How to Be Audit Secure Mini-Course

Lisa: Hi, welcome back to Be Audit Secure in this part of our series, we're going to be discussing reasonable basis. What is reasonable basis? Well, for me, reasonable basis is non-negotiable reasonable basis basically is a legal term. And what it means is that you can point somewhere to something, to defend policies and procedures that you carry out in your organization on a regular basis. There are three big questions that every auditor is going to ask you. And the number one question is what made you think you could do it that way? You have to establish reasonable basis. You have to have a reasonable resource that you went to get the information that led you to make the decision, to carry out certain policies, procedures in your organization in that certain way. So, think about it. If the auditor came to you and said, what made you think you could do it that way? Would you be able to answer the question? In our next section, we're going to talk about the rule of threes. And I'm going to give you some ideas about where you can go for reasonable basis, but until next time I'm Lisa Smith Be Audit Secure.

Lisa: Hi, welcome back to Be Audit Secure in this series. We're talking about how you can effectively survive an audit with my seven-point checklist. So, we've already covered reasonable basis. Let's cover the rule of threes. What is the rule of threes Well, for me, I am not going to teach or publish or train on any particular subject or topic, unless I know that the information, I am giving out is correct. So, how do you know? Like I said before, you don't know what you don't know until, you know, you know, no, we don't know. And so that's the confusing part. When you check things at least three times from three credible sources and you get the same answer, then you can be fairly secure that what you're implementing in your organization is true and correct and will withstand an audit. And at the very least, if you do make a mistake and the auditor inspector investigator or litigator comes in and says, you're doing it wrong, you have a lot of good faith efforts to show that you did everything.

Lisa: You could define the correct information and obey the law. The rule of threes check them three times before you believe them. Now, where are we going to go for the rule of threes? Well, of course, we're going to go to the government and we're going to say government, how do you do it? But don't stop there because you know what laws change court cases get decided all over the United States every day. And that court case that was just decided this morning might in fact, impact greatly the way you do business this afternoon. So, make sure that you don't stop at the government, have a good, solid professional resource to go to. There are a lot of them out there, make sure that you are being advised by folks that know what they're talking about. Have a good solid desk reference to maybe a big thick, legal book that's written in plain language.

Lisa: That would be helpful if you had three sources that you could credibly point to and say, this is where I got my information. Then you would be at a pretty good safe place. Even if you're doing it wrong, you'll have a lot of good faith points built up to show that you were trying everything you knew to obey the law at all times. The last thing that I'll say here on the rule of threes is this. When you go to make sure you have three credible sources, make sure you can document those sources. So, for instance, if your attorney tells you do it way, get it in writing. If your CPA tells you do it that way, get it in writing because sometimes conversations are forgotten. And in the event that you need to prove you were advised by a credible source, you will also need to prove that that source advised you. So, get it in writing. Remember this documentation beats all conversation until next time I'm Lisa Smith, Be Audit Secure.

Lisa: Welcome back to Be Audit Secure. I'm Lisa Smith in this section of our series, we're talking about the importance of having employee policies and procedures in place. Now, a lot of folks listening to this will say, Oh, she's talking about those darn policy and procedure manuals again. Well, it's true. I am because there have been many, many court cases, including the Supreme court that have rendered judgments at the very end saying if only the employer had had policies and procedures in place. Oh, my goodness. That means we have to have them. If we want to survive an audit and inspection and investigation or a lawsuit. That's right. So, think about it. Do you have a good solid employee handbook in place? Does that handbook talk about all of the things related to your employees and their benefits and their requirements? or does it only address things like how much vacation time they get, make sure that your employees understand what your corrective action process is going to be in the event of make sure that you have language complying with federal and state guidelines.

Lisa: For instance, do you have a good voting policy? Do you have a good jury duty or bereavement leave policy? Do you know what the policy is in your state on domestic violence leave? or perhaps leave That's afforded to victims of any sort of a violent crime. Many States have enacted those policies, procedures, laws, regulations, and it's up to you as an employer to know the law and to set it straight for your organization and then enforce it. So, we have a lot of work ahead of us. If we want to make sure we survive an audit, whether it's payroll or any other sort of human resources audit, maybe it's a lawsuit and investigation. Maybe it's OSHA coming to inspect you. Then we are going to have to have good solid policies and procedures and action plans in place so that when we're questioned on why you do the things you do? and how do we know what we're supposed to do in your organization?

Lisa: You'll be able to show your policy and procedure manual. And there will never be a question as to what your intention was, because remember you can't prove your intention. You can only prove what you can prove. And when the chips are down, your policy manual may very well be your star witness. So, ask yourself is my star witness prepared to go to bat for me? or is my star witness prepared to bury me? Good food for thought, join us in the next segment where we'll be talking about standard operating procedures until then I'm Lisa Smith Be Audit Secure.

Lisa:  Hi and welcome to our five-part series on how to write policies and procedures. So, this is going to be an exciting little mini class that we’re going to cover over the next five days. And I’m going to give you that sort of the basics of putting together your own policy. And we’re going to use the example of pets in the workplace. I know that might sound kind of weird, but it’s not really, when you think about the implication of, like service animals and emotional support animals in today’s society, you will, if you’re in business long enough and have enough employees, you will have an employee eventually who says, I have an emotional support animal. I have a service animal; I need an accommodation and you’ll need to have a policy about that. So, the first thing I want to address is that the reason that often we write a policy is because we’ve had the issue.

Lisa:  So, when we start a business and we begin to have employees, it’s not quite common that as an employer, we just sort of sit down and write a thousand policies just in case, like we’ll do an employee handbook, where we have the basics of, who’s full-time and who’s part-time and what kind of benefits we’re going to have and what we consider to be late. And what the penalty is if you don’t show up for three days or, like we do some basic policies like that, but quite often we don’t expand our policies until we have the issue. So, the pet policy or the service animal policy is kind of a good one to start with here because it’s not the first thing probably at the top of your mind. You’ll notice that I’ve given you a sample to work from.

Lisa:  So, you’ll want to download that as we go through the various sections of building out your policy for the next few days now, just because I’ve given you this sample policy, it’s basically a done for you. It’s already done, it’s got some fill in the blanks, but I want you to know nothing in this policy and absolutely nothing I say to you at any time. And especially during this class is to be considered legal advice. Okay I’m not an attorney, I’m someone with a whole lot of experience and I’ve been an auditor. And you’ve probably heard my history by now that this isn’t legal advice. Everything is different for every employer. So, one employer may have a pet policy that says A and another employer may have a pet policy that says B because you have a different environment, a different industry, a different circumstance, a different set of working conditions, the whole thing.

Lisa:  So, I can’t speak to any of that. And no attorney can either unless you retain them to speak directly to your circumstance. So, just that’s the legal staff. We must get out of the way now. So, download your policy and let’s begin to think this through. So, before you write a policy, like I said, you’ve probably had the issue. So, you want to think about the purpose behind the policy that you’re writing. And that’s sort of going to be the introduction to the policy. So, you will see that on your download, many companies term this as the purpose. Sometimes they term this as the introduction. Sometimes they don’t turn it at all. They just start it; they just start writing and there’s no heading for that at all. So, you can do it however you want.

Lisa:  There is no magic formula to what your policy needs to look like. Whatever looks good to you is good because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter like what your outline looks like, or like what kind of paper you put it on, or if it’s electronic or, like none of that really matters what matters is what it says and is illegal and how you enforce it. So, we want to just focus on like, what fits your organization. So, you’ll have to think that part through, on your own. Cause like, I can’t do that for you. So, think about the purpose behind the policy. So, let’s say that you had an employee who’s come to you and they’ve said, I have an emotional support animal, or I have a service animal and I need an accommodation. And so now we’re going to think through, Hmm, what does that look like in our organization?

Lisa:  Now you notice in your sample policy that I gave you it begins with; we have a commitment to blank and we want our employees to feel blank. And like we’ve left some open-ended things there for you. You don’t have to use that language at all, but we just sort of gave you a jumping off point to start thinking about what your company’s mission and vision and values. And who are you and what are you about in your organization. Because some organizations are very touchy, feely in touch kumbaya. And so that introduction for you may be like powerful statement, right Other organizations are very corporate, very cut, and dry, very legal mumbo-jumbo that kind of thing. And if that’s you, I mean like, go get him. But I’m just saying like, you want your policies to reflect that mission, vision, and values of your organization.

Lisa:  So, you want them to like to explain to the people, reading them, why they’re there, why the policies are in place. And hopefully the policies are going to show the reader, show the employee that, that it’s there to protect them, to help them to guide them. But let’s, don’t get this wrong. The policy is also there to protect you the employer. So, this is very much going to be a win win. But in your introduction, you want to explain like your thought behind the way you’re writing the policy. So, I want you to just give that a minute of thought more than a minute, because this opening to your policy sets the tone for your entire attitude about everything you say going forward. And let me tell you everything you say going forward is going to be repeated in a court of law.

Lisa:  I mean, hopefully not, but let’s just pretend it’s going to be because your policies are going to be some of your star witnesses and you want your policies to reflect this very fair, very legal minded, but very generous to the point that you can be organization when it comes to the treatment of your employees and how you uphold the law. So, in this case, we’re looking at ADA requirements, Americans with disabilities act. So, this is what we’re talking about when we talk about service animals. And so, this is a protection that they’re guaranteed under the law. However, employers are also guaranteed that if it’s a hardship on your company, you don’t have to do it. So, we’re going to have a very balanced view of this policy, as you’ll see, as we go on down through the rest of this mini course and the rest of this development of this policy, but you want to set the tone that we’re talking about something that we want to do to protect people and have them fully participate and fully enjoy the benefits of working here to the extent possible or use some language like that.

Lisa:  That way you give straight out of the gate that we’re talking about a win, win, and we’re also, alluding to here or referencing here, the law that says there are things we must do and things we don’t have to do. And these are the things we’re going to be discussing throughout this policy, in this procedure. So that’s your homework until tomorrow. I want you to think about the tone. You’re going to set the introduction you’re going to use. It can be as long as you want it to be. It doesn’t have to be just two or three lines like we have in our sample here, but really think about how you’re going to begin, because I tell you it’s going to set the tone for what you do after this. And it’s going to be especially important. I’ll see you tomorrow. Do your homework and until then Be Audit Secure.

