Speaker 1

Hello everyone, welcome back to the HR Connection. My name is Sabrina Baker. I am the CEO and founder of Acacia HR Solutions, and in just a second, Marie and I are going to roll out something that I have been thinking about for eight years. It is, uh, a project, something that I have literally lost sleep over because I just so know that it's needed. In the market, and it does not exist. And this is really just the beginning of what we are going to do around this theme of building community for those who don't really have it right now. And that is individuals managing human resources inside of a small environment, one to 500 employees. So please stay tuned to hear what we are rolling out, and I really, really hope you will consider joining us.

Speaker 2

Today we're going to do something a little different. So we are not here to unpack a trend or talk through a framework, but instead we're here to tell you about something that we've built specifically for you, and we've been waiting for a really long time to share it. Uh, Sabrina, you want to kick us off?

Speaker 1

I do, because I'm so excited about this, so excited that really something that I have been thinking about for, you said a long time, it's been eight years, eight years that I have been thinking about what we are rolling out today. And I'm so excited to be able to talk through it and really to see it happen, coming up in April. So let me start with a little story. I'm not going to give the whole story. I think I actually gave it maybe in the episode we did around SHRM certification. I think I shared it. So if people want the whole story, they can go and, um, check that episode out. But I, uh, eight years ago was invited by SHRM to go to an HR department of one symposium. This was the first of its kind. They had never done anything like this before. I was so excited to be a part of it because it was all the content was built for HR departments of one. I show up, it's in San Francisco, and we have a full day of content. And the thing that stuck with me when I got on the plane to come home, the thing that stuck with me was the energy in the room of people who finally, they finally had space to interact with people that were in situations just like them. So they sat down at their tables. This was in like a hotel ballroom, and there was round tables. They sat down at their round table because they were in HR department of one, they knew no one. They had their, you know, there's other people from their team weren't with them because there was no team. They sat down with complete strangers and they went around and introduced themselves. And every time you could hear somebody say, "I am an HR department of one" for a 50-person firm, for an 85-person firm, for a 30-person firm, you could just see them glow. They were just so happy that they weren't sitting there with the VP of HR at Google who was never going to be able to relate to their lack of budget and lack of resources and lack of crazy founder, changing his mind every five minutes, right? So that feeling, that emotion was so palpable that I remember getting on a plane and leaving and thinking, "This is really, really cool." And I thought SHRM was going to do more of those. They didn't. That's the story you can go hear about. Um, but I said, once I learned that SHRM wasn't going to do it, like, somebody has to. And why not us, right? Like, why not we are the voice of that? Why can't we do that? I then we had a global pandemic shortly after. The business took off. At that time, in 2018, I was still kind of working part-time, raising my child as he was little. He's now a teenager. And so, um, the business took off and I've been busy kind of in the weeds of building a business. But then last year I said, "This it's we got to get going on this. We got to figure this out." And so we have been building now for really over a little over a year trying to really dig in and figure out what does a community for small business HR practitioners look like? And we started, Marie, as you know, or we're going to start with this cohort.

Speaker 2

Yes, we are. And I just want to say the story when you when we talk about that or when I hear you share it with new people, it really gets me every time because what you're talking about is relief, right? And those people, they felt relief when they sat down at that table and realized that they were finally going to talk to someone who understood. And that's exactly what we're trying to give people on a permanent basis through this cohort, through the community, even through the business, um, through Acacia as a business, right? So I think that when, you know, you brought this idea to me, both of us really wanted to go and validate it, right? Because we didn't want to sit and just build something on a feeling or a vibe. Um, or past experiences, right? So I went ahead and I put together a survey. And we had 30, you know, I'd say between 30 and 40 HR professionals HR professionals doing this job solo at small and growing companies. Uh, take the time to tell us what their day-to-day actually looks like. Um, and give us some feedback around the curriculum that we wanted to build. And I know this for you, but also for me, when we read the feedback that was shared, we were stopped cold. And it wasn't because we were shocked, but it was because we were totally validated, um, around our thoughts. With what people are feeling or experiencing every single day. When we really dove into that feedback, the number one thing that we saw people talk about was time. And we, I mean, we feel that every day. There is no time. There's no time to think, no time to plan. Uh, or really build anything. Um, but instead, you know, the solo HR professionals were just out here constantly putting out fires and then by Friday you look up and you realize that while you did 100 things throughout the week, none of them actually moved the needle. So I want to be clear about something. This is definitely not a time management problem. Um, but it is a capacity problem. You cannot add hours to your day, but what you can do is build capacity so that more of the right things are happening without everything running through you. And that's the whole point of this cohort.

