IAM407- President and Founder Helps Clients Find Best Talents in HR and Payroll

John is the president and founder of Willory, a staffing and consulting firm solely focused on HR and payroll. The firm helps clients transform their organization through people, process, and technology. Willory ensures our clients have the best talent in their HR and payroll department, their employee life cycle process is effective and compliant, and they are optimizing their HR technology. With over 22 years’ experience within the payroll and HR niche, John is uniquely qualified to drive Willory into a leadership position within the HR and payroll staffing and consulting space.

• CEO Hack: Teams and technology to make things more functional
• CEO Nugget: Have a culture plan in place right from the beginning
• CEO Defined: Visionary, stage setter and one who treats people the right way

Website: http://www.willory.com/

Twitter: @JohnBernatovicz
@Willory1

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Transcription

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I've John Bernatovicz of Willory. John, it's awesome to have you on the show.

John Bernatovicz 0:38

Thank you. We're really looking forward to it.

Gresham Harkless 0:39

Super excited to have you on the show. Wanted to read a little bit more about John so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. John is the president and founder of Willory, a staffing and consulting firm solely focused on HR and payroll. The firm helps clients transform their organization through people, processes, and technology. Willory ensures our clients have the best talent in their HR and payroll departments, their employee life cycle process is effective and compliant, and they are optimizing their HR technology. With over 22 years of experience within the payroll and HR niche, John is uniquely qualified to drive Willory into a leadership position within the HR and payroll staffing and consulting space. John, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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John Bernatovicz 1:22

Of course, yeah, let's get it on.

Gresham Harkless 1:24

Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. And what led you to get started with your business?

John Bernatovicz 1:32

Yeah, so probably about 15 years ago, I was working in corporate America. And at aspired, actually, since I was a little kid to own my own business. Frankly, I grew up in a house, my dad was the CEO of a local hospital community, a community hospital. So I got to see all the cool stuff he got to do. I got all the neat stuff like tickets to Cavs games that were on the midcourt and browns tickets and got to play golf and all this fun stuff. But he worked really, really hard. And I took that part, I think a little bit for granted as a kid. Then, when I got into corporate America, I had a great time working for a company called ATP and learning how to sell and manage people. But I thought there was something missing.

So I aspired to start my own company. As a matter of fact, the first business I started still exists, it's a water vending company. We've been doing that for 15-16 years. But my full-time focus is on Willory. So nine years ago, after my wife had our second child, I really wanted to work from home and have a business that allowed me to do that. So I figured I'd start a firm that was focused on HR and Payroll at the same time, and create a virtual work environment for my employees. So I was the first one to do it and then hired two people within about nine months. And then it took off from there.

Gresham Harkless 2:52

Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate that definitely sounds like the entrepreneurship bug is in your DNA, so to speak. So it's great to hear how you can continue on and even probably sounds like it's evolved from how to run a business. when your father was running his business, and now being able to have like a virtual team and in the virtual organization as well.

John Bernatovicz 3:13

Yeah, it sure does. Yeah, he doesn't quite get that part. My dad's been retired for a number of years now and doesn't quite understand like, how do you not go to an office, you're really working? Right? Or your employer? How do you know your employees are really working? And so it certainly is unique, the unique dialogue for me he's a little I don't want to say old school, but I think I just did traditional probably the right way to put it. But he's totally got it and supports me. And I do agree like a modern-day spin on my dad. And the same for my mom, my mom was an artist, and incredibly creative. So I have a very unique kind of merging the two people to make me and I think I got the best of both worlds with them.

Gresham Harkless 3:50

Yeah, absolutely, definitely sounds like a unique kind of both of those aspects to be able to run a business at times because you have to come up with creative solutions. Often he had to tap into that artistry and background as well. So I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper here a little bit more about Willory. Can you tell us exactly what you do for the client you're working with?

John Bernatovicz 4:06

Yeah, sure. So we primarily focus our target market is mid-market. So we deem that 50 to 100 employees up to 5000. We do three things for them primarily, The first is on the people side, and we ensure that they have the right people within their HR and payroll team and department. So that can mean direct hire search base support, so someone leaves the organization or they're adding a new position. So we have the most in-depth and deep network of HR and payroll professionals from a search perspective on any company in the country, in my opinion, certainly within 500 miles of where we are here in Cleveland or just south of Cleveland.

