Innovating HR for the Remote Workforce with isolved

Innovating HR for the Remote Workforce with isolved

Hosts: Steve Boese & Trish Steed

Guest: Jaylene Owen, Director of Human Resources and Payroll at Hames Corp.

In this HR Happy Hour podcast episode, hosts Steve Boese and Trish Steed talked to Jaylene Owen, Director of HR and Payroll at Hames Corp, to explore her experiences managing HR in the remote setting of Sitka, Alaska. They discuss the unique challenges she faces, from navigating limited resources and family-oriented workforce dynamics to overcoming natural obstacles like internet outages. Highlighting the transformative role of isolved, Jaylene explains how the platform has streamlined her HR processes, enabling her to focus on community impact and employee engagement. This story highlights the importance of adaptable HR technology in creating resilient, people-focused workplaces, even in the most remote locations.

For more information about isolved – click here

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Transcript follows:

0:20
Music.

Steve 0:28
Welcome to HR Happy Hour podcast. We are the longest running and top downloaded HR podcast in the whole world, well, the world that I’m aware of.

Trish 0:36
The world of HR.

Steve 0:37
My name’s Steve Boese. Trish, how are you? What’s happening?

Trish 0:41
I am hanging on by a thread. No, I’m fine. It’s actually day three of HR Technology Conference here in Las Vegas.

Steve 0:48
Yeah, it’s been super exciting. I think in general, some people have asked me, like, well, what’s different this year? Why is it so? Why is there a buzz? And I think, I think it’s been, like, a year and a half plus of people wrestling with new tech and talking about AI and trying to figure out what the heck to do with it, and lots of vendors responding to that with new innovation, new tech, and we’re sort of at a weird kind of inflection point of all this incredible new technology and yet trying to figure out what to do with it. That’s right, and I think that’s exciting, though, and it’s a lot of opportunity there. So we’re excited to be here. We are with our friends at isolve. Well, particularly we’re with one of I solves greatest friends as well. She’s Jaylene Owen. She’s the Director of Human Resources and payroll at Hames Corp, and isolved customer. Jaylene, how are you?

Jaylene Owen 1:36
I’m doing wonderful. Thank you.

Steve 1:37
Before the show we got to chat a little bit. You have a boring back story. No I’m kidding, you have the most interesting backstory of anybody we’ve talked to in ages. But before we get into some of that, maybe tell us a little bit about yourself, a little about Hames Corp, because certainly there’s a unique and super interesting set of circumstances that you’re dealing with there.

Jaylene Owen 1:58
So I am the human resources and payroll director. I’m kind of the right hand of the owner. It’s a family owned and operated business. They just celebrated 75 years in business in Sitka. I moved there at the end of 2016.

Steve 2:13
Sitka is where?

Jaylene Owen 2:15
It is in Alaska. So it’s an island in the Inside Passage, which is the it’s an archipelago of islands that dot the Canadian coastline. So from Seattle, we’re closer than I am to Anchorage.

Steve 2:30
Okay, very good. And the it’s a family owned business doing what?

Jaylene Owen 2:34
So the family has done a lot of different things. They’ve got their hands in all kinds, from grocery store, the liquor store business. We have gas stations. I have commercial businesses or commercial residential properties that we rent out. There’s a lot. When I first got there, there wasn’t any standard operating procedures. It was pretty much the keys to the kingdom were given to the director of the store for which, like, if it was the gas station. Here’s the keys, and you’re held to the standards of make profit and make the business succeed. But if it’s not, then at that point, there would be consequences. So I had situations where some managers had their own policies, and then I had other managers that had differentiating policies, like an attendance issue. So one would say, to no call, no shows and they’re out of there. One says, nah, one and they’re out of there. Wow. And so I had to really approach some of those problems and bring together consistency.

Steve 3:30
When you’re working in an environment like that, are there challenges you because you got an interesting background. You didn’t always work in Sitka Alaska, yeah, you talked about in the pre show, some of your experiences, and I’m happy for you to share some of them here. But is there, are there unique challenges to an environment like that, an Iowan, smaller community that maybe you’re finding in HR and Payroll, that maybe you don’t find in other places? Oh, yeah, places. What might be some of the things that come up?

