How to Train & Retain Talent for Solar Installers

The transcription of the video is below.

Introduction & Heather Albarano’s background. RCR Consulting Group’s solar customers & business profile

Joe: Welcome, everybody. Thank you for joining today. I’m joined by one of my favorite people, Heather Albarano, whom I’ve had the pleasure of an honor of working with for the better part of two years now. Heather actually found us as her first client after leading as a VP of Human Resources at Schneider Electric to start her own fractional HR firm.

Little did she know that she would become an HR specialist for the solar energy industry. Today Heather advises solar installers nationwide and is a leading voice in helping the solar industry grow and scale. We’re gonna talk about her story, what she learned at Schneider Electric. How to build your own HR company.

I should say, how you got into solar and building your own HR company. What you’ve seen work and not work in solar retention, lessons from the great resignation, future of telework, tips and tricks in HR for solar installers, the importance of skills versus culture in hiring, how to ensure you’re hiring the best talent and what solar installers gain when adding HR support. So welcome Heather.

Heather: Thank you.

Joe: I love this story. So two years ago you found us when we were actually-

Heather: Actually, three now, Joe.

Joe: -has it been three years? Oh my gosh. Time flies.

Heather: It’s been over three years. Time flies. I know. I was just looking at that the other day. I was like, holy mackerel. It’s been three years.

Joe: So you actually found us when we were posting for a totally unrelated job. We didn’t even know we needed HR support until we found out the hard way. And I think we were posting for a solar installer and you slipped your resume in there and we were like, “Oh, who is this? This is an impressive resume and they’re an HR”. I don’t think they want to get on the roof and install solar.

[laughs]

Heather: Yeah.

Joe: But we reached out to you and we were your first client at Ipsun Solar, our solar installation company and the rest is history. Now you’re working for all these solar installers. And I think that you actually left Schneider Electric to start your own firm, just so you could pay for your nanny. Is that right?

Heather: Yeah. Had been with Schneider Electric for close to 10 years. Great experience. Big company. Learning best practices. My passion was always working with small businesses, though. I just love the dynamics, the speed, being able to touch so many different pieces of a business and being able to see more acutely being able to be part of that growth and being able to see that we’re making that impact.

I started RCR consulting group. And when I left Schneider right middle of the pandemic, so a little crazy, like who goes out and starts their own business in the middle of a pandemic, conversation about, everybody’s laying people off and trying to figure out how they furlough people.

So, I decided to start, RCR consulting. And my goal when I left, I just wanted to be able to make enough money to pay for my nanny. Love my babies, can’t be a full time stay at home mom, really respect for those that can. It’s a hard job, but I am a better mom by being working. And now my kids are super into the business.

They’ve met clients. They’ve been to some of the Ipsun. I’ve got pictures of my oldest and the Ipsun hard hat. They love– huge passion around it. And my company’s name just for those that don’t know, RCR is my boys are Ryland, Corbin and Rainer and I joke that this is my fourth baby that we’ve been growing.

[laughs]

Joe: And how many solar installers are you helping and what other industries are you working in?

Heather: Great question. I would say solar is probably about 25 percent of our business right now. Gosh, off the top of my head. I would say that would probably be somewhere about 15 to 16 solar installers that we’re working with today across the country.

As far as other businesses, it’s a great question. We have businesses and clients that we support across every industry almost from government contracting, mental health therapists, psychologists, manufacturing, retail. We’ve got flower shop that is one of the clients that we work with.

It’s a lot of fun because it is, we are just getting to learn so many different businesses and even in the solar space. Each client, even though you’re all kind of doing the same thing, the culture, the vibe, the environment from where they’re based to, just the leadership and what they’re trying to build is different, even with inside of that.

How to retain and train talent in the solar industry? 

Joe: The name of our talk today is how to retain and train talent in the solar industry. How does HR compare from being a VP at such a large company like Schneider Electric to coming into small businesses and helping them with their HR issues, kind of a micro level?

Heather: Yeah. There’s a few big differences. When you’re in those big companies, you are a number.  You don’t necessarily get to know people the same way that you can when you’re in the smaller business. And you get to know them, you get to know their families, you get to know what drives people, what motivates people on a much more granular level.

Flip side of that, you don’t, as a small business, have the same budgets and the same resources and the same tools that larger organizations do. And one of our favorite things is to figure out how do we take some of those best business practices, and leverage and implement those in environments that are smaller businesses, and customize those to some of the budgets.

Good bad things with COVID. There was a lot of different tools that came out throughout the time with COVID that were focused on things with more employee engagement and more inexpensive tools to kind of create for teams that are more in a remote environment.

How do you keep them engaged? That sort of thing. But a lot of it, just learning how to take what you’ve got and working with inside of those confines as far as what culture and environment you’re trying to create.

What are some common themes in strong cultures in the solar industry?

Joe: And what have you seen are some of the really good cultures in the solar industry? What are some common themes that you’ve seen in really strong cultures? And what are some common themes you’ve seen in all solar businesses that there’s room and opportunity for growth?

