Making Sense of HR: A Conversation with Marci LaRouech of Seay HR

In this episode of Making Cents of It All, host Jesse Stakes sits down with Marci LaRouech, CEO of Seay HR, one of the Southeast’s leading HR consulting firms. Together, they break down the real drivers behind effective human resources strategy, employee relations, and workforce planning—and why HR is a critical part of long‑term business success.

Marci brings decades of experience helping companies navigate compliance, build stronger teams, and create healthier workplace cultures. Her practical, straightforward approach makes complex HR issues easy to understand and even easier to apply.

Whether you’re a business owner, executive, HR leader, or anyone responsible for managing people, this episode delivers actionable insights you can use to strengthen your organization immediately.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why HR is a strategic advantage—not just an administrative function
• The most common HR mistakes growing companies make
• How to build a strong company culture that attracts and retains talent
• What leaders need to know about compliance, risk, and employee relations
• How Seay HR supports businesses with fractional HR and consulting services
• The future of HR in a rapidly changing workforce

If you want to understand how great companies build great teams, this conversation with Seay HR’s CEO is a must‑listen.

Transcript

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Jesse Stakes: Hey everybody, welcome to Making Sense of It All. My guest today is Marci LaRoche. She is the CEO and President of CHR. Thank you so much for joining me, Marci.

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Marci - Seay HR: Thanks, Jesse, I appreciate you having me on today.

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Jesse Stakes: So, high level, before we even get started, just, can you tell my audience what CHR is, and what do you guys do?

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Marci - Seay HR: Absolutely, yep. We are a 60-year-old HR consulting firm, and so what we do is we support primarily small businesses with their HR needs, and that can be everything from day-to-day HR, employee relations, to compliance help, navigating federal and state requirements from an HR perspective, but we're really, you know, our mission is to give

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Marci - Seay HR: business owners and administrators peace of mind, that they know that they've got a great HR team supporting them without having to hire a full-time in-house HR team to accomplish that. Especially, you know, for smaller or smaller but growing businesses. It can create some really great cost savings while also allowing them to, you know, continue to do the right thing, support their employees, and stay out of the

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Marci - Seay HR: you know, out of trouble when it comes to HR compliance laws.

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Jesse Stakes: Right? Now, I love the term that you used when we were talking off-camera. You said it was fractional HR services.

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Marci - Seay HR: And I think that that's, you know, I think that a lot of people, especially in that small to medium-sized business segment.

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Jesse Stakes: when they think about an HR professional, or they think about, you know, they think about… that's going to be an enormous expense to bring somebody on. So, you know, not to… not to dive into it immediately, but I think that, like, that part of things, when you think about what you need as a business, and when you really, you know, when it's… you need help when you need help, so I love the term

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Jesse Stakes: Like, I think that that's… I think it's fantastic.

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Marci - Seay HR: Yeah, you know, unlike, let's say, your accounting function, where you're probably going to have a month-end close, and you're going to have annual taxes and things like that, you know, a lot of the, let's call it non-payroll, non-payroll tax-related items in HR aren't as cyclical, right? There's certainly some things that come up every year, but HR issues come up when you least expect them to, or it's really hard to predict them, so by utilizing that fractional

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Marci - Seay HR: HR model, like you talked about, it allows our clients to, you know, have us on call for when things do need support. And, you know, we always try and get in front of it, but sometimes things do blow up, and we do have challenging issues that are coming up with our clients, whether it's a termination or an employee investigation. And again, those aren't things that you can always predict, and so by doing this, you don't have to have somebody full-time all the time. You can utilize us on a fractional basis when

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Marci - Seay HR: you need us, and not be worried about, oh gosh, you know, I don't have enough hours this month, or things like that. Like, we, you know, we can be really flexible and expand and contract with you to make sure that we're actually providing a service that you need when you actually need it.

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Jesse Stakes: No, I think that's fantastic, and I think that there is, you know, when you look at the flip side of it, from the employee's perspective, you don't… like, if they… they don't want you to know when you're going to actually need the HR services, because if they give their notice, or if something happens.

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Marci - Seay HR: Right.

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Jesse Stakes: it's not like it's… you can't predict it. I mean, you might be able to… you might have a good idea if somebody's trying to leave or trying to do something, but… but to your point, it's unpredictable when you need HR services, so I think that that's absolutely fantastic.

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Jesse Stakes: What is it that inspired you? I know you purchased this business, and we'll go into that a little bit more, but, like, but you've been in the HR services realm for a lot of your career. What is it that inspired you that you wanted to be in this part of business, this part of the whole game?

