Have You Looked at Your Employee Handbook Lately?

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman this week J goz and Dana White talk about their employee handbooks do they take them seriously or is it just boilerplate has anything changed since the pandemic is the handbook the place to remind employees that they are hired at will and can be fired at any time with or without a reason are there issues that should not be addressed in the handbook and when was the last time they updated it when when was the last time they read it me personally responded Jay actually picked it up and read it yes Jay that's the question years even in Good Times owning and running a business can be a lonely Pursuit our hope is that these weekly conversations will let owners know they are not alone in facing challenges same thing with our daily newsletter the 21 hats Morning Report which Inc magazine just proclaimed the best newsletter for business owners which you can subscribe to at 21h hats.com where you can also find transcripts of our podcast episodes and lots of other articles and interviews joining me this week on the podcast are regulars J gos whose companies in Chicago include a picture frame business artist frame service and a home furnishing store Jason home and Dana White who is CEO of paraly boy a Detroit based chain of hair salons the episode is titled have you looked at your employee handbook lately welcome Jay and D great to have you here today I want to talk about a topic that may sound a little mundane but I think it's pretty important which is what you tell your employees in your employee handbook and I guess what I'm kind of wondering is is your handbook just corporate boilerplate BS or do you really use it as an opportunity to try to Define what your company is about and what your employees need to know about it um I'm also curious what's changed I recently read an employee handbook of a Silicon Valley startup that made reference to a dress code for employees working remotely I'm pretty sure that wasn't in anybody's handbook uh 10 years ago let me just start by asking do both of you have an employee handbook I do and have always had one since I've opened I think that's unusual to have one right from the beginning yes that is I've had one because I knew that this was going to a different type of salon for this industry a lot of hair salons don't because they're all independent contractors or just commission based so some of them do they have like this is our dress code they have policies but they don't always have a handbook so I do and have always had one Jay do you have one I have one now I've had it for quite a few years but I can't tell you I had one in the beginning how long did you run the company before you before you had one you know what many years I don't remember 10 years 20 years you also have to remember when I started in business there was no attention to small business entrepreneurship the whole phrase having a handbook it's like I was in the prehistoric ages like I I don't think I heard that phrase for many years so I probably have had one now for 25 years and I also just to get perspective I'm the first to say I think it is important to have a handbook I think it's very important to have a handbook so just cuz I didn't use to have one I was wrong I I should have had one I think it's very very important there's lots of things to cover in there Jay do you know when was the last time you actually looked at your employee handbook we have been redoing it and frankly it's been going on too long we've been working on it for a couple years and I just had a conversation with my HR person yesterday she's digging in to get it done you didn't exactly answer my question yeah we haven't changed it in years no I asked you if when was the last time you looked at it me personally actually picked up and it yeah years but I I know what the issues in there were because I've discussed it with them like what are we doing about you know some of those things like FMLA pay or I'm guessing if you read it today it some things in there might surprise you or some of the absences might surprise you well I'm waiting for the reite now and then I will review it but I certainly gave input they asked me along the way what what do we want to do and we did flesh out some subjects Dana when was the last time you looked at yours I looked at mine probably J January February beginning of the year I try to look at it beginning of the year and then if we have addendums or things that we need to update we um add the update we post the update sign in the in the kitchen and then we send out in our inet we send out a message saying we' got it up and then here it is we really don't print them anymore we are uh giving them electronically was there something that prompted you to to look at it as recently as January just the the staff shortages and just to make sure that we're clear we've had some staff that have done some things that are obviously in the handbook as not to do um but it was obvious to us that they're not reading it and so that's why I stopped printing it because that's a you know our our handbooks like almost 50 pages um front and back and I print it you know well color with a nice cover on it um but if you're not going to read it save that expense so we just make sure you got it electronically on the internet and in your own email um and then we encourage you to read it if you don't that's on you at least I didn't inue the cost of printing um and you never looking at it one of the things I do that I feel very strongly about is I have what I call indoctrinations and every few months I get all the