Built to Work: Episode 8: Debbie Petrak | Lever1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx-fiWQY_E4

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Welcome to Built To Work the podcast that gets its hands dirty dives into the grid and uncovers the heart of what makes the blue-collar world tick I'm Colin your host and I'm sitting down with the people who keep our world running From those tackling the tough jobs no one else dares to do to the HR professionals working overtime to find the labor force we desperately need Whether you're in the trenches or behind the scenes this podcast is for anyone who values hard work determination and stories that build the backbone of our workforce So grab your gloves your coffee or your clipboard It's time to get to work Welcome to another Built To Work podcast I am here today with the one and only- Debbie Petrac from Lever One Thank you so much Debbie for joining me Yay So excited to be here with you We have worked with you now for I believe we think it's 4 years Yeah 

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we brought you in on our previous company because Lever One provides awesome services outsourced HR benefits payroll PEO stuff So I want you to tell us about what Lever One does So give me the update on Lever 1 Okay what you guys do so everybody else can know and then tell me what you do for Lever One Okay So Lever One is a PEO a Professional Employer Organization And what that is is a partnership between a company and us to be able to have outsourcing of HR employee benefits 

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workers' compensation for some and payroll administration So that's kind of like an overview of what we do Okay Okay that's great And what do you do So I'm an account executive Okay I'm on the business development team so I get to work with 

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company owners C-level executives- 

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to come in and see if they are a fit for a partnership with Lever One So really seeing what companies need- 

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and what they're looking for or what they don't even realize they need 

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until- Yeah you bring that in to to queue and 

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really help them to see if they want to move forward with services with us and make them custom-fit for them 

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Yeah absolutely That's great And I can tell you from personal experience what I needed that I didn't knew I needed- 

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was something that you guys provided on our last company So so we provide 

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we both provide outsourced services which I'm a big proponent of because of- 

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of the benefits that it provides to to to the companies right It allows you- Right to focus on your core competencies So one way We help focus you know labor and other industrial services 

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within certain industries And then you outsource all of that back-office stuff fun stuff The fun stuff It just goes in this bucket of stuff that I have no idea about 

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so what outsourcing allows somebody to do is to really for to really focus on their core competencies 

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So for somebody that's making a product if they outsource labor then they're able to focus on making their product If somebody is running a business and they want to focus on that but they've got all this HR back-office stuff they don't wanna deal with that then they bring in Lever One Okay So Lever One somebody calls you up and says "Hey my my HR person is just not cutting it," or "They just quit," or "My company is growing and I have no idea what to do with HR." What what steps do you take when you're when once that call happens It's truly conversation and asking questions what their experience And so let's say if they're losing an HR person internally- 

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what what role do they handle within HR Do they do all the onboarding Do they help with employee benefits You know off-boarding 

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issues with employees things like that 

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what all do they handle So what are they losing on that How What's their turnover like You know there's so much things you're looking really truly to uncover- 

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and to see what they need assistance with and then custom-fit it- 

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to that piece of it 

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so it's a lot of question answering asking but also a lot of listening- Yeah to find out what they truly need and what hiccups they've had Whether you know It's not just to look at what they need now but what do they look at doing in the future 

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Where's their growth going Are they looking to hire and expand more Different things like that 

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So just a lot of discovery pieces to find out what niches they need 

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Okay Yeah So one nice thing about having an outsource partner is their whole world focuses on on whatever that area is- 

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and you have a team supporting you So I previously spoke with my accountant 

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accounting team I I spoke with one person on that team and and they handle everything for us So 

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at my previous company we had one person handling a lot of like the accounting stuff Kind of 2 but one person handling all the invoicing 

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but that that really didn't work for us right We were- Right we were starting to have a lot of issues and misses and they just couldn't keep up right So we went and and hired an expert in- 

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accounting and real estate right Right Niche industry okay Now on our current company 

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we've hired just a general accounting firm because it's more general accounting and they handle all of that The really nice thing for us is instead of having to have one person in-house maybe 2 to handle the accounting 

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for a similar cost maybe slightly more maybe slightly less Depends on on how you price stuff Right 

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we have a whole team at our disposal 

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Right So if you've got one person in-house and they're sick they quit they have a baby and they're on maternity who knows what- Right they've got somebody on the other team that can step in and you don't miss a beat Tell us about how that works within Lever One Yes So so true I mean you hit the nail on the head 

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it it's having that village to be able to help you One thing that we really do is create a distribution email- 

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so that everybody in our team is- included in conversations so we don't have to go "Wait I didn't know that that happened with Colin and Adam." 