Jaylene Owen 3:57
As an example, we don’t have a Social Security Administration office there, okay, if you’re born there, and to get off the island, it can be very expensive. You got to have an airplane ticket. And the nearest Social Security office is in Juneau. So I have people that don’t have social security cards, which is a regular I nine request, right? You know, a driver’s license, birth certificate. We have a very large indigenous population there. And with that, you have tribes, and the tribes are like sovereign nations, and so it’s an interesting process for going through things like making sure that my immigration is and such is on point.

Trish 4:32
How did you learn to do that? Was it just sort of like you took the role and it was kind of trial by fire? You were just kind of figuring it out as you went along. Or was there some sort of a mentor, or some, some place where you could get information about how to do this?

Jaylene Owen 4:45
Well, that’s a really great question. So I first got my, my start off in like the business world, as I was telling you guys earlier, I ran a casino in California. I had an interesting bout with a heist, and it ended up. Being pretty traumatizing that I decided I wanted to change my career. And I really loved people. I loved the ability to impact people. And so I went back to school, and I ended up with my degrees in psychology, but that still is an HR, and I had kind of the ability to marry my two degrees in business, in HR, excuse me, in psychology, and I ended up with a degree called IO psychology. So I’m an IO psychologist practitioner. And being that, I started myself over, I realized I needed to really get a power pack punch of experience, especially if I was going to be going into HR, many people spent decades of just developing their career. So how was I going to break onto that scene and be a rock star. I got my start off with a Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee, and I actually took over a 600 man plant of Second Chance populace. So you’re talking about every kind of, er emergency, kind of employee relations issue. I dealt with it, and that gave me a lot of experience, and kind of fast tracked me, and then I found myself in a kind of a personal dilemma. In 2014 and 15, I was battling cancer in my early 30s, and that kind of also was the catalyst to the dissolution of a marriage. And I decided, You know what, at this point, I could throw a dart at the map and go anywhere I wanted, and that’s where it took me to Alaska.

Trish 6:25
That’s a fascinating story. I’m really grateful that, first of all, that you you’ve shared all of that with the part about working for Goodwill Industries, where you’re kind of thrown into everything you know all at once. That’s such a good thing for anyone who’s not in human resources, but sort of has aspirations, that’s a question we get a lot, yeah, is, how do you break in? How do you get those, those experiences where you’re learning really quickly, and it sounds like that’s the environment?

Jaylene Owen 6:51
Yeah, definitely. Goodwill was a great starting point, because the kind of problems that most people are dealing with, they’re trying to break back into the workforce. Yeah, sure. So you’re you’re automatically already kind of set at a stage where you’re going to deal with some of these problems, whether it be homelessness. I remember we used to have to deal with individuals who they would come in, and because we’re a donation center, they may not have clothes themselves, and yet they’re having to sort the donated clothes. And so we would set up programs to allow them to have, like a helping hand to where they could go and get their own clothes without having to pay.

Steve 7:24
We’ve done a couple shows on actually Second Chance hiring, and so we’re familiar with some of those issues, and it’s still underrated, right? There’s still millions of folks who are in that situation, formerly incarcerated, and do struggle to get back into work for and the reason that you suggested, there might be homelessness, there might be addiction issues, but there’s also stigma, right? So that’s wonderful that you know there are organizations like the one you work for that help, right? Yeah, fantastic. And we talked Jenny about some of the unique challenges for doing being a people leader, an HR leader, in a place like Sid cap. I gotta believe there’s some universal challenges as well. Are there just kind of classic HR, related people, related challenges that you guys face, whether it’s engagement, retention, the classic things that we’re talking about all the time. And so what are some of the things that you know hit your desk like on a weekly, monthly basis?