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Marci - Seay HR: Yeah, you know, it's a…

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Marci - Seay HR: There's a few things that I think inspired me, and part of it was,

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Marci - Seay HR: I think I'll start with the fact that, just buying a business, right? So that is something that has been a dream of mine for about 15 years, and that came from, a company that I work for in Hawaii called Pro Service Hawaii, where two gentlemen there, Dustin Sellers and Ben Godzi, had acquired that company.

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Marci - Seay HR: And I always had this sense, my mom, she owned a small screen printing business in our hometown, so she had kind of an entrepreneurial side to her as well, but I always kind of had this sense that, like, I was going to be a business owner, and… but I didn't… I always thought it was going to be that I would have to start up something from scratch. And so, but then once I…

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Marci - Seay HR: started working at this company about 15 years ago and realized that, oh, these guys didn't start this company. They bought this company, it was already 15, 20 years old, but they bought it, and now they're growing it, they own it, you know, and it's taken off from there. They've had a great success from that acquisition. But that really opened my eyes to a different path of business ownership, which was, you know, entrepreneurship through acquisition. And so… Yes.

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Marci - Seay HR: At that point, I was like.

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Marci - Seay HR: maybe I'll never have enough money to do this, like, I don't even know how to accomplish it, but, Dustin Sellers, and then I, you know, I met Ben Enchetta, which is another mentor of mine, and he bought a business, and so I just started to be around people that were doing this, and had done this, and were willing to, you know, truly open up their books to me, give me, you know, very specific details of what worked and didn't work, and how to accomplish it, and then I just started to get into that community of learning from other people who have bought

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Marci - Seay HR: businesses, reading books, watching podcasts, like Acquiring Minds, just, you know, just really soaking it all in. And then, when I was last, most recently, at my last HR company, I was the CEO of Makai HR in Hawaii, and we sold. We had a strategic exit, it was a great, you know, a great exit for all of us involved.

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Marci - Seay HR: And that was really, I think, the…

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Marci - Seay HR: at that point, I realized, well, if I'm gonna do this, if I'm gonna buy something, now's the time, right? I've got the capital to do it, I've got the time to do it, because I wasn't… I wasn't acquired in the acquisition, like, my role wasn't, and so, like, I was gonna have to find something new to do. It was good money, but it wasn't, like, never have to work again in your life type of money through the exit.

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Marci - Seay HR: And then the other piece was, you know, I was moving back from Hawaii, so it was just a real fresh start in a lot of ways, and I said, hey, if I'm gonna do this, let's do it now. So I started to look

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Marci - Seay HR: Nationally, and ended up finding this 60-year-old HR consulting business here in Orlando, Florida. The previous owner, Sandy C, he actually bought it from someone else, so I'm actually the third generation owner of this company.

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Marci - Seay HR: But, you know, I think it would come back to your question as to why. You know, it's culture, team, creating a company that delivers really well, creates a really great client experience. Those are all things that are very important to me, and by taking this leap of owning it, and, you know, and truly, even though I was CEO of my last company, you know, I wasn't the sole owner of it, I still had a board, there were still investors involved that, you know, there was a lot of different

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Marci - Seay HR: stakeholders.

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Marci - Seay HR: here, you know, it's really me taking that leap and taking the full responsibility of the business. So I fully own the business, I don't have any investors this time around.

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Marci - Seay HR: And so, you know, I'm responsible to my team and my clients on a day-to-day basis, and that's something that I was really looking for, as far as what, you know, this next step in my career would be, and it's been fantastic.

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Marci - Seay HR: I think… now, to be very clear, Jesse, like, I think about this business 24-7, like, it's not… it's not a, like, oh, this is so easy, and anybody can do it, like, you know, I… I love talking with people who are looking to buy a business and, you know, going through that process, but I just, you know, it's… but I love it.

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Marci - Seay HR: I love what we do, I love what we deliver, I love working with our team, I love working with our clients, and I also love the lifestyle this affords me to do, where we're fully remote, and so I can work from anywhere, I can support my team from anywhere, and, you know, it allows me to, you know, have… you know, I was really intentional that I wanted a consulting-type business, something that we could grow and scale, but that wouldn't require me to be in a manufacturing facility every day, right?

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Marci - Seay HR: And so I was real intentional about what kind of business I wanted to buy. I wanted to be in the HR space to continue to support small businesses and HR outsourcing. So, really, truly, all of the, you know, all the stars aligned for this opportunity, and it's been 18 months now, and it was the greatest decision of my life.

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Jesse Stakes: That's fantastic. I mean, what I hear you, like, just for the people that are listening that may be considering a leap like that themselves, you took advantage of expertise that you have built throughout your career, and that you already have. You're already an expert in the HR field, but then you took that in an entrepreneurial spirit.

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Jesse Stakes: an entrepreneurial spirit, and something that you really wanted to do, and you've kind of combined those things, and it's led you to where you're at right now. I think that's fantastic.

