Yvonne Heimann [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to my second episode with my boss, Luby. If you have missed the first episode, I would recommend go listen to it. It's a. It's a nice little intro to some of the systems and framework and why we have developed them in our business to support the team, to make sure we don't just hire well, but we also help the team when they're in a position and sometimes even call Yvi out for she needs to change something. Yes, yes. I'm not perfect either. None of us is.
Yvonne Heimann [00:00:46]:
Welcome back, Luby. Considering you didn't even want to record a podcast with me.
Luby Purnell [00:00:49]:
Nope. I bailed out the first time and then I accepted it afterwards.
Yvonne Heimann [00:00:54]:
Not to mention if you didn't listen to the first episode. Did I mention you should listen to the first episode? Because originally I did not even want to hire Luby and now she, she is one of my most loved assets and people in the company. If you want to hear the story behind that, you're gonna have to listen to the first episode. Let's dive a little bit more into the systems and framework and the things we have put into place to number one, make hiring a little bit easier and find the right people as well as also support the team through the process. Why don't you tell the community of how we are managing our hiring process at this point? What do people get to see, what's happening there? How are we managing it technically behind the scenes and what kind of tools are we using?
Luby Purnell [00:01:50]:
So technically behind the scenes we're using a ClickUp form and everything's in ClickUp at this point. So we have a ClickUp list with all our positions, active positions. We have multiple different automations that send out emails for us, which is great. So if someone's not a fit, they already get an email saying hey, we're not hiring you. So the technique part is just ClickUp. We have been finding people through LinkedIn mostly. I think we've tried upwork as well to find applicants and then the rest of it is just we do a pre interview with me so the person goes through like 15 to 30 minute call with me just to see what I think about them. So I'm the first kind of layer to the, to the job interview.
And then if I say hey cool, this person is good, we go to another interview where Yvi gets to see them and ask questions and we go into the experience, technical and just feeling side of things. So that's currently how we've been managing things.
Yvonne Heimann [00:02:49]:
And one of the big, one of the big pieces I wanted to point out in this process that Luby mentioned is we have email automations behind it. So when you, when you look at our ClickUp space, we have hiring stages where it's like, hey, take a closer look at it or not a fit right now, but let's keep them on our future list or just simply not a fit for whatever reason. And we just took a couple of minutes and we connected emails to those stages because to me, especially in 2024 when everything seemed to be burning down and I was actually considering jumping back into the job market and apply to a couple of things, there's nothing worse than not hearing anything whatsoever. And it's like, it is so simple. The moment we, we change our hiring stage to not a fit or not a fit right now, hold for later, an automatic email goes out that says, hey, you are just not a fit right now. Or hey, we don't have anything specific for you right now, but we are keeping you on our hiring list. I didn't need to send anything. I don't need to spend any additional time when we go through this process yet I take care of the people and the responses. We have gotten to number one, the questions and the application process in general of I had somebody reach out saying, hey, even if I'm not the right fit for you right now, thank you so much for this application process. Finally somebody that actually wants to see see me. And I'm like, okay, so we're doing something right here.
Luby Purnell [00:04:44]:
And then because of our email, we even got a reply back from someone that we hired later on. We weren't going to go with that person. We held them for later and they were like, hey, thank you for replying. Can I, can you, can you tell me why I wasn't a fit? What feedback you can give me about how to be better? And then we're like, oh, okay, hold on, we made a mistake. Let's put, put you on. So because of that email, if we hadn't sent the email, the person wouldn't, you know.
Yvonne Heimann [00:05:10]:
And they have become, they have become an integral part of the company with a lot of the growth building and everything. Now how what we do in, in episode one, Luby already mentioned that we, we hide two easter eggs in our application somewhere right in the middle and somewhere right literally right before the apply button. I'm sorry, if you do not see the easter egg right before the apply button, it's a no go. It's a no go. I'm sorry. What we do and what we build and especially with me seeing all the things between my undiagnosed ADHD and my eye for detail and all of the connections and how my brain works, I will not be able to work with somebody that doesn't have an eye for detail. So it's a straight no if you don't even get the one before the apply button. And we have a secondary Easter egg in there too.
