HR BESTIES - HR Besties: Why HR is Needed with Matt Taylor, President of Guardian HR

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

Today’s agenda:  Awkward and lecturing CFO emails Cringe corporate speak: per my email Hot topic: the importance of HR with Matt Taylor, President of Guardian HR: a leader's perspective on why the function of HR is vital in an organization and the future of HR Employers need to be proactive in maintaining working relationships with employees: HR can help with effective employee and employer communication What is the role of HR today? What skills will HR professionals need in the future? Utilizing the time of HR teams properly Attracting and retaining top talent should be a priority in maintaining an organization's steady growth AI and HR Burnout and setting boundaries as a member of HR Your To-Do List: Grab merch, submit Questions & Comments, and make sure that you’re the first to know about our In-Person Meetings (events!) at ⁠https://www.hrbesties.com⁠. Follow your Besties across the socials and check out our resumes here: ⁠https://www.hrbesties.com/about⁠.  Subscribe to the HR Besties Newsletter - ⁠https://hr-besties.beehiiv.com/subscribe⁠ We look forward to seeing you in our next meeting - don’t worry, we’ll have a hard stop! Yours in Business + Bullsh*t,  Leigh, Jamie & Ashley Follow Bestie Leigh! ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@hrmanifesto⁠ ⁠https://www.instagram.com/hrmanifesto⁠ ⁠https://www.hrmanifesto.com⁠ Follow Bestie Ashley! ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@managermethod⁠  ⁠https://www.instagram.com/managermethod⁠ ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyherd/⁠ ⁠https://managermethod.com⁠ Follow Bestie Jamie! ⁠https://www.millennialmisery.com/⁠ Humorous Resources: ⁠Instagram⁠ • ⁠YouTube⁠ • ⁠Threads⁠ • ⁠Facebook⁠ • ⁠X⁠ Millennial Misery: ⁠Instagram⁠ • ⁠Threads⁠ • ⁠Facebook⁠ • ⁠X⁠ Horrendous HR: ⁠Instagram⁠ • ⁠Threads⁠ • ⁠Facebook⁠ Tune in to “HR Besties,” a business, work and management podcast hosted by Leigh Elena Henderson (HRManifesto), Ashley Herd (ManagerMethod) and Jamie Jackson (Humorous_Resources), where we navigate the labyrinth of corporate culture, from cringe corporate speak to toxic leadership. Whether you’re in Human Resources or not, corporate or small business, we offer sneak peeks into surviving work, hiring strategies, and making the employee experience better for all. Tune in for real talk on employee engagement, green flags in the workplace, and how to turn red flags into real change. Don't miss our chats about leadership, career coaching, and takes from work travel and watercooler gossip. Get new episodes every Wednesday, follow us on socials for the latest updates, and join us at our virtual happy hours to share your HR stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, picture this. It's a regular Monday and I open my inbox and I have, you know, a bunch of messages, no big deal. But I see yet another long-winded, awkwardly written, cringy AF email from our CFO. And it starts with some sort of random personal anecdote, and then it awkwardly transitions into a somber moment about hurricanes or tornadoes or some sort of weather. And without warning, it launches in to a lecture about work. And it could be a lecture on anything that a CEO would lecture on. My

first thought is I'm like, okay, I hate these. Why do I keep receiving them? But then I'm thinking, okay, maybe it's just me that hates these. And so I reach out to a few of my work besties and I'm like, hey, thoughts on the CFO emails? Because now we've received a couple of them and they irked the fuck out of me. And I'm already getting messages like, did you see this email today? Did you see it? We're teams back and forth. We're paying each other like, oh my God, are you serious? Another one? Why has no one stopped this? And it was that chat from my work, Bessie, why has no one stopped this? I was like, well, he has to know. You have to tell him, right? But I knew it couldn't come from me because I'm just, you know, little old HR