Lisa: Hi, welcome back. Did you do your homework last night? So yesterday we talked about setting the tone through your purpose, your introduction for your policy. So, I’m hoping that you went through it, you gave it some careful thought and that you were able to begin devising this introduction, this purpose, this paragraph. That we talked about now, if you are not still happy with it and you’re still crafting it, that’s okay. I mean, you may change it 10 times after you finished this video series. It’s okay. But we just must get something to like that jumping off point. I always talk about, right. So here we go. So, the next thing, the next part of our policy and procedure here that we’re writing on your handout, that you downloaded the next piece on it is definitions. So, I think definitions are important.

Lisa: And so, you’ll notice here that I have three definitions that we’ve started for you. Now, you may want to have more definitions based on the type of organization you run and, like just kind of how you’re going to build out your policy. But we have a few here. We have, what is the definition of an emotional support animal? What is the definition of a service animal? and what is the definition of a pet? You may also want to define, like, for instance, if you say employees can bring pets and animals, but like volunteers may have a different criterion or, like whatever, then you may need to go ahead and define. Who’s an employee, who’s a volunteer, those types of things. If you’re a school, maybe you treat students differently than employees maybe have a different set of guidelines and so forth.

Lisa: So, maybe you want to define, who’s a student, who’s an employee, who’s an employee student. You know, like if there are different categories of people who may or may not be able to have those circumstances, like maybe you have, a construction site and it wouldn’t be feasible for your construction workers who are on scaffolding to have a service animal that just wouldn’t be feasible. It wouldn’t make a lot of sense. So, like maybe you need to have some truly clear definition of the type of workers, the classification of worker, or something like that. So, think through your definitions, it might be very quick and easy. It might be like a no-brainer bam, bam, bam, we’re done. But think through them and make sure the definitions you use are solid approved from credible sources. Like the definition that I pulled the one from the ADA website, but I also noticed, as I looked down the website a little bit more, there was another definition that was worded slightly different.

Lisa: So, like, you really want to look at all the definitions that the government sources that the lawmakers use, and you want to pick the definition that you feel like is the most inclusive and, best fits what you’re talking about here. Now, something I don’t have on your handout, that would probably be a great idea for you to add in here and after definitions or even before, either way really is a section called scope. And so, scope would be who does this apply to? Who does this policy apply to? Now, oftentimes this policy just applies to everyone. But for instance, in my construction, illustration, the scope of this policy would apply to let’s say, office personnel, salespeople, like this and that. But would not apply to, or would exclude, construction site workers and blah, blah, blah.

Lisa: So, you’ll want to go through, and you’ll want to think that through. And then as you’re listing who it might exclude, you might want to build that out a little bit too and say like, what is the purpose behind excluding that classification of worker. if at all possible, you would want to site, for instance, OSHA regulations, or you would want to site some sort of a safety guideline or other type of guideline that you would want to put in there stating that this classification of worker or this type of, job description or something like that would not be, lending itself to having an animal around because of worker safety or the safety of customers or the environment, or, something like that. So, anyway, think about the scope.

Lisa: Because that’s also especially important when folks are reading your policies and procedures, we need to know who you’re talking to. And if you don’t have scope listed and your policy says all throughout employee, employees, employees, employees, we just assume you’re talking to everyone. And so, if I am a construction site worker and you won’t let me bring my service dog, then I could pull that policy out that says, it says employees, I’m an employee what’s up. And then you would have to fight that battle with me. And I could be like, yeah, but your policy doesn’t stipulate that. And when I read that policy, I took it to mean since I am an employee, you see how I can argue with you know I may not win. I don’t know. Maybe if my lawyer’s good enough, I will win.

Lisa: I don’t know. But do you want to put yourself in that jeopardy. So my husband always says, Lisa, you can see far enough ahead to freak out. And, but you know what, in this industry and compliance and trying to help you Be Audit Secure and avoid those pitfalls that come with making sure you are ready when that knock comes at your door by an auditor or a litigator, then I’ve got to help you learn to see far enough ahead to freak out. So, let’s, don’t freak out literally, but let’s look at what the pitfalls might be. And so, when you’re thinking of scope, just kind of take that part seriously and just think very carefully, especially when we’re dealing with something like animals. So, any way, that’s your homework for tonight, build out your definitions, build out your scope, look back over your introduction.

Lisa: Make sure you’re super happy with it because tomorrow we’re going to start getting into the actual policies and procedures that you’re going to set. You can go ahead and read ahead. I’m sure you’ve already done it. And you’ll see that, that this next section, this is more complicated. We’re really going to spend more time here. So, get all that other stuff out of the way, but don’t take it lightly. So just spend some time, take care of business and I will see you back here in video number three until next time I’m Lisa Smith Be Audit Secure.

Lisa:  Welcome back. Did you do your homework last night? Did you build out your definitions and your scope? I hope so. Because today we are diving into policy. So, if you look at your handout, you’re going to see under the policy section, how we start to introduce, so there is some language with some fill in the blanks. You can use that you can or not use it. Like that’s not a, in stone kind of deal. It’s just an example for you, but you can see how we put this language. And then we kind of go into some of the criteria for qualifying for a service animal and or in the workplace, not qualifying, but qualifying in the workplace in our workplace, because remember the ADA says we must make this accommodation, unless it presents a hardship to our company, an unreasonable hardship, to our company.

Lisa:  So, again, to, we have to look at the situation of, do we have 15 or more employees? If we don’t have 15 employees and we are a really small business, we’re writing this policy to try to benefit the workers as much as we can that under the ADA, we’re not even required to make this accommodation at all, but you know, if we have, employees, we want to treat the right way and hold on to and make them happy in the workplace and be a good employer. Like what’s the harm in having a cute little golden retriever at the side of somebody’s desk. So, this is a good policy for all sizes of employers, but especially when you have 15 or more. So, look at the language that we have now at the outset going into this next section.

Lisa:  Now, again, we have a little bit of definition here, so it, you may be showing some repetition from what we did earlier with definitions. You can have that repetition and there’s nothing wrong with that. Or you can switch it up a little bit. If you want to move something around. I don’t mind repeating a little bit, because it just goes to show that you are really stressing the important information, and you’re not afraid to say it again if you need to. So, do whatever you need to do with, don’t repeat the whole thing over and over, but like don’t be afraid to have something repeated maybe in a slightly different way or to make another new, or add on point. So, you’ll kind of see, as you’re coming down through here, the ADA says or defines and so forth.

Lisa:  So, you’re coming down through here and then you’re showing some of the need for the service animal and then for the emotional support animal. And you’ve got some fill in the blanks. And now after you hit that section, you kind of get through that. You’re starting to go into the criteria and like, what is before you get there, you’re going to like, what is the procedure like talking to your manager or your supervisor, HR must approve. You’re seeing some of that language. So, what I want you to do for your homework in day three here is I want you to just take this first chunk. Don’t go all the way down to where we’re getting into the fine points of, the animal can’t be jumping on people and palling it, people must be house trained. Like don’t get into that part yet.

Lisa:  That really, that strong criteria. But stick to this very top line number one kind of part, number two, maybe stick right up there to the very top and define out those points of maybe reiterating a definition, explaining more clearly talking about going to HR and that managers and supervisors may be in charge of authorizing, an animal in your workplace. And if it’s not management, maybe management must coordinate with HR. Or if you’re a super small business, maybe it’s an owner that must be involved or, however you want to do it. Maybe in some businesses, there is like a board or a safety committee that must meet and approve, something like that. Maybe there’s a form that must be filled out. And you’ll see the example there, but you can look at what your company would require and how your structured, and you can say, we’re going to delineate this language, to fit our organization.

Lisa:  So, just do that little chunk, that little section there. And then when we come back tomorrow, we’re going to talk about the next section, which is going to bring us down into the nitty gritty of the do’s and the don’ts and the cans and the cans. And what you may or may not want to include in that section, but don’t jump ahead. Just glance back over what you’ve done so far. Make sure you’re happy but focus on this little chunk here and get that right. And then we’ll move on in tomorrow’s video until I see you tomorrow. I’m Lisa Smith Be Audit Secure.

Lisa: Welcome Back. This is part four of our mini class on writing policies and procedures. And so, we have been focusing on our pets in the workplace, our animals in the workplace, service animals, emotional support animals. And if you did your homework last night, you focused on this core kind of policy part where we really start to get in and introduce what we mean our policy to be. And kind of really get in to saying we are going to allow animals that fit this definition and some of these criteria, but we haven’t yet gotten into the part. I’m going to pull it up here on my iPad. Where we get into the conditions and considerations. So, we just kind of did the general policy, HR has got to approve it, blah, blah, blah. We just kind of did the basic stuff.

Lisa: So, you’re looking over your handout, you’re seeing it. Maybe you’re using it to kind of help inform you about how you’re building out your own policy. So next, hopefully you got all that done next. We want to move into conditions and considerations. Because remember I said earlier, and I think I’ve said it almost every video, this policy, like all your policies needs to be written with win-win in mind. That’s the old Stephen Covey thing. Think win-win so, so when we’re thinking win-win of course we’re writing our policy that we get so that we can benefit our worker and we can protect also coworkers and we can also protect our organization. So, everyone here has to be considered. So, our conditions and consideration section covers that information. And if you’ve looked down through which I’m sure you have, I’m sure you did a sneak peek.

Lisa: Go ahead and look at your handout right now and start thinking about how your company could fall in line with some of these items, because straight away I’m going to get my glasses on. Cause I’m old. So straight away, the language starts out with, in addition to medical documentation. So, we know we’re going to need medical documentation, right in addition to medical documentation, there are other factors which must be considered. So, we’re going to look at what these other factors are. And that’s like with any policy that you write for your organization, there may be many factors that surround whether or not you’re allowing something, or you have like standards for something that’s going to take place. Or let’s say you’re writing a paid time off policy. So, in order for a person to accrue or to be granted paid time off, they must work this many hours and be full time and blah, blah, blah.