Heather: The ones that I have seen very similar to Ipsun are the ones that are really focused on the employees. That are looking past and employees just being a number or as a commodity. They’re really looking at their employees as, that’s our competitive advantage. And it is.

If you have the right installers, you can install better, quicker, more efficient, safer, lower your prices, if you’re able to leverage that talent  that you have with inside of your team and how do you do that?

Because you need to have the market’s very competitive still, as far as it goes to talent. So how do you attract that talent? Some of the things that we have seen work the best is, really figuring out how you develop that talent internally. The market to me for solar installers you’re all competing for the same talent.

If you’re looking for someone who has experience and some of those people that have experience may or may not be great. They know what to do, but they may not be aligned with your culture, your values. They may not have been taught the right way has been some of the things that we’ve seen, may have picked up some bad habits and sometimes some of those are hard to break.

And so, where we’ve seen the most success is where we’re hiring entry level talent that maybe has the raw skills that we’re looking for and then build them up internally. That really helps. One of the topics is talking about that retention, so if employees can see, hey, I’ve got a career path and I’ve got a growth with a company.

It helps with their commitment; it helps with their interest level and buy into the company. And seeing some of those success stories where we’ve taken an entry level installer, and they’re now running in operations is really telling and very powerful for a lot of employees.

And then, of course, just treating them. I mean, you go back to that golden rule. Treating others as you want to be treated and leading with that. Having kind of that employee first mentality and how do we do the right thing by our team.  If we take care of them, they’re going to take care of our customers, that sort of thing.

What is the magic number of people a company should have before bringing in HR help?

Joe: There’s always this question before you bring on HR support or hire someone dedicated for HR. What’s the magic number of people you have in your company before you need HR? And I always heard, “Oh, it’s, you know 20 or 30”.

And then after working with you, I feel like I wish we had started with HR support, because hiring the best and the brightest from day one is such a critical element to success. So, now when somebody asks you that, specifically in the solar industry, what do you say?

Heather: I would say it’s not even exclusive to solar. It’s zero. Before you’re ready to make that first hire, HR, and again, you don’t need to hire a full time HR person. It’s a huge investment we understand that. But engaging someone in HR to make sure that yes, you are hiring that right person; that is the right fit for the organization, making sure you’re set up correctly.

There’s all this other compliance, legal mumbo jumbo that you have to make sure you’re aligned with, but that fit is so critical. You take that comparison of those large fortune 500 companies. You have a company that’s got 180,000 employees. Having one or two bad hires, not going to be as impactful as a small business that has one. That’s 50 percent of your team if you’re a single business owner.

And if you don’t have the right fit, that’s where we see most small businesses is one of the biggest areas that they trip and they fail is by making some of those bad hiring choices, or hiring off the resume, or they just don’t know. I mean, it’s not something that hiring managers or entrepreneurs CEOs necessarily have had a ton of experience hiring and trying to figure out that right person.

So, my guidance is really before you make that first hire, you want to be very clear on what even that hire is. What they’re going to be doing? What’s going to look like success? Making sure you’re getting that right fit. Making sure they’re aligned with you, everything else.

As far as a company grows. Typically, we say somewhere between that– when you start getting into between that 30 and 40 headcount mark, usually we start saying you need more regular HR support. Don’t necessarily need that full time.

But you need someone who’s regularly available, engaged on a weekly basis in some capacity. To help you not just pass the recruiting, but making sure your policies and your procedures, management coaching, development, all that sort of thing, right around that 30 to 40 headcount you start getting into more regular support that’s needed.

What are some of the biggest learnings and takeaways from COVID years & the Great Resignation?

Joe: So you mentioned that you started the business at the beginning of COVID. So you’ve seen all of COVID, the Great Resignation.

What do you think are the biggest takeaways from the Great Resignation in this power exchange between, workers and management and the owners and labor; it’s been this tug of war for the last few years. What have you learned and what do you think are the takeaways from it?

Heather: I think you hit the term right. It’s been this power dynamic that’s really shifted. And some of it, honestly, looking back, I think it’s been an evolution that was coming. I think COVID just sped it up.

You’ve think about kind of the baby boomer generation, where you’ve had a lot of the loyalty to employers, most people have been with the company; they were at the point where they figured they were going to retire. You started having all these layoffs that started happening. You’ve got these Gen X-ers that’s all their parents and their grandparent that had this loyalty to the company losing their jobs and creating that uncertainty.

And so you started having that shift happening just even there, COVID just sped that up. Where a lot of businesses, and this is where to me, I was really attracted to some of the small businesses is, we saw a lot of small businesses trying to figure out how do I stay afloat in this environment while also taking care of my employees.

What are my options? Government was a great tool as far as kind of coming out with some of their ERC credits to help these businesses. But it’s shifted.

We had a large workforce, especially in some of our businesses in the construction spaces, where we did have a lot of people that exited the business for a variety of reasons, even with it being a critical business a lot of businesses were still able to operate.

But we still have a lot of people for a variety of reasons that weren’t comfortable. And then it’s been slow for a lot of people to return back into the workforce. Which created this big push and pull last year, where we had way more positions in most areas that were open compared to what we had available.