So we do great work. Again, direct hire full time, however, you and describe it search base firm as well as we do a contract or temporary support. So we may have a payroll manager which has happened a few times who leaves or has to go on maternity leave or has had surgery, and no one else is there and knows how to run the payroll, right? And then all of a sudden you get calls from CFOs VPs of HR like, oh, no, I don't know how to do this and no one else does what people have to get paid, right? So that that contract temporary short term basis, we've got a very unique network of professionals there. So that's on the people's side.

And then on the process improvement side, we do we look at all things application retirement to make sure our clients are efficient and compliant. And we simply start by asking clients, what process within your group could be improved? Where do you have gaps and challenges, where's the bottleneck in your HR process, it can be performance management, it can be most commonly like onboarding or identifying talent. It can be sometimes when awkward people have high turnover, you're not quite sure why. So we focus on process improvement of structure and methodology for doing that very efficiently. And then on the tech side, on the system side, we provide unique services that help clients optimize the HR technology that they're on.

So how they pay their people, how they manage performance manager how employees Leverage Systems for like self-service, all the tech-based stuff, we help them optimise that. And then if they're struggling with optimizing it or they're dissatisfied with the firm that they use, we have a full vendor selection support service that can help them find new tech, which there are about 20,000 HR technologies out there. So it's a pretty intimidating process. And then, once they've selected that new vendor, we have what they call activation support, we can do client-side implementation support project management, change management, functional technical support, and the idea of a new HR, HR, and HCM technology is really great at times.

But it's a Herculean event to get from A to Z to purchase it properly, to be prepared for it, and then effectively implement it. And I'll end with this. So over the nine years that we've had the firm, we've developed a Willory way for how we staff and how we do our projects when we have a very systematic methodology by which we use to help our clients ensure that they get a positive result out of our support. It really is focused on project planning, communicating change, being honest and truthful about conversation process orientation, detail-oriented, at the same time that people that are doing it, their subject matters, and subject matter experts. So that means they have their SPHR or Sherm certification, or they have their certified payroll professional.

So they know what they're doing. And they're not lifetime consultants, they've been in the field as HR Payroll professionals, and they know the pain points of our clients. So it makes them the combination of our methodology and their experience. And the way we do things makes it a much higher chance for us to have a successful client engagement. So that's a little bit about the specifics of what we do.

Gresham Harkless 7:52

Nice, I definitely appreciate that. Because I think from the people aspect, a lot of people sometimes forget, when you peel back the onion of a business, it's made up of people, and you got to make sure that you have the people in the right seat, so to speak, so that you can kind of make sure that you'd be successful. And then, of course, the processes the process, the processes, make everything flow. So to make sure to have those in place allows you to sometimes even scale if that's the goal for the organization.

And then, of course, technology is literally in every single industry. So you have to make sure that you're tapping into that. And just as you spoke to a lot of times each shiny box, so to speak, on the store, on the store counter, and you want to buy it and implement it into your organization, but it's not as easy to implement as it looks. So it's great to be able to have that expertise to make that happen.

John Bernatovicz 8:38

It's interesting in that, so there's a stat out there that says about 50% of technology implementations fail, right? So that's like holy cow like so half of them fail. And the other half is normally they say about 80% of companies think they haven't fully optimized their tool, so they have to get it right. And then you take four out of five of them, and they don't even think they're leveraging their technology the best way.

So we've taken those lessons learned understanding the methods, we know why they fail, right? There are a number of reasons why these projects fail, unanticipated. Change that they didn't plan for, they didn't do project planning, they didn't resource the engagement properly with the right people with the right expertise to have the proper amount of time.

So by doing all that, and just kind of being systematic, and companies that hire us, they see that as a risk, right, so they want to mitigate that risk. It's unfortunate the ones that don't hire a firm like ours that at times try to take it on their own. And it's all too much more often for someone who has a full plate already right? To implement a new system or improve a process. They just can't get to it.

Gresham Harkless 9:43

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And a lot of times it's about not only getting the people on the team in the right place so that they can be successful in their zone of genius, so to speak but also getting those organizations in the right place because if your focus is not to try to implement technology, then you want to focus on the bread and butter, the most core competencies of your business and not focus on those things and hire experts like yourself to do that.

John Bernatovicz 10:04

Yeah, you got it.

Gresham Harkless 10:06

Nice. Well, I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper because you touched on it. I wanted to make sure you covered that I usually ask for something called your secret sauce. And you might have already touched on it and might be the Willory way. Was there anything more you want to add on what you feel kind of makes you or your organization unique?

