Build a Business Culture That You and Your Employees Love with Tiffany Slater

Racheal Cook: As small business owners, we often are talking about our vision for our business, our big dreams, and our goals, what we imagine this business could be. A huge part of making any vision a reality is having a dream team, but just calling it a dream team doesn't automatically make it a dream team. You have to intentionally create and nurture a culture where everyone is winning as we are all working together to make that vision a reality.

In this series, I'm bringing on some incredible guest experts to talk about several different aspects of creating an amazing culture that truly makes your team the dream team and how you can play to everyone's strengths, play to everyone's personalities, make sure the right people are in the right places, and level up your leadership to make your business the type of business that people actually want to be a part of. Let's get into it.

Are you ready to grow from stressed-out solopreneur to competent CEO? You're in the right place. I'm your host, Racheal Cook, and I've spent more than 15 years helping women entrepreneurs sustainably scale their businesses. If you're serious about building a sustainable business, it's time to put the strategy, systems, and support in place to make it happen. Join me each week for candid conversations about stepping into your role as CEO, the hard lessons learned along the way, and practical profitable strategies to grow a sustainable business without the hustle and burnout.

Hey there, CEOs. I am so excited about this brand new series we are kicking off today here on the podcast, all about creating an incredible culture in your company. This is something I have been really thinking about ever since we had a whole weekend of conversations around this way back in the June CEO Retreat, around the June CEO Retreat.

Prior to hosting the CEO Retreat, one of the things we've started doing for our members inside of The CEO Collective is opening up six seats for a mastermind day. This is when those individuals can upgrade, grab a ticket for the mastermind day, they have a full one-hour hot seat where not only are they getting my brain on their business, they're getting my director of operations Amber's brain on their business, we often have one or two of our mentors who also have different areas of expertise in small business showing up to offer support, plus, everyone who has just signed up for this mastermind day.

It's about anywhere from 8 to 10 of us putting 100% of our attention on the biggest challenge, the biggest thing that is holding that particular business owner back from achieving their big-picture goals. On this particular weekend, this particular mastermind day, one of our members inside of The CEO Collective, Dr. Tiffany Slater, was in attendance and opened up this entire conversation that has added a whole new level of depth and nuance to how we are talking about truly building and leading incredible teams.

Dr. Tiffany Slater is a human resources professional and executive with over 20 years of experience in union and nonunion settings. Dr. Slater is known for her progressive generalist experience. She loves helping busy business owners by taking the lead on their human resources needs. Tiffany has been touted as the perfect solution for professionalizing and streamlining all things HR.

If you're a small business owner who has started to get to the point in your business where you have moved beyond, you have grown beyond just maybe you and an outsourced contractor or assistant to really starting to build a real team, you're actually starting to bring employees into the mix, then you have to start thinking at an entirely new level about what that team is going to look like and how this is going to change the game for your business.

In this conversation, we really continue the conversation we were starting that weekend, which was all about what is one of the biggest challenges we were seeing with small businesses and organizations, especially today, especially at this particular moment in time.

The last few years really has accelerated the direction that work was going and we have all seen huge changes in the way that a lot of people are working in the world. The pandemic had so many people working from home, which was a revolution for so many small businesses and companies that now had to really determine whether or not they had the processes, the structure, the systems in place that allowed people to thrive in a more self-directed and autonomous way because that's the only way working from home, working virtually is truly going to work.

We have seen this kind of dichotomy between old-school management which is very top-down, very much controlling, micromanaging, wanting to know all the time what you are doing, really kind of in the weeds of what every single person is doing on the team, and contrasting that with a whole new way of working, which is very much about everyone stepping into self-leadership, everyone on the team stepping into self-leadership, everyone in the team being able to work autonomously, everyone in the team being able to truly just show up and do their best work in the way that makes the most sense for them and be responsible for the results that they are creating for your company.

