HR, Remote Work, and Taxes; Redefined featuring Investors Bank and Berdon LLP.

so now you're in an untenable situation are you really going to pay taxes to two states well the answer is maybe you will um without a little bit of advance planning um there are there are some ways to manage the situation you know we could talk about that for hours but but the devil's in the detail and we have so many states and so many different scenarios [Music] well without further ado tonight's lineup mike mcintyre director of business and government banking and investors bank elaine rizzo chief human resources and learning officer at investors bank hr richard goldstein senior tax principal at burden llp and karen bennett chief human resource officer at burden llp first about investors headquartered in short hills new jersey is a full-service commercial bank member fdic that has been serving customers since 1926 almost a complete century with over 27 billion in assets and a network of over 150 retail locations investors delivers personalized services and products tailored to the needs of its customers business customers and consumers alike burden burden llp founded in 1917 they are over a hundred years old is consistently rank among the nation's top accounting and advisory firms with with over 400 professionals and staff burden services include accounting tax financial and management advisory services special thank you to jason jason bacharach and derek um out at investors bank and matt greco mac director thank you also for your assistance on putting together tonight's show on tonight's show we will discuss hr changes and challenges caused by the pandemic which hopefully we're on the other side uh telecommuting and the way it affects his taxes and business adjustments to the new normal without further ado special special thank you and welcome to our incredible lineup thank you and joining for me joining me here on mind your business um we're going to open by uh turn to mike mike thank you uh again it's been uh it's always a pleasure to have you on as a intro to the show as a start could you please share with us some of the recent changes in banking that you're seeing now in february 2022. great to see you yeah yeah always always fun to be here yeah i think the the biggest uh the biggest uh change right now is is some of the uh forecasting coming out of the fed which is that they're gonna raise interest rates in 2022 right we've we've been in a in a near zero rate environment for the last several years as a result of covid uh and and the guidance coming out of the the fed in and dc is that rates are forecasted or projected to go up uh as soon as the end of the first quarter of this year and so uh this is becoming a a new event that we're going to have to adapt as as as a bank of course and obvious business owners you know potentially the cost of credit may go up slightly and so these are are compelling events that are going to be occurring throughout uh 2022. we're seeing customers looking to speed up their refinancing given the fact that rates if if we do believe what's coming out of washington are going to go up you know taking advantage of of the historically low interest rates and so we're seeing quite a bit of uh activity uh around around refinancing and then lastly you know supply chains continue to be stressed i mean you go shopping these days and you know shelves still have a little bit of uh you know under understaffed and inventories remain a challenge but you know i think you know for 2022 there is clearly a pivot happening on the economic side and it's coming out of the fed now i'm reminded with uh mike's prediction here i just an important note this episode was recorded on tuesday february 1st so therefore you know the the federal government may or may not decide to make any specific tweaks or any uh therefore always check on the latest information especially the people are going to be watching this in the second quarter of the third quarter we have youtube viewers that will watch it once it gets posted so always check uh with your with your professionals regarding the latest information and in general and we're going to be talking of course with experts from burden always check for with your with your financial advisor your lawyer your accountant about any particular issues that reply that apply to state and local taxes uh that's just a general note now again turning back to mike how has banking been affected as far as people working remote or in person because we know that investors is like is a people's bank and prides itself on retail locations but yet many people are just asking or demanding whether to work remotely how maybe you could just expand on that well you know first of all i mean speaking for from from my businesses we we continue to adapt to our customers needs right these aren't decisions that are coming from from me or from anybody in particular our customers uh their expectations have evolved over the last couple of years and so the way we are engaging with our customers continues to change right we've talked about this the last couple years digital engagement is is a key driver for how our existing customers use the bank services every day our methods of marketing and how we interact with both customers and and candidly prospects uh has has also changed it is not unusual for for myself because i'm talking to customers every day or my bankers to have a combination of both in-person meetings and remote meetings on the same day right there there is a little bit of an increased level of efficiency but this is a people business i was out in an event last night with several hundred people i'll be out in an event tonight with customers and prospects but guess what i can also you know in between in-person meetings squeeze in a 30-minute call with an accounting firm like a burden like with richard goldstein here on this on this call tonight or i can get out and speak to another prospect you know outside of the territory we've become a bit more flexible but our customers and our prospects and candidly the the the the market demands a bit more enhanced flexibility these days now