Data in HR - It’s about people, not numbers

Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to today's podcast. Uh, today we have Laura Barry, head of People development at Inside hr, and Gavin Fox, director and co founder of UNEDL Recruitment. Thank you both for being with me here today. Um, so today we're going to be focusing a lot on the employee lifecycle journey and specifically around the different tech tools that are out there to support that journey within companies. We did a recent survey, um, around the SME sector and it showed that kind of less than 28% of companies in the SME sector would have any kind of HRIs or technologies kind of fit for purpose for either the operational, um, side of the HR or the leave management side. Um, so I suppose there's still a lot of open space there in regards to um, companies using technology. Um, I suppose Gavin, if I ask you first from a, um, from what you've seen, what impact do you think the lack of those appropriate technology tools, um, within the SME sector has actually on the business?

Speaker B: Our business primarily deals with growing startups. So we see a m large majority of companies at the start of it would have nothing. So it's email spreadsheets. Um, you're dealing directly with founders or somebody at a senior level. So everything is through email. So it gets to a point where when companies start scaling that they, you know, can't keep ccing different people within the organization. So we always try and suggest, you know, when, when you get to a certain level, 30, 50 hires up that level, you should be, you know, on the recruitment side, using a recruitment tool to keep track of details. But primarily GDPR comes into things and everything else is there. Um, what would surprise me is the lack of want from a lot of companies to get something in place or they might outsource their HR function for the first year or two and they would have the HR tooling over here and then internally they would still have, you know, very much spreadsheets and email way. So on the recruitment side it just, you know I, I find it easier to when you're emailing back and forth and it's, you know, we're able to communicate that way but for compliance and regulation and you know, companies move on to a system platform for hosting CVS or for, you know, LinkedIn to a HRIS system. So it's kind of as companies grow they migrate onto systems but at uh, the start it's very much kind of email based and communication can get lost that way. And then tracking of interviews and so on and so on just become more difficult.

Speaker A: Yeah, and I mean you spoke in Terms of GDPR and emails and things like that. Um, Laura, what do you think are the most kind of common HR challenges around that? Um, is it all around kind of that GDPR side of HR data or is it like Gavin saying that it's actually just communication or is it just a combination?

Speaker C: Yeah, and it's an interesting, um, statistic or finding from, from the report. I found it very interesting and I suppose, you know, even myself have been in house and working with clients. Now on the consultancy side, um, you know, sometimes you wonder is it the fear of change or the idea of change that contributes to that actual start. But from my own perspective, Crystal, um, when I first moved to an electronic or HR information system, I couldn't believe how labor intensive life was before. And um, you know, when I was using a manual system, I suppose life with a manual system is a lot, a lot different. Um, but if data, if HR data or employee records aren't stored in a centralized location, um, you know, the impact that I have seen, just to carry on from what Gavin was saying there, the impact that I have seen is that, you know, information or HR data will become disorganized, it'll become outdated, it won't be accurate, it won't be up to date. Well, it'll be difficult to keep it and to maintain it. Um, you know, and, and it's time consuming as well. And often I suppose you may have one or two designated people assigned to that particular database and it can be quite time consuming, labor intensive with, you know, hours spent on data entry and so on. So you know, from a productivity and an efficiency perspective, um, certainly an electronic system does speed things up. Um, and as the organization grows then as well you, you know, from a strategic perspective and as the levels of compliance increases, a manual system can become unsustainable. You know, so I suppose when I was making that decision whether we'd move from automated to electronic, you know, I suppose I would have asked my question, can we actually stand over the reliability of the data that we have? And you know, to get back to your question, there was a long roundabout way to get to it. But in terms of the HR compliance challenge, one standout challenge I would see absolutely is GDPR breach. You know, information being everywhere and not in a centralized location. We could spend an afternoon on gdpr, um, and uh, all the ins and outs with that. But if we keep it to the basics, you know, you know, it's about how we collect data, um, how we store it and you know, how long should we retain it. For, um, so that means HR documentation and files. So whether that's a manual system or digital, we need to have it in a secure location. If it's digital, um, that it's password protected and sits in encrypted systems. Yeah.

Speaker A: And I think important a lot of time people forget, Gavin, that it starts from recruitment. Like, once people are sending you candidates, you're now in a GDPR world of information being sent to you. Right. Um, so regardless of if you want a system or not having a system kind of storing that documentation, make sure that it's actually stored. Even if it's just in a folder that it's compliant, that you're not sending it everywhere, access that kind of thing. Do you think the SME or kind of those kind of micro businesses, is it just that it's just not a concern around that, that safety of information or they just don't know?