telling the CFO that his cringy emails are stupid. So I did the only thing I could do and I went to the CEO and I told on him. Now, the CEO was aware of the emails, but he had not been reading them. He just kind of skimmed over them. And he didn't realize how cringy and off-putting they were to the staff. So he ended up listening to me, and he spoke to our CFO, and he put an end to the cringy, awkward, lecturing CFO emails. See, HR can be your friend sometimes at work. Were the emails like, personal story, let

me tell you about my times with my family, my very specific details, maybe a vacation house or something. And then the lecture being like, I need you to work harder so I can have more of these weekends. Basically. Got it. Okay. That checks. They were so bad. Like the first one I let go, I was like, okay, this is a fluke. It was after we had like a big meeting and I thought, oh, this is great. This is just a little like, rah rah, we all got together, culture. But after the second and then the

third, I was like, nope, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, these have to stop. Like there's a theme, it's coming on the same day, he's lonely, he's using this as therapy. You know, I'm really surprised that the CEO didn't read it, notice how long it took him to read it and then quantify the time in his head, that time times the workforce. You know what I mean? I know, right? To be like, okay, this email of yours that doesn't contribute and you weren't asked to do is costing the company $50,000 a week or whatever, right? And wasted time. Yeah.

And it is a little unusual because I would think the CEO would be more apt to send these out and the CFO would be the one thinking in their head and the quantification and the time and all of these things. And then no conversation is ever had in that instance because the CFO is going to be like, well, that's a sunk cost because that CFO is not going to be raising that. And I do love that though. I mean, I love the concept of like approachable leadership, right? And like leaders having, you know, an outlet like that and connecting with the workforce. But it's got to be contained.

It's got to have a point. Exactly. It's got to talk about the business. There's got to be a connectivity to something like goals or values, something, instead of just random stream of consciousness. Yeah. Put it on a SharePoint somewhere where they can blog or blog their feelings or whatever, that if I want, I can read it.

But I don't have to be in my inbox. My gray cloud to this silver lining of personal leadership and not being robotic at work is sometimes it can feel like, yeah, you can do that as an executive and you can talk about those things as an executive. But sometimes there's executives that tell you so many details of their personal life and their children and they live vicariously and every other employee is thinking, I know more about your kids than I know my own. Right?

Well, Ashley, you actually had a very good TikTok reel on this like a month or so ago about you knew the batting average of your CEO's son, then you knew yours because they're allowed to go to all the games and attend all the practices, but you unfortunately don't have the same flexibility. Yes, it is something that has resonated in my yes and improv to leaders is talk to the extent you're comfortable, show yourself that you're a real person, talk about the things like struggles. Don't be like, Oh my god, this price of eggs when people are like, I can see your pay in our quarterly report. But to talk generally about those

things, but ask questions to your team members. And again, some people are comfortable sharing, some aren't. But just making sure it's a two-way street and not a one-way highway in leadership that everybody else is talking about. Your email just has happened in one workplace. Yeah. I've had that before, the cringe emailer, and you just shut them off in IT. They keep typing. They think they're sending something, but they ain't. Cut them off from that distribution. You know what I mean? Revoke the privileges, right? Oh, gosh. Revoke those privileges.

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Babbel.com slash HR Besties. Rules and restrictions apply. Well, hello, Besties. Thank you so much for joining this meeting with us today. Wow, that was really some good hot goss from the water cooler, Jamie. Thank you for that. Oh gosh. On the agenda for today, on the docket, first things first, Cringe Corporate Speak, and

Ashley is taking point on that for us today. So thank you so much. And then we have a special guest today, besties. We have Matt Taylor from GuardianHR. He is the president of that organization and he is going to give us his perspective on why HR and the function of HR is so valuable in an organization, maybe some future skills that HR professionals will need to be successful, you name it. We're going to talk about a whole bunch of things there, but it's always so neat to get a leader's perspective, right,

on the future of HR and where some things are headed. So we have a really cool combo for him. So thanks for joining us, Matt. Appreciate you. And then as always, we will end with some questions and comments. Ashley, take it away. My Cringed Corporate Speak, which I did not know Jamie's story was coming, is... in with some questions and comments. Ashley, take it away.