And so similar to markets, you’ve got the supply and demand that comes up. And it became this, another fun buzzword, “the war on talent” of all of these companies trying to compete and attract the same talent. And where we really saw, companies that succeeded through this time are those companies that really took the step of treating their employees the right way, showing that they were a valued member of the team.

Some of it definitely had to do with compensation. Through this as salaries were being driven up. But finding kind of that happy, harmonious balance of– we had a lot of companies, Joe, yours being one of them that didn’t have a whole lot of turnover during that time because of the way that you treated those employees.

And kept them engaged and gave them those growth opportunities, empowered them throughout the course of their day to day jobs, all that kind of fun stuff. And I think we’re going to see that continuing.

Even though the markets are shifting a little bit from a talent standpoint, you definitely have more talent available on the market. This time, this year, than you did last year. You still have employees that have a higher expectation. That shift I don’t think is going to necessarily go away, as far as what employee’s expectations are of their employer. It’s going to be much more of a instead of the employer, it’s like, what can you do for me?

It’s much more of a, employer, what can you do for me type of dialogue now, than it has been in the past. I think we are in a little bit of a pendulum swim. I think it’ll settle back down somewhere in the middle where it is more of an even balance between a give and take and more of a symbiotic relationship between the two. But I think we’re probably at least a year away before that fully kind of settles down. 

Heather’s thoughts on telework and the future of telework? Pros and Cons of telework.

Joe: Speaking of the pendulum, telework, where do you think telework is going to be in three or five years? And what does a company gain from having a flexible work policy around telework? And what do they lose by not having people in person as much as they did before COVID?

Heather: Great question. I’m personally a little biased on this. My team, we are a remote first organization. My entire team, with the exception of one, is all remote across the country. To me, some of my favorite things about it, is you can hire the best talent. You’re not limited to a certain geography.

You have the entire nation or the entire world, frankly, as an option for your candidate pool. And so, you’re talking– you’re going from a micro level to this macro candidate pool now. So from a recruiting standpoint, very huge differences.

I would say compensation wise, being based in the metro D. C. area; salaries are typically a lot higher. I can have someone with a very similar skills and experience working in Oklahoma that is significantly less than what I would be paying somebody in the D.C metro area. So, you’ve got a little bit of that component coming in.

It is a challenge though, some of the conversations we have with a lot of leaders where they’re not comfortable, is they don’t necessarily know what somebody’s doing. Some of the training’s a little bit harder. There is this level of when you’re in an office and overhearing conversations and interacting with people of learning from your peers.

So, from a remote work environment standpoint, we really encourage people to try to create and replicate that in person environment as much as you can in those remote, there’s again, benefits of COVID, so many tools and systems that came out today to help with some of those collaborations. 

Whether it’s your– my team lives on teams, as far as kind of communications, we’ve created pods, with inside of our team, and it’s not uncommon for them to spend an hour or two on the phone with each other where they’re on teams; they’re seeing each other; they may be talking through things, replicating and simulating some of that office environment.

There’s also a lot of team building tools that are out there now. Confetti is one that we have used for our teams to be able to do remote team building events. We have done knitting chunky blankets. We’ve done murder mystery parties. We’ve done escape rooms to help bring the team together.

My team actually just two weeks ago came to me and said, “Hey, we’d love to do like a monthly luncheon”, and so what some of my team has arranged where they can just get together for a lunch remotely, a virtual lunch hour, and they’ve engaged another tool to be able, it’s like 40 bucks a year where they’re able to play games virtually.

So, lots of different options out there now for that. As far as some of the downsides though, again, you’re not always in person, it’s harder. We have a lot of businesses that have started wanting to pull people back into the office.

Our guidance there is to not make it a mandate. There has been some studies that have come out as far as when you mandate and say, “You have to come back into the office”, employees– again, going back to that pendulum swing, that’s not sitting well with employees.

Employees are responding much more to when you’re encouraging and explaining why you want to pull people back into the office. What the intent is? Why the value is there? What you’re trying to accomplish by pulling them into the office. Having it more intentional versus when you’re mandating it, the data showing there is definitely an uptick in resignations, when it becomes a mandate versus a strongly encouraged thing.

The last thing I like to always share too, just with the office space is you’re paying for office space. From a capital expenditure standpoint, that’s not a cost we have and what else can we do and invest? So thinking really strongly about why do I have an office? Why do I want them in the office? And as long as you’re clear with that, some businesses do really thrive and do need some of that. But just being very clear as to why.

How can a solar installer have its sales & operations teams work well together?

Joe: So one of the biggest problems solar installers’ faces, as I’m sure a lot of small businesses face, is sales and operations. How do you get them to play together nicely, work together well; be part of one team and part of one culture?

Obviously now it’s even harder because of remote work. You have half of your workforce that might be at home. And half of your workforce on a hundred degree roof. How have you seen successful companies get their sales and operations team to work well together, communicate well, and play within one culture?

