HR Like a Boss With John Bernatovicz

[00:00:00] Ladies and gentlemen, this is William Tincup and you’re listening to the RecruitingDaily podcast. Today we have John on from Willie, and we’ll be talking about his book titled HR Like A Boss. So first of all, let’s learn a little bit about John and Willie. John, would you introduce yourself and Willie?

Yeah, thanks William for having me on. So good to connect with you this way. Appreciate the opportunity to promote my book. First and foremost, I am a husband for 25 years. I’m also Will and Mallory’s dad Will is my 15 year old son, inspiring entrepreneur and soccer player. And my daughter’s an incredible artist, which I know you and I talked about that a little bit before the show.

They’re the. The main reason why I do pretty much everything in my life. At the same time, I’m super passionate about golf. I know that’s an interesting combination, art fatherhood. Husband golf. Do those things jive together? Oh, yes, they do. Most times they do. Sometimes when I’m gone too long I get a lot of strange [00:01:00] looks when I come back, but I played competitive golf since I was seven years old and played on a Division I scholarship, and I just love it.

It’s a great escape for me to go out and golf and enjoy my time. And then I am a serial social entrepreneur. I’m really inspired to build businesses that do great things for our employees. That drives profitability for its stakeholders and the those that invest in it. And also at the same time, let’s make a.

Big difference in our communities where we live, let’s give back through some of that money we have, as well as those engaged employees that drive really meaningful, opportunities for us to do good things in the community. So as an example, at Willy, we are a staffing and consulting firm that’s focused in serving the HR and payroll space.

So we are a head hunter for HR and payroll Pros. We also do staff augmentation in that same area. And then our consulting practice is really focused in on advisory support and a really keen focus [00:02:00] in on HR tech, where we do a lot of what we call client side implementation, stabilization and optimization support of some of the major players in that HR tech space.

And our main benefactor as a social re responsible organization is a company nonprofit based in Cleveland called Youth Opportunities Unlimited, which is all about economic self-sufficiency for students that are maybe disadvantaged and some form of fashion, and they provide them with resources and opportunities to grow their career.

And, provide unique economic opportunities for them that maybe they wouldn’t be afforded otherwise. So that’s a little bit about me, about Willy, et cetera. and Willy, if I get this right, is a combination of your two children’s names. Yes, I have a will my 15 year old son’s will and my daughter Mallory.

Yep. You got it done. There’s a fancy word for that, William, but whenever I’m asked, I can’t remember it. When you merged two words together and I do it a lot, but I should probably know it off the top of my head, but [00:03:00] not right on the spot. Synergy. It’s synergy. Yeah, exactly. I’m gonna have you back and talk about Willer, cuz I’ve got a bunch of questions in terms of the managing, the managing part or the HR tech part of what y’all do. so we’ll do that in a different time. But I really want to get into your book. So first of all the things you could do, why did you write a book? Yeah, no, thank you for asking that. Yeah, it’s, it, the personal reason is my mom and dad passed away 20 19, 20 20, within about a 13 month stretch of each other.

And my mom, as I showed you when we were on camera preparing for this discussion, my mom was an incredible watercolor artist. And for those that don’t know about William Tin Cup’s background, he’s got a ton of really cool art himself. You should check that stuff out if he ever shares it. But the neat part for me is, I really wanted to do something to pay homage to my parents and my mom being an artist, my dad being [00:04:00] executive.

I was thinking to myself, what could I do? And when they both passed, you start. Looking at your own bucket list and writing a book was on that list because I had some friends of mine that I know we know together. Tim Sackett, Chris Dunn, Steve Browne, Ben Eubanks wrote books and I thought to myself, they’re really good guys.

I like them a lot, but are they smarter than me? Know? Maybe Sacketts smarter than me, but I don’t know if the other ones are that’s a plug. It sacket. But I just real, I realized that this was something that I wanted to do and I always aspire to do it and I’m in that. Frame of mind William that I just, if I get something in my head, I can’t get it out until I do it. this is division one golfer in you. yes. people that play golf, they, you don’t, you can’t go out there and get hurt, after making a bad shot. That’s, you’re gonna make a lot more bad shots than you make good shots. I remember my, my, my brother’s a golf coach.

