HR In Action - KaShondra Anikwe

In this episode of HR in Action, KaShondra Anikwe joins for a thoughtful conversation on the evolving role of HR leaders as strategic partners inside organizations.

Drawing on her experience leading HR initiatives across complex organizations, KaShondra shares how HR professionals can move beyond administrative responsibilities and step fully into their role as business leaders. The discussion highlights the importance of aligning people strategy with organizational goals, while also creating systems that support employee growth, accountability, and long-term performance.

A central theme of the conversation is the balance between people and process. KaShondra discusses how HR leaders often find themselves translating between leadership vision and the lived experiences of employees — and why building trust, clarity, and consistency is essential for making that connection work.

Aaron and KaShondra also explore:
-The shift from transactional HR to strategic partnership
-How HR leaders can influence culture through systems and expectations
-The importance of communication and transparency in leadership
-Developing leaders who understand both the business and the human side of work
-Why strong HR practices create stability during periods of growth or change

Throughout the conversation, KaShondra emphasizes that effective HR leadership isn’t just about policies or programs — it’s about creating environments where people can do their best work while organizations achieve their goals.

Connect with KaShondra at her website or LinkedIn: https://www.regen-mgmt.com/;  https://www.linkedin.com/in/tierra-anikwe/

This episode is especially valuable for HR leaders, executives, and people managers looking to strengthen the connection between leadership, culture, and business performance.

🔹 Looking to help leaders practice these conversations before they matter most? Check out ProACTr, a leadership conversation simulator designed to help leaders build skill and confidence through evidence-based role-play learning. 👉 https://proactr.com

#HRInAction #HRLeadership #HumanResources #PeopleOperations #LeadershipDevelopment #WorkplaceCulture #EmployeeExperience #HRCommunity #CommunityOfPractice

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:28

And I'm excited to have her on the podcast today and talk about some different HR topics. She also worked in the defense space or government federal space, like I do. So I'm sure we'll have a lot to talk about there. But uh let's let's jump into it. And Kishandra, I'll turn it over to you if you don't mind starting off with a little introduction about yourself.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Sure. Awesome. And Aaron, thank you so much for having me on the podcast today. Um hi everyone. Uh my name is Kishandra Anique, as Aaron stated. So um I run an HR in operations management consulting business, um, regeneration management consulting. I know that's a mouthful, so I just call it RMC for short. Um, and so this is where I support small and growing organizations, um, especially in the government contracting and professional services realm. Um, I've got a lot of experience with those two industries. Um a lot of the work that I focus on really is helping leaders move from reactive HR to very intentional and purposeful systems and processes for their businesses. Um, I do a variety of work, so anything ranging from onboarding to compliance to manager support and development and um really building processes that work in real life for my clients. So that's me in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Awesome. So so then companies are bringing you in kind of on more like temporary projects, then like they have a pain or a need, and then you know they need support. Is that kind of how it it works?

SPEAKER_02 2:20

That's right, exactly. That's right. Um now I do have some uh longer-term clients, so helping them with things such as payroll management as an example, right? So that's kind of an ongoing type of thing. Um, but for for the most part, a lot of the work I'm doing is uh temporary projects, uh developing uh training programs or uh creating onboarding systems, uh anything you know that requires templates and SOPs and things of that nature for um my clients as well. Um so yeah, that that's it. You got it.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

So um we were talking before uh we started about some of the issues that you're seeing right now in in the environment. You know, government is uh a very interesting place right now with all the changes we finally, at least in the defense side and most agencies, finally have a budget signed uh as of uh yesterday, I guess, or Tuesday. Um which you know this will air a few weeks uh past that. But uh there's been a lot of ups and downs with the shutdowns and the policy changes and reorganizations and and all this kind of stuff. So sounds like things are getting, you know, they're more stressful and people are so busy and trying to be reactive. Uh can you maybe talk a little more about what you're seeing with your companies that you're working with?