new employees who have worked here for you know a month two months three months I get them in the conference room we go around the table everyone introduces themsel everyone talks about where they came from and then I go through an outline about history of the company what we're all about and I cover some really important stuff and that stuff that is in the manual but I really want to have an eyeball to eyeball and one of the most important things in this meeting is I say to them does everyone know who their boss who their immediate manager is and they raise their hand most people know that and then I say do you know who your manager's manager is and I would say 25% of the time they get it wrong and the major point is if you've got an issue here that you're not happy about something you want to discuss it the corporate culture of this company is you should go ahead and talk to someone about it and if you're not happy with the answer you got from that person you should go to their boss and that's the kind of stuff to be an employee manual and to me it is far too important to go stick it in a book and hope they read it so I cover probably three qus of what is in the employee manual just in this meeting and the stuff like you know do they get paid for funeral pay or whatever okay they can go look that up themselves that's not a big thing but I I think that's one of the most important things I do and if nothing else I know that they personally have talked to me and I've told them right eyeball to eyeball and at least I know I gave him my best shot to get him to do that whereas if I don't have that meeting I don't know that it ever they ever picked up the book I don't know if they ever read it I don't know if the HR person talked to at least I know I did something I gave him my best shot I think that's great because your company's so big right mine's not that big so you know there's one manager um and then you know who that person boss is and you know where Dana is and the whole thing um I think when we get to a size where we have over a 100 employees yeah I think that orientation that you know in-person orientation um should happen but here's my question do you think that even with whatever 10 employees you said you're there do you believe you had an conversation with them eyeball to eyeball to say listen it's very important to this company that people are happy here and the customers are being taken care of if there's something here that you think is wrong I encourage you to come talk to me about it if you don't feel like you've gotten what you need have you had that conversation eyeball to eyeball with people yep and it blew up I've said this on previous shows we're dealing with a very different Workforce and we're dealing with a group of people with very different business acument so when I started I brought my corporate culture of being a good boss of being open door policy and that was a disaster getting text at 2:00 in the morning that professionalism wasn't there to understand the difference between a good boss and a friend now my manager does it when you input Dana people say oh I don't have to talk to the manager I want to talk to the owner and because I look like them and I'm not doing something that most salon owners are doing it it gives them a sense of Pride so they're looking for a reason to come talk to me um I've had a young lady asked me repeatedly the same questions about time off time off and I said do you feel uncomfortable speaking with your manager no I just want to talk to you okay you know what I accept that no no I I accept that I can see in your case you need to have a little bit of a barrier between the leader and the manager in my case I've got the opposite problem that nobody's going to come seek me out I I always laugh at the open door policy I can tell you there's an inverse relationship between the bigger the company less likely someone's going to come see you like I I would challenge a thousand person coming how many times does someone come to your office Bob like yeah never how many people have walked up to my office and sat down and said can I talk to you for a minute doesn't happen now I walk out to the floor I go down have start having a convers yeah once in a while somebody will say something I just want to follow up on what you said about what you tell them at the orientation Jay if they if they don't like the answer they get from their manager they can go to their manager's boss um it's easy to imagine that turning into a difficult situation some of the managers might resent the fact that you're encouraging people to do that how how often does that even happen does it come up very seldom in in my world and I'm not saying I'm the expert in management all I know is in our Management in our place if I've found if you have competent managers that doesn't happen very often it just shouldn't because the manager should be able to get the point across and get the job done and I can just tell you in practice there's very seldom does someone go over their boss to talk to someone else that's not a great that's kind of a symptom of a problem as far as I'm concerned but you feel it's important enough that you emphasize that they can do that yeah I don't want to do uh you know I love the fact people have exit interviews oh that's valuable you find out when someone's already quit why they're quitting I mean talk about locking the Barn Door after the the the cows are out I mean that's crazy I want them to know speak up if there's a problem here and sometimes the problem they have can't be fixed and they should go find another job I mean that's the reality we do exit