I remember him telling me that You feel it. You’ll feel it. There’s one time, you’ll feel this when you hit it, when you know where you want it to go, and for whatever [00:05:00] reason, using a two hour, three hour, whatever you’re using and it actually does exactly what you wanted it to do, everything else is worth it.

Yes. So you’ll be lucky to hit that shot. Your brother will probably tell you be, he’ll be lucky to have players on his team. Or if you end up being obsessed like about golf like I am, you’ll do that maybe once or twice a week if you play a lot of golf. And not definitely once around. It’s not Oh, no.

But once you hit it, you’re mesmerized by it. And it’s almost, yeah. Yeah, it’s an incredibly addictive thing, but you don’t give up. I guess that’s the thing is once you kinda set your mind to something, you don’t, you don’t give up on the 11th hole. You don’t give up on something. like when you start a book, you’re going to finish it. Yeah. I get it. I get it. So my parents inspired me. That was there, there were, they were the why behind it. And then I started writing a book, a different title than hr, like a boss and my marketing director, who was an important part of the journey of hr, like a boss.

She said, how’s the book coming along? And I was struggling a bit with it. I think [00:06:00] it was, I put the cart before the horse. The idea of writing a book sounded great on paper, but when you actually had to do it, it was a lot of work time, energy, and effort. And she said, have you ever thought about.

Changing gears or writing a book about hr like a boss. And I said, no, I hadn’t. Why do you say that? I had done a presentation with that same title and it’d gotten a lot of acclaim. I will say sold out the seats that it was, that were available back, pre covid when you actually did in-person events.

And it was really well received by the community. And the trick that she shared with me, which is path of least resistance, was you’ve got all the outline for what that presentation is. You could probably create a table of contents right. From that, I said, oh, it’s gonna be easier for me to write h HR like a boss.

Here I go. So I ended up building out the table of contents and the outline for the book, and then I set a goal every weekend to write a thousand words. And while my kids were sleeping and wife was getting ready for the weekend, I would try to get up a little bit [00:07:00] earlier than them and just write out a thousand words.

And lo and behold, 50,000 plus words later. And thanks to Steve Browne, his connection with SHRM books, we’ll have a published book by SHRM in the fall of 2023. It’s pretty cool. Oh, that’s fantastic. one of the things about writing a book is it when, and you found it, you figured this out, is when it’s a passion project.

Like you do. It’s not even, it’s not work. you still have to carve out the time and you’re running a business. you’re a husband, you’re a father. you also have hobbies and all this other stuff, so you don’t have a lot of time, but it makes it easier. Like I’ve tried to force writing a book before, and I finished it.

But it wasn’t that good. And I’ll be honest, it wasn’t that good compared to a book that I really wanted to write, and a lot of, had a lot of help and stuff like that. And it was just, it was easy. Like I look back at it, I’m like, though, why did I try to force something that was just, horrible? I, I get that.

So let’s go into the premise of hr, like a bo like a boss and just kinda walk people through it. [00:08:00] Yeah, no, yeah. I appreciate that it’s, So really the genesis of writing the book was, number of years having worked in the HR and payroll space, supporting the HR profession. I’ve seen them get dogged on and ragged on and, kicked at times more often than they probably should, and in some cases, probably as much as they should, based upon the quality of the work that they were doing and the potential based upon what the expectations were.

And I just realized that. Engagement level, like this idea of people liking what they do when they go to work and employers actually caring for your employees seems like such a really cool idea, but no one really does it well. And so I ended up. Interviewing people through, the idea of creating this idea of HR like a boss.

And I started talking to people I thought that did HR better than most, and they started to share stories with me that resonated with the things that were in my already existing [00:09:00] presentation and table of contents. And it came out to be these five main sections of the book. Which are think differently.

So in order to do, amazingly awesome hr and if you’re not doing that today, you have to have a different mindset. Secondarily, you have to be different. I think you have to, most people think of HR in some way. So in order to do it in an amazingly awesome way and do it different than others thought, you have to act in a different mindset.

You then have to be better. We have to be better at what we do. We have to be highly skilled and drive results for our organization, for our employees, for our community. And then I think bosses take action. People that do things and do them well, they’re not afraid to take a swing and they’re willing to whiff, or in your analogy of hitting a bad shot, playing golf.

And then last but not least, They need to make an impact on their employees lives and their business and in the community. So the book is really centered around those five main sections. We’ve written, again, like I said, over 50,000 words, around that to help people get inspired [00:10:00] to believe in this concept.

And they also, it’s inspirational in a sense that I had the ideas, I galvanized them. They’re not, Rocket science things that you’re gonna read. You’re certainly not gonna learn how to write a handbook or potentially do talent acquisition, but you will hopefully be inspired to look at your job a little bit differently.

And I have a bunch of. Hr, like a boss. There is people that are not me, that are quoted in the book, that are regular HR professionals that are doing it above average job and doing it in an amazingly awesome way. And they validate some of the concepts in the book. So that’s what HR, like a boss is all about.

I love it. so two types of stories as you’re doing research and even stuff that either made the book or just didn’t you say your favorite story. And you’re, when you’re talking to practitioner and in a story of something came outta left field or a curve ball, like you weren’t expecting the story.

Again, we can name names and that stuff or not, doesn’t really matter, but I’m just kinda looking from the stories within the stories. Yeah, no. Great question. I’ll tell you this, the [00:11:00] very first person I interviewed, which I did through Zoom, and this was during Covid, and it was a helpful tool for me to collect information. and I set the premise with Lorne Rudman, I’ll give her a shout out. She was the first person I interviewed what turned out to be on the h like a boss podcast and a forum that we’ve created now a hundred shows, which is pretty cool and growing and. she had a really unique story in that she got her M B A from Cleveland State.

She’s a fellow Clevelander. She just made an incredible impression on me while she was at the Cleveland SHRM board. She was the head of the board and she did a two really cool things while she was there. She brought Disrupt HR to Cleveland. I know many of your listeners are so familiar with that concept and the SHRM actually SHRM.

Clevelands SHRM owns the license to that, one of the few SHRM organizations that do that, and they still have it today. they’re having their 11th event sometime later this summer, and it’s really cool that they’ve been, they [00:12:00] galvanized behind that since she had the vision for that. And then she also created the Clevelands SHRM Foundation, which is a give back for Cleveland SHRM to help.

Promote students to get into HR and whatnot. So she had some really cool things to say in regards to, doing HR like a boss. And she’s quoted more than anybody else in the book, other than my own words and just the fact that she’s done that has so much respect in our community and really took the position William of.

I’m a business person that just so practices just so happens to practice in the field of hr. And she took that mindset and she runs her business like a pro. and that, that part, just hearing her tell her story, I knew she was really great at it, but when she got on the show and that I was able to articulate her words and her comments, that part was really cool.

So that, that’s the first answer to your question. The second part, the surprise was I. I didn’t realize how many bad ideas I had when I started writing a book. And you write ’em down on a piece of paper [00:13:00] that’s horrible. you cannot cr you know, hit control, alt, delete fast enough, or if you turn it off, get it in the shredder or put it in your incinerator if you have one of those. get that stuff out of me. And then every once in a while, the thing for me when I knew I had something pretty good, and I wonder if a songwriter feels the same way as when you read it back to yourself, you say, that isn’t so bad. And this concept that we write about in the book, it’s chapter 14. it’s the money slide. It’s the money chapter of the book. It’s around running your job like it’s a business. And there’s five main pillars inside of running your business. You have to have a purposeful commitment. You have to be people-centric. You have to produce consistently, you have to process continuity, and you have to understand the profitable components of your business.

And when I wrote that, I came up with this, Play on words with all the PCs. So it was remember memorable for me and easy, and it just so worked out the purpose and people and process and production and profit all started with peas and then I figured out the CS from there. That part to me was a [00:14:00] surprise, and this is what I’ll say with most surprising part of it.

William, since I wrote the manuscript and it’s been iterated and edited and all this stuff, I’ve done a number of keynotes and presentations out there, and when I talk about purpose, I’ll ask the crowd, raise the hands. How many of you think you have a true. Intentional purpose at your business. And I’ll get a very few number of ’em to raise their hands. and I’m clear it’s not mission. We’re not talking about mission, we’re talking about a purpose. And then I’ll ask those few left over that have their hands up. How many of you can tell me the purpose of your company and it has four words or less, and the hands start to fall down. And then can every employee inside of your company repeat the purpose?

And rare, rarely if anybody can keep their hand up. And the ones that do are typically, or I shouldn’t say typically, they’re all nonprofits. They all were start, they all are HR executives that work at nonprofits that have, their business was started because of a purpose or something going on their community they wanted to fix.

And so that part to me [00:15:00] is a really unique opportunity in this kind of social entrepreneurial business aspect of. If we have these great businesses that make all this money or are intended to, and we have employees that are engaged and care about what they do, and like being at work, you can really make a huge difference in the community.

And so that part of me was the thing that when I wrote all that down and I put the words together, I was a little surprised that it came outta my brain and that, we were able to articulate in a way that hopefully makes sense to people and they can do something with it. So very few people that we know make, lot of money writing books, right?

They use it for, they, they have different reasons for, for writing it. So what do you wanna achieve with, hr, like a boss? Yeah, so I’ve been told that. yeah. I’ve been told that a thousand times and I’m, I didn’t write the book to make money because I don’t think I’m different in that sense.

Certainly didn’t get a big, didn’t get a big check from SHRM when Author. I was hoping for that, but still waiting for that advance William. Yeah, I understand. I have several [00:16:00] friends that are still waiting as well, but Yeah. Yeah, exactly. and it’s corny, maybe cliche, A personally was something that I needed to do it just right. it was something sticking in my brain and it was gnawing at me that I had to do it, and I’m so thankful that I did the second point is, maybe I’m a sucker for incredibly great hr, but when I’ve seen it done effectively, I can see the impact it has on people’s lives, right on side of a business and in the community.

And I keep mentioning those three things. So that’s another idea that came out. We’re in business to employ people, to make money in our business or to make enough money for it to be a nonprofit and then to do something good in our community as a result. And so my hope is that there’s people latch onto the idea.

And that. At least I can get one person to say I’m a better HR professional because I read your book. I’m hope, I hope it’s more than one, [00:17:00] but, I really feel like HR has the best opportunity to make a difference inside of a business of any other department other than if a department was a C E O.

And so I think HR has this incredible responsibility. and with that responsibility comes a tremendous amount of pressure and expectation. And I think sometimes when there’s a whiff speaking another golf analogy and HR doesn’t do that, it sticks out like a sore thumb. And I’m hoping that my book, can I help people galvanize their own inner wellbeing to love what they do and to take ownership of what it is that they’re responsible for and make a real difference.

The one thing I’ll share as a shameless plug, is that, I’m hoping that there’s some monetary component to it while we build out this community of hr like ABOs, cuz that’s an intention, not just the book, but Right. Other platforms inside of that. And I think th the, our social enterprise and why we’re doing this in HR like a boss is that my goal is, and it’s stated in the book and I [00:18:00] we’ve already started this program, is I’d love every graduating senior.

If it has their degree in HR coming out of a, getting their four year degree, they don’t have to pay for their SHRM certification because I think by getting into that program and getting that support, you create community immediately and you automatically get those credentials behind your name and someone will pay you a little bit more money for it. And so that’s our give back. That’s our why, and we’ve gotten a lot of momentum around that. And a program that we have here in northeast Ohio that’ll grow to Ohio next year. All of Ohio and I’m hoping grows to the Midwest and then grows to the entire country over time once we get the word out. in being in SHRM store, it’ll be at all their conferences, cuz we’ll both be at annual, but it’ll be at all their conferences and it stays there in their, SHRM store. for a long time. I can’t remember what, at one point someone told me it was like two years, or three years.

It stays in the rotation for quite a while. it’s also, it helps like you said, if it just helps one person. I used to [00:19:00] think that way when I did a lot of speaking as well. It’s like I don’t have to reach the whole audience. it’d be great if I did, but if there’s just a couple people that take some notes and go back to their business and actually do some of the things I’ve done my job.

That, that’s the bit, that’s the job. So I think having a book, you’ll get more speaking opportunities. You’ll get to do some book signings and things like that. Sometimes conferences will buy the book and put ’em in everybody’s, and give everybody a copy, et cetera.

And it’s just one of those deals you’re trying to impact as many people as possible. And you never know. this is the crazy stuff about writing books, is you just never know who you’re gonna impact. I wrote a book in oh seven and I still have people. To this day still talk about things that they learned from that book.

That’s awesome. Which is crazy to me cuz I’ve forgotten the entire book. Yeah, exactly. You remember when you wrote this in chapter seven? No. No. I don’t honestly don’t, but it’s also, [00:20:00] it’s a funny thing I, and I do have one last question, but the, it’s interesting cuz it was the first time in my life, I think it was re 2007, let’s say.

So March of seven. And someone asked me for my autograph and he was a person I knew. and I froze cuz I know I had, I never, I had never conceived the idea, right? So I just never even thought that way. And so when she asked me, we were at a bar, she brought up the book and she goes, Hey, would you, autograph the book?

I’m like, I didn’t know what to say. I literally froze. I don’t want to write. What do I write here? So I just wrote my name. And years later I apologized. And of course I said, first of all, you’re the one that, that, that completely broke me because I didn’t know what Now when that happens, on the occasion that it happens, I like, stop down and go, okay, cool.

Thank you so much. What’s your name? And, who’d you like for me to you get to a point where it isn’t, As scary as it was that first time. The first time it freaked me [00:21:00] out. and I D&I okay, of course froze and all that stuff. But the last question I got is, okay, so this one, it’s almost out on the shelves.

It’s almost something you can, you’re almost to the affairs line. This is when a lot of authors start thinking about their next book.

Yeah. Thanks a lot, William. Thanks a lot. Yeah, no worries. John. I just thought I, I just thought I’d leave it to her. Yeah, no, appreciate that very much. Let’s get out on the limb, just, yeah. See how you’re doing. John, you’re out there on the limb. Exactly. my, my mic’s on mute. I can’t talk. yeah. My wife would say.

Yeah. Yeah, you’re crazy. The, I wanna add one quick thing to your story about the autograph, and then I’ll answer your question. Give me a time to, To think about the appropriate responses. The, there was a friend over our house a year ago, and my daughter at the time was 11, and I’m not sure my daughter really knows what I do every day at work, right?

Oh, no. It’s totally fine. [00:22:00] My kids have no idea. They, I talk on the phone all day long. yeah. you’re on meetings, et cetera, and this friend is over and starts talking about the book and says, oh my gosh. Are you gonna, you’re gonna, you’re gonna, someone’s gonna ask you for an autograph.

How are you gonna sign your book? There you go. And my go, my daughter did what you did in that bar. She stopped and froze and thought to herself, why in the world would someone want my dad’s autograph? That’s exactly correct. That is ex your daughter. Very insightful. That’s exactly what the same thing. Why would you want my name?

Yeah, I thought the same exact thing. The first time I autograph, I have an auto, I’ve actually thought about this for a lot for a year, and, I have a few more months before the book actually gets printed and whatnot. That, and thankful to you, you just said, okay, what’s your name and who would you like me to write out to these?

I practice these things in my head, but whoever that is, they’re gonna get a picture with me because I’m gonna take it and show it to my daughter and say, this was the first person. Oh, that’s cool. Actually signed, had an autograph for [00:23:00] them mal, and that’s the cool part. So I don’t know.

I, it’s like you, I’m, I don’t write the book Toru to stroke my ego. Of course, a lot of people do. Its, it’s not the reason for it, but, and, but you do get your ego stroked as a result of it because you’re an author and people Compliment you with that. But, To be candid with you, I had another book, as I mentioned in my story before when I uhhuh, I flipped over to hr like a boss that I have actually had more time to think about.

And the title of that book in my head is, I Got It All Wrong. And it’s just this idea of the mistakes that I’ve made in my. Professional life that I think if I had a chance to talk to myself 25 years ago, I would probably really benefit from them. And it’ll be a shorter story. I probably don’t have the momentum of writing another 50,000 plus pager. But depending upon how well the book goes, may, maybe the SHRM editor will be knocking on my door to, to write another one. But I’m. You never tell put one foot in front of the other. Yeah. You can never tell the book that you’ve [00:24:00] got that’s already partially done.

It’s like the mistakes that you made. Sometimes when you think about ’em, were they actually mistakes? Some of ’em are yes. Egregious mistakes. fair enough. but some of ’em you wouldn’t be where you’re at. if without, if you hadn’t made those mistakes, if that makes sense. No, it totally does. and the genesis for that book, William came out to me when, again, this go back, goes back to my golf stories. When I was a kid, I was fortunate that we, my parents had a membership through my dad’s work at this country club. And very blessed and I was such a golf nerd. They had a pool in tennis courts. I went in the pool one time in eight years and I was there in the summer and all I did was golf. All I did was golf nonstop. I was observant enough around, I’ve got a bunch of Caddy Shack even just going through my head right now. Very good ahead. Exactly. Yeah. The caddy stories are great. So 15, 16, 17 year old version of John Bevi.

I’m there golfing. I have a lot of time on my hands. very loving and supporting parents. I’m getting better and better at golf. I’m doing well in school and getting, potential [00:25:00] opportunities to get a scholarship in golf. But on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, around one o’clock in the afternoon, there were a lot of grown men and women there that were playing golf, right?

And this is a workday, right? And over time, I ended up asking them, what do you do? How do you make your living? and time again, I own a business. I started a company, I’m a lawyer, I’m a this, I’m a that. And so I thought to myself, Oh, I want, I, and they drive. So this is how, so this is how I get to play golf during the day.

Exactly. I started business, and so when I started my business, the last thing I could do was play golf. And I worked nonstop 80 hours a week. Oh yeah. My wife would tell you were a maniac Because I didn’t want it to fail and Right. Had something pretty cool and I’d say 25 years later I’m finally able to play a little bit of golf William.

So in my mind, I saw the thing I forgot when I was 16 is that those people were 48. Yeah, of course. [00:26:00] 49, yeah. Yeah. 56, many years older than I was when I started my business. And they put a lot of time, energy, and effort into it to get that. You see this? this is the story. My brother, like I said, he is a golf, he’s a high school golf coach.

So he played, he coaches both the girls and boys team. And, every couple years he’ll call me and go, I, I need to make more money. I need to make more money. I just got, I, I, it’s tight and, we’re, she’s, she works for the school as well, and we just don’t have enough money.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you’re flying around, going to Singapore, this, that, and the other. It’s just, I need to make more money. I’m like, dude, Stop. You’ve made it. You play golf every day of your life, every day of your life. You’ve played golf for four or five hours a day. Like there, there are men and women out there that would kiss.

Yes. A kidney to be able to do that. yes, like you just do it every, and then you get to go to tournaments and watch kids play golf and play yourself. dude, you, you’ve already, [00:27:00] you’ve achieved what everyone else is trying to get to, and so you don’t, it’s just a funny bit, but.

John, I could talk to you forever and I can’t wait to read the book, myself and learn from you. So thank you so much for coming on the show and thanks for writing the book too. I can’t wait to see it. And, I just appreciate you. Hey, you the same, you keep up what you’re doing. I’ve marveled at what you’ve been able to create for yourself. And, you got your brother jealous of your kid, brother or older brother one way or the other. that’s pretty cool. you got him for a little bit, right? Yeah. unless you wanna be playing golf for us.

I wanna, I got, can we switch places? No. brother, listen, have a wonderful day and thanks again for coming on the show. You got it. All right.