Speaker 1

Yeah. I think the survey was absolutely validating, as you said, and it let me know that the time is now 100%. Like it's time to stop thinking about it and nobody else is going to do it. We are the ones who are going to do it. It was validating because we worry that because our life is consultants is different. Right? We are a fractional support, outsourced HR, and that does look a little bit different. Meaning that that businesses are hiring us for our expertise. They're expecting that. It's a little bit different than in-house. It's, it's like the same, but different, right? That's what we always say. It's a very similar feel because we are in businesses. We are inside of their, uh, working with their leadership teams. But because they hire us for that, they're more open to listening to us. And that's a barrier that in-house people sometimes have to face. And so we wanted to validate that what we see as challenges is what in-house small business HR people face. And that's what the survey did. And so once we saw that, I was definitely gung-ho on the time is now. Like it's time to stop thinking about it. It's time to start actually talking about it and doing it. And that's what we've been doing and what we're ready to what we're ready to launch.

Speaker 2

Okay. So let's get into what this actually is, and I want to start with what it's not because I do really think that matters. This cohort, it is not going to be a webinar. It is not going to be a recording that you sign up for and then forget to watch on Friday afternoon. Uh, it's not a random slide deck that somebody is just emailing to you, and it's definitely not an hour of me just talking at you while you're checking your email on the side. Uh, through and through, this is a true cohort. So we have 10 weekly sessions every single Friday for one hour. Uh, and we're going to start this on April 17th. This group, it's capped at 15 to 20 people, and that cap is intentional. Uh, we're, we're really not trying to scale this into a massive program here, but we are trying to build a room where people actually get to know each other. And it's capped in that way because community really only works when people feel seen and heard and known. Uh, it's really difficult to build out real peer relationships in a room of 50 to 70 people. And what, what I want for someone is to finish this cohort and have 15 to 20 people, they can actually reach out to when everything is falling apart. And what's great is that people are going to have access to a Slack community. And so folks are going to use this in between sessions, but they're also going to continue to have access to that community after the fact. Um, and I just want to like sit on that for a second because it's so easy to hear a Slack community and then move right past it or forget about it. Um, but really some of the best things that are going to happen in this cohort are going to happen in that Slack community or in that Slack channel. Um, I think about this in, in the sense that, you know, someone posts a question on a Wednesday morning, uh, something that that's happening in real time at their company, and then three people who have been through the exact same thing are going to respond. Uh, and really if we think about it, this isn't a bonus feature, but it's really the part of the cohort that's going to make it work.

 

Speaker 1

Yeah. So you know that one of the things I've been saying to you over and over is that while we have curriculum, which I know we're going to talk through in a second, while we have an agenda, while we have a structure, what I really want people to get out of this is that community piece. So we are keeping it small. We talked about size for a long time and decided that that, you know, 20-person cap is where it needs to be. Because we want it to feel like people are getting um, that sense of community, that sense of connection, that sense of ability to be able to bring their own things to these sessions, bring their own um, questions, their own things that they're going through to either bring it to the session, bring it to the Slack channel, and actually get help. And as you said, when you've got, you know, 70, 200 people in that, it's really hard to get that, that connection. So the goal of this, yes, there is, uh, frameworks and things that we're going to share with you that we know work in our business, but really what we want is a group of 20 people who walk away as peers and colleagues who can call on each other and really, really help each other because we know being an HR department of one is absolutely the loneliest role potentially any department of one, I guess, is really the loneliest role in an organization. Uh, in the sizes that we deal with. So with that, I think we should probably define we, we keep saying HR department of one and definitely that's who this content is mostly built for. Um, we work with businesses in the one to 500 space. Nobody with one employee usually has HR. So we'll say 10 to 500 space. Um, and HR departments of one are probably going to benefit from this the most. However, we know that anybody managing human resources in a small business could get something out of this. So if you are a marketer, who got stuck with HR, if you have a very small HR team, like maybe it's you and a coordinator, uh, I don't want people to get stuck on the HR department of one. That is the core group that's probably going to benefit the most, but it doesn't mean that others in that one to 500 can't find something valuable as well.