Heather: I think if I had the clear answer for that, I’d probably be sitting in the Caribbean on my own personal island somewhere because this is kind of the tale as old as time story. I would say with some of the conflict and the friction, unfortunately, I don’t think there I wish I had the right answer there.

Some of the tips and tricks though, that I will say that I have seen that do help with some of this is, making sure that there is an understanding and a respect of each team. Some of the things that we’ve seen is, doing some job sharing. Maybe it is even the solar– salespeople going out into the field and experiencing what installers do in a day. 

And having some of that empathy for what our solar installers do and vice versa. Having some of our solar installers being on those calls, seeing or overhearing some of those calls, and experiencing what our sales teams are going through and how hard the rejection can be right on a regular basis and needing to be able to navigate through some of that or, sharing some of those experiences.

Strong communication, very important. We’ve worked with teams to put in ground rules on how we communicate, and making sure that if there’s an issue that we’re getting on a call a meeting in person, whatever it is, but we’re pulling all of the players in to talk through. Okay, this was an issue. Things happen.  We’re not pointing fingers. We’re not laying blame. We don’t necessarily need to rehash it. But what do we do to prevent it from going to happen going forward?

 If you’re– and then a lot of its leadership, so making sure that we’re being cognizant of, are there inequities that are happening between the teams? How are we communicating that?

How do we– as leadership, is our ops and our sales leader at friction and at odds if you can’t get mom and dad playing together nicely. Employees are going to take advantage of that. Just kind of in a family that’s going through divorce, they’ll play you off each other if you allow it to happen.

Skills vs. Culture: How to think about skills, culture, & values?

Joe: Makes sense. Yeah, it is the tale as old as time and we’re all trying to figure it out. Skills versus culture. Obviously, solar installers need a very specific set of technical skills because it is a technical organization.

But at the same time, you want to build a culture that is fun and positive and encourages high retention. How should solar installers think about, skills versus culture and bringing in the right people, but also making sure that those people share your values.

Heather: Yeah. I– with very few exceptions on it, like there are certain roles that you have to have certain skill sets or experience in order to do the job.

In general though, I am always going to encourage people to hire for value and culture fit before you hire for skills. To me, your values are more innate on who you are. You can’t– I mean, can you change them? You can get somebody to fit into your mold, but you’re usually kind of swimming upstream. You’re battling against that.

People– and that’s where we see most people failing. Most of your skills as long as you’ve got the right infrastructure in place and the right team in place. Typically, you can teach a lot of those raw skills that are needed to do most jobs, or you can refine them.

It’s those core values that we see most employees not succeeding with inside of organizations or creating the most disruption from a value standpoint. So I would say almost always focus on values over the skills. Again, you’ve got the core basis of skills that you may need, but the values are so critical.

How to ensure you are hiring the right person? One of Heather’s favorite interview questions. 

Joe: And how do you make sure that the folks that you’re talking to, really have the skills that they say they have? We’ve all been in that situation where they say, I know how to do this and I know how to do that. And then they get in the job and realize that they may not have had the experience they said they had.

When you’re interviewing folks, how do you look for both the skills and the culture fit? What are some of the questions you ask? What are your like top three questions that you think really draw out the person?

Heather: I would say, it’s hard to say, what are my top three questions, because it does vary significantly based off of role and team that we’re in an environment and everything else.

One of my favorite questions though is, if you could wave a magic wand and create your ideal role for yourself. What does that look like? What would you be doing? What would be any deal breakers? Those types of questions. It’s a pretty open ended question, and sometimes people have a lot of trouble answering it. Which to me, can be telling?

But I’m looking in those types of answers, for do what they’re creating in their mind aligned with what we’re looking for. You’ll be really surprised. I’ve had, probably 25 percent of candidates that I’ve interviewed for describe something completely and totally different than the job that they’re interviewing for.

And that’s great. And I respect and appreciate that they’re being very honest, we want people to be honest, but it’s also telling that this probably isn’t the right role for them. So if I proceed forward, knowing that this isn’t exactly what they want. I also am going in now, at least eyes wide open that this probably isn’t going to last long.

Outside of that, I am looking for– we typically want to make sure asking open ended questions, we don’t want to say, “Hey, have you done this before?” Most candidates are going to say, “Yes, I’ve done it or no, I haven’t”, typically more on the yes side. From that standpoint, ask them to walk you through.

For an example, I’ve had a client that’s been struggling to hire this admin position and it’s somebody who really needs some experience in Excel, and they’ve been asking that, kind of question. Do you have experience working with Excel? Well, most people, yes, do have experience working with Excel.

Their next question that they like to ask is, will you consider yourself an expert in Excel? First of all, I would say if anybody who really knows Excel would not. Very few people are truly experts in Excel, to me, that would be a first red flag is if somebody says, yes, I’m an expert in Excel.

But to me, where we got to is, what do they actually need to do in Excel?  asking a question to kind of help that out. Do they actually know what they need to do in Excel?

For example, can you walk me through the last formula you used in Excel and what did you use it for? If they can’t tell me a formula in Excel and I need someone to be at average to above skill level in Excel, pretty much anybody should be able to tell me a formula, and what in general they used it for.

