The HR Frontline: Anna Taylor's Approach in a Veteran-Owned Company

[0:00]  you think that that's because there's a new generation of people who are expecting to be seen and to be heard in all of the environments that they live in rather than just coming to work and then being like hey put your head down sit in your cubicle do your work we don't want to be just a number cuz I've been there and I felt that and it's awful why do I want to do this that's miserable life you across from me you're a human you're not an object you're not just another space or another number you're you have feelings right and you have your own thoughts opinions and you have your own knowledge and experiences and I feel like that needs to be brought back into the world today with HR culture and anywhere to be honest all right everybody welcome back

[0:58]  to the brand new episode of the the heart and hustle podcast now we have a very special guest with us today miss Anna Taylor now you're going to be a part of our brand new segment which is called HR Heroes and so on this podcast we talk about the heart and the hustle of business now the heart is important because I think we've lost a little bit of the touch of what the heart is and the hustle is something that everybody seems to talk about but the blend of those things is incredibly important to me and everybody who watches this show and listens to the show as well and so today we're going to be talking to Miss Anna Taylor who is an Human Resources Director at f maintenance that specializes in administration and program management within the veterans family business or family-owned businesses which is absolutely amazing she's a former unit admin technician with the 87th legal operations Detachment uh military personnel and administrated assistant with the 80 88th

[1:47]  Readiness Division Reserve Personnel Action Center where you oversaw 1,500 soldiers I did which is incredible um and you've held various positions and roles in human resources from the United States Army Reserves the 76 orc Division and Veteran Affairs Yeah Anna thank you for being here I really appreciate it well thank you Kenan I appreciate this opportunity is really big for me yeah and for our company well I mean I'm just excited to be able to highlight the people like we were talking about before we recorded that are behind the culture and more importantly the heart of an organization especially being in the veteran space I just feel it is so important for these people who have served our country to have a supportive encourag encouraging culture behind them especially when it comes to small businesses as well and so why don't you kind of take a couple seconds because

[2:36]  one thing I really noticed and everybody heard about your intro is your servitude that you've had in the military and army space now when I think about human Centric roles of supporting others I think of servitude so why don't you give us a little bit of background about your time in the military in the Army and why that brought you to the HR space oh man that's a great question um well when I was a teenager in high school I wanted to do something with my life make a difference I think everyone does right and well my family's really big in army so I kind of just felt a good push to try Army first and I did and to be honest I loved it um of course with everything we experience life there's always the bad

[3:23]  and it comes with the good and I feel it's important that we recognize what we experience even if they're bad experiences because we get to learn and grow and that is what we do as soldiers we sorry it's a very sensitive topic yeah but I have a lot of friends and um service is just so it's to the heart for us to be honest cuz we love it and once you're a soldier you're never you never stop being a soldier and I never understood that when I was younger until I got finished my contract um I did over eight and a half years in the Army and learn I just my first job was HR and

[4:11]  I loved it only because I got to work with so many variety of people different cultures different uh ethnicities and with that I just I grew as a person and I loved the fact that I could help others in a different way um I was able to help others grow their own careers um from when I was trained and learned within my job as HR I learned that HR is not a bad place to go to because everyone does not like HR again I didn't know that in the beginning my career because I didn't like HR myself but

[5:00]  again it's as you grow you start learning things that people come to HR not just for problems or issues they just want somebody to hear them and to validate them and that's very hard to do sometimes in the military because we don't always get validated and then we do you know it's just like any place and I wanted to be the person to validate my fellow veterans and my peers and my soldiers and I wanted to show them that HR can change I understand old generation HR was like you don't want to go there you get in trouble that's a place to go bad right no it's not that anymore it's it's changed a lot the

[5:48]  culture has changed a lot to where we want people to come to HR and not be afraid and know that they won't get in trouble for coming to HR if there's a problem that they are having with either their worker their co-p peers within work environment or even their supervisors because right you always have that mentality of leaders are separate from you know the workers and I think we talked about that in our interview before this yeah and you know I kind of think that hits hard because there's an invisible wall that everyone thinks there is in some places it's true there is and we can't get past that wall but but for me in my experience I've been able to let's say demolish that wall because I hate that wall no one