Lisa: And then they can only use their time off for these reasons. If they give this much notice or, use this form or like whatever you want to do. So, you can have all your criteria here. Now, this is especially important because as we see here, number one, we’ve got listed here talking about the employer’s supervisor division, head VP. So, like whatever you can put, whatever language you need in here has to be arranged in advance. They must look at it. Then they must review the workspace. Then they have to look at the size of the animal. Then they have to look at what it imposes a burden on the other workers. And so, they’re going through here, like with safety issues, would there be tripping hazards and are there going to be animal crates involved, with emotional support animals, you might even have to discuss the differences between an emotional support dog, cat, chicken, and peacock.

Lisa: I mean like, you might have to say like the airlines have done recently. These types of animals would be conducive to our environment. Unfortunately, these would not, they would impose a hardship. So, like maybe chickens and I don’t know, peacocks or Potbelly pigs, or like, I don’t know, whatever. Maybe you think there are certain animals that would not fit your environment. That’s up to you. Like you must determine that in your business but that if you make a determination like that, be ready to defend your position. Don’t just say, well, we don’t like Potbelly pigs and we don’t want them in our office. Like, no, that’s not going to fly. You need to have a reason that it doesn’t work in your facility. Why is that a hardship or why is that unacceptable in your company.

Lisa: So, don’t just say, yes, we don’t like you. So anyway, write those exclusions if you do have them with that kind of thinking in mind. So, look through there and then kind of look on down here. And as you see numbers, two through eight, you can add as many as you want. Don’t even use all of these, like whatever, again, it’s up to you, but look through here and see like, what are the things that you need to keep in mind I particularly like number seven, talking about housekeeping. So, if you’re going to have an animal in your workspace, in your office, for instance, then housekeeping is not going to come in and clean your office. So, you’re going to need to be responsible for doing that on your own. So that might be a policy that you say, Oh, no, we don’t need that.

Lisa: Housekeeping can still clean. Or you might say, you know what, that’s going to be something we do because not to penalize the person for having an animal, it’s not to be ugly to the person. It’s just to say, maybe we don’t have it in our contract. That housekeeping has to clean up after animals. And so that’s going to cost us more money if we put that in our contract with housekeeping. So, that would be more of a hardship on us. So, as part of this negotiation with allowing you to bring the pet in and limiting hardship, that’s going to be part of your responsibility and that’s perfectly fine. I mean, the ADA would have no issue with that. That’s perfectly acceptable. So, look through some of these things, get advice from attorneys, make sure you’re not crossing any boundaries and, build out these conditions and, exceptions and however you want to term it.

Lisa: I got considerations, and whatever you want to call it though and build it out and put in the criteria that must be met in order to receive this approval and continue to have the approval, because it could be a time where like, we’re going to have to ask you to remove the animal. If these things start happening, right. If the animal starts, barking or Pawing at people, or like if there’s poop in the workspace. So anyway, I know service animals are trained better than that, but when you’re dealing with these scenarios again, see far enough ahead to freak out and put in whatever you can think of that might come up in the future so that you’ve covered all your bases. So, do that homework for tonight. Tomorrow is day five of our mini class. And we’re going to be wrapping it up with, our final piece of the puzzle here. So, come back tomorrow until I see you, then I, Lisa Smith Be Audit Secure.

Lisa: Welcome Back. This is part four of our mini class on writing policies and procedures. And so, we have been focusing on our pets in the workplace, our animals in the workplace, service animals, emotional support animals. And if you did your homework last night, you focused on this core kind of policy part where we really start to get in and introduce what we mean our policy to be. And kind of really get in to saying we are going to allow animals that fit this definition and some of these criteria, but we haven’t yet gotten into the part. I’m going to pull it up here on my iPad. Where we get into the conditions and considerations. So, we just kind of did the general policy, HR has got to approve it, blah, blah, blah. We just kind of did the basic stuff.

Lisa: So, you’re looking over your handout, you’re seeing it. Maybe you’re using it to kind of help inform you about how you’re building out your own policy. So next, hopefully you got all that done next. We want to move into conditions and considerations. Because remember I said earlier, and I think I’ve said it almost every video, this policy, like all your policies needs to be written with win-win in mind. That’s the old Stephen Covey thing. Think win-win so, so when we’re thinking win-win of course we’re writing our policy that we get so that we can benefit our worker and we can protect also coworkers and we can also protect our organization. So, everyone here has to be considered. So, our conditions and consideration section covers that information. And if you’ve looked down through which I’m sure you have, I’m sure you did a sneak peek.

Lisa: Go ahead and look at your handout right now and start thinking about how your company could fall in line with some of these items, because straight away I’m going to get my glasses on. Cause I’m old. So straight away, the language starts out with, in addition to medical documentation. So, we know we’re going to need medical documentation, right in addition to medical documentation, there are other factors which must be considered. So, we’re going to look at what these other factors are. And that’s like with any policy that you write for your organization, there may be many factors that surround whether or not you’re allowing something, or you have like standards for something that’s going to take place. Or let’s say you’re writing a paid time off policy. So, in order for a person to accrue or to be granted paid time off, they must work this many hours and be full time and blah, blah, blah.

Lisa: And then they can only use their time off for these reasons. If they give this much notice or, use this form or like whatever you want to do. So, you can have all your criteria here. Now, this is especially important because as we see here, number one, we’ve got listed here talking about the employer’s supervisor division, head VP. So, like whatever you can put, whatever language you need in here has to be arranged in advance. They must look at it. Then they must review the workspace. Then they have to look at the size of the animal. Then they have to look at what it imposes a burden on the other workers. And so, they’re going through here, like with safety issues, would there be tripping hazards and are there going to be animal crates involved, with emotional support animals, you might even have to discuss the differences between an emotional support dog, cat, chicken, and peacock.

Lisa: I mean like, you might have to say like the airlines have done recently. These types of animals would be conducive to our environment. Unfortunately, these would not, they would impose a hardship. So, like maybe chickens and I don’t know, peacocks or Potbelly pigs, or like, I don’t know, whatever. Maybe you think there are certain animals that would not fit your environment. That’s up to you. Like you must determine that in your business but that if you make a determination like that, be ready to defend your position. Don’t just say, well, we don’t like Potbelly pigs and we don’t want them in our office. Like, no, that’s not going to fly. You need to have a reason that it doesn’t work in your facility. Why is that a hardship or why is that unacceptable in your company.

Lisa: So, don’t just say, yes, we don’t like you. So anyway, write those exclusions if you do have them with that kind of thinking in mind. So, look through there and then kind of look on down here. And as you see numbers, two through eight, you can add as many as you want. Don’t even use all of these, like whatever, again, it’s up to you, but look through here and see like, what are the things that you need to keep in mind I particularly like number seven, talking about housekeeping. So, if you’re going to have an animal in your workspace, in your office, for instance, then housekeeping is not going to come in and clean your office. So, you’re going to need to be responsible for doing that on your own. So that might be a policy that you say, Oh, no, we don’t need that.

Lisa: Housekeeping can still clean. Or you might say, you know what, that’s going to be something we do because not to penalize the person for having an animal, it’s not to be ugly to the person. It’s just to say, maybe we don’t have it in our contract. That housekeeping has to clean up after animals. And so that’s going to cost us more money if we put that in our contract with housekeeping. So, that would be more of a hardship on us. So, as part of this negotiation with allowing you to bring the pet in and limiting hardship, that’s going to be part of your responsibility and that’s perfectly fine. I mean, the ADA would have no issue with that. That’s perfectly acceptable. So, look through some of these things, get advice from attorneys, make sure you’re not crossing any boundaries and, build out these conditions and, exceptions and however you want to term it.

Lisa: I got considerations, and whatever you want to call it though and build it out and put in the criteria that must be met in order to receive this approval and continue to have the approval, because it could be a time where like, we’re going to have to ask you to remove the animal. If these things start happening, right. If the animal starts, barking or Pawing at people, or like if there’s poop in the workspace. So anyway, I know service animals are trained better than that, but when you’re dealing with these scenarios again, see far enough ahead to freak out and put in whatever you can think of that might come up in the future so that you’ve covered all your bases. So, do that homework for tonight. Tomorrow is day five of our mini class. And we’re going to be wrapping it up with, our final piece of the puzzle here. So, come back tomorrow until I see you, then I, Lisa Smith Be Audit Secure.

Lisa: Hi, welcome back to Be Audit Secure in this series. We're talking about the things you need to do as a small business employer to stay clean and clear if you're ever audited inspected, investigated, or litigated against. Here we go. The next part of our series talks about standard operating procedures. That's right. We need to not only have an employee handbook with good policies and procedures in them, but we need to have standard operating procedures for every task that our employees do. It, especially the tasks that could be related to audits and closely litigated or regulated duties. So, think about it. If you had all of your employees, sit down and take apart their job description and break down each task, they perform and write a step-by-step process for completing that task. How long would it take you? It would be a lot quicker than sitting down to try to create it yourself.

Lisa: So, my point is enlist. The help of the workers who perform the functions. For instance, in your payroll department, you're going to onboard a new employee using the W-4. So have your W-4 person write down a step-by-step process of how you onboard with a W-4. And don't forget, not only put the things that you do put the things that you refuse to do as well. For instance, in the I-9 process put down for instance, that we require all of our employees to show the documents in person, and we review them personally, do you keep copies? I don't know, write it down. And then for instance, on the, what you don't do say for instance, we never instruct the employee on which documents to present the documents presented are from lists A, B, and C, and at the employee's discretion. So, you can word it however you want, but in the long run, you're not only putting the things that you do to comply with the law.

Lisa: You're putting the things that you will not do in order to comply with the law as well. So, think about that, talk it over with all the workers in your organization and get started on SOPs, because I can guarantee you whenever that subpoena comes your way, it will include a request or demand for standard operating procedures. Have those ready so that you can turn them over and feel secure that your audit inspection investigation or a lawsuit is going to be handled with a large level of preparation on your part until next time I'm Lisa Smith Be Audit Secure.

Lisa: Welcome back. I’m Lisa Smith. And for the next five videos, we are going to be discussing how to write standard operating procedures. Wow!  So, this is going to be an interesting little mini class, and I want you to know that we’ve got a handout here for you, so you’ll be able to download that.

And this is just a little guide for walking you through the content that we’re going to be discussing over the next five videos, standard operating procedures. Let’s just start with, what the heck are they? So, we have policies and procedures, like we put in our policy handbook. And like we just have in our just general policy manuals, Just our policy library, if you will. But a standard operating procedure is different because a typical policy will address things like, you know, over time and maybe even harassment and bullying and what constitutes a no-call no-show and what do we expect from you during an introductory period.

