I came to him with an HR problem. I did not come to him with a business solution

Welcome to the Built by People podcast, where we share the stories and insights of the world's top executive leaders. Join us as we dive deep into the minds of executives, uncovering their strategies, challenges, and triumphs in shaping today's workforce. That's previe. Now let's jump in and get started with our next guest.

Today on the Built by People podcast, we're joined by Crystal Cooper. Crystal, thanks for joining me today.

Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Absolutely. As a starting point, always. I'd love to hear about your career journey, the unexpected turns, what ultimately led you to where you are today.

Yeah, let's see. I went to college for graphic design. Got out of college and realized I get to really create super cool stuff in college, but not for these companies. And so ended up moving into more project management and sales, which was okay. Moved away for a little while and got a job at a sign company where I was doing far more project management than sales, less graphic design work as well. And then I was like, you know what? I just got to move, move back home. Came back home, got a job with a recruiting agency that was supposed to be putting me out on a project as a graphic design. And they were like, what if we teach you how to recruit for graphic designers? And I said, sure, we can try it. So I did that for about a year and I realized I really hate sales because I don't like selling candidates. But one of my clients was Martha Stewart Living, and they said, hey, we have an opportunity to bring you in house. What do you think? And I said, I'll be there Monday. And that was when I made the switch and really decided that HR was for me, worked in hr. And I think I've had some really great companies that I've worked for. Both startups, large cap businesses, Martha Stewart, Liz Claiborne, Tommy Hilfiger, Philips, Van Heusen. Some big names, right? I also worked for Duane Reade, which was acquired by Walgreens. When I was working with Tommy Hilfiger, we were acquired by Phillips Van Heusen. But then I've also worked for some really awesome startups like Rent the Runway. I've worked for some fintech startups as well, the reserve trust company. I've also had to shut down some startups too, which was unfortunate, but that's kind of the life that you live when you start to dabble in that space. And in my last, probably about, I don't know, 10 years or so, I've really focused more on startup organizations because I just love that pace, I love the scrappiness, but I also love to bring a lot of that sort of structure from my past of the large organizations into it where I can to help them set up really strong foundations. So with regard to hr, I have done it all. I have been the recruiter, I have been the paper payroll person, I've run benefits, I've been the 401k administrator, I've handled employee relations, development, all the things. And everyone's always like, well, what's the one thing you really don't like? I don't really love running payroll. That's not quite my jam. So if I could do everything else, that'd be great.

I love that. That's great. And with your, you know, vast experience, I know now you're more into taking on clients and doing more kind of fractional work and things like that. Tell me a little bit about your top priorities right now.

Oh yeah, that's a great question. Right now my top priorities are looking at compensation for one of my clients and making sure that it pairs well to market, but also ensuring that it pairs well to the company growth too. The company's expanding, I think 40% this year and in the last year they expanded about 30%. So they're just, they're exponentially growing. So with that I'm really hyper focused on not just figuring out compensation for today, but the compensation that they can grow with for the next two to three years as they continue to expand. I'm not looking for a long term solution, I'm looking for sort of more of that short term need. But also that will work with how their titles and their levels are set up today and how to get them to that next level where it can be far more scalable past that three to five years. Because probably within the next three years this company is going to be over 400 employees easily, which is pretty cool. That's one, I think another one of my, my clients right now really focused on helping them through some major acquisitions that they've done over the last several years. And how do we clean that up? How do we get those companies and those brands now integrated into the main brand? How do we Standardize all of the processes across the board so we're not managing multiple systems and really streamlining our systems as well. Because there's just a lot of tech debt that you end up accruing as you start acquiring all these companies. And from a people perspective and an HR perspective, many of those things can truly be streamlined into a much more affordable product that can be much more scalable for the size of the business that it is today. Then I think the last one is I have a client of mine who is currently going through some funding rounds and just supporting that and making sure that we have all of our ducks in a row with regard to compliance and documentation, making sure that the staff are understanding of where the company is at this point in time so we can mitigate any risk with attrition, turnover. All of the issues that you might see when you start to bring in additional funding, where you know that you have the staff that you have today, but you've got to keep them through that too. But sometimes funding doesn't happen right overnight, and sometimes there is a bit of a tail to it. So getting folks to understand how to hang on during that time too. So those are probably my three, three biggest initiatives right now.

Yeah, those are huge. That's awesome. That's exciting work.

I mean, I think that's the thing that I have enjoyed the most in my career. And what I guess I didn't mention is that I've been doing this for over 20 years and the last 15 of it has been on and off fractional work. And at least three different, four different times, my clients have brought me in house permanently and hired me on. So it's always fun when you get those clients where it all aligns and you're like, yeah, I'll stay for a while, why not? Let's see what happens. But I really do like the variety that you get with fractional work where it's. So those are three very different company needs in this moment. Right. And so you're sort of always task shifting.

Oh, absolutely. For my next question, it's about an initiative you rolled out that you're really proud of. And you can answer this, you know, one or two ways. Maybe initiative that you've helped a client roll out or that you've rolled out personally when you were, you know, in office, in seat for an organization.