mike before i get to elaine one more question here can you expand on the value of referrals now that that's that's a um you know it's known as a referral is really the best form of marketing because it means someone who you touched is then referring someone else so therefore it's it's it's in someone else's words it's not you pushing it but you expand that i mean you've heard me say this before right credibility branding presence those are the foundations that you must demonstrate to whomever you're working with whether it be a customer or or a prospect or or an accounting firm before you can even have the right in my opinion to ask for a a referral but a referral is essentially it's the highest form of of of acknowledgement that that you bring value that you are a value-add beyond their product or service because invariably there's always be somebody cheaper out there or there may be a product that's that's perhaps better in terms of how it's priced but at the end of the day there there's a value add for for what we do and it's a combination of in my opinion the credibility that you bring you know your presence and how you're adding value to the customer but most importantly you know the brand right and so i work for a great brand that has built itself mainly on growing through delivering great customer service and as a result of that service earning the right and and most importantly the privilege to ask for a referral and so for me building on on those foundations of credibility uh strong brand and presence really drive the the behavior that you want to see now one more question before we get to elaine because uh if i may i'm sorry elaine this is just an important one um wall street journal just had a whole story about this about keeping talent in-house uh trying to hold on to talent in this in this environment which is uh unique and tough in many different respects you know talent is a company trains its people invests so much time into it and yet their challenges today and holding on to top talent perhaps you can just give give some guidance on that my reaction it's it's a people business i talk to my entire team uh weekly uh either in person or remotely i talk to the people that report to me on a daily basis i find it against talk about referrals before you know building a credibility with your teams built building a consistency of approach has been really important to us we have worked really hard as a bank and as a firm to be a people company right and i think that theme starts from the top down and we work really hard and you know and lane's a great example that as our chief hr officer to make sure that we're constantly looking out for our employees but most importantly you know in endorsing and and supporting their their success and and their achievement and we spend a ton of time on on training and learning but most importantly coaching and really being engaged with our with our employees so you know on on that point elaine let me let me welcome you to the show that was a great segue yitzhak it's it's great to have you here elaine and uh really looking forward to having this conversation with you tonight you know you you run hr here uh at investors and you know to kind of build upon what what yitzhak was saying can you speak a little bit about what's being termed in 2022 the great resignation yes well thank you for having me everyone and always good to see you mike i think that you know the great resignation is you know a lot of companies and not just banks but just corporate america are hearing from their employees that flexibility is you know extremely important it's no more i sort of want to have it it is i need it now and i think having gone through the pandemic i think people really you know took a step back on their lives to see what was important and the balance that they need moving forward and as a result you know it really is a war for talent right now and i think you know culture is very important as well in terms of what people are looking for when we engage with our employees and just what you were talking about my relative to their careers and you know making sure that we're having that connection with people but culture is very important our connection to the community how we value the talent how we value diversity and i think people today especially if you're a front-line worker i think that's where we're seeing you know the majority of our turnover and i think frontline workers are really evaluating where they want to be the flexibility what's important to them and they want to connect to that company and so that's a little bit about what we're seeing with the great resignation period and so and so building upon that we you know we we get a little bit of resignation i won't say a lot but we get we get our share of resignation how have how have we evolved and how have you evolved the hr process in in back filling and recruiting talent these days yeah you know like most companies we are out doing every possible thing we can through social media through college recruiting referrals are a huge part of how we hire here at investors and so we are talking with our employees and making those connections uh but you know i'm not unlike every other company we are out there on social media doing everything we can um but it is about a personal connection with people and when we bring people in and how we are able to attract talent is really through the connection of our you know our community to our managers how we help develop their aspirations how we meet their needs so you know we've done a pretty good job and despite the slightly higher turnover that we're experiencing we're really we've been in a really good position like investors has very deep roots in its community and we are known for our culture among our people and that word has certainly spread and it's left us in a good position to keep uh competing for the talent of the market now elaine just a a key question which is i guess a to a degree a source of frustration right is that the cdz the cdc changes their guidelines on a frequent basis meanwhile you're running branches you have 100 over 150 branches in