Have You Looked at Your Employee Handbook Lately?

Introduction:

This week, Jay Goltz and Dana White talk about their employee handbooks. Do they take them seriously? Or is it just boilerplate? Has anything changed since the pandemic? Is the handbook the place to remind employees that they are hired at will and can be fired at any time with or without a reason? Are there issues that should not be addressed in the handbook? When was the last time they updated it? When was the last time they read it? “Me, personally?” responded Jay. “Actually picked it up and read it?” Yes, Jay, that’s the question. “Years.”

— Loren Feldman

Guests:

Jay Goltz is founder and CEO of The Goltz Group.

Dana White is founder and CEO of Paralee Boyd.

Producer:

Jess Thoubboron is founder of Blank Word Productions.

Full Episode Transcript:

Loren Feldman:
Welcome Jay and Dana. Great to have you here. Today I want to talk about a topic that may sound a little mundane, but I think it’s pretty important, which is: what you tell your employees in your employee handbook. And I guess what I’m kind of wondering is: Is your handbook just corporate boilerplate B.S.? Or do you really use it as an opportunity to try to define what your company is about and what your employees need to know about it?

I’m also curious, what’s changed? I recently read an employee handbook of a Silicon Valley startup that made reference to a dress code for employees working remotely. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t in anybody’s handbook 10 years ago. Let me just start by asking: Do both of you have an employee handbook?

Dana White:
I do and have always had one since I opened.

Loren Feldman:
I think that’s unusual to have one right from the beginning?

Jay Goltz:
Yes, that is.

Dana White:
I’ve had one because I knew that this was going to be a different type of salon for this industry. A lot of hair salons don’t because they’re all independent contractors, or they’re commission based. Some of them do. They have, like, “This is our dress code.” They have policies, but they don’t always have a handbook. So I do, and have always had one.

Loren Feldman:
Jay, do you have one?

Jay Goltz:
I have one now. I’ve had it for quite a few years. But I can’t tell you I had one in the beginning.

Loren Feldman:
How long did you have the company before you had one?

Jay Goltz:
You know what, many years. I don’t remember… 10 years, 20 years. You also have to remember, when I started in business, there was no attention to small business, entrepreneurship, the whole phrase, “having a handbook.” I was in the prehistoric ages. I don’t think I heard that phrase for many years.

So I probably have had one now for 25 years, and I also, just to get perspective, I’m the first to say: I think it is important to have a handbook. I think it’s very important to have a handbook, so just because I didn’t used to have one, I was wrong. I should have had one. I think it’s very, very important. There are lots of things to cover in there.

Loren Feldman:
Jay, do you know when was the last time you actually looked at your employee handbook?

Jay Goltz:
We have been redoing it, and frankly, it’s been going on too long. We’ve been working on it for a couple years, and I just had a conversation with my HR person yesterday. She’s digging in to get it done.

Loren Feldman:
You didn’t exactly answer my question.

Jay Goltz:
Yeah, we haven’t changed it in years.

Loren Feldman:
No, I asked you: When was the last time you looked at it?

Jay Goltz:
Me personally? Actually picked it up and read it?

Loren Feldman:
Yeah.

Jay Goltz:
Years. But I know what the issues in there were, because I’ve discussed it with them. Like, “What are we doing about some of those things like FMLA pay?”

Loren Feldman:
I’m guessing that if you read it today, some things in there might surprise you. Or some of the absences might surprise you.

Jay Goltz:
Well, I’m waiting for the rewrite now, and then I will review it. But I certainly gave input. They asked me along the way, “What do we want to do?” And we did flesh out some subjects?

Loren Feldman:
Dana, when was the last time you looked at yours?

Dana White:
I looked at mine probably in January, February, the beginning of the year. I try to look at it at the beginning of the year, and then if we have addendums or things that we need to update, we add the update and post the update sign in the kitchen. And then we send out, in our intranet, a message saying, “We’ve got it up, and here it is.” So we really don’t print them anymore. We are giving them electronically.

Loren Feldman:
Was there something that prompted you to look at it as recently as January?

Dana White:
Just the staffing shortages. And just to make sure that we’re clear, we’ve had some staff who have done some things that are obviously in the handbook as not to do. But it was obvious to us that they’re not reading it. And so that’s why I stopped printing it, because our handbook’s almost 50 pages, front and back. And I print it well: color with a nice cover on it.