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Marci - Seay HR: Thanks, yeah, and it was interesting when I was looking to, you know, buy a business. I certainly, you know, I peeked at a few businesses that weren't in the HR space, and, you know, I think

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Marci - Seay HR: people do it all the time, they go, you know, they buy businesses that they don't have specific experience in, but, you know, I have so much experience in HR, that I, you know, I kept just kind of pulling back into the circle and saying, yeah, let's stay in your lane. Like, it's, you know, could I be successful by running a landscaping company? Sure, probably, you know, that's very possible, but my, you know, I kind of reduced some risk and also, you know, was able to kind of take, I think, a lot… move a lot faster with this business

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Marci - Seay HR: because I had so much experience in the HR space previously.

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Jesse Stakes: Well, and it doesn't mean that you're passionate about something just because you buy a business, so if you would have bought a landscaping company, you might have been ecstatic that you owned your own business, but… but do you want to be back… do you want to be back behind the mower, or do you want to be doing some of those tasks? Like, if somebody calls out sick?

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Jesse Stakes: Whereas with this business, to me, it's like, it combines… it gives you the opportunity to be that entrepreneur that you wanted to be, but it's also leveraging a skill set that you can tell. Your passion for it, it comes through the screen, so it's, like, I can tell that you actually enjoy this, and it's something that you enjoy doing. Along those lines…

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Marci - Seay HR: Thanks.

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Jesse Stakes: along those lines, what industries do you guys serve? Is there certain industries you focus on, or is it kind of, you know, everybody can benefit from what you do?

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Marci - Seay HR: Everyone can benefit from what we do. You know, I would say that if I look at our overall client list, we cover every different type of industry. I mean, we really go from hospitality, restaurants, you know, to manufacturing, to, you know, professional services, white collar, we've got a lot of auto dealerships, we have pest control companies, we have linen clean… you know, linen and large laundries, roofing companies, construction.

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Marci - Seay HR: it's a really big gamut, but I think we're primarily, you know, when I think about who benefits most from us.

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Marci - Seay HR: you know, we can probably do most HR for most different… most different types of companies, but it's usually that business that is, you know, has enough employees, so, you know, 10 to 15 to about 100, where it's like, we have… we're gonna have some HR issues, but we're probably not… we might not be big enough to have a full-time HR person. And even… we do have clients that have full-time HR people, but they might be more, you know, manager level or more junior than that, and so they're looking

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Marci - Seay HR: for, hey, when something sticky comes up, we want to be able to call someone that has more experience on an ad-needed basis, on a fractional basis, and so that's where we can also support companies that have started to invest internally in HR, but want that second set of eyes on something when it starts to get a little bit more sticky. So, industry-wise, you know, we have a great relationship with, for example, we have a great relationship with the National Pest Management Association.

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Marci - Seay HR: We support a lot of pest control companies across the country, and that's a great, you know, where they're kind of a mixture of people who are out in the field, you know, who are out actually delivering the pest control services, and also in-house staff with their customer service team, sales, you know, so it's a, you know, it's a mixture of making what we would call gray collar, where we've got some white collar and blue collar, and they're working together collaboratively to have the business be successful.

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Marci - Seay HR: we play really, really well in that space, and so it's, you know, we're not industry-specific, but I think it's the companies, it's more of that profile of that size of company, and the one that where you're gonna have, you know, some… a bit of turnover, or some challenging employee situations, or things like that is where we can really shine and add a lot of value for a company.

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Jesse Stakes: No, I think that that's… that, like, what you're saying is absolutely imperative, and let's get a little granular here, just so that people can think about some of the specific reasons why they would hire some, like, a company like yours.

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Jesse Stakes: You know, we talked about it, like, as far as compliance issues, I don't think people realize the compliance requirements that a business owner has when it comes to how they treat their employees, how they handle

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Jesse Stakes: employment in general, so can you talk to that a little bit?

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Marci - Seay HR: Yeah, there… I mean, it's… it's a lot, and where it's getting really complex when we talk about compliance is now that, you know, the federal government is, you know, clearly taking a step back as far as a lot of employment law and allowing companies to have a little bit more, flexibility on certain things. While that's not going away, though, so there still is absolutely federal regulations that employers have to,

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Marci - Seay HR: meet, and that can be… and that can change as you grow. There are more regulations as your company grows, but now we've got this, what I call a patchwork quilt of regulations when we talk about states, right? So if you have employees that are here in Florida, but then you've got an employee in California, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, I mean, now you have to be… you can't just follow Florida law, because you're based here in Florida.

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Marci - Seay HR: you now have to be paying attention to and complying to HR regulations and all the states you have employees in, and that can get real complicated real fast. I mean, California is an extreme example because they are, you know, the most, let's call it employee-friendly state in the country, but

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Marci - Seay HR: Right.