Speaker B: I say it's a mixture of both. Um, if you look up GDPR as a, as a law, if you're a. Depending what your SME is, if you're a coffee shop house and you're taking in CVS and if you have a GDPR breach versus the cost of a system, you know, you have to put that into relative kind of practice. If you're a tech business that's growing again, you'd be more exposed to what the, what the penalty would be against. So that, that's one side of when you're doing that, but then the other is, you know, as you grow as a business and you become more professional kind of candidates nearly expect, you know, if you're joining a supposedly sophisticated business that's going in, they want some sort of feeling that, like it has systems in place that has an onboarding process, that it has, you know, documentation around your, your first week, your first month, everything to do with kind of your onboarding world. And, you know, that's not always the case. So. But if you have a system in place on the HR side, that helps a lot. Where it's, you know, build it once, sell it, sell it forever, and kind of that documentation can grow with you as you grow. A lot of companies don't see it as a necessity. So that's the other part. Um, HR might be outsourced and it's a fractional HR person that they touch on when they need to get that person in, when maybe a hiring process or something's happening. So I think I was listening to a podcast, I was reading the thing where nearly the kind of one of the top Five hires of your organization should be somebody within the people organization irrespective of what the size of your business is. Because you need to get that organizational structure correct early. You need to have your, your legal side, everything to do with the people side done quick and then as you scale that's a lot easier rather than what a lot of companies do is wait till 30, 50 hires to get their first people person into, into the business where the first six 12 months of that job is just figuring out what's been going on. And uh, there's no real impact that person could do on culture, on you know, any of the proactive people part that people are looking for within that organization. So I think it is a, an educational side of things for a lot of founders or a lot of businesses. But they also put a cost base against what that system or what that world could be. And like that is, you know, some of the systems can be very pricey, some are a good kind of middle ground and then there's some other systems that just come and go.

Speaker A: And I would actually, I, I would in theory 100% agree that when a company is growing, one of those top five people should be a people person that comes in, sets the structure, sets the culture, understand, sets the framework. Um, but in reality I suppose HR is often seen as an overhead rather than an actual um, kind of strategic role. Um, and then totally agreed, they hit 40 or 50 people and they have an issue because they don't have the structure in place. So Laura, if we talk about even just from a basic structure perspective, from an SME, um, regardless of system or no system, contracts, handbooks, policies, procedures, what's the basic level that an SME needs to have in place from an employment legislation perspective?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean I would always start with, I mean there's I think almost 40 pieces of employment legislation.

Speaker A: Subtle.

Speaker C: That's it. So, you know, it is quite difficult and I can absolutely relate to that. Um, but certainly having good templates in place when it comes to contracts, when it comes to handbooks, um, and that would be your starting point, um, I would always recommend having a master template for the likes of depending on particular employment arrangements in your organisation. So if you're an SME that regularly issues fixed term contracts or contracts in definituration or special purpose contracts or whatever the contract type may be, um, start by having a master template, um, and ensuring that the correct terms, the correct clauses, um, are robust and comprehensive and aligned with um, up to date employment legislation. Um, if you don't have A HR department in house. Well, you know, it's important to obviously get them checked by somebody in HR if you're affiliated with the HR outsourced, ah, partner or employment law solicitor, um, and have your master copies there on hand when you need to use them. Um and similarly with an employee handbook, I think it's really important to have the employee handbook reviewed regularly because there's constant updates. As you know with legislation it's constantly changing, um, and it's very difficult for employers to constantly keep up to date with that. Um, so to go back on your handbook, review it on a yearly basis again M. If you don't have a designated HR person, sometimes SMEs streamline the HR function to line managers, but designate a particular person to review the handbook on a yearly basis. Um, and consider all of the revised changes with leave, um, entitlements and so on. So your domestic violence leave, your um, unpaid leave for medical care purposes and so on. So all of them crept in since 2023. Um, and I think you know, going back to the culture and the trust and all of that, I think if employees, if contracts are misleading or if there's um, we'll say missing information, um, you know, or outdated process processes or outdated procedures, certainly, you know, I suppose it really gives off that perception of inconsistency, unprofessionalism. Um, and you know as an employee you do question or you may question the credibility or the integrity of the organization if you don't see um, you know, correct procedures in place, if you don't see correct clauses in place, you may not avail of those particular entitlements, you may not be aware of them. Um, so it's important that I suppose, you know, if you were to get the buy in from employees with regards to the rollout of new um, HR processes or whatever it may be, um, you know, it's important to um, I suppose drive consistency in how we do things. So you know, certainly start with your contracts and your handbooks, um, and your policies within that then will follow.