But if you’re not going to read it, save that expense. So we just make sure you’ve got it electronically on the intranet and in your own email. And then we encourage you to read it. If you don’t, that’s on you—at least I didn’t incur the cost of printing and you never looking at it.

Jay Goltz:
One of the things I do that I feel very strongly about is I have what I call “indoctrinations.” And every few months, I get all the new employees who have worked here for a month, two months, three months. I get them in the conference room. We go around the table, and everyone introduces themselves. Everyone talks about where they came from.

And then I go through and outline about the history of the company, what we’re all about. And I cover some really important stuff, and that stuff that is in the manual, but I really want to have an eyeball-to-eyeball. And one of the most important things in this meeting, I say to them: “Does everyone know who their immediate manager is?” And they raise their hands. Most people know that. And then I say, “Do you know who your manager’s manager is?” And I would say 25 percent of the time they get it wrong.

And the major point is: If you’ve got an issue here that you’re not happy about something and you want to discuss it, the corporate culture of this company is you should go ahead and talk to someone about it. And if you’re not happy with the answer you got from that person, you should go to their boss.

And that’s the kind of stuff that would be in an employee manual. And to me, it is far too important to go stick it in a book and hope they read it. So I cover probably three quarters of what is in the employee manual just in this meeting. And the stuff like, “Do they get paid for funeral pay?” or whatever, okay, they can go look that up themselves. It’s not a big thing.

But I think that’s one of the most important things I do. And if nothing else, I know that they personally have talked to me, and I’ve told them eyeball-to-eyeball. And at least I know I gave it my best shot to get them to do that. Whereas if I don’t have that meeting, I don’t know that they ever picked up the book. I don’t know if they ever read it. I don’t know if the HR person talked to them. At least I know I did something. I gave it my best shot.

Dana White:
I think that’s great because your company’s so big. Mine’s not that big. So there’s one manager, and then you know who that person’s boss is, and you know where Dana is, and the whole thing. I think when we get to a size where we have over 100 employees, yeah, I think that in-person orientation should happen.

Jay Goltz:
But here’s my question: Do you think that even with, whatever, 10 employees—you said you’re there—do you believe you’ve had a conversation with them, eyeball-to-eyeball, to say, “Listen, it’s very important to this company that people are happy here, and the customers are being taken care of. If there’s something here that you think is wrong, I encourage you to come talk to me about it if you don’t feel like you’ve gotten what you needed.” Do you have that conversation eyeball-to-eyeball with people?

Dana White:
Yep, and it blew up. I’ve said this on previous shows. We’re dealing with a very different workforce and we’re dealing with a group of people with very different business acumens. So when I started, I brought my corporate culture of being a good boss, of being open-door policy. And that was a disaster. Getting texts at two o’clock in the morning. The professionalism wasn’t there to understand the difference between a good boss and a friend.

Now, my manager does it. When you input Dana, people say, “Oh, I don’t have to talk to her. I want to talk to the owner.” And because I look like them, and I’m not doing something that most salon owners are doing, it gives them a sense of pride. So they’re looking for a reason to come talk to me. I’ve had a young lady ask me repeatedly the same questions about time off. And I said, “Do you feel uncomfortable speaking with your manager?” “No, I just want to talk to you.”

Jay Goltz:
Okay, you know what? I accept that. No, no. I accept that. I can see in your case, you need to have a little bit of a barrier between the leader and the manager. In my case, I’ve got the opposite problem, that nobody’s going to come seek me out. I always laugh at the open-door policy. I can tell you, there’s an inverse relationship between the bigger the company, the less likely someone’s going to come see you.

Like, I would challenge a thousand-person company: “How many times has someone come to your office, Bob?” Like, never. How many people have walked up to my office and sat down and said, “Can I talk to you for a minute?” Doesn’t happen. Now, I walk out to the floor, I go down, start a conversation. Yeah, once in a while somebody will say something.

Loren Feldman:
I just want to follow up on what you said about what you tell them at the orientation, Jay. If they don’t like the answer they get from their manager, they can go to their manager’s boss. It’s easy to imagine that turning into a difficult situation. Some of the managers might resent the fact that you’re encouraging people to do that. How often does that even happen?

Jay Goltz:
Very seldom, in my world. And I’m not saying I’m the expert on management. All I know is in our management and our place, I’ve found if you have competent managers, that doesn’t happen very often. It just shouldn’t, because the manager should be able to get the point across and get the job done. And I can just tell you, in practice, very seldom does someone go over their boss to talk to someone else. That’s kind of a symptom of a problem, as far as I’m concerned.