This is creating a lot of shifts. I mean, this is making huge waves in the world of work. In the world of management, people are panicked that they don't know how to manage in this new way. Workers are getting frustrated because after having a taste of that freedom, there are all these bigger companies, again, with this old paradigm who are trying to bring them back to the office even when the research shows that the workers were more productive, they were making more things happen, they were happier when they were able to work on their own terms.

This still impacts small business owners, this dramatically impacts small business owners. Because when we are small business owners, each and every person we're bringing onto our team, we don't have the luxury of a bigger business where we can wait six months or a year for somebody to get up to speed, we need people who can get into our business and make things happen quickly.

We need small business team members to work very nimbly. We need people who can make decisions. We need people who understand so much of the nuances of what's going on in our business so that they can create the results we hired them to create.

A lot of this comes down to yes, your vision, them understanding where we're going, yes, your values, them understanding how you're going to get there, but the conversation that kept coming up again and again is that they really need to understand and feel a part of the culture of your small business.

Often in small businesses, culture is an afterthought. This is again another conversation that sometimes it feels like this is too corporate maybe have a conversation but truly, this is one of the most important conversations as you are growing a team. I would say especially as you're growing a team and you start hitting that point where you have four, five, or more people on your team.

I have felt that way especially, especially as I've handed off huge parts of my business to people on my team. My operations, my team runs that. My client delivery, my team runs almost all of that. I have really been able to remove myself from those couple of areas. Marketing and the sales processes, I've really pulled myself out so I'm doing only like the 10% that is the most essential for me to do and everything else, the team is the one managing that and running that day-to-day, week-to-week.

The way that works, the way that it has worked has been because we have a strong culture. Designing that culture has been a little bit of a combination of organic, this has just been organically how my business has evolved, especially because of some of the decisions I've made, who I bring onto the team, and my own personal deep inner work around leveling up my leadership, but it also happened very intentionally.

It happened very intentionally because I knew how I wanted work to feel for me and how I want to care for the people who are caring for my clients. That's how I think of it all the time. I just have this conversation with Amber Kinney who's my director of operations and we have worked together for so long since 2011.

She was saying something to me and I was like, “You take care of me and I'm always going to take care of you.” It's always this mutually beneficial thing. For me, that's been a big throughline in the culture we've been trying to build for our team is we're here to make sure this is always a win-win, to make this fun, to have a great time working together, and get great results from our clients but also truly feel like each and every person on this team is a valued respected member.

This culture conversation is one that is just fascinating to me. It's full of nuance. It requires a lot of being reflective and really getting honest about the type of business you really want to have when your business is no longer just about you.

That's where I'm going to leave this intro here as Tiffany and I dive in to talk about all things culture because she's the one that kicked off this whole conversation and within a few weeks of that retreat, I started recording this series of interviews to talk about how we can just start building more intentional, incredible cultures for our small businesses. With that, let's get into it.

Hey, Tiffany, thank you so much for joining me today.

Tiffany Slater: Thanks for having me, Racheal. Good morning.

Racheal Cook: I am so excited that you're joining me as I shared in the intro. You came to the most recent CEO Retreat that we hosted and prior to having The CEO Retreat, we hosted a mastermind day for clients who want a little extra support. This kicked off what essentially for me was like three straight days of this topic coming up, creating a culture that attracts amazing talent, that retains amazing talent that your team loves to be a part of in your business.

It was like you brought it up one day, the next day Erica was talking about it, the next day [inaudible] was talking about it like this is such a huge piece of what so many of the amazing women inside of The CEO Collective are doing but each in their own different ways.

As we get into this idea of talking about building and designing a culture in your business, first I want you to share a little bit about your background as a fractional human resources executive. What does that mean for small business owners?

Tiffany Slater: Well, it means amazingness for small business owners. It means peace and confidence. But in the actual sense, what we do is we develop employee handbooks, we manage benefits, performance management processes, record keeping for employees, we fill employee questions.

We provide guidance to the leaders of the organization as it relates to employee relations issues, job descriptions, so essentially all of the things that we're used to our human resources department doing in a large organization, we do that for our clients and we work virtually across the United States.