Speaker A: And Gavin, I suppose from a recruitment perspective in today's world are you seeing a lot of pushback from um, people that your candidates that are going through the hiring stage in regards to reviewing the contract. I often think that the generation behind me are a lot smarter than I was at that stage and I think I probably would have just signed any contract. Um, but I think that candidates now are smarter and know not what they're entitled to, but I suppose ask for what they want. Are you seeing that at the moment,

Speaker B: yeah, like people know like their statutory and what, whatever. Like I remember signing my first one saying wait, what's the salary?

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker B: Get paid. I didn't even think of holidays. I was like, yeah, get money. But yeah, no, people are very aligned to what they're, what they're going for. It's, it depends on where they've come from. So if they've worked in a, a big US shop, they, they look for the list of like two pages of benefits, uh, what their stock options are, what they. And then they move to a smaller business and they. Okay, I only get like leave. Thanks. Um, but you know it's, it really is. The people are more clued in. They'll run the true chat, they'll run the true LLM. They'll ask the question of what am I missing? All that type of stuff. So you know, you'll. Yes, of course. Everything should be on your contract. Everything should be there. But you know, I, I just think once it's fair, especially for the next generation coming up, they look for kind of honesty and fairness, um, in kind of their main drivers as well as you know, being a CEO by, by their third job in 23rd, 23 maybe.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: M. Where's my tractor? CEO? It's not in the contract. Um, but yeah, that's. They, they do look for fairness. They look for you know, like honesty. So the contract shouldn't have many hidden clauses. It should be pretty easy. There's the other part of now a lot of companies anyway in the Irish market coming in would be using um, es. So they're pretty clever in their contracts. They're pretty like copy and paste vanilla contracts that they'll get from uh, an employee record. So it depends on what the company adds into it and things like that. So uh, I think they're just clever on um, what they want. But once there's no hidden parts in there, they're usually happy enough.

Speaker A: I'd agree. They're more socially like they want a company that's.

Speaker B: They've done their research. So like the, the big thing now is people have done their research before they even sign. So they'll probably. The contract is just really the, the crux of what the day to day is. But they won't like there's a few things won't engage in process if they don't feel the company's right for them if they've done because it's all. Their buying process is completely different. But by the time it comes to offer they've Done all that kind of deep research and, and um, now it's just little things in the contract. If they've got it in their old contract, kind of be matched, yes or no. And it's not usually a kind of game breaker or anything like that. It's just, this is what I got. Can I get this here? And they're very open with asking that question. And, uh, then companies go like, no,

Speaker A: we're an SME, we're a micro business or what. Exactly, whatever.

Speaker B: So, you know, you're not coming from what you had, you're going to where you're going. So I think people just have to be a bit more aware of that than kind of the expectations of. I get everything. Where is it.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I do see that from a generational perspective is that, like I said, I wasn't half as, um, brave to ask. I wish I was. Um, but they're definitely able to ask, which is a good thing. Um, and I suppose there is that gap between if they've come from a multinational company or a bigger company, um, into the SME world. The reality is that, uh, the benefits probably aren't the same.

Speaker B: They're very reluctant to do it though. So. I hate saying it, but the good things about redundancies are that there's a more available, younger talent base for Irish SMEs coming in because they've been in one of the larger businesses and might have been laid off. And, um, they're actually ready now to go and try an SME because it is a completely different world. Um, which is great in one way. And then they always know they're young enough and bold enough to be able to do that for a few years and then go back into a larger organization. So they're just more widely on their career path than like even myself. I'd like to still say I'm 21, but, um, like, I had no expectation I'd stay in my first company for so long that I did. Now people are coming in and by the time they're early 30s, they've probably had two or three, four jobs. And there's no problem with that in their head where when I was growing

Speaker A: up, it was like, no, good job for life, Gavin. Good job with pension.

Speaker B: Never thought like that,

Speaker A: but that is it. It's definitely a kind of, that kind of changing landscape.