Yvonne Heimann [00:06:15]:
Number one, coffee is at the core of the company. Number two, we need to make sure the people we are hiring have an eye for detail. And they actually looked at it after 200 Indeed applications where not one was actually qualified for the job. Not one actually looked at the job application. Just hit a button. It was like, yeah, we really need to, we really need to pay attention to this. And then what happens then is we actually have an agent running in ClickUp that looks at the specific data points, that looks at what we care about and that we programmed with check for the Easter eggs. It knows about gene keys and all the personality profiles and gives us a quick little rundown initially that says, hey, I think this person would align well.
This person would not align well. And we get a 0 to 5 rating of them.
Yes. That doesn't mean that's a given. We know I can make mistakes based on the rating. We then dive deeper and we look closer. As Luby just said, it's like sometimes our perception is not the right perception, no matter how great we are prepping. And one of our team members was, was that one where we'd like, yeah, not so sure about that. I don't know. Let's hold them for later. And they started the conversation and they replied back and I'm like, okay, let's give it, let's give it a try.
Yvonne Heimann [00:07:48]:
Let's go test. And they have become an integral part of our build of, of the new company we are building and, and all the things. So, so that's our hiring process. That's how people come in. How do we support, how do we support the team? I'm like, it's both, both of us at this point. I was jokingly talking about it on LinkedIn the other day where it's like, you know, you're officially building a business and you're not just a solopreneur anymore. When, when your job at the company suddenly includes growth processes, growth plans and success plans and all the things. Talk about what have we started to integrate and to do to not just bring well fitting and matching members into the team, but also help them and help them grow.
Luby Purnell [00:08:46]:
I think the first thing is when we hire someone, I think the first question that you asked them afterwards is like, what is your interest? Do you want to stay in this position? Do you want to grow? Like, for me, I started in social media for you, but then we're like, okay, you can do personal assistant stuff. So now I clear your inbox and other stuff. Okay, but what about project management? So we kind of shift. And that's one thing that if the person says, for example, I'm a video editor, but I want to do this or that, then we. We support them to get to that role. We, you know, sometimes teach them the skill that they will need, or if we have any courses that they'll need or stuff like that, we'll help them get to that place. And as you said, the growth plans, right? So if the person wants to stay in the same kind of role, but then just grow to a manager position or a coordination position will help them get there and say, hey, okay, this is the step. In six months, you need to be this.
Luby Purnell [00:09:43]:
These are the things that you need to be better at or improve at. So it's not just, I'm working, I'm getting paid, I'm, you know, continuing in this role. It's like, okay, I can grow. I can, you know, be a boss at some point. I can be, you know, whatever I want to be in this company. So it's not just a limited position. You can actually really grow and really fast. Like, I grew, like in two years, so.
So that's like the main way that we kind of support people. And I think they do feel that comfort in that. I think that knowing that they're not going to continue in the same position with the same people with the same stuff, they can actually grow and be in a place that they want to be and enjoy work.
Yvonne Heimann [00:10:23]:
And the reason why. Why one of the first questions that I ask is, what's your goal? Where do you want to be in a year or in five years? Heck, I don't even know when I'll be in two years, let alone five. World is changing so fast nowadays. I don't know if it's my age or if it's just the world. Who knows? Is. I don't. I don't think there is anything worse than a standard 9 to 5. There's a reason why I built my own business and I'm not working for somebody else because I've always been a passionate person.
I put everything I have into what I do, which often enough bit me in the ass with a few jobs I had in the past. So I believe that if I align my team's position with their personal goals, with where they want to be, with how much income they want to make, with what they want to do, whatever it is. Heck, even if it's just part time or full time, if I align the position with their personal goals, I believe it's for the best for me and the company. Because if my team is happy in their positions and they understand where we want to take the company, what is the mission behind it, what are our company values? Why am I doing this thing? Which I think has become really visible with the new company that we are building, that I get the best out of you guys. Sounds, sounds. I feel bad saying it that way, but I'm gonna get the best deliverables and I'm gonna have a team that has fun with each other rather than them clocking in at 9 and clocking out at 5 and not giving a damn fucking shit about the company.