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Absolutely. Um, so yes, I I certainly agree with you. It's certainly a um, it is a a very interesting time we're in in the government contracting world. Um, so much is changing. So, you know, there are some things that are really allowing a lot of my clients to be able to grow in a lot of ways, and then in some areas not so much, right? So if there is a, you know, um either the shutdown, for example, or um earlier in the uh presidency last year, where we saw, you know, a couple of departments were shut down, right? And so some of my clients were impacted by that, right? And so having to experience major layoffs as well. Um, so uh a lot of different things kind of happening there. And um what I'm really noticing is um many of the managers and leaders are being overwhelmed by that. Um, so they're overwhelmed by having to either let go of you know employees who have been with the organization for long periods of time and have provided great support, or they're overwhelmed by the company expanding, you know, so quickly uh because they're you know, there are new incumbents coming from other contracts, right? Um, and so now you have a company that has gone, uh they had, you know, let's say 10 employees and now they're at 50, right? Just from adding one new contract. Um, and so there's a lot of I think overwhelm there. And I believe that that's why um foundational HR systems need to be in place proactively, right, instead of reactively, so that managers know how to handle that. Um, they know how to uh not have to deal with um quickly trying to cobble together a policy or a procedure or um a process, right, that may not even make sense a couple months from now. Um so that's definitely been, you know, some of the larger things that I've seen. Um and a lot of it as well, too, I think is um what I'm noticing is that because managers are being reactive, they're not necessarily bringing in all of the appropriate stakeholders to help them make those better decisions for the organization as a whole.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yeah. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, we're we're kind of hoping for some of that growth too, but that's you know, it's it's not a I mean you hear about all these crazy things like in pharmaceuticals and tech where like companies go from you know hundreds to thousands within months, months or years, which is massive, just crazy growth. Um but yeah, in the government it's a very it's much more of a step function. You win a contract and all of a sudden you're 10 to 50, 50 to 200, right, depending on the size of the contract. And that's a very different, especially with all the rules and regulations and having an auditable you know, DCAA compliant accounting system, and you get into OFCCP requirements on the HR side. Um you can go from zero to sixty in you know a very quick amount of time. And profit margins aren't aren't super high. So it's not like you can, you know, most companies I would guess, like mine, it's not like we have hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in that on the you know, not knowing when that's gonna happen. Right. And it's sort of and uh right now we're in this just terrible waiting game, uh which is like you don't get any they don't they don't post status updates on contracts. You you submit a proposal six months later, sometime one day you just find out, oh my god, we won, and then it's like crazy, you know, chaos, and you're trying to do a hundred different things, staff the people that you need, right? Build the process and and the standards and and just can continue to scale that.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Yeah, and not only that, Aaron, but even just thinking about in the situations where you have incumbents, right? And so the client would prefer, you know, for you to bring those incumbents in. And so now we're trying to have these incumbents come into the uh company's culture, right? And so having to implement them into that as well. And so, you know, again, if we're talking about a contract where 50 new people are coming on board, how do we make sure that that resonates, that culture that we're trying to build, right? And it's easier to do when you're a smaller organization, right? But as you get bigger, how do we make sure that that is instilled in, you know, um in all of our employees, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yeah. Yeah, and there's a we call it badge flipping, right? And then and there's a there's a uh what I've found a lot of companies, there's more of a button seat mentality. They're almost, you know, in the services side, it's it's a very sort of staffing mentality as opposed to company, but it's hard. You've got employees on the contracting, when you're contracting like that, they're typically embedded in the government organization. So you're trying to define your own company culture when your employees, other than your corporate team, your direct billable, which is 70-80% of your team, usually, if not more, they live in another culture all day, right? A government culture, which you might be able to influence, uh, but you definitely don't own or control. And so it's a it's a very challenging thing. What so I'm I'm super interested with the companies you're working with. Like, what are you seeing and what kind of stuff are you doing to help you know them identify, define, communicate, maintain their cultures, and you know, make sure that employees who are coming in oftentimes very aligned to their clients, right? They see there's an identity aspect of do you work for this company and happen to support this client right now, or do you work for this client and happen to support this company right now?