Lisa: And you know, those kinds of things. We get a lot of those benefit type things, a lot of features of the job and so forth. But when we think about an SOP, an SOP is really walking us through step by step, what to do when this topic comes up. So maybe it is, if you look here in the handout that you’re able to download, you can look here, and it’ll show you an SOP is an incredibly detailed sort of how to guide. And so, some of those topics might be your new employee onboarding process. Maybe the completion of the W-4, how to submit a requisition for something, workers, classification, determination. How do I classify an independent contractor versus an employee? So that would be sort of that SOP to walk you through. We have many things through here preparing a payroll tax deposit, handling a complaint, filing a grievance.

Lisa: All these things. So that’s what an SOP is. And SOP is the thing that we need to be training on as employers and as employees, we’re hoping that we’re trained on. So, if someone says, do you know how to issue a refund or do you know how to close out the cash register? We hope there has been an SOP written so that we can go step by step by step and follow a procedure to do something the right way. This can go all the way up to conducting an HR investigation for harassment or bullying. It can be step one. We do this step two, we do that. So, this is a standard operating procedure. Now, sometimes an SOP is built in with a policy procedure kind of is that the next part and maybe a multi-page document that has a lot of detail.

Lisa: And sometimes the SOP is stored completely separately from a standard policy. So, you make the call on that. As long as you have the detail and your employees are being trained on it, and everyone knows how to do the thing with the thing, then you’re okay. The problem most employers don’t have, or most employers do have, I should say is that they don’t have good SOPs. So that’s why we’re here this week to write one. So, your homework for tonight is to read the first couple of pages in your handout. Get a good, clear picture of what an SOP is and what are the benefits of the SOP. And then I want you to start making a list of some SOPs that you need to write in your organization. But for the point of this exercise, I want you to just pick one and we’re just going to sort of go through one SOP together.

Lisa: So pick a topic and think it through a little bit, kind of break down and think what are some of the steps And, you can read ahead if you want to, but start thinking along those lines of, if I were going to train someone on how to do this thing right, then where would I start? How would I begin? And when you get all your thoughts together, come back for video two tomorrow, and we are going to go further into this and talk about now the next steps of building out your SOP. So, until I see you, I’m Lisa Smith, Be Audit Secure.

Lisa: Welcome back. So, we are in our mini class for writing a standard operating procedure. How exciting. So, if you’ve been hanging with us for a few weeks, about a month ago, we did a whole mini class on writing policies and procedures. And so, you’re going to notice if you haven’t already that as you’re breaking down the different elements of an SOP, it looks similar to a policy that we wrote a few weeks ago. So that class was a nice primer for this class little prerequisite if you will. So, let’s look here at the basic elements, much like we had with our policies, we had sort of, what is the policy? What is that little, few sentences of, this is the thing we’re addressing, and this is why it’s important? Just a basic policy. Like what is it, and just a few sentences, short.

Lisa: Then the next part of that is the actual purpose. So, remember we wrote the purpose in our previous class. So, the purpose of this policy is to, and you’ll build that part out. Like, what is the reason? what is the purpose? This is a part in the previous class where I said, here is where you get a chance to speak from the heart here is where, it’s not going to be technical jargon. It’s going to be, we want to take care of this thing in our organization. We want our employees to succeed. We want this and that. So, we have this SOP to make sure that happens. So, you might want to build that out. Then the scope who does this encompass? Is this going to encompass all employees or management, or is this going to encompass only the people in the payroll department? what is the scope? who does this reach out to responsibilities?

Lisa: What are the responsibilities as part of this SOP like I always say definitions. We want to write the definitions, procedures, and detail explanation. So now we go into step one, step two, step three, step four. Internal audit system or an accountability system. So, this is something that you don’t always see in a regular, just sort of an average, paid time off policy or something. This is going to be that check and balance type moment. When we’re able to say, this is the procedure, but just so that we don’t have people go in Willy nilly with the procedure, here’s what we’re going to do to make sure it’s followed properly. And then of course, we will want to quote our reasonable basis. We want to ask ourselves what makes us think we can do it this way. So where are we pulling our information from?

Lisa: Are we getting it from the IRS? Are we getting information from the department Labor? Has our attorney said, do it this way? Are we a member of the APA? or somewhere that’s said, this is the way you should do this. I mean, whatever it is, we want to have hopefully two or three good credible sources that we quote as our reasonable basis for what makes us think it’s okay to do it this way. And then any forms or documents that might be necessary to complete this process. So, let’s say that this is a W-4 SOP and we’re teaching the payroll person how to go through the W-4 process with a worker. So, what’s going to be necessary? Well, the W-4. And then if you’re in a state that also has a version of a W-4 for state purposes, you may want to have that form in here as well and include this as part of the process.

Lisa: Maybe you have a separate process. And at the end of this one, you say, see, whatever for the state process of this state version of this. So however, you want to do it, it’s up to you. As long as it gets done, it really doesn’t matter. It just needs to make sense and it needs to be in place. So, tonight’s homework is to look here at, this information, and this is all on page three. And look at this information on page three, you’ve chosen now, hopefully a policy that you want to write. So, I want you to start thinking and write the purpose. Write the policy behind the purpose, just it’s a brief policy, maybe write the definitions, write the scope kind of get all this beginning stuff going, and then we’re going to really dig into more of the step-by-step stuff as we come back tomorrow. So that’s your homework for tonight. So, until I see you tomorrow, write your policy information and I’m Lisa Smith, Be audit secure.

Lisa: Welcome back. We are in episode three, video, three of our mini class writing standard operating procedures. So, if you did your homework last night, you’ve got some of that first stuff out of the way. Now I talked a lot yesterday. I kept going back and forth to that mini class that we did a few weeks ago about writing a policy. Because that really is the prerequisite to this class. I hope that if you didn’t get a chance to watch that video series, that now you’ve gone back and you’ve watched it hopefully, maybe last night or the night before. And you’ve been able to say, now I’m up to speed on those things. Because next we want to go into breaking it down. So, if you look at your handout, you’re going to look at page four here and again, we’re starting with policy purpose scope, and then we move into responsibilities.

Lisa: So here we have all the basic sort of guiding you through criteria on what information needs to be in these sections. And if you look at the top of the page there, we just have some little handy dandy head or type information. You can use this as a header. You don’t have to, it looks nice when you do, it’s totally up to you. Make it look. However, you want to. The design is neither here nor there it’s what’s in the SOP. That really matters. That’s just a good suggestion for you to follow up now. So, for tonight’s homework, we want to get into responsibilities. So, you might have already read ahead and started working into the responsibilities, but it mentions here like examples, like which positions have a stake in this procedure? and what are they required to do? Who else has a part in this procedure? and what are they required to do?

Lisa: And then who else has a part in that procedure and what are they required to do? So you just ask yourself who else, who else, who else? And then once you’ve identified the responsible parties, the stakeholders in this process, you can get into your actual procedures. So, let’s look very briefly at the first activity. And then this will really be tonight’s homework responsibilities. Hopefully, you did your definitions yesterday. And then as we get into the first activity, this is going to be the planning or setup stage of your procedure of your step-by-step. So, who performs the first step of the activity and what do they do? then who performs the second step and what do they do? and who performs the third step and so on and so on. So, this is the Clark is going to do this and hand it off to this person.

Lisa: And then that person’s going to do this and hand it off to that person. If you have a hierarchy like that. Now, if you’re doing a very simple SOP and there’s not a lot of handing off or not, a lot of, somebody looking in and somebody having to kind of go back through and guide and not a lot of state colors, well, then you picked an easy topic that worry about it, but it is something to think about because this is the first set of activities. This is your 1.0 section. So that should be easy to develop. Then we want to move into our 2.0 section. So, this is the first level of actions. So, who’s performing the first step. What do they do? and then you want to use these bullet points to actually start breaking down what they do instead of just describing what they do like we did in the setup stage.

Lisa: So, we come on down, we do this in 2.0, and then our third activity is that next level of action or verification. So maybe this is when it’s going to get handed off to the next person or the next person. And then you can carry all this down to fourth and fifth and as many levels as you need to go based on the type of SOP you’re writing. But when you look through here, it says, list as many as you need to, and then you’re going to move to the internal audit process. So, let’s just stop right here because this homework for tonight is going to be detailed. I want you to make sure your responsibilities are defined. I want you to make sure your level one is very well-defined and then we’re going to come back tomorrow in our next episode.

Lisa: And I’m going to have another handout for you. And this is going to be a sample SOP that you can look at. You can refer to now, as you’re building out your SOP, you can kind of go back and forth with a completed version that you can say, this is what I do next. And this is what I do next. And it kind of gives you something to compare with, but I don’t want to jump too far ahead of yourself because I really want you to get responsibilities and level one down. And when you get those two things down tomorrow, you’re going to have yay. The handout that you can kind of look and compare it, what you’ve written already with a sample. So, are we on the right track? Let’s hope we are. And then we’re going to go into those more detailed level two level three. And we’ll talk more about that tomorrow. So do your homework and I will see you back here. And until next time I’m Lisa Smith Be Audit Secure.

Lisa: Welcome back to episode four, video, four of our mini class, how to write standard operating procedures. So, you got your hand out today and I’m sure you’re super excited because now you have a little more to compare to with what you’ve done already, building out your SOP. So, look at your handout, kind of see where you are. And I want you to really start thinking about now at your level two and level three activities. Especially important. Probably some of you already built those out last night for homework. And if you haven’t done that yet, that’s part of your homework for tonight is build that out, finish up that process. Now you have something to refer to, so you’re not as much on your own with it as you have been in the first few videos. So, you’re welcome for that.

Lisa: Now the next thing I want you to think about for tonight’s homework is the internal audit process. Because once we have everything built out from our end, from our intro phase, our basic level phase, our next step, next step, next step. Once we have all of that built out, then we start to move into the checks and balances phase. So, how are we going to make sure that this SOP is being handled properly. Now we hopefully we’re training our people who apply to this SOP like they’re getting trained on this. So, this is going to be a genuinely nice training tool, but how do we know over time they continue to do it. That’s the big question. So, we must have an internal audit process. I want you to come up with some sort of guidance and it doesn’t have to be the end, all be all for this SOP.