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Marci - Seay HR: even… every local municipality in the state of California has their own HR laws, right? So we're talking about by zip code, that you have to be paying attention. So, and then there's other states that are much more employer-friendly, but they still have interesting laws. I'll take Florida here as an example, because that's where I am, in that, you know, it's a very employer-friendly state, but then we do also have E-Verify, where employers of 25 and over have

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Marci - Seay HR: to completely verify for all new hires. Well.

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Marci - Seay HR: I would say the vast majority of employers that we talk to here in Florida, they don't know they have to do that, right? And so, even in places where you feel like you are in a, oh, we're good, we're in an employer-friendly state, there's still, you know, some nuanced things that you still need to be definitely paying attention to. And I'll add one more thing, Jesse, as far as just kind of compliance and

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Marci - Seay HR: You know, what we have to do in order to support our employees is

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Marci - Seay HR: with the, you know, the extraordinarily, you know, explosive growth of social media, you are now having employees who are more educated on their rights. Now, so what I mean by that is they are seeing people on TikTok, Instagram, whatever it is, who are, you know, pushing back on their employer for something that they're asking them to do, or an accommodation request, or things like that. We're starting to see those things pop

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Marci - Seay HR: up more, and so employees…

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Marci - Seay HR: are becoming more educated to what they believe their rights are. Now, they're not always correct, but you are seeing a little bit more pushback from employees because they're feeling emboldened by social media examples, or even AI from that perspective to say, oh, well, I would like this accommodation, or I'm not going to go along with what you're asking me to do because it's not my job description.

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Marci - Seay HR: again, those are all things that, as employers, we just need to be aware of that it's no longer this, you know, control and command type of culture as employers… with employers and employees. Like, we do have to work collaboratively to have businesses be successful, and there's great ways to do that that protect the company, that protect the employee, but you've got to have some great experts, and that's where I think we can really add value as a culture as we change, both on the employee and the employer side.

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Marci - Seay HR: comes to compliance.

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Jesse Stakes: No, it's crazy, because I think that there's… people always think, okay.

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Jesse Stakes: technology is impacting people's work environment, but a lot of the times, they think about it from a, okay, AI can be utilized to write something, or it can be utilized to do somebody's job. They don't think about it from, you know, from educating your employees on their rights, as you just said, or they don't think about it as far as

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Jesse Stakes: how their employee is going to interact with them as the employer, or what the expectations of them are going to be. And I think that's one of the biggest things that, you know, is an aha moment for me when I have conversations like this, is that you think you know something, but you really don't know the full gamut of anything until you actually have to dive in and handle it, or do…

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Jesse Stakes: You know, be a part of it yourself on a daily basis.

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Marci - Seay HR: We, you know, we… and I'm sure we can talk about it more, but, you know.

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Marci - Seay HR: one of the things that I take pride of is just how little drama our clients have, right? Because we're able to get in front of these things with our clients collaboratively, that if someone does ask for an accommodation or FMLA or whatever, like, if they call us right away, we can help you to avoid

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Marci - Seay HR: the really tough situations that can come if you don't handle the initial request properly, right? And so that's why we always tell our clients, like.

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Marci - Seay HR: Call us on the tiny stuff, because that's the stuff that turns into… it festers and turns into huge things here, right? Particularly when we think about compliance.

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Marci - Seay HR: So… so yeah, it's all… it's… it's interesting that, you know, when we think about examples or things like that, like, of course, we've had, we've seen some really, you know, over my career, I've seen some really interesting things from an HR perspective, but, you know, we really try and kind of, you know, encourage our clients to… let's… let's get in front of things, let's talk about these compliance issues ahead of time, let's be proactive on it, because

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Marci - Seay HR: you can do everything right, Jesse, and you can still get sued. Anyone can sue you for any reason at any time, right? But, like, will they be successful? Will you easily have the documentation to put it to bed very quickly there, right? Like, those are the types of things that we really work hard with our clients, so that if the employee still decides to sue them, that's their prerogative, they can do that, but that we can get, you know, have all the pieces in place to have

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Marci - Seay HR: You know, to have a, hopefully a positive ending there for both the employee and the employer.

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Jesse Stakes: No doubt. Alright, you opened the door to this, so I've got to ask you, you said you've seen some interesting situations. What is the most interesting HR situation that you've seen? You don't have to name any names, you don't have to, you know, we're gonna protect the innocent here, but give us a story.

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Marci - Seay HR: Hmm. Yeah, there, there are… A lot, hmm…

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Marci - Seay HR: you know, I… when I think about this.