SPEAKER_02 9:54

That's right. That's right. Yeah, yeah. That's a great question. And uh and is very much so a reality for many of my clients. Um, and so I am a very hands-on HR uh person, and so I really do believe that a lot of it starts with um developing your managers appropriately and um consistently having communication and reiterating, um, you know, whether it's a policy process, that culture, right? Um, employee engagement, just making sure that whatever the actual company's mission and vision is is actually being presented uh to the new employee and that the manager is able to actually, you know, communicate that appropriately, right? And so oftentimes when I think about my role, and of course that that's going to adjust a little bit depending on the client, because I do have some clients where I am literally doing the entire employee life cycle for them, right? And then some clients where I'm only doing specific projects, right? And so I might not be able to uh be as hands-on with those clients, but um oftentimes for the clients where I am doing, you know, a plethora of things for them, um, I'm taking the time to sit with their managers and identify areas of improvement, right? So talking to them about what's working well within the organization and what isn't working well, actually asking them what is the true culture of this business, right? And is that contrary to the core values that we have here in this employee handbook, right? And what are the solutions and steps that you think can be implemented in order for us to go from what's really happening to what we want to happen? Um, and so I often will spend a lot of time with the managers to um really just kind of do some discovery with them, right? And I I want them to be very transparent with me. Um, and then from there I'm working with them to develop um a plan that we can, you know, present to our executive team, right? And talk to them about some of the you know concerns, right, that we might have, or you know, just kind of strengthening the culture that might already be there. Um, there is one company, one of my clients, they have a very, very strong culture, and I think a lot of that has to do with their management. Um, the managers actually speak to the employees who are on the ground on client side, you know, they're speaking to them consistently. And if it's not, of course, daily, because you know, that can be taxing on any manager, at least once a week they're having you know dedicated time where they're following up with their employees, you know. I'm working with them on creating employee engagement uh activities, right? We're working on um creating um rewards programs and systems, right? So again, just making sure that that employee is tied back to the company specifically. And so when the employee knows that they're being seen and being heard, right, from the company, then they identify with that organization versus saying, Well, actually, I'm I'm truly an employee of the government, right? And I just happen to receive a paycheck from this contractor. But it's very hard. It is very hard to break into that, especially when you have those employees that have actually worked for a government client for, you know, let's say five, six, seven years, right? And they are or more or more, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Yeah, and I think there's some people you're just not gonna change, but um, you know, that's that there's most of the people I think you can have a good balance there. So it sounds like you're you know, you're working with uh the managers. Are the managers you're working with also typically direct billable, or are these more like higher level corporate so a little bit of both.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Um, some of them are actually on the ground as well, too. Um, and then there are some who are uh higher up. Um and so you know, they're just making sure that they're consistently speaking with the employees, um, which I highly encourage, right? There should be no reason why an employee hasn't spoken with their manager over several months, right? Um, I I certainly would not recommend it. And so that is one of the things that I would typically, you know, train uh a manager on is that you know just speaking with the client is not enough. If you want to make sure that the employees are actually connected with the organization, you have to take the time to get to know them, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:49

So yeah, and one of my prior companies we actually created a position, we called it an employee ambassador. And you know, they helped with onboarding and and you know, that whole uh entry process with with employees, but a big portion of their role was really to just go walk the floors, right? And go make sure that they're talking to employees and helping, I guess, the managers um get that information, right? And being almost like a more uh safe, you know, less uh you know, because it there's something I learned in in leadership roles is that no matter how approachable you think you are, there's still this stigma that comes with being the boss. That a lot of people have this perception regardless of what you do, and it takes a lot of time to kind of break that down sometimes based on their prior experiences. Um but it's hard as a as as a leader, so I think that's great, you know, sitting down and helping reinforce that and you know show them ways to do those things because it's you you know, as as a leader in in these types of roles, and I think this applies across anything, not just government, but you're busy, you're do you got a day job, so to speak, right? And a lot of times working with your people are not what you consider or see as your day job or one of the you know those core things. It doesn't have the direct, you know, I do this, I result, you know, we result in profit or or outcome or or value. It's more indirect, right? We support the people, they provide support, they do better, their performance improves over time. Um but man, it's so it's so critical. What so these are almost like coaching sessions mixed with a little bit, it sounds like discovery and like you know, a qualitative sort of assessment. Um what what kind of uh guidance or skills or or coaching are you sort of leveraging when you're giving recommendations and and advice to these leaders?