Asking some more specific questions to actually vet out. Do what you’re talking about through this? Turning around to a solar installer type of position, asking them something that is a more technical question. Can you walk me through the steps of how you would do this?

Or what tools have you used when, I’m not great with all the technical tool terms, but, in a higher pitched roof, there’s a certain way that you’re supposed to get up onto that roof. If I remember, it’s like a Billy goat ladder or something like that, that you’re supposed to use is a tool that you could use.

Now, I’m not a solar installer, I may have passed that question. But being able to kind of share some types of tips or tricks as far as how they actually would go about approaching that versus the more general question. And then outside of that is going to be asking more behavioral questions. Situational scenario questions. Can you tell me about a time when X, how would you approach Y? Types of questions.

And really again, thinking back to what and having a very clear view of what you need in your position, what you need in your environment, your culture to see, is this aligned with what we do? Are these values aligned with the company that we have? Is this going to be successful?

And thinking about it, not just to the people that have been successful in your team, but those who haven’t been successful as well, and trying to sass that out on both sides.

What are some benefits solar installers’ gains by bringing in outside HR help? 

Joe: I remember one of the first things we did when we brought you into the company was just looking at health care plans, and that was one of the things that I hadn’t even anticipated or associated with HR. That was such a benefit to us to have somebody who’s seen all the complications of health care plans and how to think through the trade offs.

That was a real benefit to us. What are some of the benefits solar installers gain from bringing in HR support like that, that they may have never expected?

Heather: Yeah, I think it’s a couple of different things. I think one, I mean, obviously there’s the compliance pieces. Making sure you’re doing what you need to do so that you don’t end up with the EEOC, DOL, anybody else knocking on your door. Outside of that, I think its things. Yes, its things like benefits that may seem fairly straightforward, but are actually really complicated.

When you start talking about small businesses, you’re subject to these small employer plans. You may have hundreds of choices that you’re choosing from. How do you pick the plan that makes the most sense for your company?  And as we start having some of those conversations, we start coming into, compensation philosophy. Because, benefits are a part of a compensation package.

And so, as you start looking at how am I doing things like 401K? Am I doing a match? Am I doing– how much am I paying towards benefits? How much do I have to pay towards benefits? Do I offer medical insurance? Do I offer dental? Do I offer short term disability, long term disability, and it just keeps going and going.

All of this comes up with, it all comes down to this is my philosophy on how I want to reward and retain people. And there’s again, companies we work with all over the board from we want to be on the low end of the pay band, but we’re offering these amazing benefits.

How do we make sure we’re marketing that right to candidates and telling that story to candidates? Because that’s an important story to tell, all the way down to, we want to be leaders in the market. Obviously, it’s easier to be a leader in the market from a comp standpoint as far as attracting talent.

Other areas that I would say, I think small businesses miss is obviously the recruiting pieces. We’ve been talking a lot about that, and making sure we’re set up for as much success as we can, trying to make sure we’re bringing in that right talent for the organization. Management coaching leadership, being that kind of partner.

From our experience working with so many different businesses, we have experience. We’ve seen what works. A lot of times we’ve seen what doesn’t work. It’s not a one size fits all approach, and customizing something that into each individual environment. But definitely a lot of that management leadership executive coaching that comes into play as well.

The three key outside expert resources needed when setting up and growing a solar installation business. 

Joe: Speaking of other leaders and other outside help you can bring in. I know you have like the three expert areas that you think are really important for every small business to have; obviously HR is one of them.

Who else do you think is important to surround yourself with, to build a successful, scalable solar business?

Heather: I think right outside of the gate is having a really strong attorney. And that would be a general contracts attorney. Just they know things that; sometimes you don’t necessarily need to use them all the time. It’s not something you need to talk to on a monthly basis, but just making sure you’ve got all your paperwork set up right.

Even down to like, when you’re setting up a company. There’s so many different options out there; from, your LLCs and LLCs filing as an S corp. and your S corp. and your C corp. Understanding what each of those is and knowing kind of where you want to go from a company standpoint and working with the right legal counsel to make sure you’re setting up the right entity for you to grow.

The next would be HR. Of course. I think HR is a critical component, through that again, doesn’t have to be something that’s a full time dedicated resource. It can be something that’s fractional. And then the other one would be, like a CFO, so fractional. I see a lot of businesses– are comfortable– a lot of, CEOs, entrepreneurs are comfortable with the numbers. They’re comfortable with finances.

You have to have a basic understanding of that in order to start a business. But there’s so much more when it comes to, hiring, your compensation packages, forecasting, understanding your cash flow doesn’t make more sense for me to leverage out of taking loans interest. How do I float money?

Am I– do I have money sitting in the bank that I could be leveraging in other ways? All this kind of stuff. You’re right. CFO is amazing partner, through some of those, as well. And so, to me, I would say those are, to me, the three most critical resources for you to have kind of in your back pocket when you’re first starting a business.

How to delegate and empower others successfully?