My cringe corporate speak, which I did not know Jamie's story was coming, is per my email. And sometimes you can say per my last email or sometimes someone sends an email and then they show up at your door or on your phone or whatever. And like, did you see my email? Two seconds after they sent it. But have you all ever heard per my email in the workplace? Yeah. And I've used it. Yeah. I do use it. It means, can you read, bitch? Like, hey, motherfucker, per my last email. Yeah. Yeah. Can you? Did you? Will you please go back and read? Translates. Yeah. I'm guilty. I'm guilty of that.

I typically don't mean it rude though. I mean it like I'm trying to be professional, honestly, because I'm pretty transparent, I'm pretty direct. So I will literally put, you did not read that. I need you to go back and read that. You know what I mean? I've already mentioned this. I'm all explicit, but do you use it, Ashley?

Do you like it? I do. And I do think there's a difference between the type of person that sends an email and immediately follows up with you. Like, did you see my email? Oh, yeah. Which I have to imagine that your CFO said, can you imagine being in a team meeting with that CFO after they send it?

Like, what are you supposed to do? Because you know, if I were on that team, which I obviously would not be on a finance team like, but I would have a on a finance team, like, but I would have a bet with my colleagues to say, okay, nobody bring it up. Nobody bring it up. And do we bet that they're going to bring it up? What do you think? No, don't take the bait. Don't don't tell me more about your personal experience. Like, I couldn't help myself to be like, that's how we're going to respond. But don't encourage him.

I have said it and it's hard. I can't stop thinking about the episode we did on job descriptions long ago, 2024, where I was talking to job descriptions and most of you were like, I don't read job descriptions. I was like, what do you mean? Like, no, what do you mean? And so it made me realize in a flash of a moment, probably how many emails I've sent that people didn't read. And so, yes, I've said per my email. And so I do try to make things as concise as

possible, put the top thing up front. But yeah, I have used it. Guilty. Yeah. Guilty. Well, I have a project that I'm working on right now and I know I'm going to put all the information in the email, but I know for a fact that people won't read it. And I mean, kind of one to their fault, but I'm guilty of it too. So I'm trying to keep the very most important parts at the top and I'm bolding certain words. Like if they're going to go go, oh eligibility, what's the eligibility for this? It's right there. Because I know how many emails we all get in a damn day and it's a lot. So like I need information quick and at my fingertips. So I try to think of that

too. But if you don't read my damn email, then yeah, you're going to get a per my last email. That's a great tip, Jamie. I do think if you're listening to this, and we will put in our newsletter that reminder for people to have to their teams to say when you're sending it, again, just thinking about putting the answer at the top or the most important information. And you can even like if you're writing with people you can joke with, be like, I have more to say on this. Some of this you may want to know, read to the bottom. But whatever. If you do that, people will really read your emails much more. I love that.

So try to use that, besties. I don't know that that one's cringe, because I used that one. Leah's opening that one. And that just seems practical. I don't know. We've hit the end of the wall. We're going to start using very practical. This podcast is going to turn into a celebrating course. Exactly.

Very soon. We're going to go full circle. Oh my gosh. Full circle. Look at us. Come back on around. Oh, well gosh. Perfect segue to introduce Guardian HR's president, Matt Taylor, who we have the privilege to

have on the show today. We're so excited. Matt, it's wonderful to have you with us. Great to be here. Thank you guys, all you all so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yeah. And so I will not be able to do that bio of yours justice.

I did review it and I did see you have, you love to travel to Puerto Rico. Is that correct? That's what really stood out to me on that bio. I'm going to be honest. We crossed that off at what we said, right? But we were wondering why we're recording this not together in Puerto Rico, but that would be the follow-up interview. That's fine.