SPEAKER_02 16:48

Yeah, yeah, that's a really great question. Um, so I certainly spend um a lot of time trying to keep up with various HR magazines and you know, different communities, just trying to glean from other HR leaders, right, on how they are working to um develop their managers, right, for their specific companies. Um, I also do a lot of time um kind of reviewing different platforms, right? And trying to see is this something that could be beneficial to you know this particular client that might be, you know, experiencing some type of issue. So whether that be them not understanding how to have appropriate conversations with their employees, or maybe they don't understand how a reasonable accommodation process works, right? So are there ways that you know I can find resources for them, or is this something that I can just you know develop and kind of create a very customized solution? Um, so a lot of it for me is research and trying to leverage the uh resources that are already available to me. Um, and primarily that's because they're still a small business, right? Like they can't afford some of these larger learning management systems and you know, very customized speakers to come in and things like that. And so I have to be mindful, of course, of their budget, whether or not they can even afford to uh purchase some of these, you know, fancier platforms that might be very helpful for them, right? But you know, in most cases they can't afford a$50,000 a year product, right? So yeah, so definitely leveraging that. And then um I also do spend quite a bit of my time even speaking to um executives, and so I often find that they're very helpful as well, right? Talking to them about um either mentorship opportunities, right? Are they interested in doing that with some of their managers, or you know, what are some types of um associations that they've been part of that have been very helpful from a professional development standpoint? So a lot of that is um what I would typically focus on and um present that to you know the manager. And again, a lot of this is very customized and very specific to you know a particular client, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:21

So yeah, well, and that's how we met, right? You know, right, I got a tool for communication, I can help you with that.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

Yeah, exactly. I hey, I wanted to throw a shameless plug in there, but I didn't know that was appropriate.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

So I try not to shamelessly plug my own stuff, but if you want to do it, I'm not gonna stop it. Pro actor.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

So um, but do so do you have any stories uh of like you know, examples when you've been working as something that really worked, or some you know, advice that you think was really really impactful or or a feedback you got from from someone that that that you that was like you know hard hitting?

SPEAKER_02 20:04

Yeah, let me think about this.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

That's a tougher question.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Yeah, man. I mean that I'm I know there's so many times where I've been faced with a situation and I wasn't necessarily sure how to handle it, and you know, really just had to think more strategically about it. Um I'm thinking about well, so I'm not sure if this does answer your question or not, but I'll use an example of something that happened more more recently. Um I was working with a client and um there was something that occurred, there was something that occurred um with some of their personnel that they didn't, you know, client didn't like it, and so next thing I know, a whole bunch of emails are being sent out, and there's a new policy that's being built, and um none of it was run by HR, right? So I have no idea what's going on, and so I'm looking at um the policy, I'm looking at the forms, I'm looking at this, you know, new process, and um it is not compliant, it's you know, making mention of certain things that um you know are not best practice, right? I'll say that way. And so um very obviously created by AI. I love AI, you know. Please don't, you know, come for me. I'm talking badly about AI in this particular instance. I think it can be a great useful tool, but um, it was very obviously a um process that had been developed by AI. Um, and so I had to have a sit-down with you know the manager and um kind of walk through why the information that they had placed out there was. Not appropriate, right? And um kind of just spend some time with trying to understand um why in general they felt the need to reactively create this thing versus us having a conversation about you know the situation that was that was at hand in particular. And I'm trying to be like, you know, a little mindful. I don't want to be too specific because of some of the things that went on there. But um, but so you know, I I experience often issues like that where a manager will see something they don't like. So now all of a sudden I'm angry, so I'm gonna put throw this out there at the employee, and we haven't had any, you know, discussion with the employee. We haven't talked to them about, you know, what could have been done differently, right? We're just being very reactive and throwing something out there that is probably not going to be beneficial for the organization as a whole and more than likely is not even sustainable. Uh, so I spent some time with that particular client again, just trying to identify what was truly going on and then helping them to develop a uh process and a policy uh that was better suited for all of the employees and not necessarily targeting one specific employee. So that was interesting.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Yeah, you know, it's interesting that came up yesterday. I was talking with somebody about the, you know, in the government, there's a tendency to whenever something happens, right, an issue or a problem, right? Kind of like when every law that exists, it typically I I would assume for the most part, is not created because someone just thought, hey, just in case.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