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Marci - Seay HR: It's, you know, a lot of… a lot of stories are going through my head, but, you know, I think we're… where…

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Marci - Seay HR: for HR can get really challenging, and I think where we see the primary, primarily where we see the challenges that come up is usually at the manager level. So we've got maybe, you know, like, an owner that's either in the business and conscientious of it and trying to do the right thing for the employees, you know, we've got good employees, maybe good administrative staff, things like that, but then we've got this layer of management in between, right?

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Jesse Stakes: Total management.

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Marci - Seay HR: Middle management, yep, and even at small businesses, you still have middle management, right? And so these are your field off, field, managers, or customer service managers, or things along that nature.

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Marci - Seay HR: The vast majority of small businesses

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Marci - Seay HR: You know, kind of… it's somebody who is a great individual contributor, and they say, you're a great individual contributor, so now we're going to have you lead this team, and then they don't provide any leadership training, structure, anything like that.

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Marci - Seay HR: So, you know, so oftentimes when we have someone call in and we're like, okay, we've got a claim, a complaint, or something like that from an employee, it is a choice that a manager has made to, whether it's make a comment, to write something down, to make a hiring or firing decision, that it, that, you know.

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Marci - Seay HR: maybe you and I might think, oh my gosh, what on earth, you know? But I'm in HR. I think about this all the time, right?

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Jesse Stakes: Right.

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Marci - Seay HR: for those individuals that don't have that kind of support or training, then they're just… they're just running, flying off the seat of their pants. So, you know, so I guess as far as specific examples around that, there, you know, that's where a lot of our, unfortunately, harassment complaints come from, discrimination complaints, things along that nature.

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Marci - Seay HR: Yeah, you know, I, I… I'm hesitant to go into specific examples.

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Jesse Stakes: Oh, he cuts.

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Marci - Seay HR: you know, just our specific, you know, for our clients and things like that, but really, I think that's the biggest piece where, when I think about just kind of over the 20 years that I've been in this space, aggregate, where we're seeing the most kind of challenging situations pop up is that middle management level, and it's not…

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Marci - Seay HR: It's often people are trying to do the right thing, and they have the right intentions, they just don't have the support or understanding of

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Marci - Seay HR: You just simply, even if you're really excited about Sally might be pregnant, you just can't ask her about it, right? Or that Bob has been going to the gym and working out or whatever, you just really can't comment about that, or, or, you know, now that the holidays are coming up, you're really, you know.

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Marci - Seay HR: You can't make an inappropriate comment, or give somebody a pat on the lower back when you're at the holiday party, right?

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Marci - Seay HR: Those types of things, Jesse, that, like…

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Marci - Seay HR: It's all in the, you know, the eye of the beholder, right? It's all in how the employee interprets that behavior and, can really set you up for something, even if it's in the most, positive intention. If the employee doesn't take it that way, you're in some trouble. But what we can do is get in front of that proactively and have conversations with the managers, train them, support them, and make sure they understand that, like, hey, we don't want to have it be where, like.

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Marci - Seay HR: we have to be so sterile all the time, like, that's unrealistic. We still want to have good culture, we want to have a warm environment, we want to be able to have emotional intelligence in the workplace, but we need to know where, you know, where we have boundaries and limits and things like that that are going to help protect both our employees and us as a company there.

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Jesse Stakes: I think that's incredibly important, and I can… I can use myself as an example. Like, I… when I… I went from being a top-performing salesperson to going into my first leadership role, and this was many years ago now, but…

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Jesse Stakes: you don't know what you don't know. You don't know, like, you're… you go from an environment in which you are… you're measured by your productivity, or you're measured by how well you do as an individual, and, like, quote-unquote success.

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Jesse Stakes: And then you go into a role to where you are now stewards over other people's careers, or over the way their employment looks for the company.

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Jesse Stakes: And only through experience, and only through, you know, realizing mistakes that I made, can I even say that now, because the reality of it is, is that…

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Jesse Stakes: Like you said, most of the time, people are really good at what they did, from a production role, or from a sales role, or something, and then they say, hey, you're so good at that, we'd like you to do something completely

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Jesse Stakes: different, and now train people to do this, or now manage people to do this. And granted, we're all trained also that our careers are supposed to go in a linear fashion.

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Marci - Seay HR: Right, right.

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Jesse Stakes: So, it's… so, you know, there's a… there's a… there's a lot going on with that on both sides of the equation, but to your point, if you don't handle these things correctly, or if you're now new managers, if you own a business, and you've put these people in a position of power, or in a position of.

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Marci - Seay HR: influence.

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Jesse Stakes: If they don't handle themselves correctly, you create a potential liability for yourself and for your company.

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Jesse Stakes: Because you didn't take the time to help the person understand what their new role looks like, what their new responsibilities are, and the potential adverse effects or adverse impacts that they could have on their company. And really, they could end up failing for trying to push the things that made them successful previously.