Lisa: I fully expect that you’re going to go back through and you’re going to fine tune and fine tune and fine tune, but we want to get a good jumping off point for you here. So, think about what type of SOP internal audit are you going to do. Let’s say for instance, this SOP relates to completing the W-4 process with one of your new employees. So, after the process is complete, it’s filed away. We’re using the W-4 now for the employee on their payroll. How do we know that that W-4 is being completed properly every time? How do we know that we haven’t deviated away from the SOP? because we’ve got to have an internal audit process. So, this is where we set that up right now. So maybe we look at some of the things like, what does it take to have an invalid W-4?

Lisa: And we would go to the IRS and we would find out what constitutes an invalid W-4? And then we would this internal audit process that says maybe once a quarter or twice a year or depending upon how big your business is maybe more frequently or less frequently; we’re going to go through and we’re going to make sure the W-4s are all valid now in order to make sure they’re valid. We’re going to look at these things, these checkpoints to make sure that nothing is being done improperly. So now you have the second part of your process here, which is a checklist creating not only the internal audit frequency, and who’s going to do it and who are the stakeholders involved there, but then what does that checklist look like? And so that would be another thing that you would build out here for how do we conduct that?

Lisa: It’s an SOP within an SOP, if you will. So, this little bit of homework is going to take you a lot longer to kind of put together probably, or maybe even an equal amount of time as to what it took you to build out the step one, step two, step three stuff. But once you get all that put together, then the majority of your battle is now fought with this SOP situation. So, I’m going to leave you to that for tonight. And then we’re going to come back tomorrow and we’re going to talk about how to shore up the loose ends on this SOP, and you’ll have your whole mini class complete, and then your homework will be to go back and fine tune, fine tune, fine tune. But don’t jump ahead of yourself tonight. Just get the internal audit, blurb written the internal audit.

Lisa: This is what we’re going to do with this. And this is how frequent, and this is who’s going to be in charge of it. And then start thinking about, start compiling what that internal audit would look like. Give yourself some sort of, like I said, a checklist, some sort of a, this is what it’s going to take to audit this procedure properly internally, this SOP. So, do that tonight. Refer to your handouts that I have given you so far and come back tomorrow because we are going to wrap up this mini class until I see you. I’m Lisa Smith Be Audit Secure.

Hi, I’m Lisa Smith. Welcome back to episode five of our mini class, how to write standard operating procedures. So, I call this a mini class, but if you’re doing your homework, it feels like anything better. Mini class at this point, doesn’t it? My videos are somewhat short, but the work you’re putting in on this is not minimal writing. SOPs is not just some sneaky little trick. I mean, you can build out the official military looking SOPs, which will take you forever. Don’t go that far with it but have something that’s good. That’s solid that has the information necessary for your organization. And for some of you that might be a 20-page SOP to do one thing. And for other organizations, it might be three or four pages or two pages. It depends on what it is and how big your company is and how detailed the process is.

So hopefully you’re in a good spot right now, and you’ve taken care of business last night, you’ve put together your internal audit thought process, and you’re going to kind of start building that out and you’re going to see how that’s rolling. You’ve put together a checklist. So, you’re on the road with all of that, because now shoring up the loose ends is just basically building out the end of your SOP, which is where we quote our reasonable basis. And so, you’ll see that in the handout I gave you you’ll see that it has reasonable basis. So, these are standards, laws, or regulations. We want you to briefly describe these standards, laws, or regulations, which apply to the SOP. It’s nice. If you can quote the actual statute, put it in writing there. If there is a link to it out on the web and don’t link to a blog post.

But like link to an actual statute. And if you can do that, that’s extremely helpful. Something that’s even a next step better is copy and paste the important part of that statute and put it may be under that link. So just in case in the future, that link goes dead. They changed that page. Now you’re trying to prove to an auditor. What made you think you could do it this way You click on that link and it just gives you a big 4-0. So, we don’t want to have to go through that. You want to be able to always make a defense and your SOP is part of that good, solid defense that you will be making if you’re ever audited or sued that for something that you’re doing, that you should have known how to do better, maybe. So, you want to be able to say, this is what made us think we could do it this way.

That’s what your reasonable basis is. So as many sources as possible, again, stay away from blog posts, stay away from anything that’s opinion oriented. Give us good, solid credible sources. And then, any other procedures or documents, like I said before, the W-4 Form, anything that you need to attach here to the bottom of the SOP, this form is going to be something we must use to complete this process, attach that as well, or make a note on where to find this in your organization. And then as you’re coming on down, you’re going to see the forms and records. And so, this is kind of a nice way that you can outline these forms and records, and you can show which procedure a particular former is referring to. So if it’s 1.1 or 2.3 or like 5.1 or whatever it is, refer to that and have your SOP numbered, like we’ve got set up here, you can number it any way you want, but when you’re referring back to this on your little table here, you’ll want to be able to point directly to that and make it easy for someone to say, okay, during the 5.2 phase, we’re going to need to use this form or this document or this, whatever.

So, do that. And then once you have all of that written out, you will want to list a table for revision history. So, we have a nice example of that for you there as well. So, after you do the revision history, then you’ll want to have a separate page for your training record. Because like I mentioned before, this SOP is going to be the thing that you use, or one of the things that you use to train your employees on how to do their job. And this is especially important that you put your training dates and, who did the training and so forth in here. So, follow this little table, use your revision, your training, the name of the trainee, who they were trained by and so forth, so forth. And then you’re, you’re pretty much done. All that comes next is to look back over it and look back over it and look back over it on a regular basis.

If a law changes and something must change with your SOP, then make sure it gets addressed. Make sure it gets updated, make sure that you update all the revision tables, the training tables, any documents that need to be moved in or out all of that. This is an upkeep process, but it’s not just always, maybe your responsibility, the person that you’re training to do this job. Maybe you can enlist their help as well in upkeeping. This SOP, since they are invested in this process, if it is their job. So, all those things working together, unify your team, make sure everyone is on that same page and working together to be compliant, do it right, and to be audit secure. So, I will leave you with that. Thanks for attending the mini class. Finish up your SOP. I look forward to maybe hearing some feedback from you, email support@helpdesksuites.com.

And let me know what you thought because I enjoy hearing how well you’ve done and how now you’re able to take this new process and put it in place. Don’t write all your SOPs in one day or one week. You might not even be able to get them all written in one year but get started. Get the ball rolling. If in the meantime, you’re audited, or heaven forbid you have a lawsuit. You will be able to show that you had this process going and that will buy you a lot of credibility with your auditor or your investigator. So, until next time I’m Lisa Smith. Thanks for tuning in, Be Audit Secure.

Lisa:  Hi, I'm Lisa Smith. Welcome back to Be Audit Secure in this series. We're discussing the things employers and small businesses need to do in order to get ready to survive that audit inspection investigation or litigation. So here we go. The next point on the list is good, solid communication. What? That doesn't sound very technical. I thought we were talking about technical audit stuff. Well, we are, and previously we've discussed good policies and procedures and standard operating procedures that you need for your organization. Those are definitely effective tools for communication, but how about the rest of the communication in your organization? How effective is it really? Are your listeners good listeners? Do they really hear the needs of the workers? or Do We kind of just sort of fly by thinking we know what everybody's going to say next? and preparing when really, we're. So ill-prepared to find out what the conversation was really all about.

Lisa:  It can be quite difficult tackling communication because we all have a different communication style. However, I will tell you that there is one foundational piece of communication that not everyone employees, but if you do, you will find that your organization is much more successful. And that foundational piece of communication is something that improvisers in the professional comedy and theater world had used for years. And it's called the yes and. So, what is the yes and? Well, the yes and is listening to what someone says, their ideas, their thoughts, their feelings intently, and seriously, and saying in your mind, if not even verbally, yes. And what you say next will either move the conversation forward or put a big old roadblock behind it. But when you use the thought and, in your mind, it tends to make us think in a more positive direction. Like we're adding to the conversation, we're moving the conversation along now.

Lisa:  Yes and does not mean for a minute that you just agreed with what the person says, but what it does give you is the opportunity to let that person know that you heard them, they feel validated. You feel good because you're a validating good communicator and your conversation moves ahead. Maybe you're trying to decide on a new policy in procedure in your organization. Someone throws out an idea to have, paid jury duty, but that would be great, except that it's really not, but budget-conscious for your organization. So, you say yes. And I like that idea because it would be really great for non-exempt employees who have to be out for several days and go without pay due to jury duty, thinking it through. However, I'm going to add to that comment and say that after looking over the budgeting, I'm not sure we can do jury duty with pay for the entire time. And employee is out. Maybe we could do it for the first day that they're out and then leave it optional after that, if they want to use paid time off from their bank, see that's a yes and. The opposite of yes and as what more commonly will happen in many organizations. And that is, yeah, that sounds like a good idea, but it will never work here. We will never get that approved through budget.

Lisa:  So, that's it? We're not even going to try? See that's the, yeah, but. It puts a roadblock in front of us. We cannot move forward. So, think about it. Yes and may turn out to be a no in the end, but it's not presuming that it's a no straight away without actually hearing the person out. Maybe hearing the rest of the story, something else that we have they had in mind that we're not aware of yet. Yes, and if we become a lot of, yes, Anders in an organization, we will be much happier and much more productive. Yeah. But, or yeah. But, or no stops us in our tracks. And when it comes to employment, law compliance regulation by the government in various areas that we must comply with, it's always good to stop, take a beat, think it through, and fully agree that we have vetted this process completely.

Lisa:  That way, when the auditor inspector investigator or litigator comes in and asks, why do you do the things the way you do them? and how do you do them? Everyone in the organization understands because they have felt heard. They have been communicated with well on all fronts and our folks are ready to say yes. And I will be happy to tell you how that works here instead of, yeah, I'd love to tell you, but I'm not really sure myself, because nobody here is a good communicator. So, communication, it is a key to surviving through an audit inspection investigation or litigation. Think about that and say, yes, I will try to implement that in my organization yes and. Until next time I'm Lisa Smith Be Audit Secure.