[6:36]  likes a a a division it doesn't work mhm and I've seen it not work but if you just break down the wall and show that everyone's equal and re respectable with everyone doesn't matter because we're all trying to work towards the same goal with whatever you're doing in your workplace in the military we're trying on One mission one one service one goal that's our mindset and that still applies even outside the military I've noticed as well with my new industry that I work with fast maintenance it's the same thing just different you know context but still the same and I wanted to change the servitude and service where I'm still providing that service of I going to say

[7:25]  humanism and not many people might not know that term but it's just a form of empathy but more you're recognizing that the you across from me you're a human you're not an object you're not just another space or another number you're you have feelings right and you have your own thoughts and opinions and you have your own knowledge and experiences and I feel like that needs to be brought back into the world today with HR culture and anywhere to be honest I mean there's so many things that you said there which are so insightful to me you came from a you know a background of servitude One mission one team one goal and then you get into business right and now you're with fast maintenance and you're seeing a lot of the same similarities and so let's talk about the old culture of HR because when we talked

[8:13]  about in our original interview together right that HR was looked at as a punishment right do we think that that's because there's a new generation of people who are expecting to be seen and to be heard in all of the environments that they live in rather than just coming to work and then being like hey put your head down sitting your cubicle do your work yada yada and people want to be heard and seen more and that's why the culture has evolved or like what's your two cents on that that's also another great um you know I think it's I couldn't speak for all of HR I can only speak for my experience and what I've seen what I've gone through um so like for the military when going through human resources yes I would say for sure the newer generation was making a lot of changes for that uh humanism I was talking about

[9:00]  um and it was hard to be honest cuz we were battling heads with the older generation and you know that's okay every generation there's always something new and something that we want to improve on that the older generation may not agree on or they they may it's I feel it's just a human thing we do is that we want to change every new generation does I'm sure later down the road I'll have some younger person than me and HR want to change I might disagree with it at the beginning um but because I've learned so much eventually I know I will accept it um but I think it's just that it's just our generational differences were just it's just always going to be there

[9:51]  but with the newer generation becoming more and upcoming into the career fields and yes it's the new generation push in I want to be seen and I want to be validated is you know has helped a lot um also with being able to see that we don't want to work in just a cubicle we don't want to be just a number cuz I've been there and I felt that and it's awful so and I'm like I don't want to do this why do I want to do this that's miserable life why does somebody want to work in a four door space and not have anything personalized and fortunately throughout my career that changed to where I would have met really great mentors I've had really

[10:40]  great supervisors that helped me change but also they changed the environment when I had great ideas they accepted it and I think that's another great key is when you have a good leader supervisor or Mentor even hear your ideas and they actually change it to to your idea the environment is just phenomenal and I've been so lucky to have that experience because whatever idea I had for change it was accepted some of them probably not accepted because I was still young but you know it's it was still accepted and like okay well let's try it out if it doesn't work then you know right and I feel that's how it should be even other cubicles or non-cubic work areas I know tech

[11:28]  companies are very big with open spaces and making to where there's no walls which I think is great um but I feel like they're the only ones that are doing it to be honest cuz they're more towards like I think you brought up the the term uh people people yeah People to People businesses yeah People to People businesses and I envied that culture from the tech companies um or software companies like Adobe and Google and everyone and I'm like that's awesome it's going it's starting for sure and I wanted to change that where I was in the military I was getting close but I had enough for me I wanted to let somebody else just take that road so I changed out you know left the

[12:15]  military um became a civilian uh it's how we call it or term it um and my industry now is is handyman work mhm and maintenance so it's definitely a more I'm G to say a cruder version of the military I know military veterans don't understand that and I mean that because it's um just when you work in a labor job you have to be hard yeah and that's what it is in military you have to be hard um and when it coming into this you're working with a lot of older Generations again and when you want to make changes and I feel like I'm back to to when I started as a young adult in HR with buting heads um there are challenges of

[13:07]  course but it's great because I do have excuse me my owner support of um I guess the owner support of these changes yeah that I wanted to do we might be the only business probably doing it um even like learning from my husband who's been in this type of business for a minute and the owner learning the type of business it's definitely very similar to the military mindset and it's probably why I get along so well within this field and people who work in this maintenance and hardworking you know the class the working class and it's it's fun and I do love challenges yeah like everyone loves