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Marci - Seay HR: Right.

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Jesse Stakes: are doing things the way they did them previously. So, I think it's all, like, it's so important to discuss.

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Marci - Seay HR: And I relate to you as well, like, I went… same thing happened to me. It was like, oh, you're really good at this, why don't you start leading a team? And sure, you know, you might have some innate leadership capabilities, but I… I mean.

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Marci - Seay HR: Oh, gosh, like, to think about the thing, like, I was a horrible boss when I started, like, I mean, truly, truly, like, horrific, the things now, and I look at it, oh my god, I cannot believe I did that, you know, and, and, you know, but you get thrown into these positions, and, you know, high achiever, you're trying to make it work, and, and, so, you know, certainly happy to, to report that I've, you know.

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Marci - Seay HR: you know, learned from my mistakes and have grown from that, but I still make some mistakes all the time, you know, and have been in leadership positions for many years, and I know I will continue, but I'm always trying to improve and get better. I think the other piece, too, when I think about just kind of, like, aggregate examples, Jesse, is

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Marci - Seay HR: The other place where we see clients,

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Marci - Seay HR: unfortunately, struggle is… and I don't… I hate to use the word, like, too nice, but when… especially at the, small business level.

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Marci - Seay HR: Where a owner, you know.

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Marci - Seay HR: Johnny's been working for the company for 30 years, so I want to take care of Johnny, and so I'm going to offer him this benefit, or this different, you know, something that I'm not going to offer to Etsy. And now, you know, you're doing it out of the goodness of your heart, and you're trying to take care of Johnny because he's been loyal, but it's something that can be seen as discrimination, right? There are places where you can

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Marci - Seay HR: have, you know, different things, but if we're talking about, like, you know, fair pay law, you know, fair pay laws, or benefits, or things along that nature, right? That's oftentimes where we see claims come in, is

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Marci - Seay HR: They were… it all came from the best intention from the owner that they were trying to, you know, support one of their long-term or, you know,

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Marci - Seay HR: prized employees, and somebody caught wind of that, and now you're getting sued. And so, you know, it is hard as a business owner to understand that, and that's why we can also support them, is when they come to us and say, hey, can I… can I go ahead and pay for all of their benefits, premiums, but not this other employee? Well, let's talk through that, right? And let's make sure that we're doing things in the right way, because otherwise that can actually create exposure for you, when all you're trying to do is, you know, is support your top employees.

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Marci - Seay HR: So, you know, between the middle managers and then employers being, you know, overly kind, that creates, you know, discrepancies there with employees. That can also be, places where employers can get into some hot water there.

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Jesse Stakes: Now, I… again, great point, because there's… it's not always about a negative, it can be about a positive that creates… and it can be… it could be something that creates just a… whether you want to call it an unlevel playing field, or that, you know, people feel like they weren't equally…

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Jesse Stakes: treated, there's so many things. There's so… I mean, and I know that we're just scratching the surface. Right. We've talked about it. I mean, I think that there's a huge opportunity for you and I to have multiple conversations just about certain specific topics, because there's a ton of value around just discussing, you know.

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Jesse Stakes: whether it's… whether it's different things, I mean, like… like what we're talking about as far as… as far as attracting and retaining talent, discrimination, like, how you terminate your employees, like, just the… the, you know, desperate impact on people as far as the way they see things, I think there's so many things that we can… that we can touch on.

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Jesse Stakes: But I wanted to pivot just for a little bit, since this is our first conversation about this.

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Jesse Stakes: Like, in the world right now.

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Jesse Stakes: Like, we did touch on it, but technology has become such an enormous piece of what, you know, kind of that… it's that cloud off in the distance where people are, you know, they're either afraid of what's coming, or they're excited about it, but there's a lot of unknowns.

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Jesse Stakes: Do you have a take on how you see the future of technology, and I do mean AI and automation, how that is, you know.

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Jesse Stakes: how it is currently impacting HR services, and then also how you see it impacting HR services in the future.

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Marci - Seay HR: Yeah, I mean, it's at… it's…

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Jesse Stakes: It's a long… it's a big topic, so I mean.

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Marci - Seay HR: Yeah. Take it where you'd like to. Yeah, the good news is, is that, it, you know.

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Marci - Seay HR: HR technology is exploding, and it has been, you know, even before the rise of AI as it exists today, there's been a lot of large language models that have been utilized in a variety of different HR components.