Luby Purnell [00:12:17]:
Yeah, it's a win, win situation at this point. Like, we're happy doing our stuff and doing our job and working. Sometimes, you know, one day we'll work, I don't know me for full time, eight hours. One day I'll work three hours and that's okay as long as I get whatever.
Yvonne Heimann [00:12:31]:
I don't think she actually sticks with eight hours. Just saying, oh, no, I don't.
Luby Purnell [00:12:36]:
I never, I don't. I don't have like a. Oh my God, I need to do this many hours. Sometimes I go like, I don't know, an 11 hours when we're doing our co-working sessions and stuff. But again, it's like if things need to get done and I'm in, you know, in the mood for doing it, I will do a few extra hours and then another day I'll do three hours less or something like that. Because it is. It is a 50/50 kind of situation where you get the best of us and we get the best of just the environment of working with you. So like, for example, one of our other team members got a race as soon as he started working with you.
The first month. You're like, yeah, let me put your, you know, let me put your salary up a little bit because I don't agree with what your initial rate was. And the person was super happy. They were like, oh my God. Really? You're doing that?
Yvonne Heimann [00:13:23]:
Actually perfect intro. We have established an internal pay schedule because buying power is simply different all around the world. Right? So what we have done. Because I didn't it. I wanted this to feel fair. I wanted this to Feel fair between the positions that we are hiring for. So what is the level of the position? Is it an entry level? Is it a coordination level? It's manager level? Is it a lead level? What is the level of the position? And then what is the buying power of the money the company is paying you? So taking those two data points, we've built an internal paying schedule. So based on the location of the team members, we started with the US because the company is housed in the US Based on the US Buying power to wherever the team member is located, plus the position they are in, we build a pay schedule.
So when said team member came in, number one, based on what they were doing, number two of really no. And it was a dollar more an hour. It was a dollar more an hour to make somebody happy and be like, hey, I appreciate you. Because from the beginning they jumped in, they took charge of, of the processes and the things that needed to get done. And I'm like, we are, we are not doing this. We are raising this. And it's, it's just, I don't know, it's just that's what you should be doing.
Luby Purnell [00:15:03]:
Should be doing. Yes, but almost like I've had, I don't know, like five bosses before you. Five people like managers or whatever before you. And none of them did that. None of them thought like that. None of nothing. No one. Like, it's rare to find someone.
And we, we've talked about this a lot. It's rare to find someone as, what's the word that I'm looking for? Empathetic or whatever that you are. It's like you see employees and team members as people and not as a number where like a lot of CEOs, a lot of people see them as a number. Especially when you have like a company of 50 people, 100 people, how many people you're going to have? So I think that's, that's something that is really different about you and about your values, is just you see us as people and you see us as, you know, it's okay to give them a $1 raise per hour. It's been going to be what if you maybe a few hundred bucks on your end, at the end of the day, if, if that. And it's going to make them, their life super easier, more, you know, they're going to have more money in their bank account, so they're going to be happier and they're just going to be super appreciative of you and you know where they are in the position they are, especially because it was like the first or second month that the person was working with us.
Yvonne Heimann [00:16:17]:
I think for us as, as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, one thing to think about is we know the feast and famine of money coming in, right? So when somebody starts in, in an implement a level position, in a doing level, in a worker B position, I don't want them to be afraid to be in fear of putting food on their table. If they are in a constant stress situation of just trying to make ends meet, I'm not going to get their best. So if I just. And again, same person too. Where their audio was bad, we had communication issue. We couldn't understand each other because first of all I couldn't see them. Second of all the audio was so bad on their computer, I freaking sent them a webcam. And it was like Christmas, Easter and birthday altogether.