Joe: So it makes me think of an interview I’ve got coming up with one of our solar executive coaches. It’s going to be called “How to get out of your own way as a solar business owner”. But I’ve got to ask you this question, because I know you’ve seen this in probably every solar business you’ve worked with.

The owner wanting to own all the functions, wanting to micromanage the company, wanting to have their claws in every decision. And it feels good, to be able to control everything, but doesn’t necessarily have the best outcome. How have you seen leaders in solar companies get out of their own way and empower their teams to make more decisions?

Heather: It’s one of the– I’m going to say, it is hard. And even just being a business owner myself, it’s hard. It’s your baby. It’s risky. It’s scary. It’s exciting. It’s—you know the way you want things to be done. And so it is hard to step back and let go of that control. I think that’s the most important pieces. It’s important to acknowledge that.

To me, I think the pieces to help you get out of your own way or for me, is one– sometimes it’s a force.  It gets to the point where, you can’t keep doing it all because at some point, as much as we don’t want to sleep, we do need sleep and caffeine can only go so far.

And sometimes it’s a force I ideally coach leaders that we need to do it before it gets to that point or before we end up in a mental hospital because we’ve had a mental breakdown, through the pressure.

To me, it’s having the right people in place, and having people that you can trust and making those right hires, and making sure you’ve got a clear understanding of what it is you’re looking for, and what that recipe for success looks like with inside of what you’re trying to build and finding people that can understand that.

That’s where we get into some of these things, like your mission, your vision, your core values of an organization.  If you’re hiring for those, and you’re hiring the right people that are aligned, it makes it a lot easier to start being like, okay; I feel more comfortable letting go of this. And sometimes it does need to be something that’s incremental.

As far as starting to let go, it’s having people around you also that you have a comfortable relationship with, that you’re okay with them coming to you and saying, Hey, dude, you got to get out, you got to step out of this area.

And have created a safe enough environment that they feel comfortable coming to you and saying “This is an area. I’ve got this. Let me take this”. But also understanding and communicating what it is you may need to be able to feel comfortable. So, is it something that, especially in the beginning, I will never say, don’t just hire someone and say, “Here’s the key to the kingdom. Go have fun”.

It is a process. You want to develop it. You want to take time and make sure that, that person is worthy of that trust. From that standpoint, I would say, those are a few of things that I would say, it’s a process. Making sure you’re communicating clearly having those expectations and making sure you’ve got the right people in the right seats.

How to communicate with the company when industry downturns happen?

Joe: So we’ve seen this year, a downturn in the solar industry. It’s been really hard on a lot of companies. How have you seen companies communicate that to their staff that we’ve got a downturn, but we’ve got a plan?

Here’s what we’re seeing, but here’s what we’re doing. And, companies that have not done that well, it have been too late to the game. What have you observed is working and not working in a downturn here in terms of HR and communication?

Heather: To me, from a communication standpoint and this is, to me, almost a universal truth, whether it’s in situations like this or not is in the absence of information employees are going to make it themselves.

And to me, it’s something that you would much rather be in front of the message and making sure they’re hearing the message that’s aligned with what you want them to hear. Than it is them creating their own story, because I promise you, the story that they’re going to be coming up with is not the right one, and is going to create issues for you.

And so to me, getting ahead being honest. Employees also at the same time are going to, they’re– they’re not stupid.  They’re going to smell if you’re not being open and authentic with them. Making sure that what message you’re delivering is also aligned with your actions.

If a company is sitting there and they’re getting ready to lay off 20 percent of their workforce. And that weekend, they’re laying people off on a Thursday and Friday. They’ve got a huge company event. That’s a misalignment.

That’s not going to sit well, and so making sure that, our words and our actions are also aligned with each other. And that there’s a match there, being honest, letting them know, especially what can they do.

Employees– for their own purposes as well, they don’t want to see the business not be successful. Some of that’s just self survival, they don’t want to lose their jobs, but they– most employees do have an invested interest in their company and their coworkers.

And they’ve got relationships that they’ve developed. So being sure to take that moment to explain to them. What can they do? How can they contribute? What is it you’re looking for? Ask them for ideas.

Especially to me, this is one of the biggest benefits and I see big businesses don’t leverage this the same way is ask them. They’re on the front lines. They may have ideas on how you can do something better. How you can do something more efficiently. How you can approach something differently.

Sometimes employees don’t feel comfortable sharing that, or they share it with the wrong people, that it’s not getting up to the decision makers with inside the organization. So make sure you’re leveraging that and seeing if they have ideas and suggestions, from that standpoint.

How to have hard conversations? Don’t put it off. And, be direct.

Joe: Well, speaking of good communication, one of the hardest things to do, not just in business, but in life is have hard conversations. Whether it’s from an employer to an employee or an employee to an employer.

How do you make sure that you’re having the hard conversations you need to have when you need to have them? Cause this is something that’s just difficult for human beings, but it’s especially hard in a business.

And I’m sure you’ve seen people defer hard conversations for years and years and years and the results of that. What are some of the tips you have for solar business leaders in having those hard conversations?