Lisa:  Welcome To another episode of HR in the morning. I'm Lisa Smith. And today, actually in the next five videos, we're going to be talking about communication. Wow. Communication. That's a pretty hot topic and it is such an important topic to consider. I've said in the past, and I'll say it a million times over again in the future that if you have the best, most expensive, well put together compliance program on earth, and nobody knows how to talk about it. Then you basically have nothing. So, communication is key. Now as an HR professional, you know that you have to communicate very clearly effectively with employees, and you have to work to understand what they're trying to communicate with you because in the seat you're sitting in it's your responsibility to understand them and to help them understand you. So normally a lot of things are a swinging door when it comes to communication, but not here.

Lisa:  Man, it is all on us. So, we want to think about times maybe it was today. When you thought to yourself, I don't know why they just don't get it. I don't know why they can't understand what I'm trying to tell them. Do they not hear me? Am I not clear enough? Well, there are a lot of reasons that someone might not be getting what you're saying. And some of it might be that they're not good listeners, or they just don't want to hear it. Maybe it's something tough to hear and their egos and pride and insecurities and everything, maybe that pops up and keeps them from really understanding what you're saying or at least acting on what you're saying. But there is a whole other area we need to consider, and we need to consider maybe it's something we are doing or not doing or could do better to help them understand us.

Lisa:  So, in this set of videos, I want us to do some self-examination and I'm going to be walking through the different personality and communication styles with you so that you can see that maybe the way you communicate is not the way other people communicate. And hopefully you'll come to understand that it is our job as HR professionals to meet people where they are comfortable in their communication. So, I might be one type of communicator. You might be another type of communicator. And if I just come barreling in with my communication style and that doesn't suit your ears, then we may have a problem. So, I need to know what kind of communicator, what kind of personality you are so that I can speak in a way that you appreciate being spoken to. So that is what we're doing this week. So, for your homework tonight, I want you to sit down and I want you to think about the last time you had a communication failure.

Lisa:  Maybe it was with an employee, a manager, a coworker, maybe it was with a spouse or a child. And I want you to write down the things that frustrated you about that communication, what you thought you were doing right. And what you thought they were not responding to. And then I want you to flip it on yourself and you play the other side and say, what were they trying to say to me? that I wasn't responding to And I don't expect you to have any answers at this point. I just want you to put the scenario in play. And then for the next four videos in this series, we're going to break down the different personality, styles, and communication types. And you're going to be able to hopefully see where that failure that disconnect happened. So do your homework and have a great day and I will see you tomorrow. And until then I'm Lisa Smith, Be Audit Secure.

Lisa: Welcome back to video. Two of our communication series for HR in the morning, I'm Lisa Smith. And so today we're going to get started with talking about the four different personality styles. So, you've probably heard this put a thousand different ways that the folks that I'm going to be working from today are as an organization at called Soul Canyon and they're in Oregon. And they developed this based on youngian styles and philosophies and research. And I want you to just sort of consider their approach to it. And I will post some information down below this video. So, you can follow along with what I'm saying here. That the first style that we're going to consider today is what's called the engaging direct red. Now there is a whole set of how you get to this personality style and like how who's engaging and who's not.

Lisa: And like, it's a whole process. It's not hard, but it's a whole process. I'm not going to go into that whole process. I'm just jumping to the four different styles for you. So, we're going to start here and I'm going to read this off my card, and then you'll have a screenshot of this as well on your video here that the direct Red person is the person in your life who is competitive. They are strong-willed, they are the drivers. Many times, they're considered to be the overachievers in the crowd.  So this is who they are. Everything they do is purposeful. They are task focused and go oriented and they move at a very fast pace.  Now they are somewhat extroverted, but they can be a very close blend of introvert extrovert. So, you'll have to really get to know them more before you can tell what side of that line, they're on.

Lisa: And when you're communicating with them, they are the kind of people that want you to be direct and to the point, they want you to focus on results. Not, I would love to do this someday pie in the sky. Dreamy thoughts. No, it's the kind of person like my, father-in-law used to always say, don't tell me what you're going to do. Show me what you've done. So, results driven. They're confident and they're assertive and they want you to be confident and assertive when you communicate with them. And then they want you to be brief, be bright and be gone when you're coming in with an issue or a conversation that you need to have. So now sometimes you can't be brief with certain conversations, but when at all possible, they don't want to sit around and wallow in details and they want you to be super smart.

Lisa: Know what you're talking about Let's get the conversation done and let's move on. These are the folks that don't appreciate a lot of whining and poor pitiful me conversation. Sometimes they can even be viewed as a little cold that they're not necessarily cold people. This is just that competitive, driven, focused side coming out in them. And so, they are this way and they just expect that you should be too. Now, maybe you're that person. And if you are that person, so cool. I mean, there's nothing necessarily bad about any of the personality styles, but they do have their bad sticking points. Like for instance, when under stress, the direct Red will withdraw aid go inside. They will feel helpless. They may feel personally offended and they may become emotional. Now they're not going to be the emotional crying people, but they may be just emotionally angry or, some other type of out acting out emotionally.

Lisa: If they're having a bad day, they'll become impatient. They will increase their demands and increase their pressure. And they will want to move faster. Because they're having a bad day. We want to get through this. We want to take care of it. We want to do it. And things that stress them out are people who move too slow, falling behind on a project, getting off track and folks who disrespect each other. And of course, people who disrespect them specifically that disrespect in general really stresses these folks out because they don't like it. They want everyone to be fair, play fair. Remember be brief, be bright, be gone. So, no game playing. We don't want any of that kind of stuff with a direct Red. Now, if you're dealing with a direct Red your goals and communicating with this person are going to be truly clear.

Lisa:  You want to reconnect with the goals that you've set working with them. If you're off track, you want to make sure you reaffirm. This is where we are. You want to be focused on your action. So, you want to have that it's sometimes the overused laser focus, but you really do want to be focused when you deal with these folks. And you want to show that you respect authority and that show that you respect results. And I will tell you that the direct red doesn't always think that the rules apply to them, but they always believe the rules apply to you. So if you get a little bit of that going on, then that's a part of them needing you to respect that the wordy and just show respect in general. So, keep that in mind. They probably don't even realize that they don't think the rules apply to them, but they will appreciate your directness.

Lisa:  And they, as long as it's done with respect, you can say anything to this person, if you do it with respect, they will usually hear you unless you catch them at that really stress moment, which nobody's going to hear you at that moment.  So think about that as well. Now, if you are the direct Red you have a lot of great things going on here in your personality, but there are some things that probably we can work on. If we haven't been self-aware of how much pressure, we might put on others or what we might require and how we might get impatient or go too fast. And if we are getting bogged down and stressed out by people moving slower than us, maybe we should take a cue from those people and slow ourselves down a little bit.

Lisa:  It might be healthier. We might get more done in a quality manner. The direct Red they're going to get a lot done. They're going to have a list of 57 things go in all the time and they're going to be checking them off the list. But sometimes it's not liked a perfect result, I guess you could say, it's good. And it's great. And they're competitive. So, they're going to do a good job that then you take some other personality styles who go slow and they may produce a better result. They just don't produce the quantity of results as direct Red will. So, think about that and think about how you need to communicate with people in your life who have this personality. Now direct Red often is the manager, the supervisor, the boss. And if this person is one of your subordinates, believe me being a subordinate is, might be a little frustrating to them because they do generally rise to the top and run the show.

Lisa:  So, remember that and be sensitive to the frustrations that they may feel. It may not be that they really want to take over your job or, boot you out that they just may feel frustrated sometimes because they don't get to make all the calls. So, remember that about your direct Red friends. So, think about that. Look at your communication scenario that you did yesterday with the last failed communication you had and see was anyone in that scenario, a direct read. Did you see any of those characteristics coming through? That may have caused the fail either on your side or the other person's side and consider what you could have done differently there, if it doesn't apply to this particular communication issue we talked about then think about other direct Reds that, in your life, whether they be family members or coworkers, whoever it may be friends. Think about who they are and maybe reflect back on a time when you could have talked to them differently, or maybe you felt offended by how quick and, stressed or like whatever demanding they might come across to be, and then cut them a little Slack because they really do mean, well, they're just super, hyper-focused a lot and they need to learn more about themselves as well.

Lisa:  But if we know, then we can understand. So, I'm going to leave it there for this episode. So, I will see you back in video number three, and we will talk about the yellow, vibrant personality style. So, until then I'm Lisa Smith Be Audit Secure.

Lisa: Welcome back to video. Three of our communication series. I'm Lisa Smith. And yesterday we talked about the direct read. So, we did a lot of in-depth conversation on the direct Red. And I asked you to think about who, who has direct Red? and maybe that person is you. And I asked you to consider what are some things you could do to be proactive about the next time you communicate with a direct Red or as a direct Red. So, we've got that behind us. Now, the next one we're going to look at here is another very engaging, extroverted personality style. Now this is dynamic Yellow. So, Mary Hamilton, who is the co-creator of this at series of personality styles, it's called colorful connections. She says that this is sort of like the Tigger personality. Remember in Winnie the Pooh Tigger too.

Lisa: This is sort of that all over the place, very bouncy, very bubbly, very social personality. So back to the glasses here, the characteristics of this person, of course, they're very social. They're very dynamic. They're very enthusiastic when they talk. They can be very persuasive and expressive. They're cheerful normally, and they can be very inspiring. They're good motivational speakers because they really know how to get in there and connect with people. And they are sort of feeling people instead of thinking, which are direct. Red was more of a thinking type person that are Yellow are dynamic. Yellow is extroverted and feeling. So, these might be the people that who we always say, they wear their heart on their sleeve, or it might be the person who is just so out there and dynamic and you think nothing can hold them down.

Lisa: And then they get their feelings hurt, because they didn't feel appreciated or someone didn't think they did as good of a job as they wanted them to. Sometimes these folks can be people pleasers. So that's where sometimes the feeling side will come in. Now if you're communicating with these folks, you want to be friendly and be sociable. You want to be entertaining and stimulating. You got to bring your game if you're not normally this personality, but if you want them to understand you and appreciate what you're saying, he got a rise to this type of communication. You don't have to like be Tigger that you do have to try to meet them at least a little bit closer to this plane, this social fan happy-go-lucky bubbly type personality. You want to be open and flexible, and you also want to be very visual.