And I'm like, it's helping the company as a whole to be better. Where it's just like the more I support my team and that's what I see my job being. I'm here to support the team and move into a leader position. Not constantly do. The better I become at supporting my team, the better the team is going to support the company. It's just logic. It's just I don't understand where welcome to ev rant moment. I don't understand when people see their team just as numbers and as working for you.
Yvonne Heimann [00:18:07]:
It's. It's like, it's, it's mathematically wrong. Because the money you have to spend to bring somebody new to find the right person to onboard them, to train them to do all of the things is way much more money than you spend taking care of them. Makes no fucking sense to me even if you are capitalist. Because if you look at the numbers on the bottom line, the little bit of money I pay extra to support my team in situations or to just send them some equipment. Don't get me wrong, the company does not have the budget to send you a new MacBook. I would love to, but I can't.
We'll see if we get there at some point. But the little, the little few things that I do help the company's bottom line. It's just math. So never understood that. Never understood the, the premise of let's just use workers till they leave makes no fucking sense to me.
Luby Purnell [00:19:09]:
And it's less of a headache on your end as well as you know the person hiring. Because if someone's in a position that they don't want to be, they have a shitty Boss, they're not getting a pay raise or a growth plan or whatever it is. They're going to leave in six months or a year or whatever. We've seen that constantly. They're going to shift jobs every single year until they find someone that they're going to be with. So you keep employees for longer, like years and years if you know if it's good. But you have less of a headache of constantly trying to hire someone for the position that's good for the position and seeing if they fit and training them and doing this and doing that. So it's less of a headache. As well as the money side
Yvonne Heimann [00:19:46]:
You, we see a lot of coaches and influencers, whatever you want to call them out there saying hire fast and fire faster. What's your take on that?
Luby Purnell [00:20:00]:
You have to be able to fire someone fast if they're not great for the position. Yes. So if nothing aligns and it's not what you're expecting or some. Yes, you can. You have to be able to fire first fast, but give them a second chance. So for example, if I'm in the first week or month or whatever on the job and you're like, don't know if that is working. Try another approach, try another position, try to talk to the person so it's not just like you fucked up, you're gonna get fired. It's like, okay, why did you up? What happened? What is.
You know. So I don't completely agree with the fire fast method. It's like you have to understand what is wrong with that person. If it's maybe the person isn't aligned in that position and is better in a different position. Or maybe the person just doesn't understand the process. Or maybe you don't have the right systems in place.
Yvonne Heimann [00:20:52]:
And what we've been doing behind the scenes is number one, I always remind myself, blame the process, not the person we in, in our company, ourselves. As I joked in the first episode, we need to clean up our own ClickUp because Yvi has been testing a lot of things in our own workflows. It has to simply become a priority for us to clean those up too. And the team is the team. The whole team is part of that cleanup process of the automation of organizing our ClickUp of what do we need to do. Everybody is involved with that. Which means our own processes are not a hundred percent automated. And where I want them to be in clean heck, I don't know if they ever going to be 100% because companies always grow.
Yvonne Heimann [00:21:42]:
Things are always changing. There is humans involved in this. Right. And there's, there's been situations in the past don't get me wrong, where Yvi just had a day and on top of things, things weren't clear and things didn't work out as, as anticipated and as planned. And I think what, what our team has done well is looking at the processes where it's like, okay, why, why did this end up with me for proof when it's obviously not done, when it's obviously not working. What do we need to adjust in the process for this to not happen again? By the time it comes to me, it should be double and triple checked. The things should be working. We shouldn't be running into any major issues now.
Yvonne Heimann [00:22:36]:
Yes, we are building completely new processes, we are updating a lot of processes, we are simplifying a lot of processes which also can cause a whole bunch new issues. Right. So don't get me wrong, when that happens on a day where a client reaches out to me and technology is giving me the middle finger, it's, it's a, hey, Luby, can you have this conversation? Because I'm not in a state of mind to do this right now. Because I know at that moment I'm not blaming the process, I'm blaming the person and I don't want to do that. And I think as a team, we have done really well to, to, yeah, really just clarify the process. I'm like, okay, how do we know this is done? What, what does Yvi perceive as this being done and working? What, what is the specific deliverable? How does a team member know this is done or this is done enough? There's, there's the other thing of going gradually, right. Breaking it fast.
Yvonne Heimann [00:23:39]:
It's like, you don't need to have the whole damn thing done. Do the first step, break it, get feedback. And really, again, coming back around to having that conversation, having that communication, even when we're in our emotions at the moment because the shit doesn't work how we expected it to work. Working around the communication, working around check ins, working around checklists of what do we want to pay attention to and just building those resources. That's, that's been, that's been a lot of work for us lately.
Luby Purnell [00:24:16]:
It is a work in progress. But I think we have been doing a better job than we were doing before on managing that and just really breaking down things and really whatever, like side of the company. If it's, I don't know, social media stuff, like you're not going to do 50 posts and then come back to me saying, hey, these are all ready for you. No, you're going to do one to two posts and say, hey, this is now ready for you. You're going to give them feedback and then they're going to do the 48 other posts. So I think it's, it's same in every area that you're in. As you mentioned, like break it, break fast, you know, like test something. If it doesn't work, test it again, do something different.
Think, think about another solution for it or get feedback from it.
Yvonne Heimann [00:24:57]:
And I think one of, one of the big ones for us was cheaper too is like, okay, what's the end goal? We had one process where I got a solution and I'm like, how is this a solution? And it brought up for me to really state the goal. In the end the goal was automation and simplicity for that specific process and I got a recommendation back to solve a problem manually and I'm like, this is completely out. No, automation and simplicity manually does not fit in here. So that's been been helping us really just really clarify of okay, what does success look like now we've been also talking about and I wanted to bring this up, Yvi likes to, Yvi has a tendency to just be like, fine, I just do it because I know what's in my head, I know what the end goal is, I know how to do it. But that's not sustainable. It simply is not sustainable. It makes no sense in the long haul and it doesn't help the team. So we've been working on finding that balance because just letting the team go doesn't work either, right? There is things again that need to be adjusted in between.
Yvonne Heimann [00:26:25]:
Team members are still learning. If that's social media posts and learning the voice and how we want things or if that's automation that somebody takes over that I have built in the past. Whatever it is, there's a constant learning in the team, right? So just be like here you go, you were the expert is not going to work. Which is why so many people fail in hiring "experts". They still need to learn you and they still need to learn your processes but also not micromanaging. And we've done a few things to try to work on it. Number one is really clarifying what's the end goal? How do you know you succeeded? And clearly doing tests in between. But we've also started implementing weekly check ins, right? To just give.
Why am I talking about this? What have we done with the weekly check ins?
Luby Purnell [00:27:22]:
Well, to start, it's not just a weekly Check in. It's a, three times a week check in. So we have like an automatic message that comes to our all team members chat. One on Monday, one on Wednesday and one on Friday. So we have like three kind of little check ins. So the Monday one goes something like, what's your plan for this week? What's getting, what's getting moved forward? Is there any issues or anything that you need to be able to do that process? There's the Wednesday message that is like, how's the projects going? Is there anything stuck? Something like that. And then the Friday one is like, what, what have you learned from this week? So what fell, what didn't fail, what, what broke, what didn't break, what burned? And what's the plan for next week? So you can plan ahead and see what people are doing. And then yeah, I think that's been, that's been what, two to three weeks now that we've done that as a check in and I think it's been good.
Luby Purnell [00:28:20]:
And then other than that we do our monthly meetings, check in with all the team and everything. So that's, I think that also counts as a check in with all the team members. So those are kind of like the things that we've been doing to make sure that everything is ongoing and everything is in progress and no one's just stuck waiting for. I don't know if I'm stuck waiting for something from Yvi. I'm going to call her out and say, hey, this needs to be done, please do it.