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"What do we need to do to fix this?" Everybody knows what's going on at every step of the time and you have experts in each area whether it be compliance or HR that you know somebody's here to handle- 

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any needs you have Yeah So that's the biggest thing Yeah that's the biggest one So there's that there's that scale factor- 

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where not only are you outsourcing a portion of y- your business but then within even that category you guys have or other outsource companies 

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will have little tiny niche experts right So- 

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writing employee handbook HR compliance taxes across all these states Right 

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and I really appreciate having that because when it comes to writing the employee handbook I am not- the best at those annoying little details Yep And I That's that's something worth And employee handbooks I I don't even know 20 30 40 pages long They're they can be huge right And you're covering all your policies and everything like that and Depends how many states you're in and what you're operating Yes Yeah yeah So you really need to understand the details of that to get it right and then have a team to pay attention to those details Leverone is is a pretty big company 

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so again how many employees does Leverone have on its team We're right around 40- Okay employees Okay that's great 

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And then 

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how many employees are under your PEO umbrella We have Well work site employees we have over 5,000- Okay work site employees That's a lot of employees It's a lot It is a lot That's a lot of payroll to manage on a weekly basis And within 50 states Okay So it's not just you know right here in Kansas City 

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It's you have a lot of different 

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compliance issues and and different policies based on each state I mean there's so much that goes- Yeah I'm sure you get into some nightmares in industries Nightmare states I mean we always are like And I'm sure being in the Midwest things are generally pretty easy compliance-wise But I'm sure it's like oh- Illinois or New York or California or some of those high regulatory states it's just a nightmare to to work in those Yes and I'm glad I'm not on the compliance or HR team I just help you come in- 

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and then we all take care of you You are pulling your hair if you were working on that team Yes Yeah absolutely I understand 

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so that's awesome So 5,000 people So one of the benefits of of of a partner- 

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that has scale is you can get scale pricing Right Now we experienced that when we went and priced health insurance and stuff like that outside of the PEO 

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Because that's that's something that you guys provide for us So that scale that allows you to go to health insurance companies "I have 5,000 employees give us a better price." Right And as you know with your first company that I worked with you on- 

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the savings Like when I came in I couldn't even I was smiling so much how much we were- Yeah saving you on benefits And I was like "I know I'm supposed to wait for Cheryl to get in on here but I have to tell you." "Because I'm so excited I want to be the one that delivers this great news." Yeah 

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and that's what so fun And it's not even for companies that are you know 150 employees or 200 employees It's for companies that might have 10 employees 

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because we have the buying power to have so many work site employees that we're giving benefits for Yeah So it's really a savings 

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You said I remember that I don't remember the exact number but it was it was a lot I remember being like- It was a lot saved us a lot of money and I was so very thankful- Yes for that Uh-huh 

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so yeah that was a huge benefit huge huge war story for us 

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well well a good war story and a win- Yes 

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for us then 

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So as you've gone through I'm sure that you hear all sorts of aid Now you're not directly on the HR side I understand that 

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have you ever had any without giving away too many details- Right any really good interesting HR things where you just kind of like shake your head like- "Why did somebody do that?" Yeah You You know the nice thing is that I did probation before so nothing surprises me 

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in the '80s and '90s So sadly nothing surprises me But it still makes your jin- your jaw drop to the ground- 

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when you're like "Really this happens?" But you know we've seen people that prior companies that now are our clients you know- 

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had been with 

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that had had situations where they've had 

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their entire salary for their entire team leaked to people that shouldn't have had it- 

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and that they had access to it I've seen 

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you know fires happen with employees in situations on work sites and you know it's just it's sad to see it but it's one of those things People think they don't need HR because they're working in a tight family you know we know everybody but we've seen situations where they've had employees that have ended up not being a faithful and dedicated person as what they were transpiring to be 

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where HRs had to come in and and done situations to cl- to clean house and to make things right Yeah Yes absolutely So 

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you know you never know you have a fire but when you have a fire you need somebody to put it out fast 

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So it's you just never know when things like that can happen yeah the anything and everything goes unfortunately but we have a great team of HR executives that will come in and make things right Yes yeah On all aspects so That's your your your team's amazing Yeah 

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I I can't say enough good things about that I agree Yeah 

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so you know you're gonna come in you're gonna help fix or maintain generally fix and improve those back office operations 