Racheal Cook: I think this is so interesting because as someone who came out of corporate, HR is very involved in any part of being an employee for someone else. But as a small business owner, we start off as a one-woman show, we start adding on team, and there does come a point where you have to get serious and be legit about how you're managing all the human resources side of your business instead of winging it. What is that tipping point that you see for small businesses?

Tiffany Slater: Yeah, well, a couple of people come to us because they're like, “We just want to make sure that our employees have the support that they need. We want to make sure that they have someone that they can talk to if they're not comfortable talking to us.”

The tipping point can be a variety of instances. Most of the time, it's those organizations that are growing, they're maybe at two or three employees, and they're like, “You know what, we're about to grow, we're going to get bigger, and we want to make sure that we do this thing the right way,” so they reach out to us so that we can provide them and our team members with the support that they deserve.

Racheal Cook: I think that is such a huge tipping point for a lot of small businesses when they start to come to us as well because this is the stage where you realize, “Okay, we're doing this thing. We're doing this thing and we need to make sure we got our house in order, that we have all of the right paperwork filled out, that we're doing this all above board, that everything is super clear, that we're protecting ourselves as small businesses.”

I mean, that's a huge role that HR has is protecting the small business and making sure they're above board with all of their employee practices. When it comes to culture, I can't even remember how we started this conversation, but it was like when they start to reach out to someone for HR support, well, here's where I think the conversation started, we tend to think of the tactical things like, “We need to get our handbook handled. We need to figure out our benefits. We need to make sure that we have all these boxes checked.”

But when they start running into problems, this is where the conversation started, it's not that they didn't check off a box, it's that they didn't have a clear culture in place. If you don't have that, a lot of other problems spiral out.

As someone who really helps people, not just with checking the boxes, y'all, Tiffany is here to help you build an incredible culture, can you share a little bit about what does it mean to have a culture in your business?

Tiffany Slater: Yeah, well, every organization has a culture, whether we plan for it or not, whether or not it is the type of culture that we want or not. The culture is really how it feels to be a part of the team. The common practices that go unsaid, perhaps nobody schedules meetings after 12 o'clock in the afternoon because our leaders want us to make sure that we have a great weekend and that's the way that they want us to kick it off is having Friday afternoon to ourselves, that is a part of the culture.

It is about walking into the space or coming into Zoom meetings, there's music playing, and everybody's dancing because that's the way that we do things. The culture is about the way that we behave when we are in community with each other, it’s the way that we treat each other, and it is the way that we show up for each other or not. It is all of those things. It's the personality of the organization. It is the way that we go about doing business. That's the culture.

Racheal Cook: Okay, I love that you said this is the personality of the business. I think as a business owner, we tend to have this kind of challenge separating ourselves from the business. The business owner tends to be very enmeshed in their identity with the business. But as you start to grow a team, you have to, one, separate that, that's a healthy thing to do, everyone, your identity is not just your business, but also if it's completely just your identity, then no one else can be a part of that.

Tiffany Slater: Absolutely. One of the things that we start with is you've got to have values. They're so important. I know that you talked about that as well. Values are really important. Now as a solopreneur, my values were my values, and I made them the values of the organization, but they are values that can easily be adapted by other people.

As you grow your team, those individuals help you define the values. They're in place already. But what do they actually mean? As the people start joining your organization, they help you shape the definition of what collaboration looks like in this organization, or what relationships look like in this organization. While they were values of yours personally, the team is really helping you build out what it means for your organization. It has to start with the values.

Racheal Cook: I 1,000% agree with this and anyone who's listened to the conversations I've had with Erica Courdae either on the podcast or we just have been sharing a bunch of short-form video content about this, I feel like so much of our business success hinges on the values.