Next time. Next time. Future. Again, we're talking about the future, right? The future of HR. That's included. But Matt, can you please just give us your elevator speech? Yeah, maybe I'll just kind of tell you a little bit about me. I started in employee benefits

about 20 years ago, 25 years ago. And I really quickly developed this passion for working with HR leaders, business owners, and entrepreneurs, just helping them solve problems. I love being in that business market. And about 2010, they passed this thing called the Affordable Care Act. It put brokers like me in a position where we didn't know where our future was. We didn't know if there'd be an actual brokerage community. So at that time, I had a real passion around HR automation.

So we were early adopters in helping business owners because I would go into an HR person's office and I would see new hire applications, health insurance applications, PTO requests, and all this stuff and paper on someone's desk. It's like, how do we make that better? So early adopting into the HR automation kind of helped us and we grew that business as well.

And then what I learned from all of that was there's still a pain point that all of these businesses have and it's compliance. This was around 2012, 2013, and litigiousness between employer and employee was growing and compliance was getting so complex. And I just saw that as a huge opportunity to help businesses is the handbook

and all the stuff that goes with compliance. And so that was a big, to help businesses is the handbook and all the stuff that goes with compliance. And so that was a big, HR is a big animal and I wasn't ready to jump in that and start a business. So I actually partnered with the company called Guardian HR and I was lucky to meet them and we brought them in to do all the work with us, all the HR work while we did the benefits and the HR automation stuff. And you know, what really happened is, well, COVID happened.

And when COVID happened, right, I mean, the world went off its rocker with, with HR and, you know, the furloughs and the layoffs and the new federal rules coming down every single day and all these employers just trying to like keep up. And you know, we had worked with Guardian at that time for probably five or six years, and we just saw the emails 11 o'clock at night, the emails at five in the morning, just the care they put into all their clients

and making sure they were compliant through this, and they had resources. And it just made me wanna be part of it because it was so awesome to see the care they put. I'd never seen it before. So it just led me down the path of wanting to become a partner in Guardian HR, which I started in, well, January of 2024. So it's been about 15 months and I just, you know, people joke and say, are you a glutton

for punishment? But sometimes I might be, but, you know, I just believe there's such an opportunity to help so many businesses with this complex thing called HR that most of them struggle with getting right. Mm-hmm. Oh, gosh. Yeah. Are you crazy?

Are you a glutton for punishment? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which one is it? Which one? 5149, depending on the day, right? Okay.

Right. Like what HR professional isn't a glutton for punishment, right? But we were there. We remember COVID when everyone kind of looked at us. I remember sitting in a board room and everybody turned and looked at me like I worked for the World Health Organization or something. Who do you think I am? I mean, I went to business school.

I'm not a scientist, but we had those late nights. We, I mean, we pulled some all-nighters too, you know, trying to figure it out and, you know, love on our employees as much as we could. Yeah. And I think if you look at it, it's, in my opinion, it's just gotten worse from there for HR people. Because I think what you see is now, if you look back to pre-COVID, the pendulum was swung so far to one side. And that side was get up at six or seven a.m., get some breakfast, get in your car, drive, go to work, stay at work all day, and then drive another hour,

maybe at night, come home, kiss your kid, spouse, go to bed, lather and repeat. Then where'd the pendulum go when COVID happened? All the way to the other side, right? Literally, don't leave your house. You know, get on a Zoom meeting, work, maybe don't work, do whatever. And now the world's trying to find itself.

Is work from home right? Is hybrid right? Is back in the office right? And each one of those, right, has pros, has cons, has compliance rules around it. So all these HR folks and business owners are trying to figure out, you know How do I build my company because at the end of the day, there's no right or wrong here. There's what works for you But every employer needs to pick a plan at the same time and they need a resource to be able to get the guidance from

As they go down that path I have a question. Because a lot of times we hear like HR is not your friend and HR is just to protect the company, know that's what the lawyers are for. And I know that you all work within HR and legal space. And I personally, having been a lawyer in an HR, I have my thoughts on it. But I'm curious about how you see how an HR person can avoid getting into a legal issue with an employee and why that matters.