Speaker B: And sorry, just on that. Companies need to be aware of that when they're drawing up their contracts.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And, uh, I don't know if they are. I don't think so because that's really like IP stuff. A lot more entrepreneurial mindset, you know, what's built within a company like that's still in a contract. But how do you kind of, how do you kind of in like legalize that in a. You know, you don't want to be seen as knocking down the kid that's trying to build their own empire by uh, a little clause in their thing. But again, the SME side of that I don't think would be as clued up as the larger multinationals.

Speaker A: I totally, I mean I'd say, well, you know this more than me that you're going to uh, multinational, you more than likely have non compete clause. You have um, your NDAs, you have everything else. Whereas most certainly the SME M who's just started does not have that for the first 30 employees.

Speaker B: That's not even on their mindset.

Speaker A: It's not even on their mind. They're just trying to find people. Um, and it's difficult to find good people at the moment. So I can kind of see that. But um, that's an interesting point Laura, that what Gavin was saying is in terms of, yes, we just focus on from a core perspective being like Contracts Handbook. Um, but there's the other side of things as well in terms of um, their NDAs or their compromise, sorry their non complete um, agreements and things like that. Do you see that much now or.

Speaker C: Um, I suppose we wouldn't necessarily be dealing with employees directly. Um, at Insight HR we're mainly dealing on the client side to be honest. Um, so clients will come to us to make sure that all of the processes and all of the procedures are in place. So all of the non compete clause, all of that are there. Um, but absolutely there is a need for that to be in there. Um, you know, and the cost of not having it is obviously a lot worse. So absolutely we will be making sure and advising, ah, depending on the situation.

Speaker A: Yes, of course. Um, there's been a lot of recent employment legislation changes um, over gosh, the last four or five years. Um, I'm tired of hearing about auto enrolment, whether it's coming in or not coming in. Sick leave changes, parental leave changes, parents leave changes, lots and lots of changes, different uh, changes.

Speaker C: Um,

Speaker A: Laura, what's the best way for companies to actually keep up to date with that? I mean like you said Gavin, is most companies wouldn't have that HR resource. Yes, they might outsource it somewhat, but maybe at that 20 or 30 man level they're kind of just hoping that everything is okay.

Speaker C: Um, yeah, I mean, look, it's from, from my own experience, I've been in contact with clients and they would, they would contact us because it might be on the back of a notification of a WRC inspection or it could be to do with a complaint that's arisen. Um, so when they get notification of that, I suppose it's panic station and they may pull out the staff handbook that hasn't been, they're just in it off. Yeah. And it's squeaky clean, um, for a number of years until it has to be used again. So, you know, in that case then, um, as I said to you, there's a rush to get things structured and in place. Um, but look, it's looking at your staff handbook, looking at when it was last updated and revised, um, and updating yourself then I suppose with regards to, um, you know, new pieces of legislation, there's lots of webinars, lots of podcasts that are available there that are excellent and can give you a complete overview. So I just think it's important to have somebody designated in the organisation. I think I said that earlier, not to repeat myself again, but just the importance of, not to underestimate the importance of it. Um, if you don't have anybody looking at um, the HR side of the house, I would designate somebody um, on the contract or on the ah, handbook side because it's only when something goes wrong the handbook is not going to cover every eventuality, but it certainly is a good guiding document and it ensures consistency and you know, lack of, I suppose, unequal treatment as well. So, um, as I said, it can be just on the back of a WRC inspection, um, or notification of that and we get in under the bonnet and work with the client then. And I think clients, to be fair and SMEs, they don't intentionally overlook compliance. It's not something that, you know, it may just have fallen down the list of priorities due to, you know, the other high demands of day to day, um, day to day tasks, you know, so, um, once they're made aware of us and you know, I do always say to companies not to fear a WRC inspection. I know, easier said than done, but, but um, it's actually there for, to, you know, to ensure compliance and for improvement. Um, so to embrace it rather than actually fear it. It's not the worst thing in the world.

Speaker A: No. And I actually gave this feedback to somebody recently when I was speaking to them. They were like, we don't want this employee to bring grievance I was like, why not? You can't not let them bring it. So follow the process. You have processes in place on purpose. Follow. You know, the worst thing from a WRC perspective is if you're not following the processes that you have in place, right?

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean it's an opportunity to get, um, you know, things in place and to get things right. So um, it just takes a little bit of time, a little bit of perseverance, um, but well worth it in the end. You know, you avoid those penalties and so on.