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Marci - Seay HR: But it's just, you know, obviously it just exploded like in any other place right now. I think where,

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Marci - Seay HR: there's some really great uses of it, is, like, you know, on the payroll side of things for, identifying, you know, changes, errors, things along that nature. I'm seeing a lot of great uses there. It's interesting because AI, you know, there's been, kind of

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Marci - Seay HR: when we talk about applicant tracking or applicant screening processes, right, there's a lot of incredible technology out there that has been, you know, really expanded, but there's been these kind of screening tools where it's kind of looking for certain types of candidates, and that's been in the market for a while, but certainly it's been growing exponentially, and now we're starting to see lawsuits that are going after the AI companies that are behind the algorithms that are making

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Marci - Seay HR: you know, this is a good candidate versus this is not as good of a candidate decision inside of applicant tracking systems, so…

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Jesse Stakes: Are they saying there's a bias? Are they saying that there's, like, a cognitive bias within the… within the.

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Marci - Seay HR: That is what's being alleged, yeah, and so there's a few big suits that are happening right now. One was an individual that, believes that their… because their resume showed them as being,

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Marci - Seay HR: older in age, that the… that the AI was, that the applicant tracking system was discriminating against them from an age perspective.

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Marci - Seay HR: Another person, felt that they were being racially discriminated against, by the AI, by the bias that was inherent in the AI. These are working their way through the court system. It'll be really interesting to see how that plays out, but, you know, we're really, you know, we're still advising our clients that, you know, utilize it to make kind of first pass, but all… you gotta look at every, you know, you gotta look at every resume, which is easier for me to say because I'm not, you know, looking at thousands and thousands of resumes every day.

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Marci - Seay HR: But, you know, and also, humans are inherently biased as well, so there's no perfect way to accomplish this, but just to kind of

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Marci - Seay HR: outsource it completely to the technology that exists out there, could… could create some issues for you, as an employer, seeing how these lawsuits play out. But I think the biggest piece is, particularly in our market, where we're playing kind of in the small business market.

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Marci - Seay HR: is, you know, I personally know… and they tell me outright, they're like, I just go into ChatGPT, and I just ask them the HR question. And…

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Marci - Seay HR: Okay, cool. But where I, right now, and I'm not saying this is forever, but right now, where I'm seeing ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, you know, Claude, all the pieces that right now, and I play around with all of them, and I'm always kind of throwing questions in there and seeing how they're evolving over time, but

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Marci - Seay HR: right now, they are so inclined to give you the answer that you want. So what I mean by that, and where I see the biggest,

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Marci - Seay HR: concern for me when I think about a small business owner relying on a chat GPT-type company or product is,

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Marci - Seay HR: If you say.

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Marci - Seay HR: Sally showed up drunk to work today, can I fire her? Right now, all of those tools are… are… are…

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Marci - Seay HR: Set up to try and get you a way to fire her.

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Marci - Seay HR: So there's no, like, pause, time out, let's go through an interactive process, which is what, if you called us, we would do, right? Of course. But, like, what did you do last time? What is indicating to you that you think that Sally is drunk? Do you have a drug and alcohol policy in place? What, you know, like I mentioned earlier, like, have you had somebody else show up that you thought was drunk? Are they in a… are they in a driving position, or are they in the office, right? Like, there's just

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Marci - Seay HR: There's a lot of things for us to chat through to be able to help you make

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Marci - Seay HR: a wise decision, and so much in HR is a great area. But right now, these models are trying to get you a way to be able to fire

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Marci - Seay HR: Sally, right? In that scenario, right? They're going to say, sure, here's how, right? And unfortunately, without going through some of those back and forths and really getting a good understanding, you might put yourself in a position where your company is now, you know, facing some liability because you didn't have more of that interactive process. So.

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Marci - Seay HR: Will the models

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Marci - Seay HR: evolved to a point where they can have more of those, and that they're built more to be more thoughtful about those things? Yeah, sure, absolutely, right? And there will always be business owners that will utilize technology and be comfortable with that. But I would say right now, using it whole cloth to help to make

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Marci - Seay HR: HR decisions for your small business is… is just truly not accurate at this point. And so, you know, so those are things that I worry about. I know a lot of people go out there and use for, like,

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Marci - Seay HR: hey, look up data for certain compensation, things like that. Like, again, I base that against the real data that we have in our compensation models, and I'm like, oh man, that was… this one's close, this one's way off, right? You have no way of validating it right now.

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Marci - Seay HR: There's just a number of examples where

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Marci - Seay HR: I've either had friends or clients utilize it and bring it to us and say, hey, can you check this work? And I'm like, no. Where, you know, but where it is working really well, Jesse, and we utilize this, is there are some, you know, kind of closed, closed-loop models that are utilizing things like, HR legislation, right? So not out on ChatGP, but, like, there are software systems or companies that have built, you know.

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Marci - Seay HR: where they are pulling in all of the legislation, for regulations in HR, and then we can search that and research in there a lot faster than having to go through and read, like, every regulation in Colorado's, you know, all their statutes, right? So, like, there's ways that you can utilize it, I think, to help enhance how you're… how you're…

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Jesse Stakes: Create efficiency.