Heather: Don’t put it off. That’s the biggest one. At the first inkling of a concern, address it. Where we see the biggest issues coming in, is when we do wait to have those conversations, I was just dealing with somebody yesterday, had somebody we’ve been talking for about six weeks. And I know where this is going.

Like I’ve got my crystal ball on this one’s pretty clear. I– I’ve been pushing this leader and I try to find that balance because, to me, I don’t believe in telling somebody what to do right at the end of the day, it’s their business.

I like to try to lead them where they need to go. And I’ve shared with them some of the examples. And the employee, that’s in question. This leader has been taking it very slow with this employee and the employee then calls and filed a complaint with HR.

And so before we were able to take any action, because we were trying to go slow. Now, we’ve got this HR issue and it kind of hamstrings us, and being able to take action because nothing had really been documented. Just a little example that I’m dealing with right now. So don’t wait.

And the other big mistake I would say is, I see a lot of leaders think they’re being direct, with an employee, we don’t– you hit on it.  Human nature, we don’t like conflict and that’s really what it is.

We don’t like being told that we’re not doing something we’re supposed to. We pride ourselves in what we’re doing. Most people aren’t coming to work and wanting to do a bad job. Keeping that component in mind, but sometimes employees just don’t know what the expectation is. So the earlier and the sooner you can get ahead of it.

Being direct but empathetic in that communication, the better. But where I see the biggest issues is when we wait and it becomes an issue, or I get it where this is a situation that’s been going on for months. The manager’s done. They’re fed up.

They think they’ve had a conversation with the employee and we talked to the employee and the employee has zero concepts that they are not meeting expectations and it comes completely out of left field.

And the manager’s like, “Oh, well, maybe I didn’t quite say that to them the way I thought I said it”. And it’s just, again, address it, be direct. If you need help, you’ve got experts like us around, to help you navigate what to say, how to say it, how to address it. But again, as soon as you start seeing it, the better outcome is usually there.

How to balance accountability & empathy?

Joe: So one of the things I’ll admit I’ve struggled with that I’ve seen all solar business owners struggle with is a tension between accountability and empathy. How do you make sure that if someone makes a mistake that you’re telling them, you’re training them, and you’re giving them a lesson learned on how to do better next time?

But that ultimately you’re holding everybody accountable to the same standard. How do you think about that balance?

Heather: I think it’s a matter of creating an environment. Everybody’s going to make a mistake.  We’re all human. We’re prone to mistakes. We’re prone to errors. To me, and this is a conversation I have with my team on day one, its part of our orientation with inside of RCR is, if you make a mistake, it’s okay. We all make mistakes, we’re all human. It’s okay. What are you going to do about it?

And that’s what I want to hear. Whether they’re aware that they’ve made the mistake or whether I’m bringing it to their attention. My next question is, okay, we don’t necessarily need to rehash what happened.

I want us to understand what happened, so we prevent it from going forward. And I would like you, who made the mistake to come to me and explain to me what you’re going to do to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

It’s a great opportunity. We have taken mistakes and errors sometimes as a win with inside of the company. Because sometimes that’s where we improve the most– is sometimes through those errors. So creating a safe environment, where we focus on what the positive component is with when a mistake like that happens. How do we change?

Now, of course, if that same mistake happens over and over, then that starts to shift the dialogue. And that becomes a different conversation. Okay. We’ve had multiple mistakes now in a very short period of time. And then I start taking it more as this is what the impact is.

This is what’s happening. This is how this is becoming an issue.  And kind of taking a different approach, if you will, through that process of look, we, we’ve had mistakes. We’re having these issues. You’ve worked the process, you maybe came up with isn’t working, to prevent it from happening again. This is getting really serious. We need to figure something out.

And I, at that point, I’ll step in a little bit more as a manager, and walk them through it. If it continues to happen, then, of course, we start the progressive discipline policy. At that point, it would be, going down the path of written warnings, and that sort of thing. But we usually try to take the—direct, you’ve made a mistake. Let’s own it. What do we do next?

How did the HR industry begin & evolve?

Joe: It makes a lot of sense.

I’ve got to ask you, who was the first HR professional? How did this industry start? When did it begin? When did businesses realize that they need this kind of support?

Heather: I don’t know who the first person was-

[laughs]

Heather: – I will say HR is an evolution, back when I first started, I’m going to be dating myself a little bit here. It was just making the change from personnel management. It was a very administrative function, as far as like, HR was their paperwork pushers, basically.

The administration aspect of HR– over the last 10 years or so, 15 years, it was right when I was entering the field. It started making this transition into HR being more of the strategic partner.

You started seeing degrees, and training, like, industrial organizational psychology, or human resources development, starting to pop up and you started seeing this evolution of, HR can do more. And it’s now they’re talking about HR is like; I think I can’t keep track of some of it, but it’s like people operations now.

As opposed to even being HR and it’s been this evolution from like, this very administrative, procedural, tactical, to evolving into– there’s still pieces of that that we do. But into this more strategic workforce planning, having a seat at the table.