I'll share the one that I always share because it sort of shows that persistence really does win in the end. But also how you pose the need will also sort of change the way that Somebody on the other side values or sees the initiative. For One of my clients I had, they were going through rapid growth. When I had started with them, they were about 50 employees. We had grown to about 85. And in that period of time, it was very short. It was within about a year and a half. We grew that quick. And with that growth, we found that a lot of the newer staff really had no rudder. They were essentially just sort of floating in space, waiting for projects to come along. And they didn't have an idea of, like, how am I going to grow here? What is my development path? Who's going to teach me anything about this industry? Because a lot of them were really junior. So I went to my CEO at the time and I said, hey, we've got a lot of new hires here, and I really think something we should look at would be a mentorship program. And he said, I'm going to stop you right there. We've tried mentorship programs in the past before you were here, and they just never worked. So, no, we just don't think that those are really useful or helpful. And I was like, okay, I hear you. So I took a step back and I thought to myself, okay, what did I miss? And this was earlier in my career. And I realized, well, first off, I never really explained to him the value behind and the impact that it can have. I came to him with an HR problem. I did not come to him with a business solution. And that really helped me reframe it completely. And I think that's something that HR doesn't typically think about. When we're trying to get initiatives and things pushed is. Well, we know that, you know, turnover overs a potential. If we don't develop people in a way that keeps them wanting to stay, they're going to leave. Well, how does that hurt the business? What's the number? What is the pain point, financially? So I took that moment, I came back, and I said, hey, we have all of these new hires, and for each one of these new hires, it will cost us X amount of dollars if one leaves. Because now I have a gap in support, and then it usually takes me about three months, maybe less, to find a new hire for that spot. Takes them another three months to get up to speed. We now have not only a gap in support, but that gap is now six months wide. So what does six months of support look like for you from a billable time point? And he said, well, it looks like X. I said, okay, great. Well, if I can shorten that to a point, where we actually don't have to worry about those six months and we can actually get these folks up to speed even faster. So instead of taking three months to hire someone and then another three months for them to get up to speed, takes three months to hire them, and then it takes them two months to get up to speed. Because I have a peer resource program. He said, what's this peer resource program? I literally explained it exactly the same way I did the mentorship program. I just kept calling it a peer resource program instead. But because I came in with the numbers and because I showed him the business solution and the pain point to it if we don't do it, I got the approval and I was able to roll that out. And that peer resource program was a huge success for our new hires because it got them up to speed far faster. They felt like they truly had support in the organization with their peers, whether it's same level or just above them. And now they understood how they grow at the organization and any industry insights, we shared it. There was just a huge knowledge share pool there. So that was probably the one that I always say is like my biggest one. Where it was that aha moment in my career was like, this is how you turn it around from an HR problem to a business problem.

Oh, that's great. Um, and yeah, makes a huge impact. Which is. Which is phenomenal. The other huge impact thing that we've seen, we've done a lot of episodes, hundreds of episodes. Right. There's one reoccurring theme throughout, and it's employee communication. And so I'd love to get your take on this as well. Employee communication is becoming harder and harder across every organization. So what's one area where you're trying to help your clients improve engagement through better communication? Or how do you approach making sure employees actually see, understand, and act on information that's sent out?

I think the first thing you have to ask yourself is, where are they? Because if you're not meeting them where they are, your message is getting lost in the sauce. Most of my organizations are 100% remote. I have a few that do come in person still. The ones that come in person, they still sort of like to do in person. All hands meetings or flyers and posters or emails. And that might work, depending on the type of organization. It is the type of industry, it is the type of staff that you have hired. Like how tech savvy are they? How interconnected are they techno technologically? Because if they're mostly manufacturing, they're not on their computer they don't have computers, they're not checking emails. So then that makes more sense to do posters, things like that, or announcements, et cetera. But for the folks that are fully remote, I've found that meeting them where they are makes more sense. So if they're in Slack, great. But that doesn't mean Slack messages in all of the channels at hears, right? That's a lot of noise. And oftentimes people will mute those messages. What I also like to do are just short little mini videos, two to five minutes. It's almost like a micro learning, right? If you get to hear someone's voice, it sits better than if you have to dig through messages that are hanging out in the general Slack channel. There might be 30 messages in there from all sorts, but only one is really important to you. So if I find that there is a message that needs to be heard, not only will I put it there for the folks that are still tagged into it, but I'll also bring it directly to people in small groups. I'll join team meetings, be like, hey, just joining the team meeting for just literally two minutes. Quick update, here's the thing I need to see from everybody, or here's something that's really important for everyone to know and then I pop right out. So it's really making sure that you're meeting them where they are and you're doing it in a way where you are cognizant of their time as well. Because right now time is cash, you know, you've really got to be cognizant of it.

I love that. Chris. So if we sat down again in 12 months from now, what would you have hoped has changed most? Maybe in hr, in your clients, organizations in general?

Probably the same thing that I always hope for my entire career, which is that HR continues to have this seat at the table and that executives continue to understand the value behind the what we do. There are several clients that I've had had over the years recently that still view HR as a cost center. It's administration until I start to show them the value behind what we do and how I can help them strategically look at their business from a much higher level and less in the weeds and in the trees, right? And I think that's the part where we just have to continue pushing because there are still a lot of organizations out there that just don't get that value piece. And as professionals, our job is not just to come in and make sure the benefits and the payroll and all the things are doing. It's to constantly push and look into the business and find pain points and find solutions for the business that deal with people, process and systems that we handle. And that's what I like to do for my clients and that's how I think we're going to continue to find value for them. But it just takes more and more time and you can't take your foot off the gas.

If you could leave one piece of advice for our community, maybe something you wish you had known earlier in your career. To an aspiring leader or someone that's already in leadership, what would it be?

The best leader is the one who brings people up around them to the same level because you don't need to know all the answers to everything. But it's great when you can surround yourself with people who have the answers or who are thinking outside of the box as well to challenge you and help the entire team succeed.

I love that. Crystal, thanks for the amazing insight. Thank you for all that you're doing in the HR realm. It was a pleasure having you on the Build by People podcast today.

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun. Thank you.

Absolutely.