Lisa: You can be visual with them by making great eye contact or by using expressions that conjure up visual images, in someone's brain. And so, this kind of thing is what the dynamic Yellow really appreciates. Don't bore them with details, man. Don't tie them down with routines and don't ask them to work alone. These are the people who want to be in groups and work together. And if you stick them in a cubicle by themselves, they're probably just going to be so bored and so frustrated because they need that team dynamic. Now, yesterday, we talked about direct read and with direct Red, remember we said with those folks, you can't really focus on feelings, but with the dynamic Yellow focus on some feelings, they're good with that. And don't try to take over the direct Red, but what the dynamic Yellow, they are often leaders that if they're not the leader, then they might not even care just as long as we're having a good time.

Lisa: So, they're very much like, we're just want to be a team and get in there and play a little and talk a little that if you're not careful, they will get off course. So, you really must keep those folks on course. Now, when dynamic Yellow is stressed there, it's going to be usually from something like you've been too logical. You've given them too many details and they're more of these words picture people. So, like, the details, details. Don't put them with details, just, talk to me and engage with me. And don't try to pin me down with logic because dynamic Yellow sometimes is, but what if? wouldn't it be a perfect world if? So, they think like that sometimes, they can be logical as well. Don't get me wrong, but it's just not out of the box who they are.

Lisa: Stressors if you don't give them your opinion on something and they want your opinion and they, they just going to hand you, what do you think? What do you think? Talk to me, talk to me, talk to me. Those folks, they will get really stressed if you clam up. Not paying attention to how they feel stresses them. They're fast paced people. So, if you go too slow, much like the direct read. If you go too slow, they're going to be really frustrated with you. And if you're not an offense, I mean, we got to laugh with dynamic Yellow. We've got to let them know that we're in this to win it. That we're also in it to have a good time. Cause that's what gets dynamic Yellow going is the prospect of fun and success and achievement, but not to the competitive point of picking achievement, over fun.

Lisa: Usually that two dynamic Yellow is now if they're having a bad day, they might be too bad judgment. They might be flippant, uptight, edgy, and they might just be bouncing off the walls. So, if you see them behaving any of these ways, it may be because something has stressed them out. They're having a rough day, and this is how they're acting out. if they're really flipped out, they might be very cold with you. They might not see the situation. Clearly, they may be no emotion where normally they're up and bubbly and emotional. They made you really shut down and they may also be detached. And just, like I said, get very quiet, sort of go cold, but normally they're very hot. Now, if you're happy issues with communicating with dynamic Yellow, you want to make sure you're having fun.

Lisa: You're talking to them; you're listening to them. Dynamic. Yellow needs to be heard. They want you to listen, reconnect with that vision, get into team building mode and variety and change. They love all those things. They're not afraid of change. They don't mind saying, Hey, let's do something different today where that might flip out another personality style. Dynamic Yellow really rolls with that flow very well. Now that being said, sometimes dynamic Yellow also leaves projects in the dust because they're so excited about change. Like, I don't know what we did yesterday, but what are we doing today? And so, so we have to keep them on track that we keep dynamic Yellow on track. By understanding that they can't be left alone to get bored and frustrated and they need to be interacted with and heard. So that is our dynamic Yellow.

Lisa: Now, here we go with our homework again, are you dynamic Yellow? What parts of these traits do you see yourself coming out with on a daily basis? The good parts of course, are there the frustrated, not so great parts. Sometimes we'll be there as well. And what can we do as dynamic Yellow to make sure we don't let the negative get in the way of the positive? What do we do is dynamic Yellow? If we find I'm frustrated because I'm putting a cubicle all day, what are we going to do about that? How are we going to bring that up to, a superior? If now we've identified our frustration because we know it's not our personality to be stuck away in a hole somewhere. We need more interaction. We need more engagement. Maybe it's just the opposite. Maybe you've got an employee who's struggling with those things and you think that they're just not productive and they're just not working.

Lisa: And they're lazy that maybe they're bored. This happens with kids a lot in school. Now we're not going to have a conversation about Ritalin that I will say that sometimes there have been case studies that show kids have been misunderstood as needing when really, they needed engagement and challenge and interaction. So, think about your adults as well. Don't just check them off as lazy and uninterested and whatever that really think about what they need? So, there you go, HR, there's some more homework for you analyze, analyze it. And I will be back in video four tomorrow, and we're going to talk about the blue personality style. So, until I see you, then I'm Lisa Smith, Be Audit Secure.

Lisa: Welcome to video four of our communication series. I'm Lisa Smith. And today we are going to be talking about our detail Blue personality style. So, I told you the last few days we've talked about direct Red. We've talked about dynamic Yellow and how both could be closer to the extrovert side with a little bit of the introvert coming in and the thinking side, coming into the Red. Now we're going to go over to the other side, which is normally introvert, and they can show their extrovert on occasion, but normally they're more introverted. And the first one we're going to talk about on that side is our detail Blue. The Hamilton's say that detailed Blue characteristics are, they're overly cautious people. They're very deliberate. They're precise. They can be somewhat formal. They are very, analytical, very logical. And they question everything now they're not questioning you because they don't trust you.

Lisa: Well, maybe they are, but it's just in their nature. They're more like an introverted personality style closer to that side of the spectrum. And they're very thinking, so they don't, they don't focus so much on feelings. They focus on what's logical in what we can think through. Now, very often you will find a person who is a combination of a Red and a Blue they're very direct. And so, they have a little bit of the extrovert going on there, but at the end of the day, they're thinking things through, they're not going on feelings, they're really going on. What are the facts say and the thinking, the detailed Blue thinking person is that person that's going to say, I won't believe you until you prove it to me. So, we said before with, for instance, direct read, be brief, be bright, be gone, but the detailed Blue is going to want you to sit with them and they're going to want to be walked through this proposal you're making.

Lisa: And if they don't require that you sit and walk them through it because they are, very bright and very competent people. They are still going to say, let me look through this and it's going to take them a little while to get back to you because they are going to examine it every way possible, inside, outside, upside down. So that is our detailed Blue. Now communication tips, again, be very well prepared and very thorough, put everything in writing for these folks and let have the time they need to consider details. Don't get too close. These are not people who like to hug. They were, they will be uncomfortable if you're like, Hey, let's hug. No, you're not going to win them over that way. If you change your routine and you haven't let them know that this is changing, they're going to be like, what are we doing?

Lisa: How come I wasn't made aware of this? Because they're very thought thoughtful people. They think it through, and they want to be made aware. They don't like sudden change, like dynamic Yellow is like, whoo hoo. Everything's a different day. It's a new day. It's a new experience. So detailed Blue is not so much that way. And don't be flippant with them on important issues. And so, it may be your personality and you may not be any meaning any harm by making a joke or saying something off the cuff. That sounds a little flippant, these folks, aren't going to appreciate that so much. And that's okay. If we're dealing with them, we want to make sure that we don't do anything to offend them. And they don't mistake, sarcasm or being flippant or thinking that we're being funny.

Lisa: They don't mistake that for disrespect or a lack of serious thought on a matter that we do want to make sure that, we let them know that we get them okay. And they don't need a lot of handholding or pats on the back or anything like that. They just really need for you to do your job and be serious and not push them and prove to them why what you're saying is true? If they disagree with you on something, anybody can be stubborn to a fault. But the detail Blue, they're more likely to believe you and go to your side. If you can just present them with all the facts that makes your position true. And then once they see it and they challenge it and you hold your ground, they're likely to say, let's do it.

Lisa: Let's do it your way because you've proven it to me. So important there. Now, if detailed Blue was under stress, it's probably going to be because there was no process or procedure in place for whatever the thing is that stressing everybody out. There's no data, there's no logic behind it. It's irrational. So again, can you hear this person? maybe in your organization saying we haven't had enough time to think about it. You're getting your emotions involved. This isn't logical. So, this is like Spock from star Trek. So, we had Tigger, we've got Spock over here. So, they really need to understand and think through, and leave emotions sort of out of it. When they're having a bad day, they're going to withdraw from you. They're going to start splitting hairs and picking things apart. They may wait for certainty or direction and just stall. They may not be willing or able to move forward until they get some sort of absolute proof direction.

Lisa: Council certainty on the matter, they'll go quiet, which they're quiet. Anyway, you'll notice they're quieter than normal. And they're going to try to understand, but there's going to be a limit to what they are able to do when they're having a bad day. If they're really flipped out, they may bounce off the walls, lose control, cry, get loud, get emotional, because this is not their personality at all to do this, but when they're pushed and they feel like they're trapped in a world, gone mad, then they may behave a little mad. And so, look out for those signs and symptoms. So, if you want to help remedy communication issues with your detail Blue, then you will create a process. You will have a plan for them, and you'll say, let's sit down and let's think it through. And let's make a plan that is going to like, put a smile on the face of detailed Blue. If you just say those few words, make the plan very logical and make it step by step and give them time to process it. So, you say, so we're going to sit down and we're going to put this plan together. And it's very logical. We've done it all. We've taken some time together today. Now I want you to sit with this for a day or two. I want you to mull It over.

Lisa: And when you feel like you've come to a conclusion about it, or you have questions about it, or you have more input about it, then let's get back together. You initiate that, get back together with me, let's say in 48 hours, and then we will move forward on action.

Lisa: And then that will make the detail Blue feel like, wow, you get me. I need a couple of days to mull this over. You know, that if I see something irrational or illogical or a process, that's just not going to work that, you know, I want to have input on that and you're allowing me room to do so. That's going to make detailed Blue, happy, detailed Blue is, are people in the world like accountants and doctors and pharmacists and researchers, and people who are in that mode of getting it right and being particular. Scientists of all sorts. Now it doesn't mean that a scientist couldn't also be a dynamic Yellow that more often than not, this is the way those folks think. So, consider who in your life that you may deal with sometimes who has these characteristics and think about how similar or opposite you are in many cases and maybe how that has harmed your communication.