I remember I mean way back in the day, they used to do values trainings, like identify your top values, but they'd give you like a word bank, you know how like when you're a little kid and you're doing like third-grade tests, “Here's your word bank, select the words,” instead, it's like a page of descriptive words and you're supposed to circle five and those are your values. I think that's a very, like, let's just check the box and not actually do the work to make sure we've identified those values.

But when we understand those, how I always think of it is your vision as the CEO of your business, you're responsible for setting the vision, the direction you're going, where you're headed. That's like plugging the address into the GPS. Your values are like the rules of the road. Here's the speed limit. Follow the stop sign. Follow the traffic lights and here's the detour. The values are telling you how you're getting there, the rules of the road.

With those two things combined, it tells you so much about just already the culture of a business, I think. But I think what you're sharing here is it goes deeper than just writing those things out, we have to think about how people are operationalizing that and that is what the culture is. It's like how you actually put those values into practice and all your policies, and to, like you said, how people feel, how people show up every day.

Tiffany Slater: Yes, absolutely. I love your analogy the rules of the road and the culture is all about “What's happening inside of the car? What music is playing? What conversation is happening?” You are absolutely right. I love this analogy.

The values can absolutely change and that's okay. But from an HR perspective, what we do in terms of connecting the tasks and the work of HR in the way that we help to influence or impact the culture is we take the policies and we make sure that the policies we write are in line with the values, that they really talk to people in a way that we want them to be spoken to.

Do we want our team members to be called team members, employees, minions, or superstars? How do we refer to them in the handbook? How do we actually refer to them when we're having conversations? Actually spelling out what it looks like in our culture as it relates to the HR work that we're doing and the practices that we're implementing, that's how we influence the culture specifically from an HR perspective.

I keep going to that because there are so many other departments or areas in the organization that have an influence or impact on the culture as well. But I believe, and yes, I'm biased, that HR has the most significant impact on culture than any other department.

Racheal Cook: Yeah, I would agree with that because people need to have that connective tissue and the HR department is a department that connects everybody across all of the different functions of the business. It makes sense that they're really the ones that are like the holders of the culture. They're the ones in the front seat.

The CEO might be driving but HR is riding shotgun and making sure that like, “Okay, everybody's happy. You got what you need.” I'm literally thinking of now that we have this whole analogy going, I was like, “Well, if your culture is what's happening in the car, what kind of car are we driving? What's happening here,” because if it's me and you've come to meet me, we're getting in a minivan, there are lots of snacks, there might be some music, but it's not too loud, whereas some other businesses might have a full-on party bus, and then some other businesses might have like everybody's in their suits doing work as they go.

Now it just brings it all together. I'm so excited we landed on this analogy, Tiffany. I think for people who are trying to think of their culture, what I've noticed is that when we're not intentionally thinking about this, it tends to happen by accident. If it's happening by accident, that's where we run into a lot of problems. What kind of challenges do you see when the culture was not intentionally created? It's just kind of accidentally, “Oh, no, what did we do here?”

Tiffany Slater: Yeah, absolutely. That happens more often, because people talk about culture, but they don't really know what impacting it looks like. Once it's in place, it's really hard to turn around. Starting early is important. But some of the things that I've seen will be simple things like maybe we have unwritten rules that everybody doesn't know about. So here we are as the business owner, and we're frustrated with the actions of others, but we've not told them the rules because they're unwritten.

We need an employee handbook that we actually follow. If we don't follow it, then we need to update it so that it is in alignment with what we actually do and what we actually expect. That's one thing. We've got to share things with people. We've got to be clear, and we've got to stop expecting people to be mind readers, that's just not going to happen.

The other thing that happens unintentionally is we get to a space where maybe things are a little too loose. We want a culture where people enjoy work and they know that we are approachable as the business owner, but things get a little too loose and when we want people to flip the switch and be professional, they have a hard time doing that because we have been very friendly and conversational with them, and not also showing them how to do that in a professional way. That's another thing that I've seen happen very often.

