If you listen to episode two of the HR Connection podcast, you heard me say that the first component of good HR in a small employer is when HR is seen as a business partner, when they are seen and allowed to act as a business partner, or when they do act as a business partner. And today, I want to spend some time talking about what that looks like, what that means, and if you are managing human resources in a small environment, I can almost hear you say, yeah, that would be great. But they don't allow me to do that, or I don't have time to do that. And so what I really want to do today is give you some actionable tips that you can use to start to think and be seen as a business partner. So first, let's talk about three reasons why I think this doesn't happen, why does um leadership in a small environment not see HR as a business partner? I think there's lots of reasons, but um a couple that come top of mind, and then I think are are really prevalent, is that HR is seen as a cost center. They're seen as a must-have um maybe there has been some compliance trouble, some legal trouble that they've had for not following laws in the past, or there are a lot of employee relations issues. There's just something that makes HR seen as very tactical, uh very admin-focused. It could be, and oftentimes what I see is that the leaders have never had good HR in in whatever environment they came in before the small business. They haven't really worked with strong HR leaders or HR was never seen as a business partner, never allowed to serve as a business partner. And so this is all they know. They don't know anything different. They just know HR as this cost center, as this overhead, as this very tactical admin-driven um department. And while that's a piece of it, we are tactical and administrative in the compliance side of the business. There's also this infrastructure and strategy piece that we can contribute to that is going to help move the business forward so much faster. Another reason why HR is overlooked or not seen as a business partner is that it can be very reactive. And in a small employer especially, if you are an HR department of one or you're not even an HR person, you're a marketing person, a finance person, and you're handling HR, you are navigating HR stuff with all of your other day job. And so you're just reacting to things as they come in. You have no time to sit and think about being proactive or to sit and think about strategy. You're just trying to get through your day and put out every single fire that comes your way. I had a talk that I did a couple of years ago called Moving from HR Firefighter to Igniter and it's such a silly kind of cringey topic now, but it was popular and and the thing that I think resonated with people was this idea of being a firefighter when you are in a small environment. You're the only one managing HR. There's a lot coming at you all day long. And so, of course, you're reactive because you just don't have the time or the space to be anything but. Um, but I do think that that is why it's a it's a contributing factor to why leaders only see HR as uh administrative or overhead because they're just being reactive to whatever's happening in the moment. And then the third reason that HR is overlooked or not um allowed to contribute as a business partner is that it's low on the priority list. I don't think founders understand how fast their business could move. If they would focus on people processes, if they would focus on employee experience, and not just pay and benefits, but the internal employee experience, what happens when they have an error in their paycheck? What happens when they need to leave of absence? What happens when they get feedback, give feedback, need to give feedback? Um, what happens when they you know are just having a stressful day or they don't have the tools they need to do their job? What what is that experience look like for them? If business leaders would put HR higher on the priority list, I believe that their business would move faster. I believe that they would be able to achieve more in a shorter amount of time because they have all of the right infrastructure in place to support their people in doing that. And oftentimes we'll see uh every other head hired, head of marketing, head of finance, head of chief revenue officer, whatever it is, every other one hired before human resources, and we are kind of a last thought. And I think that's a huge mistake. I've mentioned before about how many clients come to us only when they're in trouble, only when things are so bad that they just dump this mess, this ball of a mess in our lap and say, go unravel this for me.  And had we been there from the beginning and been able to actually build instead of course-correct, we could be so much more effective and their business could actually make bigger leaps and bounds. Had we built something from the ground up rather than have to now turn a ship that is very, very difficult to turn. So if you are managing human resources in a small environment, how can you begin to change this mindset? I don't have any miracle cures. I don't want to um suggest that doing the things I'm going to talk about today is going to fix this overnight. But I do think that the more you do it, the more you model the behaviors we're going to talk about, then the more that leaders can start to see you differently. These are things that we do with our clients. And we go into some clients, they're ready to embrace human resources. They're ready to see us as business partners. They include us in their business strategy meetings. They um include us in their leadership meetings. They tell us their goals. They uh work very closely with us in order to put the type of strategy and infrastructure in place that they need to really achieve those goals. And then we have other clients who just want us to manage their payroll. And it takes us a little bit of time to get them to see that we can contribute so much more. We can actually help their business differently if they would just embrace us as a business partner. So when we have that happen, when we have clients who um really don't see us as business partners, then here are some things that we do to try to shift that mindset and while for some it does take a little bit of time, we are able to do it and able to get them to embrace us a little bit differently um which makes us happier, makes us feel like we're contributing better and