interviews and they are valuable tool again we do them not because we've been distant during the process it's just that that Dynamic of I have nothing to lose because I'm leaving anyway um people are they're employees and so some people are reluctant to say certain things because they have to come to work here um and L in my industry when they are at home and they know they're not coming back and we're on a call with them for an exit interview they're likely to say more we've even asked why didn't you bring this up while you were here well because um I didn't want such and such to be mad at me well what indication did you feel that they would give you that they would be mad at you well I had this boss at another job so a lot of it had nothing to do with us it had everything to do with what they were bringing from a past employer so we value uh exit interviews because again for my industry and for the age group of the people I'm working with they feel more comfortable when they're leaving versus when they're there I absolutely I'm not dissing exit I think you should do exit interviews I'm yes you did you said I said it's it's not no no I said it's a shame that they're telling you on the way out after the fact it's not ideal I'm suggesting you should do exit interviews but I would hope that you've caught some of that stuff before they leaving in most cases and didn't just find out after the fact and I can tell you it's working we very there hasn't been many cases on the exit interview that they said something was like oh my God I didn't know about that doesn't happen a lot it just doesn't you got to work this a little bit you got to you can't just go put we have an open door policy you got to put a little work into it so I'm sitting here still processing the notion that you obviously both consider employee handbooks to be very important but neither of you has a lot of confidence that your employees are actually reading it and I'm I'm wondering if you've have you tried anything in the past to to require people to read it to make sure they read it is have you made any attempts yep we sure do so we'll go over during our morning meeting we'll go over parts of the employee handbook and they'll go oh what and we'll say yep that's on page such and such and such and such read it so my my answer is simple I don't care if they read it or not it still serves an important function a if there's any issues of oh I had to take off my mother's oh if check the handbook you'll see the okay it's it's a guideline as to all the all our policies it's right there when they need it to reference it A and B as I said before some of that stuff so important I covered in my and I it's not an orientation it's an indoctrination a little different there's more teeth on it this is like we need you to buy in and understand what we're doing here this isn't showing you where the bathrooms are so I I do think it even if no no one reads it that doesn't mean it's worthless it's still the guideline for Stuff the arbitrary oh someone took off of their mother's funeral should I pay him well we shouldn't be arbitrary about that either we do or we don't and everybody should know and if you don't put it into a book and have all the managers have it every time something comes up people are just making up their own rules and it's talk about dangerous so you're saying it's important to have those rules in a book just so you take the time to sit down and figure out what the rules are yeah and if somebody asks say oh if you check you'll see in the handbook um there we give you two days pay for can I roll there's lots of little silly stuff that I never paid attention to like rollovers on vacation pay do you allow people to roll over ation pay well I have to tell you when you're a company like mine where you've got people here for 20 years 25 years you could have somebody with 3 months of a crude vacation pay now think about this is that a problem yes it's a problem because you don't want someone leaving for three months and number two is it increases your costs think about it if you're you're in crewing vacation pay and they're coming into work you're paying them twice so all of a sudden your labor is higher than it should it be because you're budgeted for everybody taking their vacation pay so now we we've gone back and said okay you can roll over four weeks of vacation pay until I had the problem I never thought about it but I I literally had people with you know 16 weeks of vacation pay built up it never occurred to me there's 10 more things like that or 20 more there's not 500 but there's 10 or 20 other things I just had this conversation yesterday with the FMLA that most companies require you take vacation pay when you're on FMLA because if you don't they can take 12 weeks F MLA and then they can go and take their two months vacation and then they tell you they decided to quit so you've just spent five months wait who has two months vacation somebody that acred could have acred okay say a month they could have take their acred vacation of four weeks plus the 12 weeks well now the person's been gone for 16 weeks so you've just lost four months where you could have hired somebody and it's not a great thing and from what I'm told most companies require that you take vacation time while you're out who I would have never thought about something like that I've always worked with contracts that said you either use it or you lose it use it by this day and only a little bit of it's going to roll over not all of it um so that's how companies have saved a lot of money we don't offer vacation time um so it's not where we are once we get more