Is it just to protect the company or how do you see that best being done? Look, there's one word that I love and it's proactive. I think employers need to be more proactive than ever. And what I mean by that is fundamentally, right, job descriptions, handbooks, all the rules of the organization need to be really clear. Everything needs to be documented nowadays in the employer-employee relationship. And I think if you have employees that are like, when you talk about protecting an employer, you're talking about like, hey, how do I protect myself from a lawsuit or litigious event if the employee

should terminate or leave? One of the things I believe is when you document things, if you have an employee you're having an issue with or you're not sure about, begin with the end in mind, have the outcome in mind. So if you want to terminate that employer, that's the route you think you're going. Work with somebody, guardian HR or otherwise, that can take you down that path. Here's the five or 10 steps that you need to do. And if you want to rehabilitate that employee and get them back, same thing, but has an opposite end. So what are the

right steps that you take to get that employee back working again? Right? I just believe that, like, if you kind of go in with the end in mind, you're going to have a way better outcome than getting emotional and just saying, oh, I'm so mad. I'm going to fire that person because that's going to end up with a problem every single time. I love the message of being proactive. I think that is so important. Imagine transforming your life by unlocking the power of your mind.

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Your journey to unlocking full potential starts here. You've kind of dipped into skills for HR professionals, right? So I'm curious, what skills do you think HR leaders will need in the future to be successful? Oh, man. I mean, HR leaders have to wear so many hats today, right? I feel like if you look at the, maybe over the history of HR, it's like it was, 20 years ago, it seemed easy. There was a little employee relations, maybe they process some payroll, maybe there's some

compliance and stuff like that. And now there's so much, I mean, there's, you know, they have to build culture, they have to do employee succession, they have to do leadership development, they have to do so many things, they have to attract, succession. They have to do leadership development. They have to do so many things. They have to attract, retain, reward, top talent. And it seems like, I don't know about you guys, but it seems to me that like, there's this other little box of HR that like,

hey, what's everything else in the company that nobody else wants to do? And let's just throw that in HR too, and let them do that. I call it junk drawer. Yep, right? So it's just more that in HR too and let them do that. I call it junk drawer. Yep. Right? So it's just more and more stuff. So, you know, I think as, you know, to be successful, what's the highest priority thing

HR people can do? What was the best use of their time? And in today's world, it's, my opinion, it's attracting top talent. It's how do we get the top talent in the door, how to recruit, retain, reward, culture, plans to keep the company tight and keep the company growing. And how do we take all the stuff that's marginal, that's not the highest and best use of our time and get that off our plate so we can really focus. I think kind of going a step further with that, employers a lot of times, they don't view HR departments as an asset.

They view it as an expense and they try to put as little time and as little money and as little energy into it. But the reality is, is, you know, with AI coming in the world and no one knowing where that goes, talent is going to win. And I think HR teams have to get hyper focused on getting the right talent in the door and keeping it. And a lot of them just, if they go like, hey, this is how we've always done it, I think there's a big fear they could get left behind.

Matt, I think that's true because especially, and I guess I'm a little curious about this, about the organizations you're working with. Are you dealing with huge HR teams? Are they lean HR teams? Basically even in large number of people, HR teams, it still feels very lean. But I do think as you talk about like attract, retain talent, I do think there's so many HR professionals that would love to spend their time doing that. They just don't have the time because on top of that is the marginal have to do this activities.

And so obviously services that you'll at Guardian HR are partnering with so they can free up their time without just spending more hours in the day. And so with organizations, are you tending to work with, you know, teams of one to a handful of HR teams? Are you able to support larger teams? I'm just curious of who you'll tend to work with best. That's a great question and I think it's something that I wasn't expecting when I got involved with Guardian HR. The reality is, I think the way that I'm seeing HR in the world now is employers that maybe have up to 50, 45, maybe 60, somewhere in that kind of realm, they're shying away from

hiring a full-time HR person. It's usually a business owner and maybe an admin or HR generalist. So we do great work for them because they can offload all of their compliance work to us. On the other side, in these larger organizations, they've got a lot of money tied up in labor. And I think what we're seeing with them is it goes back to highest and best use of their time. They want to get out of doing the compliance and they want to get out of like, I'll give you a quick example. I saw one of your guys post, it was like about the Colorado thing where like the federal

government can't get their act together and make rules about HR. So all the states are making all their own little rules. And like in Colorado, I think he said something about the application or resume can't have any thing about age, like what years they went to high school or what years they went to college. How is someone supposed to know that who's operating in California and Washington and now all of a sudden wants to go into Colorado? Like they're supposed to figure that out.