Jaylene Owen 8:15
The biggest issue that I had when I first got there was the ability to create a environment where the information flowed very smoothly and empowered my employees to make the decisions that they needed to make. And so that’s where I solved really came in, and I had experience with other HRIS, and I knew what was capable of occurring, but I needed to find something that wasn’t going to break the bank. Being a smaller employer, I wanted all the bells and whistles, but at the same time, how do you do that and still make it work for such a unique environment? And so some of the things that are general challenges that I think a lot of people would experience, for example, Benefit Administration. As an HR team of one when I first came in, we didn’t have anything set up with carrier feeds. There was no automation. I hired a person, I had to go into Blue Cross, Blue Shield, enroll them, enroll their family, and then turn around, and when I terminated them, unenroll them. And if I forgot, and I got distracted, my billing reconciliation when I got that bill was a nightmare. And so a lot of the things that I found myself struggling with was, how do I get to a place where I can actually empower my own self so I can do more? Because taking one step forward, sometimes I would have to take a step back because other pieces of the puzzle weren’t ready.

Trish 9:31
Right, with some of those challenges that are universal, could you maybe talk a little bit about hiring? I mean, I would. I would imagine if there’s, you know, challenges in terms of even getting people to work you’re on an island is, Are there limitations? I would imagine there might be limitations of even just who you can hire, right?

Jaylene Owen 9:49
Yes. So first of all, there’s not like another retail operation that I can pluck people from. Oh, you have 10 years of experience as a manager at that store. I’m. We have to do a lot of home growing, and the young miners that are there, we’re one of the only employers that allow for those individuals to break into the workforce. So a lot of it is us focusing on how to really just get them to a place where they understand the importance of the job, work ethics, putting them into the limelight of the community and getting them worked. A lot of the individuals that live there, they know everybody, and so it’s different than what it would be in like the lower 40 if you were to go to a job, right?

Trish 10:35
I would imagine too. Isn’t it different if you maybe have someone that’s having a performance issue, do you feel like you are more compelled to work them through that, maybe using technology, whereas maybe, if you’re in a lower 48 you could say, oh, we’ll find a replacement. Or is that not?

Jaylene Owen 10:52
No, I unfortunately am scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to labor. We have every single employee file that goes back to 1969 when we went into business, because there’s so much nepotism, really, oh, yes, the amount of families that live there. If you grew up there and you’ve lived there, and you have generations of families intermingling and married, I have a death, and that death, I might have three or four employees that have to take off because it’s their immediate family. So it can actually cripple us to a point where the staffing and the labor I had a to give you an example, I had an individual who came to work for us. She was very excited to work the graveyard shift, because we have a 24 hour operation. We’re the only store in town that operates 24 and she ended up in a situation where she caught a very serious, rare disease, and actually was hospitalized for three weeks while she was battling this, we were able to work with her and save her job and get her back, and luckily, she didn’t lose her life because it was that serious. But later on down the road, she, like during that period of time when she was gone, we actually had to shut down the store because we had no one else. We had to go online and say, Hey everyone, sorry, please, forgiving. We’re going to be shutting down at 11pm so get your shopping done because we didn’t have her.

Steve 12:11
That’s crazy. It’s almost like you need an org chart for the organization and maybe a family tree like map these relationships. But So Mitch and I solved a couple of times, and it’s helped you sort of carrier feeds is one great example that saved you the problem of manually having to go into and I’ve had to do that too. That’s awful, those BCBS type words. That’s a great point, though, right? That if you’re doing that, you’re not doing other things like talking to people and checking up on them and maybe developing some plans to improve things and conditions or career development plans, whatever the case. Yeah, you’re doing administrative stuff, which also, if you get it wrong, it’s a big hassle, cost the company money, and it makes you as your HR team, look kind of silly, too, right?

Jaylene Owen 12:56
Yes, definitely.

Steve 12:57
So are there some other areas where more modern technology has really helped and changed the game from what was to what is now.