the entire new york new jersey area how do you like i you know how do you keep up with that and how do you know and pushing out the information letting people know and keeping everyone up to date how do you manage that well we've been awesome communicators from the start so you know when we started out with the pandemic we made a commitment to talk to our people on a weekly basis so you know it's i'm very blessed to have a great legal team and a great benefits team who helped me monitor all of these you know changing walls and regulations you know i think it's also about the attitude that we have toward those changing regulations it's it's frustrating i can't tell you it is not as there are different rules for different counties or different states but in the heart of it we believe that the cdc federal and states are all trying to protect lives and at the core of what i do you know my job throughout the pandemic not only to shepherd our team but really was to protect our team you know i embrace all the changes personally and i make sure they're well communicated because i know it's going to save lives so i for me it's about having a positive attitude about the changes our amazing lineup tonight is mike mcintyre director of business and government banking at investors bank elaine rizzo chief human resources and learning officer at investors bank richard goldstein senior tax principal at burton llp and karen bennett chief human resource officer at burden lmp tonight's show brought to you in part by investors bank member fdic and burden llp well richard great to have you back on the show thank you um yeah let's jump right in let's talk about telecommunity now this this uh there's a vantage point of uh from the business itself how they compute taxes for their employees that are not working on site on site and then you have the uh the employee side right that how do they file their their income taxes you know where is their domicile etc perhaps you could break that out and explain it thank you yeah it's it's actually pretty interesting and we're living in interesting times um you know with telecommuting is now pervasive not that it didn't exist before but it it we're in a whole new world of telecommuting and um the telecommuters are facing things that they never had to think about before the big one double taxation right um i i work in somewhere in the midwest but you know my office that i report to is in new york my employer's in new york so you know naturally a person is going to think well you know i i work in iowa okay or pick fill in the blank right that's where i'm gonna that's that's where i'm gonna pay my my income taxes to uh and but no uh there's a number of states uh new york is one of them that require non-residents to pay income tax to the state like the state of new york if your primary office is there it doesn't matter where you're telecommuting from and and that's especially an issue when you're dealing uh you know with an employer that only has say an office in new york because that's your office there isn't any other office right um so uh let me give you an example that you know to make this uh to flesh this out a little bit because it is a weird concept right so imagine that you know you are telecommuting from a state that doesn't even have an income tax like florida right and you know lucky you you're in florida you don't get you don't have to pay state income taxes but your but your office is here in new york well um under as i had said before the new york uh rules uh that income is sourced to new york you gotta file a non-resident income tax return and and pay new york taxes and and that's a big big surprise but you know it can be worse it could be much worse you could be living in a state that also has an income tax right and as i mentioned up front um the state where you're working has you know logically every right to think that you're going to pay your taxes to them after all you're sitting there in your home office working away on your computer holding conference calls doing all your business in their state but no uh so new york in that instance is a state uh that would say that no you've got to pay tax to us too so now you're in an untenable situation are you really going to pay taxes to two states well the answer is maybe you will um without a little bit of advanced planning um there are there are some ways to manage the situation you know we can talk about that for hours but um but the devil's in the detail and we have so many states and so many different scenarios um you know take a state like uh pennsylvania pennsylvania also has a rule very similar to yours um if you're working at your home telecommuting but you know let's say your your main office is in pittsburgh right um so pennsylvania wants its tax but unlike new york pennsylvania has tax treaties with a number of states like new jersey virginia west virginia ohio maryland so there they offer some protection and in those states um they've all agreed all they've all agreed for the benefit of the employees to only tax the individual in the state where they are a resident and that's how it gets worked out um so i think that's pretty interesting and pretty concerning at the same time so richard it's uh it's mike mcintyre great to have you on here and i want to i want to build that on the state question because uh this is one clearly as as people are getting ready to file for their 2021 tax return i suspect that this is going to become you know an increased area of angst for them um you know telecommuting uh and the implication on states what can what can somebody do in the short term to be better prepared to address this well i i think it's really uh it's it's a great question and it's something that needs to be done uh really at the employer level you know the employers need to begin to think about um the fact that they have a multi-state workforce and in order for there to uh you know sort of be peace between the employees and employers you you want you know you're in an untenable situation to tell your employee look i have i'm as an employer i'm with i'm obligated to withhold in new york state because