[13:56]  challenges and being able to show the changes of humanism has been an experience cuz not everyone is used to it they're not used to being heard they're just used to going to a job doing it done get paid I'm good yeah but I wanted to change that I'm like I don't want you just come to work just to work I mean what kind of life is that it's not very happy like don't you want a fulfilling and happy life I feel like everyone deserves that and having that new thought process being introduced can be scary for a lot because they're like oh what am I doing what am I doing this

[14:44]  for right so you have the Cog Wheels now turning in everyone's head and trying to spread that is going to be difficult but you know baby steps right and that's what I try and do and that's why I connect with a lot of our local um community and other uh vendors or whoever we're working with customers and showing that our business is a business of change and it's the mindset of humanism and people to people and not just you know business to people because it just doesn't work and I just noticed that the customers are even more happy more satisfied with receiving that

[15:31]  effect I think that's incredible because one of the things that really sticks out to me there is you're talking about leadership right and it starts with our leaders and when you were talking about coming on the show you said how much support you had from the owner of Fast maintenance and so first of all congratulations for being underneath the tutelage and working in partnership with such a supportive leader I think that's incredible um you know one of the things that we run into often on the podcast is a lot of people are saying well my leadership doesn't want me talking about the business but I think think it's a great opportunity to highlight the business and things that you guys do so why don't you spend a couple minutes kind of talking about fast maintenance the culture that you guys are creating and how you serve people in our community okay yeah so um fast maintenance again it's like a handyman company is how I can best generalize it because we do a lot of things we go from Landscaping work to painting houses uh

[16:20]  inside or out um we do a lot of repairs just maintenance repairs nothing um I want to set a difference is that it's not Contracting work we're you know renovating a huge home because you need a contractor's license so we're not there yet we like to be eventually as we grow um but it's just maintenance where we can uh patch a drywall or you know patch and drywall a hole in your wall of your home or uh business uh we can do simple Plumbing fixtures that don't need Contracting licensing like just a simple unclog your toilet that's what we kind of do just the maintenance side and we have a lot of great uh workers I know we're still small um but we're trying to find more great workers I think it's just hard

[17:09]  with that finding a great worker um because we're a small business we Face the challenges of not having like a full benefits package like other businesses um because we're we're still growing and so it's hard to find that person who wants to be dedicated to and grow with a small business eventually yes the benefits package will come um we do try and compensate as much as we can within this hard economy cuz everything's just you know inflated like we're all trying to survive even with even if you're making 70 grand a year that's just not enough anymore so we try our best to provide fair pricing and Equitable pay to our workers um our employees because they deserve it and there challenges

[17:58]  with you know with health benefits so we we try and offer like a health stipend we don't have full health care yet for our business but a health stien just to help a little bit more um if they have their private um health insurance um so we do try that and then within our culture when the business was first started by the owner it was just him and um I we disclose my the owner is my father okay awesome that's so cool that's how bad bad a close of a family business we are yeah and my husband is our operations manager so oh I love this this is amazing this is really cool and then so my father started with this business with my older brother so it was more of like a son father business at the start and it just kept growing because we got more customers we got

[18:46]  more more leads and then um I personal disclosure is uh my older brother did pass away this year oh I'm so sorry yeah yeah it's been very hard so I I used to live in Utah um working there for other side of the business location we had to close but I just feel this gave an opportunity um to be closer with my family because I live so far and my older brother was the heart of our company because he started it with my father and he did so much and I didn't want want our family business even though I didn't feel responsible But ultimately I almost

[19:35]  did because it was in my father's name and my older brother's uh name as well for him to take over someday but life changed fate kind of threw a bone at us and just facing all these challenges of re growing as a family and trying to resupport the business and make it to back to where it was so we've we've gone through a lot of bumps and challenges um people leaving which is understandable um for their you know personal reasons and it's okay and you know it's we're getting back on track I guess yeah and having the

[20:23]  culture um of the employees we did have um unfortunately left because again understand they wanted um more money and we couldn't provide that uh just because of the loss that we had and you know it's fine but in the meantime we were promoting respect within the workplace again cuz I know a lot of handymen in maintenance and I mean very familar familiar to military language is there's a lot of cussing profanity and not of against it um it's can be crude humor sometimes I know military veterans understand this again we have very crude dark humors I won't say anything on here um but and that's just the thing