in a in a way that makes us feel good um and also makes them feel like the investment they're making in us or the investment that they're making in HR is worth the money. So the first one is to understand the business the way that all the other leaders do. Why do they hire a head of marketing and a head of product development and a head of whatever? Because those people are going to come in and they're going to understand the business and they're going to be able to put strategy and goals in place to achieve whatever the goals the business has. HR should be no different. And oftentimes, HR comes in and they're so uh employee-focused that they don't really understand the business strategy and make sure that they are walking that balance between the business strategy and the employee focus. They they do have to balance both. Other departments, they just have to balance the business strategy. They just have to figure out how to align their goals with what the business is trying to do. HR does have to walk that line between making sure that there's a good employee experience, that there's good um infrastructure in place for what employees are trying to do, but also that we're achieving business goals. And so as an HR leader, if you do not understand the business to the level that the head of marketing does, the head of finance does, whatever, you need to go start asking questions. You need to see if leaders will explain things to you. Go and ask your CEO what are the business goals if you don't know them. Go and ask your uh finance person to walk you through a balance sheet or whatever you know whatever they're using to manage the company finances whatever they're willing to share with you. Ask them to to share that with you so you can understand really what is it that's important in this business. Is it margin? Is it um EBITDA? What what is it? Make sure that you really do uh understand the financial side of the business. How does the business make money? What what are the expenses? What are the big expenses? Typically, payroll benefits, but what else if you're in a product-based business? It could be inventory. That's certainly right now many businesses are facing economic issues with tariffs and things. So you as an HR leader if you want to be seen as a business partner, if you want to be seen as more than an admin, you have to understand the business, the way that other leaders in the business understand it. And so you need to be able to um understand what happens from start to finish to get a product out the door or to deliver a certain service. What is the service level that is expected? You really need to be able to dial in and understand the business. I am a little shocked sometimes at the number of HR practitioners I talk to who can't explain that to me. They really can't. And this is small and big organizations. Who really can't um explain to me what the financial drivers are of the business or the metrics that are being reviewed on a regular basis. They don't know because they've kind of come in, again, they've been a little reactive, or they're just focusing on maybe the employee uh benefits and compliance side of things rather than really trying to understand the business and what it's trying to achieve. In order to do that, I have five questions that you can ask um that will help you start to learn a lot more about the business. And we'll put these down um list these down so you don't have to try and write them down, especially if you're you're driving or something. But the first one is, what are the company's top strategic priorities for the next one to three years? And how do you see HR contributing to those goals? So what are the top strategic priorities for the next one to three years? And how do you see HR contributing to those goals? Number two, what are the biggest operational challenges the company is facing? And how do you see HR playing a role in addressing them? The reason that I love these first two questions is that they may not have thought about, hey, how HR can help. And asking the question of how do you see HR contributing to the goals, how do you see HR helping you overcome the operational um issues that you're having, gets them to think about, oh, well, I guess maybe HR can help. I I hadn't thought about it. And so it kind of opens that door to get them to already see you maybe a little bit differently. Number three, what is the company's approach to leadership development and succession planning? This is one of those concepts that small employers often don't think about. They don't think about leadership development and they don't think about succession planning. And then what happens is you have homegrown leaders or people who were great individual contributors and that were tapped on the shoulder to be a leader. Who are toxic, who are not great leaders, who are not great communicators. They're also to be fair, very bogged down in their own day-to-day work. Um, and you have then this this environment, this culture that's being built that's probably not what you intended because your leaders are not being developed. You're also, as a business, never going to get to the next level because you don't have the leadership to get you to the next level. Uh, and then succession planning, I you know, it would be detrimental to me right now um detrimental in the short term for somebody to just suddenly leave that I wasn't anticipating. It happens, of course, and there's sometimes nothing that you can do about that. But if I don't, if I don't have this kind of constant idea of, okay, if this person leaves, what happens if this person leaves, what happens? I anticipate no one leaving, but that doesn't mean they won't. Anything could happen. And so this idea of workforce planning, succession planning around, we need to keep appropriate staffing levels, obviously, in a small employer. That's really important. We have a certain amount of budget, a certain amount of resources. We got to get all the work done. So staffing levels are important. So what is that succession plan look like? If this person were to leave, or that person, especially in those crucial roles where having somebody leave could derail months and months of work, what is the plan for leadership development? What is the ideas around that? And what is the plan for succession planning? And if we have no plans, and if we have no ideas, maybe that's something we should start thinking about. That's HR