you know this is the office out of which you're based but i'm also obligated to withhold in another state where you're working because under that state's laws you're working there you have to pay taxes so it's really the employer that you know has to do um has to do thinking about it you know one of the solutions and again there's all different solutions and and every you know particular circumstance needs to be addressed very specifically and uniquely but you know one of the concepts is well maybe you open an office in a state unlike new york and pennsylvania and delaware and a few other states that don't have this what's called the convenience of the employer test which is the thing i just spoke about where you're working at home but you're paying tax to the other state and maybe you open a satellite office and all your telecommuters are based out of that office that's you know a potential solution there's a lot of there's there's a lot of web you have to we to get through that and it won't work in every situation there are other solutions as well but as far as the employer is concerned you know their economic footprint has changed dramatically your tax footprint because by and large in the united states where a business is required defi is required to withhold income taxes on employees is required to file business income tax returns is required to register to collect sales tax that's determined by something called nexus and for the most part nexus means do you have an employee in the state do you have physical presence in the state which could be an office property inventory and in some instances economic nexus we can spend a whole episode on that so we won't go there so but imagine this suddenly you know maybe you had employees in five states before you had offices in three states and now you have employees in 15 states you went from nexus in three states to nexus in 15 states for withholding income tax sales tax business taxes excise taxes that is something that needs to be thought through the beginning not at the end uh because uh you'll you know that presents surprises that none of us not happy surprises right when the auditor comes knocking so um so yeah it's a different world for employers it's a much more complicated world for employers and state tax compliance so so let's talk a little bit then about about businesses themselves right so obviously you know burden has a great job in supporting you know middle market and commercial businesses as well as the individuals behind those companies and investors bank does the same and as we've talked about over the last couple of years how businesses have evolved to try to stay alive and to sit here stay around you know they've become more digitally engaged they've been able to do things outside of brick and mortar define revenue sourcing this is becoming a bigger and bigger topic for business owners i'd love to get your thoughts on it and it's a bigger and bigger topic for businesses it's a bigger bigger topic for state government because um the state you know the state taxes is is the state's revenue so the basic concept in the united states in state taxation is that uh any type of income sourcing that the state has in its provisions and statutes is has to meet certain constitutional standards the basic concept boils down to two methods for the most part of sourcing um you can allocate income to the place the headquarters right the commercial domicile of a company and that's usually done for you know sort of passive income interest dividends things of that nature but for active business income you know your bread and butter sort of stuff right um it's usually done based on uh uh two two different types of fractions one is called receipts sourcing which is it's pretty simple simple fraction you have a numerator you have a denominator denominator is all your receipts all your income all your gross receipts the is what was earned in that particular state and then you know and simplifying it you multiply your your income times that number ten percent if that's a ten percent ten percent of your income goes to that state um and then another one which is which has three sources it looks at where's your payroll where's your property where is your receipts three fractions if each one of those is 10 in the state then that state gets 10 but the rules aren't exactly the same in each state and so you can get situations where the same receipts are sourced to more than one state a situation you want to avoid with a little planning if you can and uh and then there's one other issue that's important which is you know how do you decide where the receipts are going in that numerator how do you decide what is in state some states say it depends where the work's done right that's called cost of performance other states say depends where is the market for your services if it's services say you're a law firm and you only have an oil office in new york right but you're consulting on a contract for building a building in california right well under california's laws those receipts may be california because the market the benefit is being received in california where the building's being built um as opposed to where the work is being done sitting at your desk in new york so and and so stay so there you have conflict because you can have one state doing it one way another state doing it another way both claiming the same receipts because they're using different rules if i may i wanted to actually turn to karen bennett now before we heard from elaine rizzo chief human resources officer at investors bank but now i want to turn to karen because from your perspective i mean the the dynamics of recruitment have changed drastically during covet and hopefully now we are post covered what what are some of the things you're seeing and some of the tips and recommendations that you can give to companies out there on on this delicate yet such an important subject yes well thank you so much for having me pleasure to be here um it's a great question also in all my years of being in hr i haven't seen a market like this before recruiting has changed significantly since