[21:12]  it's like within a workplace you want it to feel like a family and I think that's what we were trying to introduce as well is when you work for us for fast maintenance it's a family and yes family fight and you know do their own thing sometimes but in the end of the day still there and still trying to get the job done to grow and that's what we tried to cultivate within our culture of the workplace I think now because it's just my father my husband and me um and we have a new another great

[21:58]  um manager that works with us and we also have a couple of great employees that work with us when it comes to electrical work or painting or just handyman side of the maintenance for homes it's great to try and reestablish those relationships work with them and trying to get that uh build of trust as well cuz I feel like that's important important that people don't understand is that you need to have trust with your employees and then once you have that it just works much more better everything flows more easily the processes of you that you create flow more easily because

[22:47]  now you have your employees trust that you know what you're doing you know you know with growing a small business there's always going to be changes but they still have that trust in you as long as we have have a main structure which we do now um and just growing with it is has been very it's been very nice I'm going to say it's been very nice just to see the changes you do put in effect and they work and the employees are better with communicating for the future and even now they are better with communicating to uh Sean who's the owner my father and um or communicating to our customers

[23:36]  even which has been a great change yeah I mean the fact that you guys are a family-owned business is near and dear to my heart because the businesses that I've started have always been with family and I actually put a post out on LinkedIn today as we're recording this that talked about so many people say don't get into business with your family say it's going to be a big mistake but the fact that we can spend so much time together in building something that we're passionate about M I'll never look at as being a negative in my life yeah I don't think it's negative at all it's hard for sure cuz it's family right you see them at the work the day and then you're still there I'm just kidding no but it is hard but it's also it's great because you grow closer to each other and then you see sides of each other that they never have seen before um like my father has expressed that I we all have different sides I

[24:24]  have a work side and then I have a personal side my work side is completely different from my personal side um and my father has seen that side of me and has seen me grow and I've you know received his support and validation of that and even my husband has you know made comp comments um what was a funny one when I'm on the phone we all have a phone voice yeah so he made a comments like I've never heard your phone voice before I'm like yeah I do have a phun voice I think we all do yeah and it's just so funny that we get to experience those little things with each other and even me working with my husband like most couples say oh don't work with your your

[25:12]  husband or your spouse or your wife will never end well well that's not true I think you just grow closer and you overcome communication challenges that you never thought would ever become about but again it's just just as a human you're always growing you're always evolving you're always learning and getting to your higher self that you have dreamed of being and with that you have people along that support you family is a big part of it and you have your mentors that are a big part of it your friends your community and with you know fast maintenance and helping out the community we try to work with the community and um you know the owner uh Sean has reflected with giving donations to where he can um with

[26:01]  Charities um and we've tried to support local uh vendors who Supply certain materials um for us so we try and promote those as well so anytime we get materials we try and go with a local vendor first and sometimes that's hard as well uh just due to pricing like again all small businesses are just we have our own uh pricing and it can be sometimes great it can sometimes be not great because we're all battling the material costs of things and um but that's what we we try at least and I feel like that's important where we can at least try once we get bigger we're going to keep with that

[26:48]  strategic plan of supporting our local vendors and customers who give you know purchases of materials whatever and just supporting our local homeowners as well cuz I feel like homeowners um were trying to Rebrand the name of handyman sometimes it's been I want to say scandalized but you don't get the trust because handyman can sometimes charge too much definitely has a certain like yeah just idea yeah the idea of it and we just wanted like I guess it's a myth right so they just want to like demolish that myth like handyman are trustworthy and they do give fair prices as as they try because they are battling the economic inflations they're battling material costs so they they do try and there are

[27:35]  a lot of great handymen out there um and businesses just like us so we're trying to promote that and get rid of that myth yeah I mean one of the things that I'm really interested in is because you're a family-owned business right and you're the leader of people what are some of the initiatives that you've kind of implemented within the group that you're proud of when it comes to creating a more supportive encouraging in positive I would say wellbeing within the the fast maintenance group okay yeah that's um the one I would say is I from the start did not separate myself I said yes I am within a leadership role but I'm not going to I'm not going to make us to where there's that wall we talked about I'm not separating myself from you I'm going to be working with you in the same