Right? It's created because somebody did it and they want to make sure nobody else does it, right? And the government in particular has a tendency to, whenever those things happen, they sometimes over-design and they want to roll out, like, all right, we're gonna make sure this never happens again, so we're gonna throw in this new process and this form and this, you know, check or this review. And next thing you know, that's bureaucracy. The negative aspect of bureaucracy is now you're just doing things to do things, uh, not really necessarily looking at at the benefit. But I I think that's great. You gotta get to like, okay, well, hold on, let's take a step back. Why'd you create this in the first place? Right. Right? Um, and let's get to the root cause and figure out what what's the problem we're really trying to solve, right? Right, yeah, um, and think of it that way.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

Yeah, and you make you actually make a really good point um about the bureaucra bureaucracy, excuse me, of it all. And I think that that's where um HR really does play a pivotal role, right? I mean, um our role, and I think that that you know often is where there's a misconception, right? We're not the bad guys, I promise, right? We are, you know, the people who um of course want to be compliant, but um, we are also very compassionate, right? And so to bring that humanity back into HR when you're discussing particular things, policies, processes, whatever it might be with employees, I think is why um HR is is so pivotal for or detrimental for our organization.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Yeah, well, and I think a lot of HR groups have a bad rap because sometimes there does tend to be like if you know the com the whole compliance versus culture sort of thing, right? Everyone I think has in an HR you typically tend towards one or the other. Um you can kind of tell, right? And both both are important and you need both. Um but if you get too far, I think, to either side, um you that's where you run into problems. And on the compliance side, you you start seeing people not as humans but as resources, which is where like the even the term HR right isn't necessarily the the greatest. Like I think you need to see people as people, as humans, not as resources, otherwise you do get into this sort of bureaucratic policy thing, and that has nothing to do with the government. That's just I think a tendency on the compliance side with HR or any you know area like that. Um and and it's it's all about balance. I think you gotta find that balance.

SPEAKER_02 26:25

Yeah, absolutely. And I know that sometimes that can um it can be difficult to find that balance, right? Um I but I I do think that um when you're able to do that, it does create fairness, right? It creates consistency, it creates trust, right, with the employee. And so um, you know, and and the other, I think the other hard part about it is that everyone is so different. So if one person is, you know, very soft-spoken and you know, all of that, how you approach them about a particular thing is very different from someone who's super direct and does not want you to beat around the bush, like just tell me what the issue is, right? And then, you know, they're uh the perfect employee, right? Like that's very different from from you know, from someone else who might not necessarily um speak or behave in that way. And so to be able to find the balance between both of those very different types of people um can be difficult for sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Yeah, well, and the bigger you get, you can't do a one-size fits-all well, you can't do a custom solution that fits every single person individually, but you also can't necessarily do a one-size-fits-all solution either. I mean, the the bigger you are, the more diversity I would assume you would typically have.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Yeah. So d uh going back to the AI thing that you mentioned, I I just because it's such a hot topic, but I think what you were getting at is such an important aspect of AI. It's not that AI is good or bad, really, it's the way we use it, right? And I think your example was a perfect example of where we have a tendency to use it to sort of outsource our thinking, right? Or kind of get out of our swim lane too far, right? You know, where it's like, well, I'm you know, I'm no lawyer, but I'll just have ChatGPT write up this contract, right? Like, okay, you know, and it might make a a decent contract, but is it considering all the things that you need to make sure that it's considering, right? And so I don't know, a contract's one thing, you know, if you have a decent idea of what a typical contract and template is, but when you're talking about people stuff, like you said, that gets a lot more complicated. And is the AI really taking into consideration all of the complexities of your culture and your company and the other policies that you already have and the things that are going on and every law and and compliance aspect that that needs to be shaped in, it's usually gonna spit out what you uh you know, a component of what you give it. And so I kind of see it as like we have this option right now where we can outsource our thinking to AI or we can use AI to upscale our thinking.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Right, yeah, absolutely. That's harder, but I think it's a better way to do it.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