of like a corporate office with administrators um and maybe for our senior staff in the salons will offer it but we don't right now I just think we're too small I mean the fact is you know letting crew some of it's certainly reasonable but I it's it's not a great thing to have people with months of a crew vacation time there's lots of little nuances to like in the olden days I think it was pretty correct me if I'm wrong Danny you might know this I think it was pretty common practice to put in employee manual if you discuss your salary with other employees that could be caused for dismissal that was like a standard thing not doing that anymore that was standard Fair it was big in this like in the early 80s and the 70s when I've at Old contracts I've read your salary is yours discussion it could be grounds for termination or could be called for disciplinary action so let me run a couple things by you I mentioned that I saw a a handbook recently it's not directly appropriate to your companies as I said it's a Silicon Valley startup and there are cultural differences for sure but the language struck me as really interesting in some aspects and I'd love to get your reactions one is it it started with kind of a warm opening of we know it can be a little bit overwhelming starting a new job there's a lot to learn there's a lot to figure out uh this is something of a guide to help you we want you to succeed and then it quickly got to a a reminder by the way you are an it will employee and you can be fired at any time with or without a reason and I understand why that language is there and why one would think it belongs in a handbook but it's kind of a bracing choice of words for somebody who's just starting a job what do you guys think of that I would have thought and I don't you know out of context that's tough but if they say that and maybe legally they need to say that's fine I think followed up with with that being said people that get dismissed at this company are are are dismissed for the following reasons and like pay it off a little bit instead of yeah any day we could just walk in and fire you I don't think that's a great message to be leave hanging out there so I I do think it's very important to say here's some way that you will get fired from this company and then there's things like do you pay severance pay should that be an employee manual I don't think so I they're they're you talk about arbitrary I think sance pay is absolutely arbitrary um in some cases I think it's appropriate you're saying it should be arbitrary yeah in my I'm not even going to tell anyone else want do in my case I believe for me I want it to be arbit jury because in some cases sance pay is extremely um appropriate and the right thing to do and in other cases it's absolutely not appropriate so don't think I'd want to go lay out an employee manual how we handle severance pay how about uh the issue of what is appropriate to be discussed in a workplace setting this handbook oh that's huge was pretty aggressive about saying I I forget exactly what the words were but the the attempt was to say we don't want politics discussed in the in the office what do you think Dana in my company we the firstand book just talked about politics and religion now um I've had to add so much more to it um we've had again our our stylist can be young and so talking about the fun you had last night with your new boyfriend to a to a customer is inappropriate um talking about your opinion um your conspiracy theories on Beyonce and Jay-Z's baby that's inappropriate um I mean these are things that have happened we had one case where the gentleman stylist was trying to be complimentary um to a customer who had just gotten her hair done and he said your hair looks so good you gonna make a baby tonight and she burst out crying and she said you know what we've been trying for a really long time I hope so and he was just thinking he was funny so our D got do you say in a handbook to you say don't be an idiot that's the line of don't be an idiot it's not a good policy I mean you know not going to do it J no that's not that's my point is I don't think you can put everything in a handbook of what you can I would never put in a handbook you can't talk about politics at work I I think that's ridiculous I think if it becomes a problem we're in the service industry so no we're in the customers okay with customer okay that's faom that's not we're not doing that we have a lot of customers that are Jewish and our young customers our young stylists who have only lived in one place only think that everybody's religion is their religion don't understand why we're not playing gospel music on Sunday well because not everybody who comes here on Sunday went to church today you know what I I just went to a I just went to a business group meeting for a National Organization they started out with the prayer and they finished it with thank you Jesus Christ and I said to myself wow 2022 and someone still has included him in that everybody's not a Christian and I have to tell you it's like seriously and I I so there's some stuff like that especially with customers I don't think you can write every single thing down that you shouldn't shouldn't say to customers or to anybody it's not that we don't we we wouldn't even dare to do that but we do have a rule that one it's about the customer's experience not yours so if you're talking about your experience last night you're probably shouldn't be talking about that the other thing as we say is if you're saying more than five or 10 words you're saying too much so if you know how are you I'm fine thank you keep it short um