[28:22]  area so it's opened and I always encouraged the employees that we had you know whatever they want to talk about you know I'm open it doesn't have to be about work it can be about you know life or other things like trying to just promote that culture of communication and that family feeling and the trust again um because I didn't want to I don't like the fact when a leader comes in and they separate themselves and they feel like they're higher or better than the person but they're not it's we're just all the same yes we have different maybe more knowledge or more experience than others but in the end we're still human um we still have to

[29:10]  get the work and job done we still have to work with each other and talk to each other so not having animosity against one another is probably the greatest start I promoted within the workplace and removing you know all that separation all those divid you know uh um dividends and promoting the come talk to me yeah you know that's all it is just come talk to me yes I'm HR but just get rid of that label I don't I don't care for labels or titles it's just come talk to me what can we do to work with what do you need to understand um I know it's also hard when there's females working in this type of industry and you have to work with you know harassment and um we have people coming from

[29:58]  different cultures and ethnicities and then you have you know discriminations but to just help I guess break the barriers down and provide open communication and to also help I guess grow as a business or grow even as um oh I can't let say what I'm trying to get too uh it's just changing the mindset yeah is what I can probably get to changing the mindset that yes we are different yes we have our experiences knowledges but that's not going to that shouldn't put a barrier or needing to remove those barriers and

[30:47]  just feel like a family or a great business that's trying to grow and making it feel like we can all get along right and we can we can get we can have the respect that most businesses want we can have the communication open we can um give employees their validated feelings and their experiences and the knowledge that they have because they're they do they have great immense knowledge and that's the heart I feel of a company because if your employees are not happy or validated or feel like they can't bring ideas then why would they stay why would they keep continue working so you know that's what we try and I've initiated is making the

[31:36]  employees feel that they do have a voice and whatever ideas they have they can come to me or the owners or all of us and just do like a big meeting and just voice their ideas and say can we do this can we change this what do you think about this you know and we'll go over it and go of all all the possibilities like I've experienced with my previous mentors and supervisors did the same thing and we tried it and it works and that's what we've done and it's you know we had employee satisfaction for a minute which is great for the ones that we did um and I still want to keep that cuz I know it works so we have more opportunities for future employees to come join our our family business our

[32:24]  team um I feel like they would be more comfortable and hopefully see the future opportunities that they have with our company and being able to grow and be accepted right so let's spend a couple seconds kind of getting a little bit tactical here because we hear a lot of leaders talk about we want to open up the doors for communication we want to make sure people are heard and seen but what is your specific practice for eliminating some of those barriers that people perceive do you have like office hours do you have one-on-one conversations do you have a specific Cadence that you deploy with the employees and the rest of the team what does that look like on your side so on my side with such a small team that we had it was um I enjoyed group activities I enjoy one-onone

[33:11]  conversations too but group activities when you have Team cohesion in an activity it's more fun because then you actually get to see how that person thinks how they work in their own way and it's just like any game that you play right you always see how the other person works and we try and have um we did have Team meetings and within the meeting we always had um our conversations of it was a time a 30 minute time frame because we had an hour long meeting so we tried to um half and half I guess had a 30 minute openup talk like trying to innovate do you have any ideas do you have any uh process changes that you feel would

[34:00]  work or help us grow or help us be more effective and our work you know our work and maybe even helping the customers like we try to give um as much chances I guess you could say within that 30 minute time frame and a lot of employees did come up with a lot of ideas that were really great like they said well let's do this with the customer instead of this you know let's let's have this uh tracker for tracking jobs you know it's it's a lot of those ideas that come out that make us a a better company and we keep those ideas and help innovate the company so whenever there's future employees or new employees that

[34:48]  part of our team and they keep coming with those ideas it's just it's just great to have those 30 minute group conversations because then I also feel group is better um just due the fact that no one's singled out no one's reflected as favored cuz I know that can come about in workplaces where one-on-one discussions are great but if somebody else sees it then they're like oh well what about my ideas my ideas are great so that's why I prefer a Group openup innovation talk that's what I could see it I think it's so important to eliminate the barriers by creating that cohesion that you were talking about you know one of the things that we do um here at my company Francis is we help people who have and this is going to be our next topic of discussion