Um I absolutely agree with that. Um, I actually had a conversation with someone the other day about about it AI. Um, so I was sharing with them that, you know, um I for the most part I often just use AI to um enhance um written communication, right? So if I'm sending emails as an example, um, and so they told me that they do the same thing. And so I said, okay, well, what you know, what prompts are you using? Because, you know, I mean, as we just stated, AI is only as good as the information that you feed it, right? And what you're asking it for. And so their response was, um, I just say, please review my email. I laughed so hard because, okay, sure, it will, you know, come make a couple uh changes for you, but is it going to take into consideration the flow of the conversation? Is it going to, you know, uh talk to you about whether the tone is the appropriate tone that you wanted to give off? Does it know who your actual audience is, right? So there's so many ways and things. And I think that, you know, as a culture, because we don't have a good understanding of how to appropriately use AI in a way that can, like you said, upscale, right? Only to upscale and enhance our current thoughts, right? But not to use it for our actual thoughts. Um, and so I think that certainly, you know, we all need to have some better education from that perspective. And um, it is very frustrating to have to deal with, you know, speaking with clients about, okay, AI is great, but they're not an HR specialist, right? I've been doing this for, you know, almost 16, 17 years now. And I'm pretty sure I know a lot more than AI does about how to create this particular policy and to take in all the nuances of your organization, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:33

So yeah, well, and I think it'll continue to get better and better in its training, but but yeah, something that I found, and I think so. There's a personality traitor or dispositional characteristic that people have, we call it a mode of response, right? Where you can be more direct or indirect, right? And leaders um oftentimes tend to be more directive, right? Than uh or direct than indirect, which means short, sweet to the point as opposed to you know very detailed and and wordy. So, you know, the person that's telling you the story with every little last detail, they're a very indirect person. The the the leader that comes in and says, Hey, I need you to get this done. It's like, how do you want me? No, just get it done. Right? That's the direct leader. There's also other aspects of like perceiving versus judging, wanting all the data and the analysis. But I think AI right now, in terms of prompt engineering, is favored, highly favored to those people that are more indirect because by default you want to be more detailed, and so you're just gonna inherently want to give the AI more information. And whereas it's uh you know, I see as this is pretty dangerous. You go in like, well, just review my email, like holy crap, based on what? Like what do you actually want? And the AI is not gonna come back and say, well, you know what, that's not enough detail for me. Can you please tell me more specifics? Would you like me to review it for this or that or that? It's only gonna do that if you tell it to say, hey, I want you to review this email, but I don't know what I want you to focus on. Can you ask me questions to figure out how to do it? And then it could help you figure it out. And that's like I think the upscaling piece. But um, I think that's something that we we have to be aware of with yeah, it's what you put in is is what you get out in terms of the level of detail that you give it and how much it's actually gonna pull from the right sources, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:22

Right. So very good point, yeah. And it I think it can uh provide a great baseline for sure. Uh, but you know, you still have to have your own originality in there, right? So absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

So what uh have you done any trainings recently or any programs that you're like that you're really excited about or or that went really well?