the pandemic it's become a year-round function for most firms and not just on the responsibility of hr but also for the leaders in the organization and management getting involved so first you have to meet with a lot more candidates to find the quality qualified talent and because the pandemic has made a lot of people reevaluate the type of work that they do who they work for what they want to do the hours that they work it takes a lot of effort from everyone involved to find the quality of the quality candidates um so talent acquisition is always a key part of hr but during a poster pandemic i definitely see it as one of the number one challenges so the national talent market is definitely going to be key and opening up your positions to be hybrid or remote and putting them out there to um candidates across the states will definitely increase your applicant flow and help you get um you know more candidates uh through the door and we've been very successful at burden hiring talent at all levels from different states and again through all different areas within the firm one of the other things that i see that we're not going to go back back to is the in-person interviews as much anymore you know being able to interview candidates through zoom and teams has really been effective saves time and effort from everyone involved so i think that that's been a game changer and that also helps in terms of making offers to getting candidates the offers to acceptances and a quicker rate so that also has helped significantly another area though that i've been seeing is really just an inflation of salaries and this is across many positions in many industries you need to ensure that you're paying your talent very competitive market rates for their salaries so some employers are doing sign-on bonuses in addition to to being competitive it keeps the salaries manageable and it also attracts candidates and um some of the things that we do in house for us at burden um we offer um we offer bonuses for um client referrals so if an employee brings in a client they're able to get a bonus for that and also we have a very generous employee referral bonus program so if a candidate can refer somebody we hire them we're happy to pay them the finders fee versus maybe some recruitment firms or some recruiting agencies wow that that's also a great tip that uh because if someone's at the company and presumably they're they're very happy there and then they should if they turn to a friend and they they get them to join yeah that's you know and and the company is giving them uh you know a referral bonus to boots are like great you know you win for everybody it's a win for everyone and usually you'd wind up getting someone who's who's uh again the person who's referring is part of the team believes in the corporate culture and usually people's friends are similar to the way that they are so it's like win-win all around now karen you touched on this but maybe i could still hold on to this for another minute these days things that used to be abnormal are now normal can you tell us some other tips about the new norm for remote versus in person from of hr perspective sure um so since the pandemic employees are ranking company culture and work-life balance just as important as the traditional benefits and compensation packages that they're getting candidates want to know you know what is the firm going to offer me um where is my work location what are the work hours are there four business hours can i dictate my own hours so the traditional schedules of nine to five in an office aren't the typical norm anymore and most of the candidates are now requiring flexibility um so at our firm we've had several of our employees from full-time go to part-time hours because it was more of a convenience for them to handle you know family matters during the pandemic um but i've also seen some of our part-time people go to full-time hours because now they're fully remote and they're able to dedicate more time to work because they don't have to commute so it kind of works both ways but one of when we do go back to the office and i do see that happening more in a hybrid approach for most of us it's going to be a different environment and i really view the future office environment as a destination and basically what i mean by that is a place that we all go to to have meetings to meet with clients maybe meet with new hires have social interactions have events um and then when we go home and work on our work from remote days that'll be more like the core work that we do and kind of um you know not as many social interactions but more kind of focusing on the day-to-day so as a result of the new normal and employees being either hybrid or remote firms are going to have these two groups of employees so training and development are really going to be important as well as employee engagement teams have to know how to effectively manage each other and managers have to know how to ensure that they're communicating not just the people that are in the office with them potentially but also to the teams that aren't with them and that are remote um we do regular town halls in our firm as a way really to ensure that we're flowing communication across all levels and everybody kind of knows what's going on so it's going to be very important for everyone to treat their employees equally all firms look at everyone regardless of their work schedule uh whether they are remote or hybrid and treat everybody fairly so they all feel that they're part of the culture in the firm it's going to be very key karen before we go to a commercial break just on that note about the town halls uh holes i'm like excited about that how important is it to have ongoing and clear communication especially a firm like yours over 400 professionals how important does clear communication on an ongoing basis how critical is that it's definitely critical and we actually incorporated a new program called burden hub it's basically a program that we have where we meet regularly with our new hires and our remote staff and we have virtual lunches um t-billing activities discuss different firm