Speaker A: Gavin, in terms of what you're seeing at the moment, you know, we have a lot of the feedback from companies as we've so much new changing legislation. Difficult to hire people in Ireland. Do you think people are going down the EOR route because they don't want to set up entities here or what are you kind of seeing at the, on the land at the moment?

Speaker B: I think it's just an easier way of springing up. Yeah. That's just. They'll get their first few hires, establish their core team, their landing team and then they'll grow out there. There's too many, um, government grants not to set up here.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So they'll do their landing team, get the first two or three hires, get the, get the feel of the market. But usually in the background they're already setting up an entity and that entity just, just does take a still little bit of time. Like it's a lot better than it was. But the ors are great for us. Feeling the market, getting their first few hires. But the majority of the time they'll set up an entity because it's a great passport into Europe.

Speaker A: Yeah. And do you think the employees, are they ever kind of reticent about the EOR or.

Speaker B: No, I've just, just actually dealing with a company that's doing that right at the moment and the person that's taking the role is zero care.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: That's just, that's just the reality of it. And they'll know that it's. It's five, six years ago pre covert probably was a very random thing to be. Why am I employed by you?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And not any or. But everybody's heard of it at this stage. I think it's too much in the news at the moment not to hear about it. Um, but in general it's the, the risk appetite for this generation that we just talked about coming through kind of sub 35 is, is there they once they know once it's a real company based somewhere and they're using it, they'll do it no problem. The only thing there is they, they kind of share options and once that's tied into the new entity when it comes in and different things like that.

Speaker A: But, but it's, I think it's again it's probably uh, smarter than us.

Speaker B: I think it's more just a pure risk appetite for, for younger generation. Um, would I have signed my first contract as a record? Probably would but I, looking back probably going why did I. Yeah, exactly. I didn't know anything different. But yeah, you know, now it's like oh yeah, that's like a deal or whoever it is. Like oh yeah, we know that brand exactly.

Speaker A: So I understand what it is. And um, Laura, you were talking about in terms of WRC and a lot of the time that's what kind of sparks that. Oh goodness, where's our stuff? Um, what practical processes um, can businesses set up to kind of I um, suppose make sure that they have their policies in place, that their library's there, that things are signed. Is there kind of like a practical approach to that?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's a good question Crystal. Um, I suppose I'm quite methodical in my approach and much to the detriment of anyone working with me. Um, so what I have done in the past, um, I have been um, on the receiving end and getting notification myself when I was in house and then also we have clients, then they come to us um, looking for that practical advice. And what I have always uh, suggested is there is an absolutely brilliant checklist on the WRC website that is there for employers to um, I suppose prepare them. So I would be looking at that checklist and locating the data, the relevant data that you may need, um, and looking at the various um, legislation that they um, inspect as well and ensuring that you know, you're able to locate that data, that data is up to date and um, stored in a secured way. Um, so you know, again as I said to, not to fear it, that you know, it's difficult when there's everything held in paper format and as we said earlier things can be everywhere and not in a centralized location. But if you have that automated system or that electronic system it's easier to retrieve that information, pull reports, um, you know, be able to see stats in relation to how many people have contracts, how many people don't, employment permit details and so on. Um, so it's very much getting um, your details and your data together and uh, being ready when the inspection runs.

Speaker A: Exactly. And like you said, I am A firm believer that most SMEs aren't trying to do something wrong. They're coming from a good place. Gavin, over the next. It's a bit of a loaded question over the next 18 months, I suppose, what do you think that SMEs should be kind of focusing on or monitoring in terms of both the legislative change, even around the Pay transparency directive, things like that. Um, what should be on the horizon

Speaker B: for them as an SME owner? There's lots of, um, first thing, like costs. That's just, that's the first thing we look at. It's getting expensive to run businesses and more expensive when it's a WRC come knocking on your door and um, different things like that. So like these are all. It's a cost of doing business in Ireland, it's expensive. Yes. I think if you can like find, like again I said it's different times differently. If you can find a good partner as you grow, that's, that's a really good thing to have. Um, as a, either a fractional HR person or completely outsourced person, I think that's key. Um, or have a really good legal counsel that you can draw upon when needed.

Speaker A: Hopefully that's step two.