we've had customers try to bait our staff we've gotten in trouble because a customer was talking too much um she was talking to the point where her the customer and her husband solicited um my staff member for a sexual favor to be performed later on that night um why because she had been talking about this place she had gone with her boyfriend again it's too much and so we're saying and again some of these things you guys don't deal with because your industries are so much different than mine and the business acument in your industry is so much different than mine can we put all that in a handbook but no we do say make the customer experience about the customer and if you're saying more than this many words you're saying too much and it's worked okay that seems no that seems reasonable I but I wouldn't go tell employees in an office you can't talk about politics like there are some people who call politics and I've had this problem where if I say to someone you know what I have a lot of of minorities that work here and a lot of different sexual orientations to work here and I feel it important to have a safe environment and the person says I don't talk politics at work I remember you telling me that Jay and I was like that's not political but in her mind it's political yeah so I you know I think I I I think the less the better I think if on a problem comes up I don't think you can say you've taken care of all oh I put it in the handbook I think that's there's some management needed like some things are just going to come up and you got to deal with it we also train for the conversation so we'll say how well do you know the person sitting in your chair this is a walk-in only hair salon how well do you know them and they're like well I see them every week and I said yep is their mother alive well I don't know and we ask them questions that there's no possible way they could know the answers to and they'll and I said because you you don't know who that person is you have to watch what you say and that really resonates with them they go oh you know what did you know that her and her husband have been trying and had fertility issues no I didn't know so then there's things you just shouldn't say and that's how we leave it and it works do either of you address marijuana use that's interesting you bring that up we've been doing drug testing for years I've got equipment I've got saw blade I got all kinds of reasons why I got to be careful it's getting to the point that that is an ongoing conversation because according to some of my employees one in particular who's been with me for 30 years Jay everybody's getting high okay I think that's an exaggeration clearly but that doesn't mean that many people aren't getting high okay I don't know I don't know where we're at on that one but we might in fact take that out because I think maybe it's time to take that out we've got it in our handbook and we're we're actually going to update it our thing is if we smell it and see it and it affects your job performance you'll be suspended clearly and that's with anything that's alcohol cigarett is just in their system we don't know if it's in we don't drug test because there's nothing that we do in your job that would inhibit like if we start there's several reasons why you might be going slower but we're not drug testing you if you were handling heavy machinery like in some of the labor contracts that I've looked at my guy's driving forklifts they're driving forklifts around drug test drug test I have to tell you that is a that is a new discussion as to whether we should stop that because as you know probably marijuana stays in your system for 30 days so well it's it's also evolving because it's you know newly legal in so many places I I don't know the status in Michigan or Illinois tell me it's super legal in Michigan it's super legal got friends that work in those yeah I guess as I'm saying this I guess we're probably taking that out well I will tell you even that Silicon Valley startup that I told you about does address the issue um along the lines of what Dana just said it you know it recognizes that recreational use is legal and has no interest in dealing with that and and there are no forklifts at this startup I can assure you uh but if you're uh impaired during work hours that is something you could be suspended for when I do speeches to business groups I'll I'll bait them and I'll go so what do you do if uh you see someone that's works for you and they're they're sleeping at their desk oh I'd fight I somebody always thinks they want me to hear they're a bad guy I'd fire I go really what if you found out that their 13-year-old kids got cancer and was up all night throwing up from the chemotherapy really would you go fire I mean y this isn't black and white there's no even if somebody's had a drinking thing you know what people have some bad issues going on and I think you gotta you can't this isn't black and white It's Tricky y I had a woman walk in it's been years it's just funny but sorry it's funny but it's tragic at the same time of course she comes in she's been there for a month she's a salesperson I go to hand her the credit card for you know parking and stuff and she drops it and it's obvious she's like barely standing up so I called her in the office she I said you have a drink with lunch or anything no I'm just really tired so I said try again because this was there was no gray here she says um well I just I just ran into my ex fiance and he's engaged and um my animal died that's all she my animal died now I don't know I don't know if it was her giraffe the chimpanzee to this day I really don't