Jaylene Owen 13:06
I’m about to blow your mind. We didn’t have an HR system. I had to type my paychecks up on a PDF and actually take pictures on my scanner, because the cop here wouldn’t take them, and if you needed to get a copy of your paycheck stub, I would go to the PDF file and print a picture off of the PDF file. So I solved being that I had experience with other HR says, I knew things like that could be solved. Okay, but again, like looking at the different competitors, you know, okay, if I go with them, and implementation is always a nightmare, and you don’t want to change the next year. So a commitment to a product can be a very, very big deal. And I looked at it as, I want this to be a relationship like a marriage. Let’s commit to this long term. And so when I looked at all the different types of products that they were offering, I saw the potential years ago about what was available. And in the great thing about my story is that today, not every single piece of that is necessarily something I could use. However, though, as I mature and my individuals within my organization mature, I can take the step forward and implement that technology. And if it doesn’t work and I need to take a step back, I can easily do that. And it’s not like the whole thing is a process.

Steve 14:21
Sure. It sounds like you can grow along with the folks that I saw them with the technology, as you’re willing to, your folks are willing to kind of adopt it and kind of transition to, because I got to believe going from no i HR is and PDF and manual paychecks to a world where you’ve got online access and, you know, digital tools to do lots of other things, you do need to take people along kind of slowly or maybe as they’re capable of handling those kinds of changes.

Jaylene Owen 14:50
So, like, for example, the technology on the app, it is still a struggle for some of my employees. I have an elderly and aging populace that wants to move into the retirement sector, but a lot of them can’t right now. They’re having to work for us, or they’re having to continue that. And some of them have two jobs, and so when it comes down to being able to access their paychecks and be able to see that they would have that app, that was a new feature, but some people didn’t have email addresses. Wow, to kind of give you an example. Also, recently, we had a really bad storm in southeast Alaska. August, 28 a fiber optic cable under the sea broke, and that actually rendered the entire island without internet, including Wi Fi services. So we literally were shot right back into the 80s, and had to go all around and and to be able to go.

Steve 15:43
How far back? Did like the blockbuster reopen?

Jaylene Owen 15:47
Just about, yeah, I actually had to drive over to the airport. It’s not very far. But we were knocking and they had shut the doors, and we’re like, Hey, are you guys doing anything like gold streaking? Because we had to try to figure out how to get starlings to us and call them. The bank shut down because the camera systems for security could not give people or could not protect them, and so they shut the doors. Well, people didn’t have cash. We were on a Thursday, Friday, going into a holiday, Labor Day weekend, and so instantly we went to a cash based, like, if you didn’t have cash, you weren’t getting groceries, and so, yeah, there’s things where you have to kind of think outside of the box. And I think another important thing to remember as an HR professional is you get so caught up in the rules and the regulations and the compliance that it’s hard to sometimes look outside of the box to the solutions that were prevalent 20 years ago. And living on an island, that’s something that I have record.

Trish 16:44
Did you see any other businesses? Maybe they’re either HR leader or just other business owners. Did you all come together at all, in a way, to sort of figure out how you were going to navigate this?

Jaylene Owen 16:58
Unfortunately, most of the businesses there, while everyone knows each other and they do collaborate there, there is actually one other family that’s there right now that does the pharmacy and everything. They actually have eyes salt. Wow. It was quite, quite interesting. I found that out, and I was like, Oh my gosh, you have the same product, and it’s because they’ve seen and understand and know through the employees, there’s other businesses in the word of mouth sort of, yeah.

Trish 17:27
Covering the whole town?

Steve 17:30
Well, we make sense, right? People do talk about their workplace experiences. They definitely talk about technology. You know, we hear stories all the time of folks going from an old employer to a new employer and arriving at the new employer and say, What we don’t have I solve here. We gotta get it right. Yeah, here’s why that happens all the time. So it is important for companies like I solve to kind of have those kind of evangelists. Because you got a career, you got multiple stops in your career, you might have more, who knows, and you probably will take that, that your experiences, your knowledge, and maybe your your preference, even with you.

Jaylene Owen 18:02
I can tell you, I don’t have any plans to leave Sitka. I just recently had the birth of my second grandchild, and now they’re there in Sitka. And so I think I’m going to be there for a while.