Racheal Cook: This is so good because I think one of the things that happens very easily, especially in small businesses, we tend to hear a lot of people say, “My team is like my family, we love each other,” and I actually get a little bit of like, “Okay, red flag here because your family is your family. Your team is the people you work with.”

I think this is where that enmeshment can be a little dangerous because when things are too loose, but now you've got this relationship of like “We're buddy, buddy, we're friends,” how do you come to that person and have “Hey, we need to have a real conversation. This isn't working”? How do you get that employee back on the right track if they were stumbling? It really blurs a lot of lines when we don't have boundaries around that, I think.

Tiffany Slater: Absolutely. I've really seen some horror stories that I can't even share where people trusted individuals so much that they have violated them in ways that are unspeakable, and they didn't even realize it was a violation. That's the thing that we have to be careful of. We give people the wrong message sometimes by not being very clear and setting boundaries.

I think it's okay to refer to your team as your family. But what does that mean? Let's define what that means and let's define the boundaries. I think that it is very different. I've seen some organizations that are doing very well and have retained people for a long time and they refer to themselves as family.

But that means for them that we're going to call you out when you're not hitting the mark. We're going to be kind about it. We're going to offer you support, but you're going to know if you're missing the mark. We're also going to make sure that you are representing us well because we are family and the way you stand out, that means that you are representing us as well. That's what family means to them and the way that you described it is definitely one that goes on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Racheal Cook: Well, just like your family, you can have a great fully functional, healthy family dynamic or you can have a completely dysfunctional, unhealthy family dynamic. Because relationships are relationships, you can have either end of the spectrum in a company as well. You can have a really healthy, functioning dynamic or you can have a very unhealthy dysfunctional dynamic.

As someone who works with a lot of leaders, we see this when people are afraid to go to their boss or afraid to go to the CEO and talk about problems. They're afraid of upsetting them. Everybody's like walking around on eggshells. Those types of things tend to make it really, really stressful. That's a culture of dysfunction. That's a culture of “We can't be clear, honest, and direct here because we can't step on toes.”

I think most of the people who are listening to this, if you're attracted to my work, and now hearing Tiffany, you'll love her work as well, I think they want to be on the other side of that like having a healthy dynamic within their company, having strong boundaries, having clear communication, you can absolutely have fun with your team and build in, like you said, your own little things that just make it a part of your culture, like what kind of music are you playing? What's happening in the environment? How do you start your meetings? What are the signature moves that you all have?

It's kind of like if you think about if you're hosting a party, what are the things that you're known for? I think being intentional about that, it's actually making me think of the book The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker. Amazing book. I love this book. If y'all haven't read it, she writes all about how to design intentional experiences, gatherings, events, conferences, weddings, it doesn't matter what type of thing it is where you're bringing people together.

I think it's this little bit of intentionality around how are you doing that? What are the yes, practical tactical things you're doing here but also what are the things that make people feel included or make them feel like they belong? Or how do you want people to feel in general?

Tiffany Slater: Yes. There are the tactical things, but the two things that pull it all together are effective leadership and diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Those are the two things that kind of weave them all together. Because if you have poor leadership, it doesn't matter what you do. It just doesn't matter.

But the diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, that's so important because it's all about making the people that are on your team feel as though they belong there, like you are intentional about recognizing them, about showing your appreciation about them or for them, and making sure that their voice is heard, and you know what, not just heard, but welcome.

It's easy to hear somebody but to make them feel as though you want to know what they think and you are really intentional about taking action on what your team members are sharing with you, that's important. It’s so important. It goes back to those bosses where people don't want to talk to them because they don't feel safe. They don't feel like the boss wants to hear what they have to say or that they're going to do anything with the information that they're sharing with them.

Racheal Cook: Yeah, the psychological safety is a huge part of I think building a strong culture where people truly feel respected. I think we're in the middle of this shift right now in the world of work and the relationship to leadership because leadership, when I was in business school, it was all very hierarchical top-down “I'm the boss.”