initiatives to ensure that everybody's aware of kind of what's going on and how they can really be part of the firm we also do a lot of employee engagement surveys that's really important to really take a pulse and see you know how your firm is doing from de ni to leadership um to communication what are we doing well what areas can we improve on so that's also definitely a key to being successful and making sure that you're communicating well with your staff and as one of my main objectives as chro is to make sure that our people do feel um that they are part of an inclusive culture culture and that they do belong and feel part of the firm we're speaking with professionals at investors bank and burden llp a special thank you to all those who give me feedback on a regular basis i know tonight's show uh is uh quite important in fact if i may say even critical for small to medium-sized businesses we're talking about and in case you tuned in late no worries this show will be up on the podcasting channel by tuesday but we're talking about uh hr remote work and taxes redefined now that we are as they say please god post pandemic we all hope we are on the other side um i'm going to open by turning to the hr experts on this on tonight show elaine rizzo chief human resources and learning officer at investors bank and karen bennett chief human resource officer at burton llp um elaine karen you're both dealing with different hr changes and challenges however i'm sure there's got to be some similarities some patterns that you're both seeing in that regard perhaps first i could turn to elaine and then to karen yes i think you know i sit on several different boards and certainly councils across the new jersey new york gary and i think we're all seeing very similar types of you know issues um from engagement how you connect your new hires to learning and development you know are you going to be a hybrid environment are you going to be fully remote what are the challenges and bringing people back i mean that is one of the things we're spending a lot of time on you know throughout the councils i sit on and certainly here at investors just you know how do you engage your workforce back make them feel safe so i think we're seeing a lot of similarities across the business it doesn't matter whether you're in tech or in a bank where you know we're all experiencing very similar challenges and helping one another you know navigate through those challenges by sharing and creating you know great ideas and strategies but certainly that's what i'm seeing out there you know setting aside the remote and flexibility issues which everybody is experiencing from their workforce of what they want for the future but you know it is about their engagement how we move our culture forward and uh those are all still challenges today and now i turn to karen yeah yeah i i agree with everything you're saying um i think the tight labor market though is probably one of the biggest connections i think that that we have and um that a lot of employers are seeing right now um one thing that we've been doing is just being a little bit more broad in terms of our job descriptions and the candidates that we do bring in so i think for most firms if you see maybe two out of the four key attributes that you are looking for in a candidate and just know that you might have some training and some staff development to help get them um you know to the next level i think that that's helped also in terms of bringing people in um and giving the development that they need because you don't want to miss um somebody that's really bright that really can add a lot of value even though they don't have the exact experience um and that that's helped us also karen elaine it's mike here um you know the the pandemic isn't one event right it's it's been ups and downs throughout the last two years right and so what what what may have worked in march of 2020 may not work in march of 2022 um how how have how have each of you been able to maintain and keep motivated uh the the various employees that they're that are in your groups across your organizations uh karen i'll turn over to you first and we'll go to elaine sure um so i think one of the core areas that we paid a lot of attention to during the pandemic and i know that we'll continue to focus on as a standard practice is basically more mental health support to our employees all of us have had struggles during the pandemic health concerns family issues um you know even the social and political climate it's been a lot for everyone to deal with and all these factors take a big toll on employees and employers in terms of productivity we've had an eap program which is basically an employee assistance program that our employees and their families can use to get help with counseling find services referrals all these different types of services available but we really expanded on that during the pandemic we had a lot of well-being seminars you know seminars focused on coping strategies time management um you know stress management we've had online yoga classes that were really well received um and access to other types of paid sites that give them discounts to you know gyms or or health you know healthy food type vendors um so that's also been very very appreciated we also um do meal allowance perks for our staff during you know peak times which really helps just to have one less thing to think about when you're um you know in the throes of work and there's so much going on to not have to think about that is also you know definitely a plus so we're really just considering all the other um factors in our employees lives that we need to try to help them with and and you know however we can support them you know that's what we're we're we're here for and i don't see a lot of these types of benefits going away post-pandemic great elio trevor to you yeah i know i totally agree with what karen said and i think those are all the right areas to focus and and certainly throughout the pandemic we have done many similar things but i will say investors has one of the most unique cultures and not only have we from our de eye