Speaker B: Think of either. Or as we're talking, you can draw up your contracts and have them there and you can change them so that's a one off cost and then have them reviewed every year or whatever. It doesn't have to be an ongoing relationship. Um, the transparency stuff I was reading actually at the weekend in the paper, that's interesting. Um, how that will be implemented is going to be, uh, an Aladdin's cave of fun. Um, yeah, no, and it's true because

Speaker A: they were saying just from the pay transparency, which you think from a multinational perspective or a larger company, let's say they have pay grades, they have all that in place. So you just know that if you're in whatever sector, clerk, office or whatever, you know, you're on grade B, whatever. From an SME perspective, if you've got 25 staff, I mean I can clearly now see how Laura got paid because she's the only person who does that job. So like it's, you know, we, I mean Laura, you've worked with a lot of SMEs. I presume most people do not have pay grades in place.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean it's painless. Absolutely.

Speaker B: To say it's going to come down to a point if you're trying to attract a person into your business and they're getting X amount More than a person that's there 10, five years and I don't know how they're gonna have to publish it. But a cost, as I said, costing. Doing business in Ireland is expensive enough. But if you're trying to hire, I'll just say an engineer, because that's my world. And you want to hire them and you're hiring somebody onto a team and there's four already there and you need this person who's better because the team might be short skilled or something like that, and they're getting paid 10% more. You know, technically, do you raise everybody else up that 10% or what way are you going to do that? Because you call them a super senior. Do you call them, uh, a. Yeah, like an associate scene. What is the way of getting around that at an SME level? Um, that's going to be interesting. But even at large multinationals, they're the same grade, get paid different.

Speaker A: So, yeah, and it's going to be, it's going to be really challenging. We were talking earlier about like, so, you know, I could maybe reward Laura for being really good at her job. You might do the same job and, you know, you're not that great. But I. So I do want to pay Laura more, but from a pay transparency perspective, that's kind of going to take that off the table. To actually reward people based on that they're doing a better job than their colleague. Right. Because they're supposed to be in the same grade, same level. So, um, it will be, it'll be an interesting.

Speaker B: Might bring up a conversation with your hire. Who in your team would you rehire?

Speaker A: That is very true.

Speaker B: When transparency comes in, go, actually, we need a whole new team. Nora.

Speaker A: This is where you step and you're like, you can't do that. That's the leader I need to ring inside,

Speaker B: see at the wrc.

Speaker A: No, but it is, uh, it's definitely for people who've been there, for example, for 10 years or whatever. And then you hire somebody in and they're thinking, hold up, uh, why is that person coming in on the same money as me?

Speaker B: You know, that person has four years experience or five years experience, they could be working in the company that is perfect fit for what we're doing in the next three years. So, like pay is always. It's like, especially in Ireland, it's such a taboo subject to talk about anyway, so it's going to be interesting to see when you can request or whatever way they're going to do it. But like, to me, like, that's just another cost within the business. So like I'm a, like the amount of business costs in the next two years, as you know yourself, it's like. No, it's crazy if it's crazy. Like even the rise in employer prsi.

Speaker A: Yep. Like that's your pension order enrollment.

Speaker B: All the Romans got to come in then. I uh, was speaking to a coffee shop owner and they were saying the fat reduction is completely wiped out with the increase in minimum wage. So like there's, there's just, just constant costs. So it's about how you can as a business owner anyway we can mitigate and reduce our fixed costs to not have to charge our customers more.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So like there is a cost of doing business and the cost of doing business with a company. We're a search firm. We get paid for when people get placed and uh, there's other people like us. So you know, if we get, there's a perceived value for using us versus another company and so on. So we focus our biggest focus on the next kind of year and a half as an SME ourselves is to increase that perceived value of dealing with us. And I think that's what companies in Ireland need to work harder on. Um, is increasing their perceived value of shopping local, you know, working with local enterprises. Ah. Versus you know, if even on the hiring side work with, with a local business than going to a, a multinational. We're not the greatest at that. I say if we all looked at a few business owners that we know ourselves, how good are you, uh, promoting yourself as a, as an Irish business, as a uh, as a valued within your community or whatever. I think that's going to be the big need for the next 12 months anyway. Especially we look at all the stats. Growth is kind of maintaining. It's meant to get bigger. You know, there are more businesses coming into Ireland going to take talent away from a smaller business. So businesses really do need to focus on what their, their perceived value is internally and externally. And that comes from hiring the right people. Hiring the right people. People especially to try and encourage the retention of people and reduce that cost of churning, doing it again.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: What 30%.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Cost on hiring somebody, training them and

Speaker A: doing it again rather than giving them

Speaker B: an extra five grand.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, we totally agree.