[35:34]  kind of like a stigma against things like positivity and mental Wellness by engaging employees and organizations with text messages a positivity encouragement support or something helpful like a mental Wellness resource because we recognize that mental health in itself is scary when we're individualized and having those one-on-one conversations are tough but when we're in a group setting and everybody has a topic that they can talk about it changes way ways that people are willing to open up and share their inss and so I love the fact that you're using that as a way to get Innovative conversation started by bringing everybody to the table and not naring out individuals or making it seem like individual team members are contributing more than others everybody's given a fair share to do that stuff yes yeah absolutely I definitely am Pro for the group conversations even in uh like you said mental health and wellbeing a lot

[36:21]  of mental health practices use group counselings because of that fact because they don't want people to feel closed in they want them to feel like there are others who have similar ideas like oh you have the same idea as me oh great let's just you know keep let's talk about it more let's let's see what we can bring out of it because everyone will have us we'll have a piece I'm going to say a piece of a puzzle everyone has a piece of a puzzle and when you put it together then you can actually make your puzzle you can make the product that you want because you have all these great little pieces to put this product together and that's what I love about group discussions because we feel more comfortable we feel more relatable and it's not being singled

[37:09]  out and and that's how businesses even have business meetings I guess is a other great ways where everyone comes together and has their ideas and their Innovations but I want to take business out cuz I don't like business it's just coming together I feel and that's where it should be at is just coming together and bringing everyone an equal Circle table and providing that comfortability and relatableness you know you posted something on LinkedIn that I thought was awesome you rehar a post and it was basically an image of um a saying which is tell me and I'll forget teach me and I'll remember involve me and I'll learn yes and I thought that that was the perfect thing to be able to bring up in this part of the discussion because

[37:56]  involving at their people and helping them learn and feel engaged in a part of the process is just so important it is very important because you can talk to somebody all day long you can try and teach them about uh Excel for example it just popped in my head but if you're not working in Excel or working in the program that you are how would you be able to learn you can again it's the we talk teach train let's try it and that's still being part of the step process of being involved with the employees and your teammates and your your co-workers and even your leaders is we have to be involved because how would anybody learn if you're not involved it's just like with

[38:45]  with children if you guys have children I have my children who are all girls and it's just like teaching a child I'm not going to say all human you know adults are children but it's the fact Ives we have to be shown we have to do it together to understand what we're doing cuz everyone has their own way of thinking and if you want to get to a certain goal together then you both have to be on the same page you both have to do the same process to get to that same goal one of my bigger questions for you is as the leader of HR in your family in your business what is your mission for the next 5 years if you could kind of like paint out that picture of like these are the

[39:32]  type of things that I want to implement and change this is what my mission is for us as an organization what would that be for the next five years yeah um I would say I want people to know fast maintenance as a cultivated family atmosphere or culture to be honest I want everyone to like hey I like fast maintenance because they're so personable they're so you know um relatable and that's from the customer side and the employees side that's what I can see in the next 5 years and I feel we could get to that and we could grow and we get bigger and have more employees and more

[40:20]  establishments with you know our structure and processes that's what I have set as a five-year goal is I want us to be known I want us to be known from that you know good side favor and not the myth of oh they're just going to cheat you or handyman myth that we were talking about their price too high or whatever they had in mind I want that barrier or myth destroyed within the next five years and replaced with a better idea um of the handyman culture and the industry just for all maintenance companies who are just like us that's what I want and but I also want us because we are promoting the veterans

[41:08]  because we are a veteran family and a veteran own business and wanted to promote for all veterans cuz we do want veterans to come work for us um because I feel veterans are just not given a second chance and it's hard I know everyone do Des to take a chance um but I just feel for our veteran Community there's just so much potential we can unlock and hiring one would prove that and it it has been proven we can soldiers veterans can do a lot of things that most people don't realize or or see because there there's no chance given so I want that to be done in 5 years is we have a great veteran establishment of employees who feel like they they can