strategy. Thinking about leadership development and succession planning in a small environment, that's an HR strategy piece. And and and growing that out there is something that's important. Initially, they may say we have no time, or I can't think about that, or we don't have the the right people to be able to do that. That's fair. Um, but continually talking about those things and and when opportunities come up, saying, you know, this is why this would be really important to do, is going to eventually bring around that change to where maybe they're thinking about this in a more strategic way. Number four, how would you describe the company culture and are there any aspects you want to strengthen or change? In my 14 years, I've had very few leaders that are thinking about strategy from day one. I'm sorry, not strategy, culture from day one. They um you know, just just start building and I I get it. They just start building a product or they start pushing out a service and they're not really thinking about what am I trying to build internally for my employees. They're really externally focused. I get it. You're trying to to get to profitability. Um, but they're not really internally focused. And then this environment is created that is not what they would have ever intended and it's much harder to correct that than it is to build it early on. So even if your organization has been around for many years, as a company culture that exists because even if you didn't um if you didn't curate a culture one definitely exists one has grown organically there's a huge part of culture that will always be organic um so something exists and I think it's really good to ask business leaders how would you describe the one we have now are you happy with that and if not what what do you what could you see changing what would you like to change um business leaders definitely get stuck in the mindset of this is the way it is this is kind of the business this is our environment I will have leaders say that to me all the time oh we have this environment that's very stressful or we have this environment that um requires a lot out of people or it doesn't allow for a lot of communication or it has a lot of silos um and I will say okay well what are we doing about that or can we can we talk about strategies to overcome and they'll just be like well I don't think there are I think this is the way the business is you know kind of the it's the way it always has been mentality and I think even if you've been in business for years you can shift things like that and maybe if you can't shift it you can help it so in the example of it's a it's a high-stress environment certainly startup small businesses can be high-stress environment maybe we can't take away the stress but can we help it somehow can we offer some mental health resources can we offer a generous uh PTO policy or generous leave policies I don't know what what the answer is it can depend on the environment but it's it is uh nearly it is highly short-sighted to think I can't do anything about the culture that's there it just is here and it exists and we have to deal with it rather than I don't like this let's try and work within it let me give an example for my own business um we have been remote since day one I mean I was by myself for seven years so of course I was remote but then as I started hiring employees we um have remained remote I'm remote I'm committed to being a remote workplace however the bigger we get the more I can see the cracks in a hundred percent remote I I enjoy it I know my employees enjoy it they enjoy the flexibility of it um I wouldn't want to have them spend an hour where most of us are in Los Angeles uh the commute times would be insane it just doesn't make sense to me to take that much time out of our day to commute having said that I can see so much value in getting together sometimes and really more regularly I think a hybrid environment where you're days together um that are highly curated that have very specific goals I think that could be so valuable for us and I have talked to my team recently we've been in business 14 years I've had employees for the last seven eight um and for me to just be like oh we're remote and that's what it is would means that these cracks these these issues that we're having with the remote space are just going to get bigger they're just going to grow and so recently I've been really talking to my leadership team about how I think we move slow because we are remote we move a little bit slower because we're waiting on that next Zoom call rather than being across an office where I could just walk over and and have a conversation that I need to have and so we're we're thinking about that now and we're thinking about well this is our culture and this is our environment and we're not going to necessarily shift that I'm not going to go rent an office that we're all in five days a week especially we're all spread out I'm not all of us are are here locally I'm that's not the answer uh what can we do what what are some things that we should do to help with the relationship building and then to cover those organic conversations that happen in uh an office environment that you don't get remotely so that's what I'm talking about when I when I talk about thinking about the culture and asking the question how would you describe the company culture and are there any aspects you would want to change and then the last question number five is what metrics or key performance indicators do you use to measure the business success and how should HR contribute to those metrics again I think it's another question that gets them thinking about oh my goodness HR could contribute here's here's how I think that that that they could um and it also gives you insight into what metrics are important because then if the HR infrastructure and the HR strategy you're putting in place doesn't drive towards what are those metrics you might be wasting time you could be wasting time or you could be spending money in places that don't really make sense for the business so you need to understand that the metrics you need to understand what the business leader is um what they're reviewing all of the time and then getting their ideas on what can you do to help that now again do I think the first time that you ask these questions and that you get the answers to them it's going to magically change the way that they look at HR no it's not um but over time