Steve 18:13
What’s life like in Sitka. I mean, we’re getting a flavor of it from what you said. I’d love to know what’s kind of just normal life like for Sitka residents when the internet still works.

Jaylene Owen 18:24
So it’s different in the sense that you have nature at your fingertips. So within a mile of my house, I could be at a waterfall. I’m at the grocery store that is part of our company, and watching whales off the parking lot, bubble nut feed. So there’s there’s some beauty there that you see every day eagles. We have the Alaska Raptor Center, which is a nonprofit that works with all the different injured Raptors within a certain mile radius. And so to be a Sitkin is all about community. And I think what’s important for me, especially given that I what I’m trying to do specifically is bring attention to the people in that community. It’s not about me, it’s not about isolved. It’s about the way that we can change the lives of multitudes of individuals and generations in an environment that really could use the help.

Steve 19:15
I love it. That’s great. You’re like the ambassador unofficial. It sounds like putting it on the map.

Trish 19:21
Could you maybe give us a little taste of the bear situation in se cut just because of the bear report and how that impacts work?

Jaylene Owen 19:30
Yeah, so living on our island, there’s about two bears, and we’re talking brown bears, not black bears, and so they’re much bigger. They can get up to about 900 pounds. And so there’s about two per square mile, and when you’re looking at sounds like a lot, it is okay. And so even though we only have 14 miles of road and the city is concentrated in that area, the island is actually almost bigger than some states land maps. And so the Sitka and borough of the city. A lot of nature, and so those bears roam around, and they actually come down into the city sometimes. And if you’re not a very good citizen and you don’t take care of your trash and you leave things out, those bears are hungry. They don’t see the difference. They may rip into your garage because you have something in there that they smell. And they’ll walk around your cars. And if you’re walking outdoors, there could be a bear out there. And you’re like, Hey, I gotta go to work.

Trish 20:27
Just so, yeah, amazing.

Steve 20:29
It sounds like a beautiful place. I’ve never made it up there myself, and, you know, reticent to the menace of the bears.

Jaylene Owen 20:39
If you’re afraid of the bears, you’ll be afraid of them. They active volcano that just turned out. Turned active two years ago, I’m afraid right off the distance mount edge cub.

Steve 20:49
This has been a fascinating story, but actually a really, really telling one, because we talk all the time about how HCM technology is modern. HCM technology is accessible to employers of all types, of all sizes, of all kind of technological acumen. Use a smaller, smaller organization, HR team of one in a really remote area, lots of folks, maybe not used to advanced technologies in the workplace, but it’s working. It’s making a difference, both for the organization. It’s our lead success, improving your job as the HR director, but also like helping people like have better experience of work. And I think it’s a great story.

Jaylene Owen 21:26
I’ll give you another really quick example, so I cannot have another provider cut checks from you, except to mail them to us that can take up to two weeks. Yeah, I actually have my own printer, AC printer, with special ink, and I print all my paychecks in house.

Steve 21:41
I used to do that myself.

Trish 21:47
We called it the micro printer.

Steve 21:50
Yeah, the micro printer. We had to keep it locked up, you know, because the check stock was in the check stop me, like a couple of people had the code.

Jaylene Owen 22:01
Yes, our owner make sure he signs all of our checks, because that’s a personal signature to the employee.

Steve 22:08
I love it, all right, Jaylene, we’ll let you go. It’s been great to meet you. I know you’ve got a very long journey back to Sitka. I don’t know when it’s starting exactly, but tomorrow morning forever to get there, but it’s been you. And thank you so much for sharing.

Jaylene Owen 22:24
Thank you for having me on the show.

Steve 22:25
Really appreciate it. Okay, that was Jaylene Owen from Hames Corp. Great story. Great, great story. And thanks to our friends at isolved for welcoming us. We’re in this really cool space that they built. I don’t think they built it for us, but we could act like they did to record and wonderful event. And great to hear this story and get to share it here. So thank you isolved. Thanks to you, Trish. great stuff. And that’s it for the show. Remember, subscribe to all the shows. Hrhappyhour.net, and my name is Steve Boese. We’ll see you next time, and bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai