works because you stand at the water cooler, walk past each other in the workplace and have like a one-off conversation. That just doesn't get scheduled when we're working remotely and using virtual, you know meeting technology and so you know those basic foundation principles carry through, no matter kind of what. The evolution is right. We're always drawn back to those basics and I think that's what we always kind of keep top of mind is not to overcomplicate things. And how do we be the most effective as an employer with our teams and our people? And at the same time, you know, not overcomplicating it right, because we know really the core tenants are we work with human beings and we always are going to have those guide rails that we have to work with them.
Speaker 2:Okay, thank you very much. We are almost out of time. We've got like a minute and a half here left for today's call, so two quick questions for you. I'm going to challenge you to answer the next one in 60 seconds or less. What, bill? It pertains to what I mentioned in the intro, that's, navigating wage and hour compliance and how that could be very challenging. In 60 seconds or less. What are your top tips for HR pros in maintaining compliance in this ever-evolving landscape of employment law? And maybe it's what you've really mentioned there in terms of not making it too complicated, working within those guide rails? Tell us more.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you, challenge on. I think really it's what we just tell and we tell this to you know, you have to know you have to bookmark or have at the ready those resources that can help you when those things are changing right. And so in the States here really it's being connected and bookmarking the US, the federal Department of Labor, your state Department of Labor or however many states you're operating in, being attached to, like employment law attorney newsletters, the SHRM you know, being a member of SHRM or your and your local chapters, literally doing legal updates. And once you get your experience going, you kind of learn the cadence of the state you're in and how the wage and hour is evolving right.
Speaker 3:We do know in general that there's, especially in the last few years, there's been a real push to increase wages, especially minimum wage. In New York, for example, where we are coming out of Buffalo, you know every year the state hourly and salary thresholds go up and so you can almost anticipate that they don't tend to sometimes finalize part of it until very close to the end of the year. But you know you're never going to remember everything, right, you're never going to be able to always remember everything. But if you can have those resources bookmarked. You know where to go to make sure you're up to date. That helps out tremendously and just lean on those periodically, you know. Make sure you're on newsletters and that you're doing your best to stay up to date with those changes.
Speaker 2:And listening to cool podcasts that talk about these sorts of things, of course, okay, and just finally for today, how can we? And shameless plugs all the time, right, tira? Just finally, how can we learn more about, use and connect with you so maybe that's LinkedIn email address, whatever you want to share there. And, of course, how can we learn more about HMM resources?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so website hmnresourcescom. We are on LinkedIn. That's probably our most active social media channel that we're on, and then we always, you know, if you want to get in touch with us, hrinfo at hmnresourcescom.
Speaker 2:Amazing. That just leaves me to say for today Holly, you are a superstar. Thank you very much for being my guest.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me. I enjoy it. I'm really looking forward to the relaunch of Disrupt on April 11th. I can't wait. It's going to be so much fun and I'm looking forward to helping out.
Speaker 2:Amazing. And again, if you're in the area, come along and join us, shake our hands, say hello, tell us all about yourselves. But for now, listeners, as always. Until next time, happy working.