SPEAKER_02 33:47

Yeah, so there's um one of my clients right now. I'm actually not doing um HR for them, but I'm doing operations management um work for them. And so um right now I'm working on developing um how they can utilize uh various tools such as Power Apps and Teams and SharePoint to really create a knowledge share for their managers. Um I'm really excited about this project. It allows me to, you know, spend some more time with the managers, right? And really see um how we can make some improvements upon you know the current uh weekly or bi-weekly meetings that they might have at the organization, right? So um I'm really excited about that project in particular. And um I know it will take some time to you know put some of those things together, especially when you know you're getting into the weeds with tools like Power Apps, right? And you're creating uh basically applications with the Office 365 uh platforms, right? Um, in a way that's easily accessible for uh various managers. So I'm really, really excited about that project. Um and then I have another client right now where uh we are I'm developing a training for them on um performance reviews um and and really creating a um goal setting and you know performance review environment culture right for their organization. They're pretty small right now, so they have about uh 10 employees, but uh due to some of the shifts in the government contracting, they believe that they'll probably have quite a bit more uh before the year is out. Um so they're probably planning on expanding to about 75 or so. Um, and so that's pretty significant growth for a small business, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:49

It's huge.

SPEAKER_02 35:50

Um and so uh working on um this particular CEO is really, really focused on wanting to make sure that his people are developed, right? Um, that they feel supported, that they have the resources that they need to grow in their particular position. So uh not only am I creating that particular process and system for them, but I'm also developing a training for their managers uh so that they understand how to, you know, appropriately set goals with their employees and um review um employee performance right throughout the year.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

Those are the two main things that I'm super excited about right now.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

Yeah, that's awesome. It's good to see when companies are you know trying to get ahead of the game, right? They're predicting the growth, they know it's it's coming and they and they they want to be ready for it and you know not have to be reactive, like you said, like a lot of companies are are struggling with right now. And yeah, I mean the defense budget's only getting bigger, and not not that I'm a huge proponent of that, but I guess you know it is the industry I'm in, so it doesn't hurt. But we want to be able to do that in a way that leads to better outcomes, better products, and better people, and you know, happier people make do better quality work and yeah uh so and go home at the end of the day fulfilled ideally, right? That's right, that's right. Um what's tell me more about the process that that you're putting in? Are you doing kind of a sort of an annual structure or are you building in any kind of one-to-one, you know, monthly, quarterly kind of stuff?

SPEAKER_02 37:29

Yeah, so what are your thoughts? Yeah, so for the um goal setting and performance review process right now, um, a lot of it is uh one-on-one. Uh so of course, uh annual performance review that would occur at the end of the year. Uh that's the you know client's preference. Um, but it's a little more informal than I've seen in times past with other clients. And I think um that's partially because um a lot of companies are moving away, honestly, from the very traditional performance review, right? Um, which certainly makes sense to me if it's not working for your organization. Why try to implement that, right? So um in this one, uh, what the CEO is really looking for is just trying to again make sure that his employees are being developed. Do they have the resources? Are we finding trainings and seminars and conferences and certifications, right, that might uh be of best interest to them? And so um I'm developing a one-on-one uh process for the managers to have with employees um at least on a monthly basis, and then um either quarterly or semi-annually, they're kind of having uh a more informal uh touch base as far as any uh professional development goals that have been created with the employees throughout the year. Um and I know sometimes that can be uh difficult as well, too, uh, from a government contractor standpoint, because you have the goals that the client has for you, right? And the projects you need to take care of here, and then there might be other, you know, goals that your actual company would desire for you to, you know, um to implement for yourself, right? So it could be, you know, if my client is uh DOD or excuse me, defense, um, and there are you know four main projects they want me to take care of this year, but I might still have on this other side where the client is saying, okay, well, is there any interest in any uh types of certifications, right? Um so PMP, for example, or CISSP, just really depending on your role, right? Um, and so sometimes that can be hard for employees to be able to navigate that um as well. Um, and so that's why I'm trying to put into place a system where managers are uh again making sure that they're speaking with their employees consistently uh throughout the year and not just one time a year. Which is what we traditionally see, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:14