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Marci - Seay HR: Yeah, within HR, but right now, whole cloth, to be able to outsource it to, to one of these models is, right now, not accurate, and is…

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Marci - Seay HR: You know, is going to give you information that we would not recommend, and that could put you into some trouble in the future.

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Jesse Stakes: So, just so my audience knows, while Marcy was answering that, I typed in exactly what she said. Sally showed up drunk to work today, can I fire her? And she literally said it verbatim. I'm not gonna tell you which engine I used, but she was spot on with what it gave us as… what it gave me as a return. So, you know, kudos to you. If anybody doubts her knowledge, I will, you know, raise my hand and say she knows what she's talking about right now.

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Marci - Seay HR: I think it's… but I… but I think what you're saying is a thousand percent, you know, just… and this is every industry that… where there's… where the AI question or automation question's coming up.

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Jesse Stakes: We're not there yet. Like, you know, as much as people want to tout this from a marketing perspective and advertise it because it sounds cool, the reality of it is, is that AI is not, you know, we're not at the point yet where it's thinking for itself, we're not at the point where it can actually… it's only as good as the information that it's being fed currently.

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Jesse Stakes: And so, to drive efficiencies.

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Jesse Stakes: Fantastic. But to actually trust and rely on the information? Good luck, because you're putting yourself… you're putting yourself in a terrible spot, if that's what you're doing.

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Marci - Seay HR: And I think, you know, the… the… what I'd like to reiterate is that there are so many

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Marci - Seay HR: In HR, when a situation comes up, there are a number of different paths that you can take in most situations. This is not a, you know, you call to Verizon and they go through a customer service if-then, yes, no kind.

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Jesse Stakes: No, you're dealing with people, you're dealing with human beings.

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Marci - Seay HR: Yeah, there's just so much, and so much of what we do with our clients to help to come to the best possible situation is to understand historical precedence.

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Marci - Seay HR: individual situations with these employees, right? What is our… let's look at the handbook and see specifically what that says there, right? And then, even then, typically, I mean, there's certain instances where we can say, like, directly, like, this is the right path to take, but even then, there might be two or three paths.

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Marci - Seay HR: For the employer to take. And so, we gotta find that…

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Jesse Stakes: We have to have a plan in hand.

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Marci - Seay HR: That's one.

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Jesse Stakes: one path.

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Marci - Seay HR: Yeah, yeah, what's the best one? What's the least risky? What are you trying to accomplish in this, right? So, like, going back to my example about Sally being drunk at work, you know, we sometimes have someone call us in and be like, but I love her, she's a great employee, I don't want to fire her. And then we've got other ones that say, she's been… she's been a troublemaker, we don't want… can I get her out of here? Because this is the reason I can fire her? So, things like that, right, that… that…

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Marci - Seay HR: right now, AI is just not asking those questions, is not going through that path, and is giving, like, you know, recommendations that probably are, well, just ones that we wouldn't necessarily do that without further, you know, digging in further and having that consultative conversation.

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Jesse Stakes: No doubt, no doubt. I… before we wrap up, I… like, I know that there's gonna be a number of people that hear this, they're interested, it's… it's stuff that hits their radar all the time, and I think we've touched on a lot of different things. If people are interested and they want to know more, or they want to set up a conversation with you and your team, what's the best way for them to get ahold of you?

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Marci - Seay HR: Absolutely, you can reach out to me directly. My email is Marcie, M-A-R-C-I, at c.us, and that's S-E-A-Y dot U-S.

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Marci - Seay HR: Our website has a lot of really great information. I'm of the mindset of, like, just putting it out there, and for folks to use, and so our website is www.csseayhr.com, so you folks can go out there and learn, and we are constantly putting up content, checklists, blogs, things like that, that are really timely as to what's going on. And then, last but not least, I'd say follow me on LinkedIn. I'm always putting, you know, interesting experiences, examples.

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Marci - Seay HR: what I'm hearing in the market, what I'm seeing from a legislative standpoint. So you can just search for me, Marci LaRoche, you know, there on LinkedIn, and follow me there, or connect with me there. I'm always, you know, very active on that to be able to support our clients and other folks in the industry that are interested in what we're doing from an HR perspective there.

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Jesse Stakes: Fantastic. Marci, thank you so much for joining me. Like I told you, I would love to have you back on, because I feel like we just scratched the surface. There's so many things that I feel like we could dive in on, and just… and really do, you know, 30 minutes on certain topics, so I very much appreciate you taking the time to join us.

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Marci - Seay HR: Thanks, Jesse.

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Jesse Stakes: Alright, we'll catch you down the road.