Lisa: Many times, the detailed Blue and the dynamic dynamic Yellow, for instance, just drive each other mad, cause they're really opposites, but the direct Red and the detailed Blue get along very well. So, think about when you're putting together teams of who's going to get the most done in the happiest manner. Maybe you think about, personality styles that work well together, and you don't put a Yellow with a Blue because that may just be a frustrating experience for everyone. So, consider those things as well and train your managers and supervisors on this information so that they know how to handle their teams when it comes to being productive and resolving or avoiding getting away from conflict. Sometimes conflict is just two different personalities coming together without knowledge. They just don't get each other. And sometimes that's what it is. So, think about that tomorrow. We're going to talk about our fourth personality style, and this is our green personality. We call it the caring Green. So, until I see you tomorrow, I'm Lisa Smith Be Audit Secure

Lisa: Welcome to video five of our communication series. I'm Lisa Smith. So, we have talked about three big personality styles, and now we're moving on to number four. And number four is the caring Green personality style. Now I am not the Green personality style. I will tell you that straight away, but I will say that out of all the personality styles, usually this is my favorite. And I only say that because these people are usually so nice. And I say usually because everybody can be nice and not everybody is nice all the time. And we all have the goods and the bads. And we'll talk about that with Green, that Green is there, just what I call the good people of the world. They just want to do it right. And they want to be responsible and respectful and they want to consider your feelings.

Lisa: They're somewhat introverted. They can be on a sort of a spectrum closer to extrovert usually than the detailed Blue, but still, they have that kind of introverted side to them. Now the caring Green characteristics are of course, number one, they're caring, they're encouraging. They share they're very patient with you, with me, they're empathetic. They are supportive and they are relaxed. Now they feel like, so these are also people who wear their heart on their sleeves. Very much like dynamic Yellow. They're very similar, except they just kind of sit back and smile. Then dynamic Yellow kicks into gear. They think dynamic Yellow is so cute and so bubbly and a little self-centered. Caring Green can also be self-centered, and they can get so full of how caring they are that they lose their humility to that straight out of the box.

Lisa: Caring Green really does mean well, and that's why they're the good people of the world. So, if we're talking to caring Green, we want to be patient and we want to be supportive because they're going to be that way with us. Ask the opinion and give them time to answer. Let them think for a minute because they're going to be very much like detailed Blue. They may not just pop off with an answer off the top of their head. Cause they're considerate about what they say and how they say it most of the time. Now, and then slow down with them and work at their pace. Think about dynamic Yellow and how dynamic Yellow and direct Red. Really, they both work extremely fast where our detailed and our caring Green, they want to pull it back a little, carrying Green, especially wants to see, say, at the end of the day is this it's really that big of a deal.

Lisa: We have bigger problems in the world. Let's put things into perspective and let's work together to solve them. So, they are very caring people and, they can be taken advantage of. They do sometimes let people run over them. So, don't do that. Please. Don't take advantage of caring Green. Don't be careless with their feelings. Don't be careless with people who they love or admire and don't push them or pressure them because they really do need that little, extra pace of time. Now let's look over here at what happens when caring Green gets stressed out. They, they're stressed a lot of times because they're being pressured to do things too quickly. The values are not being seen. People don't see the good that they bring to the table that frustrates them and it stresses them. Maybe they see the abuse of other people or the exploit patient may be in the workplace.

Lisa: They see a manager who's unkind, or they see an employee who's unkind to a manager or, something of that nature in that really stresses them out because they want, unity and equality. And they want people to be happy at the end of the day. It's about, like having a good time instead of getting the next promotion. Now caring Green can be managers and supervisors. Absolutely. But if they're going to have to fight to the death with a Red, direct Red person, they might just be like, it's not worth it. Let the Red have their day because it's just not worth it. So, think about that. Now, if the caring Green is having a bad day, they may get stuck, go quiet, which is what a lot of personalities do. They get deeply hurt feelings and they may ruminate over the right and the wrong side.

Lisa: And they could turn into the person that says, I am righteously indignant, and I have every right to feel this way. And maybe they do, but then they could become a little irrational when they're pushed. And if they're really flipped out, they may get highly emotional. They may get critical. They can be very passive, aggressive, which all personality types can. But caring Green, is so caught up in everybody should be good to everybody and do the right thing that when they endure such injustice for a long period of time, they will lash out in kind of an ugly way. So, we really want to be, on the lookout for, we see if we see these characteristics coming up in someone who's normally very caring. It means that they're probably on the flipped-out border, something's going on with them and it's not good.

Lisa: Then they could just be on a mission and you'd be like, I'm going to fix this. I'm going to be the superhero of the problem. And it may turn out that they become the villain because they're so mission oriented when they see something that really bothers them now. So, if we're dealing with someone who's carrying Green in order to not stress them and really meet them where they live, we want to slow down. We want to be real with them. They see right through people. They're really good at that. So, they're good judges of character, be honest with them. Don't try to play them and connect with their feelings and their issues. And just bottom line treat people fairly. If they see you being a fair, honest person of integrity, then they're going to respect you. And you're going to really, appeal to their good side and to what they admire in other people.

Lisa: And they will work well with you. And if a caring Green respects you, they will do almost anything for you. I mean, legally that they will really be a true friend and coworker and collaborator. So, think about that as well. Caring Greens and detailed Blues often work very well together, caring Green and direct Red often drive each other insane, caring Green and dynamic Yellow can work well together. But sometimes they're not as productive together. So, we want to kind of look at who's on our teams who is collaborating again, look at the whole picture and not just, don't just single out that thing. That's annoying about that person, but look at the whole person, because if you think about it as we've been going through this series this week, you could probably say, well, there are times when I'm direct read. And there are times when I'm super bubbly Tigger. And there are times when I want to be logical. And there are times when I just want, the world to hug. And so that is wonderful because really, we all are made up of these four different parts of our personality. But when push comes to shove, when the chips are down, when tensions are high, on the whole, which one of these personalities really fits us the best? and that's what we have to do.

Lisa: And that's what we must understand. We have to understand who we are. And then once we understand ourselves, it's easier to go out and identify characteristics and others. That help our styles get along with other styles. So, that's really the heart of communication. It's all about understanding. It's all about hanging in there and not doing anything that pushes the buttons of that other personality. So, I heard Mary say, and I often say this as well. This is powerful information. Once you understand it, and you should, your powers for good and not evil, you really should be the communication superhero of your organization, of your family, of your social circle. Because once we do start to understand others and we see their superior qualities, and we understand that no matter how amazing we think we are personally, there are people out there who are way more amazing than we are.

Lisa: We put ourselves in a humble spot, which is not a bad thing. And we decide, I am going to make these efforts, and I'm not only going to make efforts to do this and live this and communicate this. I'm going to make efforts to teach other people how to do this. Think about a time when you were totally misunderstood and maybe someone got really offended, or maybe you got your hand slapped and it was all a huge misunderstanding. You didn't mean it that way. If they only understood what you were trying to say, things would have been different. How about if you had only understood how they were trying to hear, if we're different personality styles, we're going to speak different languages, of in communication and just how we perceive the world around us. So, think about that and ask yourself, what is that worse to be the person in my organization, in my family and my social circle.

Lisa: What is that worth? What is the value of that? I would say the value is huge. And then being able to take this information and disseminate it out to other folks, wonderful gifts that you give people when you teach them who they are, who you are and who the rest of the world is and how to identify those folks around them. So, think about that. This is a great opportunity to say, we need to have some training like this in our organization. We need to have a family discussion about this in our household. Maybe your one personality and your teenager is another personality or your spouse or whomever. It might be. And that's the source of all your conflict. And you never knew it before, or you kind of knew, but you didn't know the details of it. We have just broken the top layer of the ice on this.

Lisa: We barely cracked it. There is so much more to learn. And I hope that you will take the opportunity to learn more about these colorful connections that you can make with your family, your coworkers, your employees, your peers, and really live your best life. And remember, you don't have a compliance program unless you can talk about it. And you've got to talk about it in a way that people will understand. Otherwise, you're going to be just like people who ride in all the time and say, we have all these policies and procedures, but I can't get anyone to do it well, a lot of times it boils down to communication, and this is a great place to start and solving those issues. So, until we see you next time, I'm Lisa Smith, Be Audit Secure.

Lisa: Hi, welcome back to Be Audit Secure in this last piece of our training series on audit, securing your business, we are going to be discussing the key to all of this and that is internally auditing and self-correcting. So, let's run through the checklist very quickly. You have reasonable basis. You've checked everything and got the great answer. Same answer three times from three credible sources, you have great policies and procedures. Everyone has a step-by-step SOP or standard operating procedure. You have great communication in your organization. You're a bunch of, yes, anders and you're good at training. You believe training is important, so we should be functioning quite well. Well, but how do we know? We have to internally audit. So, some of the audits that you guys perform, you will be internally auditing things like one plus one equals two, right Those are the math audits.

Lisa: Those are the ones that are easy to survive, but we're not talking about math. We're talking about making sure your employees, managers, supervisors, directors, are all interpreting the law in the right way. And in the same way we need for them to all speak with one voice. And how do we know if that's actually happening or not? Well, we internally audit. We go back through on a regular basis, maybe annually, maybe more often than that. And we check how we're doing. How do all of our W-4s look? Are they all clean and pristine? Have we sent out all of the 1099s that we were supposed to this year? Remember when send out, send it out, come up with your own cheesy little sayings to make sure that your employees remember the important things in the organization, go through and look at all of your I-9s.

Lisa: You know, you can be penalized $110 per technical error on an I-9. So, we need to go through I-9s and audit them to make sure they're all correct and clean and proper. And if they're not, we need to fix them. There are so many maybe things to audit in our organization. Our policy and procedure manual should be audited. Our standard operating procedures should be audited to make sure we didn't miss a change that was made at some point during the year. Once we do all of these internal audits and make all of the corrections, then we're going to document what we did in process of auditing and how we fixed it. Because if you ever have an internal audit that says, we're awesome, we rock our audits. We do everything right in our organizations. You know what that is. That's basically daring and inspiring factor or an investigator or a litigator to fund where you did it wrong.

Lisa: But if they can walk in and see where you've done, your audit, you found the problems and you fixed them. Now, investigator auditor, inspector litigator, and these folks don't feel like they have to work as hard because you've shown good faith efforts. You've shown an honest, forthright, determined process for maintaining obedience to the law in your organization, because part of your culture is doing it wrong. It's not an option here. And if we find out we have done it wrong, we're going to fix it and do it right from now on. You can only really prove that through documentation based on internal audits. So, think about that. No matter how small or large your business might be internally, auditing is going to be your key. I hope you've enjoyed this series. I hope that you have your audit secure checklist from in hand, and you are ready to survive that fateful day until I see you next time. I'm Lisa Smith Be Audit Secure.