[41:56]  come work for us and feel supported and be seen on top of non you know just um those who have not served but you know and or spouses of veterans um because we also promote that too is having more um open uh it's just more openness for that chance to happen yeah well I mean one of the things that I think about especially in today's world right and we talk about kind of where culture is negativity seems to swirl around us in so many different ways right there are people who say a lot of negative stuff they get a ton of attention on social media right they do and when we think about kind of the cultures that we want to build in an organization it kind of starts at the top and so if we want to I want to talk about the topic of like positivity and

[42:44]  optimism so do you guys as an organization emphasize positivity optimism and what role do you think leadership has in I would say being that individual walking the wall BL so it can drip down into the rest of the organization yeah uh so with positivity and optimism um we always promote our optimism right now is becoming a bigger business from small to medium is our optimistic goal um promoting that positiveness within our business it's trying to again is the challenge of showing employees um to help grow us because that's the only only way for us to become a bigger business is when we have employees who are loyal and trustworthy

[43:33]  and you know vice versa we promote we have to give that trust as well that they're going to do a great job and if you know we all make mistakes then we'll train and do better it's not giving up and promoting that positivity is I think just that it's showing them that you're going to make mistakes but that's okay as long as we can you know fix the mistakes and do better next time like any human I feel would do that right because I make mistakes I'm sure you make mistakes but it's accepting those mistakes and growing from the mistakes and okay I'm not going to do that again I'll do something else you know I'll do something this time the right way or not the right way just a different way that would work and that probably is you know

[44:21]  the right course I don't want to say right way but it's the right course um and I feel that's our form of positivity to reflect that to our culture employees or even our customers is that um we're just human and we're trying to grow yes we're going to make mistakes along the way but it's the fact that we're going to accept those mistakes learn from the mistakes and move forward from the mistakes and do better next time absolutely I mean that willingness to fail forward I think is just so important because failure is a part of business in general you know what I mean if we try be perfect we're never going to make progress because the odds of us being perfect on the first try are not very good right you know what I mean exactly yeah um so now I have um one piece of audience engagement so I voted um I put some polls out there if you

[45:10]  will um for our audience to be able to ask some questions or bring up some insights about their culture I guess understanding of HR and one of these statements really stuck out to me this person was a part of Generation Z so the younger generation who's coming up and this is what they said they said my boss doesn't care about me as a person I'm only a person in a seat so we recognize that the younger generation has so many more options to do things that they want to especially with Tik Tok and Instagram and everything else that they can do in creating a lifestyle for themselves yes so what would your message be to other HR leaders and leaders of businesses who need to start catering towards the culture that we talked about in the earlier part of the episode for this younger generation to start coming in and feeling seen validated and heard instead of trying to I would say sides skirt this idea that my boss doesn't care about me I'm just as a person I'm

[45:58]  just another person in a seat what do you kind of think about that you know that's hard because I I've been in that seat and I know that feeling like I expressed earlier it's not great so I understand where um this individual was coming from you know it's it's hard because I guess it depends where you're working cuz I've worked in a bad work environment and I felt like I couldn't escape I couldn't breathe I was being harassed p and I had support from um others to help me um with my conflict that I was having within my workplace and it was against a uh I guess a I guess team lead you could say it was in the military

[46:48]  um and I feel for that individual because I feel if you can't talk to that leader or or supervisor I always try to cultivate to talk to another source I would say if they have an HR or I don't know if they're working um but sometimes there's even a some places provide like um Counseling Services mhm but like don't sit there and take it that's what I'm going to say because eventually it's your health your mental well-being of you wanting to stay there and I always get the options of do you want to sit there and take it do you want to live in an unhealthy work environment

[47:39]  because of just one person and that's just it it's just one person what about the other support you might have go find that support like don't just sit there I know it's so hard for the younger generations to come to that realization because they're like oh this person's older I got got to listen to them but that's just it you're in a workplace you're an adult now you don't have to sit there and take it like a child they might see you like a child and I hate that thought process that's probably what's happening but you're not these young Generations forget that they are now young adults and the older Generations I said feel sometimes forget that that the younger Generations are now our Future Leaders so why suppress them so for that individual who feels that way like