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It's great right It's on the payroll side it's on benefits it's on health insurance 401k- Right all that sort of stuff Everything Everything 

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employee handbooks 

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big lifts there 

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you guys like to do things the right way Compliance is like the biggest part of your job generally 100% Yeah So what is a a time where maybe a customer wasn't a good fit for you guys We have had situations like that- 

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where you know it's true partnership 

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So if it doesn't work for one side of the partner or the other then we won't move forward But we've had situations where we've had somebody that didn't want to pay taxes on gratuities- 

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for their employees and didn't think that was necessary But it's compliance and we chose not to move forward because we have to be compliant because n- it's the law first of all Yes But we that's what we're here for We're an HR company that helps people k- keep in the right line Yeah And to be compliant So if we're not being compliant that's not okay Okay Yeah you know So so really you got to just play by the rules Right Yeah I- I can really appreciate that Funny little thing Yeah funny thing about that is you need to play by the rules Right so compliance is huge Got to do things right I'm glad that we haven't had any of those compliance issues But one that I keep hearing about is people paying cash- 

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to employees Tell me about that because to me that seems like it's it it's it's not legal I'm sure there may be some realm where it's legal but I don't know because I've never done that No No Yeah or or people they we've had 

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people say "Well I'll just Venmo them." Well we've got to be able to document- 

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keep track of everything you know So there's there's rules and regulations for a reason 

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And so it's really setting everything up 

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within the system 

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So I'm sure there's some things that we could do and again this is the payroll piece of it- Yeah that would have to handle it That if something was sent because of an error then we would just credit it back through the payroll system- Okay to make it correct Yeah yeah Okay So but generally speaking an envelope full of cash for a week's worth of work is not super compliant Yeah no Okay All right I'm just I'm just curious Yeah You know I mean listen I want to vet all options just to make sure Make sure we want to do things right here So 

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You're like I don't do that by the way We no we don't We hear about it in our industry- Yes and it's like I I'm pretty sure that's illegal because then if you're paying cash you're not reporting all your wages- Tax right for taxes For worker's compensation Or your work comp insurance especially because then if they go and audit that they're like "Well I don't see this guy on your payroll." Right So So You're screwed Yeah We're crossing our Ts and dotting our Is- Uh-huh making sure it's all proper Yes absolutely right so obviously we're we're big proponents of outsourcing right Because we see the benefits that how a a company that focus on is on a niche- 

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can then allow for another company to focus on their core competency or on their niche right Right So companies manufacturing a widget they're really good at making the product but their HR suffers they bring you guys in right We have a customer that's really good at doing some industrial process but labor turnover is an issue They bring us or they need a specialty torch or they need some of the other services we offer 

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so so they bring us in So we're we're proponents and and advocates for outsourcing because we see the benefits of that 

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for companies that then outsource y- your service what is the biggest benefit that you see to them Like they see from utilizing your service The growth of their business Okay I mean that's the biggest thing because they can truly focus on it and know everything else is being handled- 

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by us Yes And they have that communication They can see it but they also feel it 

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Because they know we have it handled Yeah okay So- So that's the biggest thing And we want- And that's what we want to see Yeah Is growth Because ev- everybody wins That company wins you guys win everybody wins 

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So so to sum it up what Debbie in her s- very professional opinion has to say- is that outsourcing allows a company to then focus on growth Exactly 

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It's their core business Yeah It's what they do and what they do best Yes absolutely Absolutely I I agree 100% You know we've we've been looking at and doing some you know heavy industrial you know cleaning janitorial support That is way outside the product that our customer is delivering This is just a something else that has to get done Right So yeah it's great right I mean even us in our office right Now we don't clean our own office We hire a cleaning company They're experts at that It's what they do They're fast they're efficient They do a better job than we would do Right 

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Exactly Right You know w- we don't clean offices Adam and I at least don't So Yeah 

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we you know we office separate out here 

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away from most of the other team 

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so yeah it's just the 2 of us We don't need a full time cleaning staff- Right in our small office So 

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no that's that's that's so true So I appreciate that 

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Lever one has truly been a blessing to us over multiple companies and I'm so thankful for that And I very much appreciate your time telling me about your company and about outsourcing And if you guys want a great PEO somebody to take that back office work off your hands 

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reach out to Debbie reach out to Lever One Thank you They're rock stars Thank you Thank you so much for your time You're welcome Thanks for having me Glad to glad to have the convo Yes