council sorry um really help continue to you know celebrate cultural events our women's leadership group in particular zoned in on how to help people through change you know really focusing karen like you said on the mental and well-being of each of our employees you know we also did and we have a culture department we're very unique in that we have a culture officer dennis budnick who's phenomenal on his team and i will say that he has kept this culture going we do all kinds of you know really fun things like sing-alongs and family night and how we engaged our not only our employees but their family and their children through a massive amount of virtual events and really i'm so grateful to dennis and all of the help that he's provided to the bank during this pandemic because because i'll tell you we have as many as 800 or a thousand people on kids singing songs it was wonderful and so you know we're very unique and probably one of the few companies i know that have a culture officer but they they did a phenomenal job it was a lot of fun and i think culture continues to be very important in the future of how you engage your remote workers and how you make them part of the company and certainly with all the things that hr does and learning and development and all of those connections but there is a personal connection that you build through these types of cultural events both at the you know d e and i level women's leadership you know any type of organization that sits underneath our dna council but this is certainly having some fun and engaging families has been just you know i think enormously helpful to our population you're listening to another great episode of mind your business on 710 wor you know let's let's talk about recruiting i mean but both firms here have have had to go out and and hire talent over the last uh two years and you know no easy task no is no easy assignment here uh to get that uh to get that done given where we've come from the last two years elaine i'll turn over to you first you know how how have recruiting practices changed over at investors yeah i mean i think you know the most difficult thing for us in the beginning was just to take everything virtual and to get every you know that's not that wasn't all that hard in that we had teams and we had you know certainly different area you know ways of technology to use but was really getting people comfortable with that interview process you know to really be able to speak with that candidate have the same experience and then even engaging our managers and how to get comfortable with interviewing you know over the virtual environment i think that was a huge challenge in the beginning and that's certainly gotten better and better um but that that was one of our biggest challenges from a recruiting i think that the great news is is for all of us we've been able to expand our talent searches beyond you know the new jersey and metro area and so if you are open to hiring people and have them be remote you now can expand to you know 50 states and i was just looking through some job boards last night just to see if i opened up you know a search for this job and just said united states you know how many jobs came up it was crazy the same number of jobs i saw you know advertised in new york were advertised throughout the us and so you know recruiting is just changing every minute you know getting comfortable with the virtual environment making sure that our managers feel comfortable in that hiring i think all of those have been challenges but we're working through it we certainly had enough practice over the last you know year or two so it's getting better but i like karen uh karen yeah and and karen as i turn to you know when i think about accounting firms and professional firms i think about the old tablecloths in the college cafeteria where all the firms were around the horseshoe looking to give out applications for for for new hires and for and for college grads you know most colleges have been remote or hybrid the last two years how has burden been able to attract new associates and onboard talent sure so um we really have a large on campus um you know footprint we go to 15 or more different colleges and universities each year we hire probably over 50 or so full-time and interns every year also so the transition from being in person and i do like those career fairs with the tablecloths and the pens and all the tchotchkes that you give out but all that went remote and it really was an adjustment for the employers the career offices and the students for year one it was definitely difficult it was a lot more time and effort logistics wise it was a challenge but there were definitely a lot of benefits to the virtual component a lot of the students felt more comfortable just talking to employers and in that type of format um we were able to branch out like um elaine mentioned to to universities all across the states and not just kind of local or tri-state area schools um we um you know we're able to do a lot of one-on-one events with students because we didn't have to work with the career offices we were able to do it through the software platforms that we use um so there was a lot more student engagement and a lot more interaction that we maybe didn't have in the past with some universities and also the employee branding that we were able to do you know directly to these candidates um through the online tools really were helpful and getting our message across of who we are as a firm what is our culture like what can we offer you not just the job description and kind of here's what you're going to do every day but what else can we offer you and what else does this firm do that aligns with what they wanted to do and their values now uh as we're approaching to close the time flies we've had a great time and shared a tremendous amount of content but i just would like to turn to elaine karen and then a final thought from from mike here about and and actually karen brought this up before and that is in from an hr perspective the importance of of of accommodating and having the discussions about the work-life balance the