John Bernatovicz 10:25

Yeah, sure. We work really hard on that. So because I feel like as an entrepreneur and a business owner, I don't necessarily want to do the same thing or copycat, right? That doesn't feel good. And there's no way to distinguish yourself in the marketplace. And people are not attracted to that as well. They're not attracted to the same, they're attracted to different and better. So first and foremost is our niche. So we just focus on HR and Payroll as a starting point makes us unique. The focus is on HR, maybe there are others that do that.

But when you combine that with payroll, certainly distinguish ourselves in that regard. So that's one main unique, distinguished fact. So then, in addition to that, we have methodologies and processes that I mentioned that work that tried and true, we've learned through the years and leverage the experiences that our consultants have. So we've developed a way to do a vendor selection from A to Z, right, and we have a methodology and a process that we follow. So that's the secondary piece.

Gresham Harkless 11:22

Nice. So I definitely appreciate that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This could be like an app or book, one of the books you mentioned, or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

John Bernatovicz 11:35

So again, to be transparent, to know sometimes in these types of podcasts is helpful. So we had great success in our firm over the last eight-plus years. And when I first started it in 2010, we went through hyper-growth, right zero to wherever you go as it can be hyper-growth. And we received a lot of rewards, awards, and recognition for that. And, as it relates to it, we reached this point where we've got something really cool that is speaking to the market, people are buying it, they're paying money for it, and we're making a good impact. I as a CEO realized that if I continue to grow this at the rate that I'm grown to this point, I would not be able to sustain it as a human being, it was one of those startup 16-18 hour, a day type of jobs, just working my tail off to make this thing work, right. I had obligations with my family and wanted to take care of my two little ones at the time.

And my wife trusted me to start this business kind of right at the tail end of a recession. So I couldn't fail. But once we had grown and had some success, I realized there was something else more there. So what we did is we took a I call it like two major three major steps back, we still continued to grow, but our pace slowed. But we built this foundation around people processes and technology, which is the cornerstone of our business. So we developed the management team, and we put some additional technologies in place that make accountability more evident to people how they're doing at their fingertips.

Gresham Harkless 13:09

Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you sharing that with us. Now, I wanted to ask you what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you happen to be a time machine. What would you tell your younger business self?

John Bernatovicz 13:22

Yeah, I probably would have read the book sooner. That's too easy of an answer to your question. I would say that the number one thing that I got right by mistake is the culture in my firm, I did not realize how important it was until it was established. And I did not do any of it on purpose, right? Meaning I didn't put a plan together and put a culture plan. I didn't say I want it to be this when it's done. It just came to be as a result of the people that I hired. And I think the way by which I do business, which in essence is the way the firm does business.

Gresham Harkless 14:00

Yeah, absolutely. That makes perfect sense. And that brings me to my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So John, what does being a CEO mean to you?

John Bernatovicz 14:12

The CEO sets the standard, as we talked about before, he or she is the visionary as to where the firm or company is going. So you set the stage, you make sure you have the right people in place to execute where that vision is. And to me, a CEO is to treat people the right way. Right CEO is no different than any other person on your team, any other customer, any other individual, whether they're making minimum wage or they're a multimillion-dollar successful, salaried employee.

Gresham Harkless 14:40

I definitely appreciate that definition. I appreciate your time even more, John, what I wanted to do is pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you can let the readers and listeners know and then of course, how best people can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things you guys are doing.

John Bernatovicz 14:52

Yeah, sure. So I would say the one really nice thing we have going on right now is out of our process improvement practice we've developed something called How's my HR that you can learn about that on our website. So how's Kasuri is my HR? In essence, it's a 40-30 to 40-minute survey that you can take in an individual who's not an HR or preferably someone in human resources. And that quick 30 to 40 minutes you can figure out how well your HR department is doing for its employees from everything from application to retirement.

So you can learn about that@willory.com. And so, you can find me on Twitter at John Bernatovicz, you can find Willory on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and everywhere else marketing has us. We're Willory, it comes from. I have a Will my 11-year-old son have a nine-year-old daughter Mallory. So Will and Mallory combined is Willory. So that's usually a unique way for people to remember us.

Gresham Harkless 16:11

Nice. So I definitely appreciate that and we'll make sure to have all those links in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you and check out everything you guys are doing. But thank you so much again and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day. Thank you.

Outro 16:22

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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