So like those larger organizations who are maybe in multiple states or have people, you know, if they can offload that work to somebody like us to do it, and then they can go focus on all the other stuff that they need to drive the company forward, I think that's where we really partner and do a lot of winning together. Yeah. I mean, I've been many times in my career, I've been an HR department of one. And even just being responsible for knowing all the laws of all the places is a lot for an HR professional. Kush, kind of touching back on you mentioned AI,

where do you see HR evolving over the next five years? Oh, man, it's such a good question. And it's like, AI is a guess, right? Like AI could be the greatest assistant ever or in two years you could be sitting here having a podcast with me and I'm an AI bot. We just don't know. We could all be out of a job.

Don't come for our jobs, no, no, no. Maybe I'm on the podcast and you guys are the AI bots, right? I mean, there's just, you don't know where AI is going. Some people think we're all going to be out of a job and some people think it's just going to be an assistant to us as we move forward in the market. So, for me, it all comes back to talent. It's like these HR leaders and businesses, they really want to focus on attracting the best talent because talent's always going to be necessary to win.

And so if they can focus on that and let AI just run its course, that's where I believe the best outcomes are going to be. If you're trying to predict where AI is going and how it's going to impact the workforce and how it's going to impact HR, I mean, no one knows. You're just guessing. You know, you mentioned kind of early in our conversation about how the role of HR has just completely turned inside out, right? I mean, it is almost unrecognizable.

We are responsible for so much. And there certainly is a theme in our function and field, especially since COVID of burnout, right? I mean, a lot of us have experienced burnout. We have colleagues and friends in HR that are feeling burnout. What is your advice to the HR professionals out there that are experiencing burnout? Get a new job?

No, I'm kidding. Get a new job. That's what you said, Lee, right? Go to the streets. Go to the streets. Start a new job. That's what you said, Lee, right? Go to the streets. Go to the streets. Start a podcast. After going to God, go to the streets. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Burnout's tough. Burnout's a very open and determined, I think people burn out for a lot of reasons. In my experience, I think the people who aren't experiencing burnout and are the tightest, you know, they have a mission. They believe in the company mission and they drank the Kool-Aid and they're going. And like, you know, Lee, one of the things you said on a podcast I was watching was about core values.

How they're like just posted on some wall and no one knows them and they just, oh yeah, these are our core values. But, you know, honesty, and by the way, I just lied to my employee down the street here, right? Like and it's like getting companies to really live those core values to hire by them to fire by them to Understand what the mission is to have you know? KPIs and metrics that they're engaged in and like, you know be Participating in where the company is and where the company is going and knowing where they are in it.

I think that's so important today because especially the newer generations coming into the workforce, you know, they want to be part of something. And if it's just, oh, we just come in and punch a clock and do our job and leave, we're not tied to anything bigger. That's creating a lot of burnout from what I'm seeing. And another thing is, post-COVID is work-life balance. I think HR professionals have to really embrace the work-life balance more than they ever have. Because during COVID, you got to have lunch with your kids, spouse, you were home, you got to have a lot of that stuff that you hadn't had, and now people are craving that. So developing that within the culture of the workplace, I think, is key to helping people

avoid burnout. I love that. And then to your previous point about future skills for HR, I mean, it's being more analytical, it's being more strategic, you know, a bigger partner with your leaders and how can an HR professional establish boundaries and protect their boundaries and maybe clear some of those non-value added or more administrative tasks off their plate? Maybe they can reach out to you, Matt, just saying. Yeah.