know what it was but she said my animal died um I said you know what here's 20 bucks uh take a cab home I'll talk to you tomorrow and um we found a whole bottle in the back with the cork she drank an entire bottle of wine and she came in the next day and I you know I I fired her and I said I hope you go get some help cuz I think you need it and she admitted to the person that she was standing there with waiting for the cab that she was an alcoholic mm and her mother drove around with her drunk when she was a kid it's like you know I'm sorry for her but I you know she was there for 30 day at some point you know she was there for I don't know three weeks or something and then I have to add to this because this is important I screwed up she gave me references but they were her co-workers they weren't the managers and I screwed up and I called one of I I I wanted to do a little autopsy and I called Al her last he goes yeah she just disappeared one day I never saw her again I screwed up this is why I keep telling everybody check references and don't go off the coworker they gave you I I that was stupid of me so what we've done is we just have a controlled substance partion of it um because we you know there's there's anti-depressants and there's so many things that can make you a little off your game um the one thing that we had an issue with is we had a young lady who was coming to work constantly smelling of weed and she said it's not me it's the person who gives me a ride to work you might want to get a ride with somebody else though that's a great but here's the thing I said that to her I said you you're going to need to get a ride to somebody else well who my mom works my dad works the lady who's watching my baby so I could come here this I mean again I'm painting a picture of some of the lifestyle choices of the people that work for me and so she what she did was she would put her hair in a shower cap she would wear an outfit to get a ride to work and when she would come to work she would go change in the car but like you said it's not black and white and then the letter to my staff in the beginning we pretty much say that we're going to meet you where you are but these are the things this this handbook outlines the things you need to do to make that possible and so you have to come to work on time you have to come in the employee entrance you have to bring up these concerns to this person this and we have an orc chart right in the handbook this is your direct report this is who's over them and this is their name and we cover that in our morning meet but when people want to do what they want to do oh I never read that oh I never saw that oh that was never talked to me or when Dana asked them oh I I never knew that so now we see that we have a an electronic version of our handbook we can see how far you've read what page you were on and you have to sign an initial the bottom of each page so we know you saw it done see I don't do that because because given that this isn't a court of law I don't need to prove anything to them oh no you didn't read it you did read it I believe it's important to have the rules you can go listen it's in our company handbook but I don't know what the purpose of making sure that that you force them to read it you know I guess that's probably helpful but I don't know maybe I should be doing that well it depends on how you use the handbook and if you write it in such a way that you are really trying to share what your culture is about and what's important to you you you want employees to read it right well but like I said I do that in my indoctrination I think that's so important I wouldn't go leave it to a book and just hope they read it I mean I even if they sign even if they sign doesn't mean they read it that's too important to me but I work with creatives and creatives can be very emotional and so their thing is well you're telling me this based on how you feel our employee handbook is so important is that it's not about how we feel these are the things that we' documented that make sure that the business runs a certain certain way or runs well okay fair enough that's part of your training okay it's not part of my training Jay you brought up the issue of bement pay the Silicon Valley startup that I've been referring to tells people in their Handbook look it can be really tough uh when someone Close to You dies take the time you need if you need to take a week take a week if you need to take a month take a month and they're paying them yes well when I become a software genius and I go raise 100 million maybe I'll do I told you this didn't necessarily apply to your got it I'm not saying they're wrong I yeah sorry not in my world do you pay yeah we give them a few days off yeah for sure I think given it's you know it's a stressful time of their life I think it's a kind decent thing to do I I can't tell everyone listen you need to take a month off I I'm in a competitive environment I'm dealing with I I just I'm not in that world I don't have Venture Capital I'm just not in that world I'm not saying they're wrong for them it's right for me it's not practical we don't pay for it um and I've we've had people abuse it um again culturally you know we had the mom you your mom and dad you get more your children you get more culturally the person who raised you isn't always your mother and father so we've had people who said I lost my second cousin who was 20 years older and that was the person who raised them so we sat putting in days because we understand that not everybody came from the structured family environment um and then they do pass the hat for people