pandemic gave people time to think about what's important in life what do they want to put their energies into what they want to accomplish and therefore that obviously has to balance with their with their day job so to speak so perhaps maybe karen you can elaborate that then we'll turn to elaine and then we turn to michael on a closing thought on that so work-life balance means a lot of different things to a lot of different people it's not a one-size-fits-all approach some employees want flexibility to work a hybrid schedule some days in the office some out some want the opportunity to pick their hours maybe they log in in the morning take the afternoon off and log back in at night so employees really need to realize that everyone's personal situation is different their career goals and objectives are different so you just can't have a one type of approach or one type of agreement schedule to provide your employees candidates really are dictating now what they want and we really have to listen to them it's it's you know almost every candidate coming through the door um is giving you what what ideally they'd want to work in terms of how and and where um and hours so um it's definitely very important um one of the things that i really have noticed is the candidates really wanting to know what the firm's values are not just the culture but what are the firm's values and you know firm our firm has always been a very philanthropic um you know um caring firm and you know expanding on our burden cares program which is uh basically a volunteer type of program that we have where um our employees can go out and volunteer at different types of activities we really are encouraging that and we're actually allowing people more during the work day to do that taking that time off to give back uh which has been really you know very well received and um also you know just makes people feel good that they're able to do something and and the firm's really happy to do that so elaine yeah i think during the pandemic what people found out and i think many companies found this out as well is that they can do their job just as well from home as they could in the office at least we have heard that you know just so many times over and over again and to be honest we've had you know a wonderful two years at investors bank and we our employees i can't be any more grateful to our front line workers and to our corporate workers who made this adjustment to go fully remote for a great deal of the pandemic but people have realized i can do my job and they're getting better at so in the beginning i think people were distracted with their children you know pets i mean i had several occasions during zoo meetings to see the tales or barking of animals but people have gotten better at it they have established their home offices you know they are much more in control of their day than they were at the height of the pandemic so i think companies in general are getting more comfortable with the environment because they're seeing our employees can do the job our earnings are great and people are happy and so those things all are going hand in hand and i i really believe people are getting better at it day after day in terms of working from home i guess lastly i would just offer that you know companies have to also balance their business life and while the market is demanding certain things and people want you know to set their own hours each company has to look at what is right for their business and how they serve their customers you know what it is how their culture is evolving and they do have to say so in how it all shapes up and i think if they work with their employees and they you know meet them halfway in what is this new world of flexibility i think you'll come to a great outcome and i can tell you at investors we've worked hard to maintain our hybrid environment we've given people a lot of flexibility and it has worked out very well now our frontline workers who i respect you know so deeply for coming in every day investors bank was open throughout the pandemic and our frontline workers uh they just rock and they've done an amazing job so thank you i hope that helps answer the question mike we have around 30 seconds left the final take here you know my thought is you know work life balances is highly correlated to customer expectations right and i think elaine had touched on it you know for the majority of our customers um we didn't miss a beat the the branches and the front lines were open at all times and we were able to deliver the value and service you know for for burden and and their firm i suspect that uh their customer sat scores are just as high as ours in terms of you're not missing a beat either right a lot of this though comes from the end user right the customer or the business they've adapted in the way they perceive the value that finance services providers like ourselves and burden are bringing to these to these relationships every day and at the end of the day it's a relationship right and so we've evolved our customers evolved and the needs evolved and candidly we've been able to maintain a a very strong pace of results for for both firms over the past two years what an amazing show mike mcintyre director of business banking at investors bank elaine rizzo chief human resources and learning officer at investors bank richard goldstein senior tax principal at burton llp and karen bennett chief human resource officer at burton llp tonight show brought to in part by investors bank member fdic and burning llp well this wraps up a great edition of mind your business again by tuesday the entire episode will be up on all the popular podcasting channels this wraps up a great edition of mind your business tune in again next sunday night for another great addition to minor business right here on 7 10 wor have a successful week thank you for watching and make sure to subscribe to this channel and be notified every single time a new video goes live don't miss out on any of the weekly interviews that i have with top business leaders sometimes fortune 500 executives hit subscribe and turn on notifications [Music]