Now, you’ve got CHROs in a lot of companies that have a seat– are part of the leadership team, and are focusing on helping with some of these higher level engagement retention, types of cradle to grave employee relations pieces.

Joe: That makes sense. So basically started as kind of an administrative file, your paperwork on board off board, but there was less of the soft skills and now it’s become this combination of the administrative side. But also helping employees and helping employers and conflict resolution, all of the above.

Heather: Yup. And a lot of businesses we see today still have a little bit of that. Especially the small businesses. We’ll see a lot of where we pick up a lot of businesses are– a small business has had maybe someone that was in an admin assistant position or an office manager that they have turned into an HR person, doing some of those administrative functions.

And again, because there are those components that are administrative.  Obviously, they’re not trained HR professionals. It is a skill set and training and knowledge and expertise on how to navigate and deal with some of these things.

And it’s also part of why we’ve structured our team the way we have. Where we have—for our businesses are getting to the point where they need more regular HR support. We usually have a consultant and a coordinator.

So the coordinator, still a trained HR professional. They know what needs to be done and filled out on that. I9 form, for example, or how to review a W4 form and make sure that, that gets put into payroll correctly, handling the on boarding rate of an employee.

So handling those administrative components partnered with a senior consultant that can help on more of those strategic aspects. But I will say where we see a lot is where somebody’s had an office manager turned into and filling that seat as an HR professional and they’ve done an amazing job.

I don’t want to discredit what they’ve done by any means. They just don’t– haven’t had the training to what they really need to do. And they’ve kind of piecemealed and gotten by, and then, a lot of times there’s some pretty big gaps, unfortunately, though, that we kind of come in and help clean up.

How to transition from “being the doer” to “being the leader”?

Joe: All right. Last question. I think most; if not all small businesses start with an individual contributor. Somebody who knows how to do a trade and they’re going off on their own doing that trade and then they realize, wow, there’s lots of demand for this thing.

I’ve got to hire someone. You’ve had this experience.  I’ve had this experience and there were just plenty of business owners who they don’t know how to go from being the doer to the leader. So what is a book or a podcast or a movie or something you can recommend to them, just to give them some inspiration, because this is such a hard transition and going from being the doer to being the leader of the doers.

Heather: I would say, and to me, where I see it, Joe, I’m going to take it even a step further because we see this as a tough transition, even for people that have been in individual contributor roles. As like a solar installer going to a lead or management position.

It’s a struggle because what made you successful is that individual contributor is not what makes you successful in this leadership role.

One of my favorite books is, the first 90 days, and I cannot remember the name of the author. I can picture the book in my head, but it’s one that I recommended to a lot of people that are making that transition from an individual contributor into a management role.  And it’s taking that individual contributor to that management role.

That leadership role is another step that needs to be done. And there’s some great leadership books out there to me. I would say, usually at that point, though, you’re going to be wanting to engage with an expert because you can only get so much to me from a book. I love books. They can be great tools.

But to me, having someone that can help coach and develop you specifically, where your gaps may be, or push you or challenge you in that safe environment is really going to be a lot more effective taking you to even that further.

Joe’s thoughts on RCR Consulting Group. How to contact Heather Albarano & RCR Consulting Group?

Joe: Well, for the folks listening who want to find that expert who you’ve convinced them, they need the support. Where can they find you? What’s your website? Where can they retain your support?

Heather: Yeah, absolutely. My business, RCR consulting; our website is, RCR-consulting.com

Joe: I’ve got my RCR mug right here to prove it-

[laughs]

Joe: -total coincidence. Not a prop.

Heather: Love it, Joe. Love it. Love it.

[laughs]

Joe: My favorite corporate mug in my whole kitchen.

[laughs]

Joe: Well, thank you, Heather, for joining us. I really enjoyed this because I love sharing all the things that we’ve learned over the last three years. Working with you with every solar installer in the country. I think that the benefit is almost incalculable, hard to even put into words because so much of it is the soft skills, the subjective.

And one day you wake up and you’re like, why is my retention so high? Why are people staying for three years? Oh, right. It’s because three years ago we got HR support. That makes sense. And if somebody asked me why, well, it’s all this amalgam of factors.

But at the end of the day, it’s having somebody there who has these skills that really are technical and specialized.

So thank you for being here and for supporting our business. And I hope that this reaches out to a lot of solar installers who would benefit from working with you as well.

Heather: Yeah, absolutely, Joe. It’s been an absolute pleasure. I probably have said it to you before, but, I cannot explain the– just the excitement I even get and seeing the changes that have happened in your organization over the past three years and knowing that we helped to even play a small part in that, is just so exciting.

And, I think through, a lot of our clients and just seeing that evolution. That change is, for me, what drives me, on a daily basis and just getting to be a part of that ride has been absolutely amazing.

Joe: Well, thank you. And if you enjoy this conversation, please go to sunboy.com. We’re going to have a host of interviews with experts in the solar industry and leaders. Check out our blog. And if you have any questions, you can reach out to us directly.

Thank you, Heather.

Heather: Great. Thanks, Joe. Bye.