This is where we end up with just tyrannical bosses and management styles where literally, they can be straight-up abusive and call that management. That is shifting. People are done. This is, I think, a huge part of attracting and retaining talent. People want to feel respected.

It's not even liked or loved. It's just “Do you respect me as a fellow human being?” Not because you are compliant, compliance and respect are two different things, but I think it's just you respect me enough as a human being to see me, hear me, listen, take my feedback, engage with me when I'm going through something.

I think cultures who embrace that, and they're okay with the short-term discomfort of maybe having a hard conversation or going through something with somebody, but they're doing it in a very psychologically safe way of “You're welcome to bring things to us. We care about you as the whole human,” I think this is the shift in business culture that is happening right now.

People who are not intentionally taking the time to design their culture and to think about how they're showing up in their role in this, they're the ones who are struggling honestly to find team and keep team.

Tiffany Slater: Absolutely, that is so true. It's so important that you are clear about the culture that you want to create, and that you put the right things in place to make it a reality. Then you have to commit to it every single day. It's not something that you can say one time.

A handbook is not something that you write, sit it on the shelf, and it collects dust. No, it is a living document just like your culture is a living, breathing thing. It could change at the drop of a dime. But when you have a culture that becomes toxic or ineffective as it relates to getting your organization where you want it to be, it is so difficult to change it.

It's almost like you have to wipe the slate clean of everybody that's there and hire new people. Getting it right the first time is really important. One of the things that or the reason that I really love what I do, Racheal, I left working for a really toxic place. It was really toxic.

I said, “You know what, I am going to create a joyful work experience for me, myself, and I, and I'm going to do that through HR.” Then I started thinking, “I want to make sure that I do that for other people, because I don't want anybody to feel the way that I did. I don't want anybody to have a work experience like I experienced.” Our mission is to help small businesses and nonprofit organizations to create joyful work experiences for their team and for the person who is running the organization.

Racheal Cook: Yeah, I love this because I think this is one of those pieces that it takes a lot of intentionality to make this happen. To me, this is where you really have to step into your leadership and be okay with the discomfort of looking at the areas that might not be doing so well in your business.

Look at communication. Look at conflict. Look at how do you want people to feel, are they feeling that when you're in meetings? Are they feeling that when you're in events? Are they feeling that when you're just communicating day-to-day? You really have to audit your company and ask yourself, “Is this a culture I meant to create? Am I happy here? Is my team happy here? Where are the areas we need to really take time, tease apart, and figure out how do we rebuild this back?” It's a process like this stuff is not just write a document and you're done. This is an ongoing, relational process.

Tiffany Slater: Relational, behavior, process, all the things. Yes, it really is important that you take a look at all of those areas, and then decide “Am I willing to put in the time and the work that it's going to take to make this change? Because it is necessary. With the smaller teams, it won't take as long as those larger organizations, but regardless of the size, it's going to take work and commitment.

Racheal Cook: Absolutely. Well, Tiffany, I so appreciate you jumping on with me today because this conversation is one I think more small business owners need to have. It doesn't matter if your team is just a handful of people, a couple dozen people, a couple of a hundred people, or whatever.

Like I said, we're at the tipping point right now. We are seeing such a massive shift in the world of work. A lot of us are going to be hiring more people as we continue to grow. If we want to stand out, not just as a profitable company, but as a great place to work, a company that people want to be involved in, they want to be there, you have to take the time to do this. I love it.

Tiffany Slater: Agreed.

Racheal Cook: Well, Tiffany, how can people learn more about how you work and how they can potentially work with a fractional HR department?

Tiffany Slater: People can reach out to us at hrtailormade.com. You can also schedule a virtual coffee with me. I'd love to just learn more about you and your business. We also have an HR strategy session which is 30 minutes of you chatting with me and letting us know what challenges you are facing and we’ll provide you with some appropriate next steps.

Racheal Cook: Awesome. I will link that up in the show notes. Thank you so much. It was so great to chat with you today.

Tiffany Slater: Thank you.