[48:26]  go find your support whoever that may be if it's maybe a coworker like talk to your coworker maybe they might provide some insight I've had to do that as well where I talk to a pure I'm like hey what do I do I feel this this and this but I don't know what to do like where do I go and if that peer doesn't know okay but you talk to somebody let's go to the next person who who would it be maybe an other team lead if that's an option I know sometimes there's a team lead and then there's a supervisor maybe you get along better with your other team lead or your other uh Mentor or supervisor like you you can go even above that supervisor's head technically and say if you're

[49:12]  conflicted I don't want to I can't talk to my supervisor because of this this and this you know get guidance get advice go seek that support if it's a peer uh HR or if they have like a counseling service and some Industries like I said do like just find that answer to your um I guess your your crisis because it is a crisis and eventually you'll be overcome it and you'll find what you need to do either if it's going to be leaving the workplace I know most people don't like hearing that but ultimately what what would you you want to do with your life do you want to keep living it with you know um coming to work and

[50:05]  being yelled at or talked down to or do you want to find another place that actually listens and validates you like I feel that's also another thing jenz when you're stuck even a younger generation you feel like you're stuck but you don't have to be you can leave you have that absolute right to leave and find a better place and you will find that better place or a better pathway or the supervisor might get in trouble written up like they should depending on what's going on um and you can maybe even have a better outcome within that same workplace so there's so many Pathways one can choose but it's up to that person individual to decide what to do and to know and realize they don't have to sit there and take it you know

[50:54]  one of the biggest things that I think about especially as I've gotten older is like an ultimate sense of accountability right so many times we cast our power away to others by saying I can't do anything about this or like I'm just stuck in this job but there are so many opportunities that people have out here today to be heard seen validated listen to and staying inside of a work culture that is suppressive that makes you not want to wake up every single day and like be happy about what you're doing is just a poor spend of our time it is more so than ever life is not guaranteed you know what I mean we have to be able to spend it doing things that we're happy about doing exactly and that's you just hit it right there life's not guaranteed so why waste your time yeah well you know Anna this has been an amazing conversation today we've talked about everything from small family-owned businesses growth opportunities that are

[51:41]  coming on the horizon the way in which we're instituting changes in our organization to break down some of those walls and barriers and I just want to thank you so much for coming on the show because it's leaders like you who are taking the small steps that are going to create incremental change in all of the industries of business because when we think about the people we think about eliminating those division walls that people have perceived we open ourselves up to conversations we bring our groups together we can create better organizations that are going to be more successful but we'll have a lot better time along the way and I just want to say thank you so much for being a part of this new wave of leaders who are making a difference for a majority of Our Lives which is work and I just want to say you know I'm so proud of you and I can't wait to kind of see where you guys take fast maintenance as well well thank you Kenan and we appreciate this opportunity and it's a for me the first

[52:30]  time on the podcast um it's it's I don't know it's just so great it's just a great feeling to be recognized and I really appreciate that yeah well why don't you get everybody an opportunity or give everybody an opportunity to recognize fast maintenance so why don't you talk about your website how they can find you guys your services everything like that use the last couple minutes here for a little commercial and you know you can highlight everything you guys are doing yeah sure um so yeah fast maintenance l LC it's our handyman maintenance property maintenance company um you can find us on Facebook fast maintenance LLC um or we also our main official site is fast maintenance.com and I should reflect it's FAS so sometimes people might hear a tea in there but it's just FAS maintenance.com is our official website you can see what we do um how to contact us we

[53:20]  do uh have an inquiries um what you can send us for whatever homeowner issues may have or business uh if that's your type of work field so whatever you need I feel as a homeowner or business whatever problems you need please contact us we are willing to accept your work and we want to grow and help the our communities within you know Las Vegas and Henderson and eventually other states but we're going to start just Las Vegas right now well and the fact that you guys are a veteran-owned business as well is something that needs to be highlighted in remember the fact that you guys have served our country the fact that you guys have put in so much on the line to serve everybody else is a reason why people should be supporting your business as well and so everybody go check out fast maintenance.com and once

[54:08]  again thank you anet for being here I really appreciate it and I can't wait to do this again in the future awesome thank you Kenan so much awesome thanks guys it's been another episode of the heart and hustle podcast a brand new segment of our HR Heroes andna thank you again really appreciate it thank you Kenan