Speaker 2

Thanks for pointing that out, that out, Sabrina. I think it's so important to define who is going to be really successful in this cohort. So now that we've kind of talked about that, let's talk about curriculum. So if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you've probably heard us talk about building capacity. You cannot add time to your day. So you build capacity instead. We've already talked about this. Um, but the, the big thing is that you've got to get out of your own way. So HR can actually function the way that it should. This cohort is going to go really deep on all of it. And every single session you are going to leave with something you can actually act on immediately. Not just a concept to think about, something to actually go and do. So with the curriculum, you get five areas over 10 sessions.

Speaker 1

Okay. So before you tell them what their curriculum is, I want to say this. This is the exact curriculum I delivered in a, I only had an hour and a half. So uh, it was much shorter, much more condensed than what we're going to do over 10, 10 weeks, but it was the exact curriculum that I delivered back then in 2018 at this HR department of one symposium. SHRM then had me come and do a mini stage session at SHRM, the big conference that year. And every time that I've delivered this, people say, oh my gosh, you are speaking exactly to me. This is a list that I needed. So we know that this the five things that we're going to talk about, we know they work. And what's really important is that now that you have taken the curriculum and um, been working in this business for a couple of years now, you have modernized it. So back in 2000, 2018, these were still the five things and they're still the five things today. But with technology, with the things we have today, it is um, done differently. The way that you go about it is differently. So I'm excited to see kind of the updated version of these five things that we know are super important to build capacity.

Speaker 2

Yes, exactly. So the first area is going to be getting your house in order. So we do an HR audit together. We look at the six core areas of HR, which Sabrina calls the six rooms of your HR house. And then we work out what actually is on fire, what can wait, and what you've been losing sleep over that is actually fine. Uh, you know, most people walk in feeling like everything is urgent all at the same time. Um, and these sessions, the two sessions around this area are going to totally change that. The second area is business partnership. So this one, I expect will catch people off guard the most. Um, you know, a lot of HR professionals who feel like they're not getting a seat at the table assume that leadership doesn't value HR. Uh, and sometimes that's true, but a lot of the time it's just a language issue. What I'm saying is HR is speaking one language and leadership is speaking another. Uh, we talk about culture and employee relations and headcount, and they are thinking about revenue, risk, and margins, right? These sessions are going to be about learning to translate that kind of language. And once you do that, the whole dynamic is going to shift.

 

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think this is one of the ones that when we say small business HR is its own discipline, this is why. This is one of the ones that is absolutely why, because in a big organization, this isn't as important. The language is going to be more of the same because everything is very corporate and bureaucratic. But in a small org, that language is very different. And so this is absolutely one of those sessions that um, of course we say no to business and everybody knows that, but then there's this partnership piece. There's this understanding and something you and I will, that I share with all of our teams all the time is that changes based on whether you are dealing with a founder or a CEO who came in after, which is something that most people don't even think of. They don't even think of that. But we have just really, realized over the years that's so important. So this is definitely one of those that shows why small business HR is its own skill set, it's its own discipline.

Speaker 2

The third area is going to be around technology. And um, to be clear, we're not going to be telling anyone to go buy a new HRIS. However, we can recommend one if you want. Uh, but instead we're going to be talking about working smarter with what you already have getting off spreadsheets, where you can, uh, and then getting hours back in your week. I want to say us as HR folks, we do love our spreadsheets, but sometimes we end up getting completely buried in our spreadsheets. So this is really going to highlight what spreadsheets to keep and what spreadsheets to get rid of. The fourth area is manager training. And this one, you know, this one trips people up all the time. So let me take a second to explain this carefully. You know, HR people, they get told all the time, push more to your managers, make your managers handle their own stuff. What gets left out of that advice is that you actually have to train them first. Uh, you can't just hand over someone a termination and tell them to go figure it out, right? There's a process behind these things. You train your managers, you build their confidence, you get them to a point where they can actually hand their, handle their own employee relations issues without creating a bigger mess. And when you do that well, you can free up yourself to do the strategic work or that intentional work that nobody else in the building can do. And the fifth area is going to be looking ahead. So getting out of that reactive mode, uh, building the habits and the systems that actually hold so that when it's, when it's time for the cohort to end, you're not just managing the fire in front of you, uh, instead you're going to be thinking six months out.