Speaker B: You know, and that that's what Irish businesses need to focus on and not being seen as an Irish business. So uh, we can't do that because we're a small Irish business.

Speaker A: You know, I also think it's a mind shift change. You Know from an Irish perspective, I do some work with guaranteed Irish and it's a base, it's a case of saying yeah, we are the best in Ireland, that's okay. Or like, you know, we work with other people in Ireland who are the best in that industry. You know, you know, we need to move away from that. Nobody ever got fired because they bought IBM. You're like, you should be able to say stand over inside hr. They're a fabulous Irish based HR consultancy. Needle the same that you're able to promote that internally. Sorry, not internally, but to your, your, your.

Speaker B: It's, it's an expectation of ourselves. We're only reading in the office there but like the company got 150 Series C based out in Palo Alto for, for their business and there's a celebration in the business post of a company getting a 1.5 million seed round Irish based company and you're kind of going to, you know, that doesn't even make the news in, in America where here it's big news and that's great, that's a lot of money. But we should be striving. And um, there's a couple of them, uh, incubators that are kind of striving for that seed level to be now celebrated at 5 to 10 million.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Rather than 1 to 5. And like I think if you take that as your baseline and if companies strive to be seen as bigger and better in Ireland, I think that's our biggest kind of need in the next 12, 18 months. And not just focus on, I know Ireland centric is great, but look west, look east, figure out where your market is and um, value your business and value what you're selling a lot better. And that goes from your, you know, your, your shops, your coffee shops that way to online trading to Irish tech businesses. And there just needs to be a

Speaker A: bigger kind of value proposition which I 100% agree with you. I think that it's um, each one of us on, on paper can write down, you know, we sell our HRAs. You're a HR consultancy, you're a recruitment or like. But what's the value you add? Like that's what we're selling is value, not the actual. You know, there's lots of people who do the same thing. I mean obviously not as good as us people, but that's.

Speaker B: No, it's just, it's our perceived value.

Speaker A: It's value.

Speaker B: Yeah. Like 40% of our revenue is only in Ireland. 60% of our revenue is outside of Ireland. And when they say that to People, they're ill. Oh, really? And it's like, yeah, because the market's only a certain volume here. And if we want to do that volume, we can just focus on Ireland. But like, there's money everywhere and there's talent everywhere. And our business is finding talent at the right people for right places. And, you know, a HR consultancy is the same as that. And you know, uh, HRIS system is the same thing. I like five years ago, ten years ago, people looked in Ireland and went, okay, we can go to England now, or we can now it's very much okay. We have the, the system or the process, right? Let's just try and get people to buy it off us. And that increases your value. And I think we should be celebrating seed values at 5 and 10 million in the next year and year and a half rather than 2 to 3 million.

Speaker A: Because, you know, I would agree with you and I think, Laura, I know you're gonna agree with me on this. Is that, is that at that stage, it's so important then that you're getting that your foundations right. Like, you know, there are so many companies, I'm afraid to tell you how many. Laura, I know you've had the same that you go into, and they've got 20 people and they don't have any contracts or they don't have any. They have nothing. You know, like, if you, if you want to, which I think fabulous from, um, I think companies in Ireland can do it. Like, let's. But like, sometimes they miss out onto that foundational piece of just getting their contracts in place, getting their policies in place, getting the people person in place. Is that your experience as well?

Speaker C: Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, when you're transforming from your, you know, compliance from a box ticking exercise into a more strategic, um, advantage. There's a number of different questions that you need to ask yourself. You need to ask yourself, you know, where are, um, you need to ask yourself the honest questions. You know, do you really know where your biggest challenge is? Um, or your risks are? Can we evidence the decisions we make about people? Um, are our policies and practices genuinely up to date? Do our managers understand the responsibilities, um, and do our employees have a robust contract and handbook, as you rightly said? Do they understand even the contents within it? Um, and more importantly, are we using compliance data to learn and to improve? Um, or just is it a tick the box? So I think if the answer to any of those questions is no, then the cost of not investing in compliance, um, far outweighs the cost of getting it right. Perfect.

Speaker A: On that note, thank you so much, both of you, for being with me today. Um, I really appreciated taking the time and really enjoy chatting to you both, so thank you so much.