Yeah. Well, and I you know, I I think there's a balance. It's almost like you know, you think about like keeping your house clean, right? It's you know, every six months, every year, whatever, spring cleaning, right? You want to do a deep dive, you know, deep clean and go through all your junk that you've accumulated throughout the year and maybe get rid of some stuff. And so, you know, it's important to do that, just like in a performance review, it's it's good to, you know, every year or every six months to go kind of deep dive and look at the trends and see the forest from the trees. Um but you also're not gonna wait four months to clean your dishes, right? Or, you know, something that's a spill. You need to address those right away. And nobody wants to hear that they've been messing something up or that something they were doing wasn't aligned with you know what the expectations were six months, four months, eight months later when they could have been doing something about it. And so there's this balance between those more informal, you know, recurring kind of meetings where you can set goals and and provide good objective feedback versus those kind of deep dives of let's you know, let's dig in and kind of do overall evaluation, see where we're at.

SPEAKER_02 41:33

Exactly. Yeah, and I think um this is where I'll do a shameless plug for you a little bit here. I think that that's where your tool proactor can be very helpful, right? Because I oftentimes think that um managers are just unsure of how to appropriately communicate to their employee um effective feedback, right? And and there's a I think a very common misconception that feedback is a bad thing. I welcome feedback if I'm doing something wrong or if there's a way that I could learn to you know to be more efficient with something, please tell me, right? But I think um more often than not we see that uh there is you know a negative connotation associated with that. And so because of that, managers really struggle to be able to say to an employee, hey, I've been seeing you do this thing, let's talk about it, because you know, we need to make some adjustments in this area, right? It's not a reflection on your character, it's not a reflection on you know you being a bad employee, but I'm noticing something that needs some improvement, right? And I think a lot of managers really struggle with that. So your your uh tool is helpful, it gives them an opportunity to be able to um rehearse, right? And feel more comfortable with um with having those conversations with their employees.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Yeah. Well, feed feedback's one of my areas of research. It's I we could I could go on for hours about it, but it's it is I mean, usually, you know, when you think of feedback just from a terminology perspective, people don't usually use the term feedback in a positive like I'm gonna give you you might say positive feedback, but it's or I'm gonna give you praise, right? Or encouragement or something as opposed to feedback is like, oh, you're doing something wrong. And I think a lot of it is just feedback is a skill and it takes practice, and that's you know, that's the whole thing is you you gotta be able to practice, whether it's with a a tool or a a coach or you know, just standing in front of a mirror just by yourself in your head. I don't know. But um this you know, just like any sport or performance thing, you you gotta practice this stuff. It's these these are things you do. You don't just go to a class and and get better, you know, and all of a sudden you're performing well in these things. So there's uh there's aspects of of feedback, in particular the judgmental versus objective kind of feedback that's Important and I think that's where a lot of feedback that people get is not done that well. Very and it does have judgment in it, it is delivered in a way that doesn't align well with a person's personality traits or dispositional characteristics. And yeah, a lot, a lot uh and it's very complex. You know, one way of giving feedback to one person is not gonna work well or the same with someone else.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

Absolutely. I totally agree with you on that.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Yeah, for sure. Cool. Well, uh, I'd love to keep talking. I could keep talking about feedback for a long time. But um we are about at time. So um before we wrap, uh I'd love to give you the opportunity if if there's uh information you want to plug or anything, you know, how to how can people get in touch with you if they want to work with you? Uh websites, emails, anything you you want to share.

SPEAKER_02 44:57

Yeah, absolutely. Uh sure. So uh you can go to my website at www.regen r-e-g-en-management, m-g-m-t.com. So uh regen management.com or easier way, follow me on LinkedIn and on Instagram as well. So on LinkedIn you can find me under Kishandra Anique, and then um on Instagram you can find me under Regeneration Management Consulting. So thank you for having me.