Speaker 1

Okay. So just to recap, Marie, here, I'm just going to give them a list. We have get your house in order, which is about the backend of HR. You're never going to be taken seriously if you have payroll errors, benefit errors. Uh, business partnerships which we didn't say this, but now we can. There's going to be a special guest lecturer, not lecturer, I'm not going to lecture. Um, for that one, but I will be I will be guest hosting, guest hosting. There you go. One of these sessions around business partnerships, which I'm really excited. Obviously, I jumped in earlier. This is something I'm, uh, really passionate about. Technology, so making sure we leverage technology, manager training, and then looking ahead. I think that is a full stack there, of content and what I think is really important is that, um, while we definitely have ideas and frameworks and any of those that we any documents we have, any templates, any frameworks, whatever, we're going to make sure you get those. We also expect to learn something from you all. And so we know that we are not the only ones who are doing these things. We don't think that we do everything the best. I'm sure there's things that we can learn. And so what I love about this idea is that as we're talking about a topic, if somebody in the cohort has something around this that works really well from them, like maybe they've, they have kind of cracked the code on manager training, or maybe they've cracked the code on, um, getting um, their CEO to hear them, like really just having that, that partnership, then they can share that with the cohort and we all get to learn from each other. And that's something that I think is going to be really beneficial. Okay. So Marie, we have a full team. We have lots of capable people on our team. I have facilitated this curriculum, not just with SHRM, but with other conferences and other events. Um, even in my own online, like online course, I did a couple of years ago, this exact curriculum, but you now are stepping in, you're taking this curriculum, you're updating it, and you're going to be delivering it. Why are you, for our listeners who, like, might be wondering why, who you are, why are you the right person, why do you think this is your time to be facilitating this curriculum?

 

Speaker 2

Sure. I, I, I'll explain this a little bit further, but I think simply it's because I work inside small business HR teams every single day. And that is whether I am the HR manager or I'm working with other smaller teams. So in the cohort, going through these sessions, I'm not just going to be advising from the outside, right? I'm going to be delivering this material while actually sitting in the same exact seat as everyone else in the cohort. And when we think about that, there's a very specific kind of hard that comes with that job. And you really can't fully understand it until you've actually lived it. You know, I say hard and what I mean is it's hard because you know what good looks like. Uh, you have the certification or the experience. Um, and other HR departments, uh, you've read all of the same things, you've listened to the same podcasts, yet you still feel like you're having to make things up as you go. Um, and really that's because nothing that we are reading or listening about or have been taught by SHRM or, you know, other mentors that we've come across in our careers but nothing that we have learned about has ever accounted for the fact that your company has 40 people or your CEO just made a decision that affects everyone. Uh, and you were the last one to know, right? Um, so really, this is, this is who that curriculum is built for. And I live it every single day.

Speaker 1

Yeah. I, I think that's, uh, one of the most important pieces is, you know, I obviously have been facilitating, but I have stepped out. I mean, I'm CEO now of this business and I have not been in the weeds with clients for a number of years. And I can tell the longer that goes, I'm kind of losing some of my HR knack here. Like I, I got it from a CEO perspective still, but I, I'm losing some of that day-to-day. I don't know what's happening inside of client businesses all the time. I don't know what conversations you all are having. I don't know what um, all of the challenges are that you're facing. And so um, as I looked at, you know, who is that person who can really relate to community members who can really bring about with a strong voice what their experiencing every single day, I thought that's definitely you. And so um, I'm really excited to, to see again, see the updated version of this content and know um, that when you are speaking to whoever's in our cohort, that you're doing it from a place of like, I just did this yesterday. Like this, I just had to face, I faced this yesterday. Not, not me, not like me three years ago or five years ago, but literally yesterday I was just doing this, this thing with this manager, the CEO, whatever it is.

Speaker 2

The other thing is, you know, we are also a really small team, right? And so we internally as employees at Acacia are also looking for that community. And so it's not just the members of the cohort that's going to get something out of this. It's also me and anyone else from our team who's going to participate in it.

 

Speaker 1

Mm-hmm. Definitely. What do you think the feeling is? You know, I, one of the things that I have preached since we started talking about this is that I want to make sure people walk away with something they can use so there's going to be very tactical things that they can use and implement right away. But how do you want them to feel when they leave these sessions? What is a feeling that you want to leave them with?

Speaker 2

Uh, less alone. And I know that sounds simple, but I really think it's the most important thing. We can sit here and we can hand someone every frame, every framework and tool that exists. Um, yet if they go back to their job on Monday, still feeling like they're the only person who gets it, none of it's going to stick, right? So what I really want is for folks to go through and finish this cohort and think, okay, I have 15 people now. I have a community. I have people that I can actually lean on and call and brainstorm with. Uh, I, I really think that this is what makes this cohort different from a certification or even a self-paced course. Uh, yes, those things happen. There's, have their place and we've talked about that. Um, but you can't build community from a self-paced course. Uh, the accountability, it's just not there. Uh, week three gets crazy. You stop logging in. Uh, six months later, you're right back where you started. Um, so I think that the people in that room, they're with you. Um, and that is the point of it.