Yvonne Heimann [00:28:45]:
Oh, she does. She's not the only one that does. You've been in other positions too. I haven't so much where you have those huddles where it's like you are on a fucking one hour call that could have been a goddamn email. So hence the. And it's us. We are still in the testing phase right now.
Yvonne Heimann [00:29:06]:
Right. So Luby actually has bi-weekly calls with team members on their growth plans and scale plans and success plans to have those conversations, what's going on? And have that one on one. Right. It's not like I don't want to talk to them, but why we did the message, the messages is it takes five minutes. It takes five minutes. We check in a lot of. Again, our team is all across time zones, all across the world. It allows us to still have the conversations, to still pop in without anybody having to get up at 3am in the morning for a huddle that could have been an email.
And we then have the deeper calls, the monthly calls where it's a full on team meeting of here's where the company is going. Here's what happened. We are starting to bring additional training in. We're going to have some, some communication training in there. Again just to support, support the team to be more confident in really communicating what they need. Because I can't help them if I don't know. I don't know what I don't know. So my current goal in the company is to really get everybody without anybody being left behind feel confident to communicate even if it's not with me.
Yvonne Heimann [00:30:28]:
Because Yvi is having a case of the Monday it's Luby or it's, it's a message or whatever they feel comfortable with in the moment because it also helps the company and the check ins and just the, the consistent support. If I support the team, the team is supporting the company and it's been, it's been really fun watching everybody together grow because you guys also help me be a better boss in the business. Even though I'm just the public boss, Luby is the behind the scenes boss. It's just more fun.
Luby Purnell [00:31:06]:
I'm still here two years later because I have fun. I like what I do. It's like we have right now we're doing co working sessions like almost every day just because we found a rhythm that's me and Yvi that doesn't have other, you know, if the other team members want to join in, they're, you know, they're free to join in if they want to but it's just like we just, sometimes we have a coffee date just to chat and just to, you know, just do whatever we want to do. It's like. And in the check ins as well, it's, it doesn't have to necessarily be about business and about work. For example, another team member was like, what did I learn this week? Like I don't want to work in this, this environment. I've just quit my job. You know.
So it's, everyone feels supported in personal and professional parts of life. So I think that. And we also have fun and we also, you know, just joke around with each other and send random gifts and emojis to each other. So it's just a good environment.
Yvonne Heimann [00:32:02]:
Turn videos of me or my coach into, into stickers on WhatsApp. Yes. Oh yeah, we've done that too. We laugh about each other. It's like, I'll try.
Luby Purnell [00:32:14]:
I'll make it into a gif and Lucas can add it to this episode. The, the insert of it just, just
Yvonne Heimann [00:32:21]:
so you can see it right here. To bring both of these episodes back around. Number one, don't try to hire an expert to solve your problems. It's usually not how this works because when we hire, quote, an expert, what we expect them is to solve our problems. They still have to learn you. They still have to learn your systems. They still have to understand you. Hard skills are taught.
I can teach you anything and everything in this business. I cannot teach you an eye for detail. I can teach you somewhat communication. So the base level at least needs to be there. It's my job to build the trust so team members can communicate with me. That's my job. And it's really get clear on the role. Get clear on the role of what do you want to hire for and what are the personality traits this person needs to fulfill that position and be right in that position.
Yvonne Heimann [00:33:30]:
Do what I did. Become consistent about support after you hire. It's people change, business change. What are your values? What is your mission? Get your team just as supported as they usually support you in the beginning of being hired. You can keep that when you really support them throughout the process and and throughout their position with it. Even if it means that they want to build their own business in five years.
Perfect. Then we'll plan for that. Give them the education, give them the knowledge they need to run their own business in five years and build a success and plan succession plan so somebody else can step into it. I promise you it is all worth it. It might not happen overnight, but you're gonna stop feeling like you are gambling every time you bring somebody new in. And with that, thanks for listening to she is a leader for the first and the second time in this episode with Luby, my boss. And if this episode helped you, share it with a friend who is hiring right now. And make sure you subscribe so you don't miss the next conversation. And I'll see you in the next episode.
Bye everybody.