because they realize that it's unpaid we give you however much time you need we had one girl whose mother died and she asked for a significant amount of time because she said my brothers and sisters are completely incapable of helping me handle the business of of my mother passing away and I've got to do everything so I'm going to need more than like three or four days and we said okay take your time you need check in with us um but then we've had people who work with us who every week they're getting married and buried right every week it's my cousin died every you know and it's like okay you need to work at a company that allows you enough time to attend all these funerals to do all these things that you're doing you're spending more time in funeral homes you are par boy and so we have recommended that they go the people who have this all figured out how black and white those are you know what those people are called employees they're not the ones that own the business it sounds real simple when you're the employee oh they should pay for you do what you can do and it's a great area and if you can be a little bit more flexible and you can be a little more kind hey if you can afford to do that great if you're running a bus company with two buses and you've only got two bus drivers you know giving the bus driver a three weeks off half your business is gone so there's no there's no right or wrong it's it's what you what you can do and no there is one wrong I mean treating people badly is wrong but if they can't come to work for a while maybe they maybe you have to to say I'm sorry I can't accommodate that it's it's but the the manual really just at least takes care of some of the everyday stuff that you know you don't have to keep rethinking one of the hard things that we've had to do was pregnancy in the employee handbook and I'm very strict at your eth month seven and a half eight month you are no longer able to work until after your post you know partum whatever because this is a physically demanding job um and my has been upset about that because they're like I want I need to make money I need to make money I need to make money so I just for the health and safety of the mother and the baby between that seven and a half week and eth month you're done until after and it's time for you to um come back to work that's our Harden fast like no question so is it written in your handbook that you cannot give delivery while you're doing someone's here that's like a black and white thing with you you can't no because what's black and white in the handbook is bring us a doctor bring us a doctor's note letting us know when your seven and a half month and eighth month dates are we will discuss which date works best for you but after the eth month date um you will be taking off the schedule until you return from um maternity leave no that seems like a reasonable thing they're standing there on their feet with customers on their feet I don't have that um but I'm not doing people's here now most of our employees I would think would have already taken off on their own so do either of you address social media use yes what do you say one we have no phones on the floor two if you want to post uh a picture of your work for your social media go and ask you know ask your manager we'll take the picture um and send it to you uh make sure we're tagged these are the hashtags that we want you to use is that about uh quality control or is that about making sure that paral Boyd is Paramount in customer minds and not the individual stylist it's about making sure per void is Paramount and we want to be mindful of what you're tagging and putting us in we've had a girl who felt Our Salon was beautiful and she worked there and she felt it would be a good job to take pictures of her for her online uh evening career so she took pictures of herself around the salon and posted it to her personal website to prom her evening career okay well do I want my employees going on to social media saying that oh I had this crazy customer last week no and frankly you brought up an interest I got to look into that I I were in the middle of redoing it thank you that's valuable to know I need to address that because no I don't want them going on there and talking about customers or whatever and and uh that's a whole new see it always gets harder that's a whole new problem and as we grow we're going to be giving each of them their own purely void social media page that they can upload pictures to a central area and we'll pick the ones that we think that we want to use but you don't want to see our salon on your personal page this is where I work this is what I do no because it can go from you know 90 to 280 you know oh I hate this place tag tag this tag that uhuh all right we we're almost out of time actually we are out of time but I got one more question for each of you Dana you're talking to us today I believe from Fort Worth Texas where you are in the process of opening a new location I'm just curious Texas is a different place there are different rules of the road there will your handbook employee handbook have to be different in Texas are you anticipating any uh changes no I'm not because it's not based to me on what Texas does I think it's just you know my our Hamburg presents who we are as employers and who you and who you are to be and how you are to perform while you're in peral void um anything outside of that for example any legal issues or any you know unfair labor practices or anything will handle that again with an attorney outside of that but I think with my labor experience knowing tone and temperature internationally um I'm not really worried about it um how we treat people having strong leadership I'm not worried about well we're in Texas we might have to modify um this now we may take some things out as far as you know like for example the Controlled Substances Clause but you know because it's legal in Michigan but even still like we have its Controlled Substances you know even though it's not legal here people still do it in Texas you know as long as it doesn't affect your ability to perform your job um if we see it we don't care what it is Jay you said at the beginning I think if I heard you right that you've been working on updating your handbook for I think you said a couple of years um has this convers encouraged you to it's Absolut you absolutely gave me a couple of new things to think about that are critical so that was good um I had just had this meeting yesterday we should have we shouldn't have been dragging our FIFA two we should have gotten this done it I'm not making any excuses I we should have gotten it done frankly part of the problem with the pandemic my HR person's just been overwhelmed I mean it's just an ongoing everyday thing so we let it slide not a good thing but that social media thing I'm going to absolutely make sure that that's addressed in there and just because I will tell you I've had a couple of people do stuff that you just say to yourself really and the things that you think can be addressed in an employee handbook yeah absolutely like like if we give you a notebook to keep track of business notes it's not your personal Journal don't start personally journaling and then leaving it on the desk very personal Journal you we wouldn't have thought you'd have to tell someone that but apparently you do did that become a problem could have um yeah like just think about that someone's taking the company notebook that's sitting on the counter that everyone uses that's supposed to be used for taking notes about you know business procedures and they start writing some extremely personal things in there about themsel and they leave it sitting out there yeah that could be a problem you have an amazing social media presence Jay like an amazing like you have thousands of followers you definitely need you don't want the wrong person to come in and post put something you know offensive on a couch at Jason home right you don't want somebody to come in and just sneak a picture of a Confederate flag on an end table and say oh I see what type of place this is doesn't mean I can control but I certainly should try here's the thing about service industry we also dealt with people who don't feel that they're beautiful so we've said oh my God you have so much thick beautiful hair and we've gotten a call or an email saying you know I don't really appreciate you telling me how thick and beautiful my hair was we dealt with a lot of colorism right so a lot of colorism where you know white is right and white is beautiful and so we've had daughters who just want their hair straight that's like the trend and we've had mothers call us screaming my daughter is not white you were supposed to put curls in her hair yeah but you left her you left your 13-year-old daughter and when it came time to ask what she wanted we asked her because there was nobody else there to tell us you know what good for you because I gotta tell you I get my haircut they should take signals like after you ask me a couple time how are I really don't want to hear your whole life story and all I'm thinking is could you just shut up we don't talk I know no so I think some people do want to talk some don't but some people that you're coaching him how to do it cuz I just say to myself have you not noticed that I haven't said a word to you in the last five minutes like y we even can read you at the shampoo bowl if you like if their eyes are closed look at their forehead look at their eyebrows and look at their eyes that's how you know how well you're shampooing if their eyes are open staring up at the ceiling they're figuring out what you're doing so you need to get them to close or or shut their eyes a little bit like there's and that's just human someone's massaging your head you're not going to stare intentionally at one spot in the ceiling you're just going to you're going to relax much more complicated than I knew really good for you that's interesting because I'm relating to that cuz I did just get a good shampoo and she was massaging my head and I'm just thinking as you're talking you're right no you're right wow I'm coming to you to get my hair blowdried that's what I got to do when it comes to conversations we're teaching our staff how to read them not everybody wants to talk and then the ones that do let the customer lead the conversation you are to be reactive and if that customer knows more about you then you know about them then our customer service standard has not been met and we are out of time my thanks to Jay goz and Dana White as always really appreciate your sharing wait wait don't leave yet if you have a question or a comment that you'd like the 21 hats owners to address send it to me by replying to your Morning Report or by email at Lauren at21 hats.com that's l r n21 hats.com do now before you forget and don't be afraid to tell Jay what you really think he can take it and if you got something out of this conversation help us reach more business owners tell a friend subscribe and review us wherever you get your podcasts follow us on Twitter subscribe to the morning report at 21 hats.com this episode was produced by Jess Theron founder of blank word Productions okay now you can leave thanks for listening everyone [Music]