Speaker 1

So Marie, one thing that we actually haven't mentioned yet, but I think is a really important piece of this is that while the sessions are 60 minutes, you are going to hang out for an additional 30 minutes after for anybody who wants to stay, who can stay. I know that 90 minutes of, uh, our listeners' time is a lot. Uh, that we're asking for and they may not be able to give that. So if they can't, that's fine. Um, but if they wanted to, maybe they had a specific situation, maybe there was something that they wanted to talk through and get some um, guidance on or just get our perspective on, then you or the weeks that I'm facilitating, week that I'm facilitating, I will stay on for another 30 minutes so that people can stay and do that. And I think that that when we talk about kind of taking these things, the problem with some online courses, the problem with some webinars, conferences, or whatever is that you get the information, it's such good information, but then you go and you try and execute and you don't know what to do. You don't know where to start. And so those 30 minutes are designed for people to say, okay, I want to do this. How, what, what do you think I should do? Here's my unique situation. We know that small businesses know two small businesses are the same. And so the way that we might roll out something with one is different than the way we might do it with another. And so there's that 30 minutes is going to be a time for people to come with their very specific situations and get ideas, not just from us, but anybody else who stays. And so that's an optional piece. I kind of love that. It's a little extra caveat that we're not really pushing, um, because we don't want people to think they have to give 90 minutes. It is that last 30 is completely optional if they want to stay. But it's there. It's time with you. Time with anybody else who stays if they need it.

Speaker 2

Mm-hmm. Yes. Exactly. The curriculum, yes, that's what people are coming for, but I think the, the real the needle starts to move for real when you're having those real conversations about what's actually happening. Uh, in someone's everyday life. Oh, okay. So let's get to the practical stuff. Enrollment for the cohort is open right now. So we have an early bird offer. Um, if you are going in and you want to register, definitely use the code early bird, all caps, uh, at checkout and you can get in for 247. That early bird offer is going to be for the first five people who sign up and it expires March 21st. Uh, after that, the price is going to go up to 297 and enrollment is going to close on April 4th. The cohort starts April 17th. This is going to be every single Friday at 11:00 AM. There's a 10 sessions, 15 to 20 people max. Everything.

Speaker 1

11:00 AM. 11:00 AM Pacific.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Thank you. Yes. 11:00 AM Pacific. Everything we just talked about is going to be found on the landing page. Uh, and the link to the landing page, it will be shared in the show notes. Uh, so you know where to go. Uh, and if you are on the fence, uh, if you're not sure whether this is the right cohort for you, please reach out to me directly. I will give you a straight answer because I'd rather you find your way here eventually than sign up and not get what you actually came for. So if this sounds like it was built for you, it probably was.

Speaker 1

Okay. So again, we're super excited about this. We think it's going to be amazing. We are keeping it intentionally small. So when seats are gone, seats are gone. And, you know, 20 seats usually goes pretty fast. So if you are considering it, um, please sign up. If you need help, uh, maybe you need help justifying a budget, maybe you just have questions about whether it's right for you, whatever, please do reach out to Marie. You can do that directly on that landing page. Uh, you can connect with us on LinkedIn, whatever it is. Um, if you have questions, we'd rather you ask them and help us work through them with you. And if you're not the right, if this isn't for you, then we'll say that. You know, we're not just, this is not something that we're trying to do just to get people in seats. This is something meaningful that we want to make sure that everybody who joins feels like this was such a good use of their time. Um, and we are using this kind of first cohort to validate that and validate that this is a, um, an option for small business HR people when they don't have other options. They don't have conferences. They don't have other things that are really catered towards them. So, um, really hoping that this is going to be a meaningful use of everybody's time. With that link is in the show notes. If you think this is for you, please check it out. There's more information. If you missed something that we said today or just want to revisit all of that, it's on the landing page. It's all laid out there. All the curriculum, um, and you can sign up right there. We are super excited about this, Marie. I'm so excited to start going through this and getting feedback from people and hearing from you on how it's going. Hope that if you are listening, we will see you there.

Speaker 2

We'll see you on April 17th.