the more you do this the more you ask these questions the more I think they're going to uh start to see that oh maybe maybe HR could do something maybe there is something we could do here we don't just have to you know accept what's happening or we don't just have to allow HR to be this cost center we can actually um have them help us move the business forward the next way to be seen as a business partner rather than a um tactical admin cost center is to focus on facts over feelings in a small environment it is easy to get wrapped up in feelings you'll have one or two employees who are disgruntled about something and then you want to go and put something in place to fix it for those one or two employees uh but the reality is it's not best for everyone or what the business needs and so you want to use data in a small environment there is definitely data and metrics that HR should be measuring I'll be sharing those later these at a later um in a later episode but you want to do facts over feelings every single time that you are trying to build a business case for something that you are trying to get buy-in from leadership um to either put something new in place get a budget for something whatever it is you want to make sure that you have data to back up what you are requesting and so a lot of times I will um have leaders and this happens outside of HR too but they'll come and say I think we need to put X in place uh you know they are really upset about this and I'll say who's they and come to find out it's like one person or two persons and this this leader who's come to me has just gotten kind of wrapped up in their feelings because these employees are um highly regarded or they're very loud whatever it may be and so when I go and I look at the data then it doesn't really make sense for us to do whatever the manager was suggesting and so you want to make sure you're focusing on data that you are measuring things inside the business obviously looking at whatever the leadership is measuring but then also some HR metrics that I think are really important um things like employee engagement things like revenue and cost per employee I think that you should be measuring those and making sure that when you are suggesting new infrastructure suggesting new strategy certainly trying to get a budget or more resources for something that you have data to back up your need and then the last and final piece of advice I have for you to be seen as a business partner instead of just an admin is to speak in the language of the business um I've talked many times already in just a few episodes about the nuance that you have between one and five hundred employees the different types of businesses the different sizes the different types of people managing HR the different personalities inside of all of those and all of them are different um and so low-hanging fruit of course everybody always says oh speak in terms of ROI speak in terms of ROI sure that's important I just kind of talked about data and making sure you have that and understanding ROI is important but also what is really top of mind what is really priority for every small business is different and the next small business and so you want to really listen to the terms and the metrics that the other leaders are talking about how they're focusing what are their priorities and make sure you're speaking that same language if it's EBITDA if it's margins if it's um you know a certain user experience in the product or you know whatever it is that that you constantly hear everybody else talking about you want to also speak that same language you want to make sure that because you hear it you know that's a priority for them you know that that's something they're watching that you are also talking about and um utilizing that same thought process and whatever it is that you're doing so if you are asking for a budget if you are um thinking about anything financially and you know that margins are really important metrics that you're um leaders look at you want to speak in terms of margins it's not even just financial math it's also the way that they think about planning and strategy you have some founders CEOs who are very future-oriented they're working 10 and 12 months into the future and others who are really just kind of living in the day-to-day uh you have some who are very risk-oriented and some who are very risk-averse you want to get to know your especially your CEO and founder but also um just other business leaders in in the organization and understand how they are thinking about the business and all the different aspects and make sure that you're speaking that language I will tell you that the best way to be seen as a business partner at the highest level by like the CEO is to get those other leaders to see you as one first and so if you can really speak their language be thinking and strategizing in the same terms that they are you are going to get an advocate um in your marketing director in your finance director in somebody that is going to speak your name maybe in rooms when you're not there and say hey maybe we should bring her in maybe we should bring him in and get their opinion on what's going on here because I think they could contribute and that's how you start to get your foot in the right doors to be seen as that business partner rather than just that admin now again I would be remiss if I didn't remind you one more time that I know this takes time and I know that at each one of these um at facts over feelings at understanding the business um at speaking the language you probably have reasons why this is going to be really really difficult for you I know that I said this to somebody recently and I gave them the five questions and they said my CEO wouldn't be able to answer that they don't even have goals I get it I get that that's exists and that this is not um as I said this overnight fix for everybody to be seen as a business partner but I think that starting to think about the business in this way thinking about how you manage HR in this way changes your mindset and if you can change your mindset then you'll start to work uh do the work and show up differently to change others and so um the these tips again it's something that you're going to have to practice over and over and over again um but hopefully the more you do them the more those leaders that you're working with are going to see you as the business partner that I know you can be.