I mean, we do monthly webinars, right? So they can very easily jump on our monthly webinars. We just did one last month about ice raids, because now ice raids are this huge thing in that everyone's talking about how to do an ice raid, right? How to manage it when it happens. So we always want to be a resource for these business owners and HR leaders because every month something new is coming up right and it's like there's so much it's like drinking from a faucet right so we want to be that resource that can provide you

know either one-on-one if they're a client where they have a dedicated HR manager and they can call them anytime they need them or if they're just kind of getting to know us and they want information about what's going on in the market we always want to be there as a resource for anyone who wants to talk with us. Part of this, which can include like 300 or 299 or 500, 499 a month where an organization can have unlimited access to employment attorneys, HR documents.

So those that are listening like, oh, Matt seems like a nice guy. I will say also like the things that people say about you online are also nice, which is important to us because we do our due diligence and it's all true. But it's just, it's great to be able to, you know, we appreciate your support of the show, but also being able to work with an organization because so many times we get the question of like, ah, we're looking for a resource and it's, you know, cost effective and people are saying good things about what you're

doing. So thank you. Well, I paid all those people. So I mean, I assumed. Well, you know, we're happy to say even more. Just we'll see in Puerto Rico. We'll see you. I appreciate the kudos on that. And you know, my belief is, is really we offer the best HR solution in the market because we do so much stuff that no one else does. Right.

It's a dedicated HR manager. It's not an 800 number. We believe in really partnering with companies and being that resource. We've got clients that are 10, 12 years with us. And the HR manager and the client have a personal relationship. We do unlimited access to employment law attorneys.

So when things like employment agreements and separation agreements and all those things come up, they have a resource. So we wanna provide that extra level of service to these employers, because we know what's gonna come up, right? I mean, the founder, he founded this company 20 years ago. So it's been around for so long and he's seen so much that I feel like we're able to kind

of offer and stay ahead of what's coming based on all this knowledge we have in our organization. It's all about the relationship, isn't it? It is. It's so much about the relationship and it's also about partnering. It's like we're not looking to replace the HR person. We're looking to partner with them so they can have the highest in use, best use of their time to drive the organization forward. And it happens through ongoing relationships, right? People want to work with people they know, they like, they trust. And it only happens through continued engagement. What a perfect closing message. Thank you so much. Matt Taylor, everyone,

president of Guardian HR. I love the insights on the future of HR. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. And I believe we're doing a $500 discount for anybody that signs up through the show or mentions. I think it's ghrbesties.com. So you can go to that website or if you speak to one of the people on our team, just mention you heard about us on the site and it's a $500 discount. There you go. We love it. And we even have our picture on there looking good. So go check out ghrbesties.com.

Thank you for doing that as well. I know our besties always appreciate a good budget savings. Yeah. Well, who doesn't, right? Okay. Thank you, Matt. Oh my gosh. It's so great hearing from a president perspective in the HR space, don't you think? Do you think Matt makes people call him President Taylor at work? Would you do that?

P.T. for short. I have seen organizations that have a lot of people that have a president title. And I always have this visioning in my mind of people being like, call me president. I would say call me Madam President Heard if I'm going to name myself president of my own company. Like if you worked at a bank? Or everyone's a president? Yeah, exactly. Madam Monsieur President Taylor. I may go by the prez. Yeah, exactly. Madame, Monsieur, Monsieur President Taylor. I may go by the Prez. I like that. Just a little jazzy. You know what I mean?

Prez. Hey, Prez. I don't want to be like King. Yes. King Jackson. Yes, a king, not a queen. Thank you very much. That does sound fitting.

Oh, gosh. Well, questions and comments to close this out, ladies. Any questions or comments? I had a quick comment, just a helpful tip, maybe. So earlier in the episode, we were talking about emails and the amount of emails we get. And one thing I do is I have a subfolder in my inbox called Come Back to Me. I named it that like as a joke. Only me sees it. But sometimes like if an email is too long and I'm like, oh, that's a lot of words and I only have three minutes till my next meeting, I'll drop it in there. And then typically, when my day has calmed down, or it might not even be till the next day, I will go back to that email and I'll like click it unread. So I make sure I actually read it because I'm also one of

those that like obsessively has to have zero unread emails. I know not everyone's like that. So that will bother me. So I'll have to go back and read it. But that's just like something that I've done. Like I have stuff that I need to work on and maybe follow up with like subfolders, but I also have like, come back and read me. You dumb bitch, because you'll forget. Do you have that as the full title? I decided not to just because it's a work issues laptop, but like... Fair. I just have a quick comment. Entrepreneurs like Matt Taylor, and being a benefits broker and all of that.

Impressive, like impressive AF. I love hearing stories about people that see a need and they go and fill it. What the heck? It inspires me as a new entrepreneur and a solopreneur at that. Like, okay, wow, I can do this. Like wow, just take some tenacity and good partnerships and all of that. So I don't know, I've been inspired. I have a question for you all, which is, we were joking around because the CEO of Guardian and their bio talks about their vacation home. And so if you all were to have a vacation

home, spare no expense, and don't worry about taxes, forget compliance, where would you want to have a vacation home anywhere in the world? London. Oh, wow. Wow. Mayfair. What's Mayfair? I don't, I've never been there.

Oh, just a neighborhood. Okay. Like in London proper. Because it's such a great base. Well, you know, I have that thing for accents. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm a hoe for y'all.

I am. I just am. Okay. Oh, the way it just, they just go into for accents. OK, I'm sorry. I'm a hoe for y'all. I am. I just am. OK. Oh, the way it just they just go into my ear. Oh, like a liquid. But anyways, yeah, but just airport minus, you know, a few weeks ago when Heathrow shut down for a few days. But just being a hub like that, just love it. The art, the culture. God, mine is going to sound so boring.

But I want it to be close enough that I don't have to waste a full day of travel to get to it. You want to use it. Yeah. I want to genuinely be able to use it and frequently. So, Orange Beach, Alabama is only six hours away from my house and also a quick plane trip. So, that's probably... I grew up going to that beach. There's nothing super special about it. Like I love it personally, but there's nothing like like my true answer would probably be Fiji. But I'll take some Bora Bora. Yeah. Like I don't want to waste

an entire 24 hours traveling. I want to get there. So yeah, probably like a beach for sure. Yeah. Actually, Australia. Oh, I know, right? Well, I was, I was thinking about this because, because I hadn't thought about my answer really far in advance. And so first I was going to say the villages. Because I do, I swear. But you can stay with your parents. Exactly. That's so I don't need to, I don't need to. I want to visit. Yeah. I want us to like buy the house next to your parents and just like hang out at

the villages. The house across the street is for sale as my mom has told me many times between the live music constantly and one at the time I spent $11.50 on six drinks. Wow. Literally. Not for myself, but just for myself. But I would place, there's a place called Noosa in Australia. And so first of all, you fly into the airport.

That's called the sunshine coast. So like already you're going to land there. Lovely. It's beautiful. Yeah. It's so it's super pretty. Totally chilled. The only thing was I went there and I was like, I like to body surf.

I can't actually surf. I did try, but I body surf. But I had like, well, this is going to be TMI. Anyway, we got back from the condo and we're changing to go to dinner or whatever and I'm coming out of my bathing suit I had a whole bathing suit of seaweed like literally Get a seaweed diaper 100% in my like at that time like after a four-year-old was like lost his shit Like it was it was like so beware. So when you go, don't body surf. Just sit and enjoy

it. But it's so lovely. So if anyone's been there, you will know it's literally peace on earth. Oh, gosh. I love that. Well, now I'm just thinking about vacation. I know. See? There we go. We're going to work hard, work hard, play soft. There you go. Vestes, we hope you're taking some time off here. We're getting up to summer. Don't forget to use that code at GuardianHR, the special besties site that said if you want to save and get kudos for your budget, so your CFO will send you a very long and

lengthy personal email about how wonderful that was. Love it. Thanks for listening, besties.