Loren Feldman:
But you feel it’s important enough that you emphasize that they can do that.

Jay Goltz:
Yeah. You know, I love the fact people have exit interviews. Oh, that’s valuable. You find out when someone’s already quit why they’re quitting. I mean, talk about locking the barn door after the cows are out. I mean, that’s crazy. I want them to know: Speak up, if there’s a problem here. And sometimes, the problem they have can’t be fixed, and they should go find another job. I mean, that’s the reality.

Dana White:
We do exit interviews, and they are a valuable tool. Again, we do them not because we’ve been distant during the process. It’s just that dynamic of: I have nothing to lose, because I’m leaving anyway. They’re employees, and so some people are reluctant to say certain things because they have to come to work here, at least in my industry.

When they are at home, and they know they’re not coming back, and we’re on a call with them or an exit interview, they’re likely to say more. We’ve even asked, “Why didn’t you bring this up while you were here?” “Well, because I didn’t want such-and-such to be mad at me.” “Well, what indication did you feel that they would give you that they would be mad at you?” “Well, I had this boss at another job…” So a lot of it had nothing to do with us. It had everything to do with what they were bringing from a past employer. So we value exit interviews. Again, for my industry, and for the age group of the people I’m working with, they feel more comfortable when they’re leaving versus when they’re there.

Jay Goltz:
I absolutely am not dissing—I think you should do exit interviews.

Loren Feldman:
Yes, you did.

Dana White:
You said, you said!

Jay Goltz:
No, no, no, no. I said: It’s a shame that they’re telling you on the way out after the fact. It’s not ideal. I’m suggesting you should do exit interviews. But I would hope that you’ve caught some of that stuff before they’re leaving in most cases and didn’t just find out after the fact. And I can tell you, it’s working.

There haven’t been many cases on the exit interview where they said something that was like, “Oh my god, I didn’t know about that.” It doesn’t happen a lot. It just doesn’t. You’ve got to work a little bit. You can’t just go put, “We have an open-door policy.” You’ve got to put a little work into it.

Loren Feldman:
So I’m sitting here, still processing that you obviously both consider employee handbooks to be very important. But neither of you has a lot of confidence that your employees are actually reading it. And I’m wondering, have you tried anything in the past to require people to read it, to make sure they read it? Have you made any attempts?

Dana White:
Yep, we sure do. So we’ll go over, during our morning meeting, parts of the employee handbook. And they’ll go, “Oh, what?” And we’ll say, “Yep, that’s on page such and such and such. Read it.”

Jay Goltz:
So, my answer is simple: I don’t care if they read it or not. It still serves an important function. A) If there are any issues of, “Oh, I have to take off for my mother’s funeral.” “Oh, check the handbook, you’ll see.” Okay. It’s a guideline as to our policies. It’s right there when they need it to reference it. And B) as I said before, some of that stuff is so important, I cover it in my—it’s not an orientation—it’s an indoctrination. A little different. There’s more teeth on it. This is like, “We need you to buy in and understand what we’re doing here. This isn’t showing where the bathrooms are.”

So I do think even if no one reads it, that doesn’t mean it’s worthless. It’s still the guideline for stuff. And the arbitrary, “Oh, someone took off for their mother’s funeral, should I pay him?” Well, we shouldn’t be arbitrary about that. Either we do or we don’t. And everybody should know. And if you don’t put it into a book and have all the managers have it, every time something comes up, people are just making up their own rules. Talk about dangerous.

Loren Feldman:
So you’re saying it’s important to have those rules in a book, just so you take the time to figure out what the rules are?

Jay Goltz:
Yeah, and if somebody asks, you say, “Oh, if you check, you’ll see in the handbook. We give you two days pay.” There’s lots of little silly stuff that I never paid attention to, like rollovers on vacation pay. Do you allow people to roll over vacation pay?

Well, I have to tell you, when you’re a company like mine, when you’ve got people here for 20 years, 25 years, you can have somebody with three months of accrued vacation pay. Now, think about this. Is that a problem? Yes, it’s a problem, because you don’t want someone leaving for three months.

And number two is, it increases your costs. Think about it. If you’re incurring vacation pay, and they’re coming into work, you’re paying them twice. So all of a sudden your labor is higher than it should have been because you budgeted for everybody taking their vacation pay. So now we’ve gone back and said, “Okay, you can roll over four weeks of vacation pay.” Until I had the problem, I never thought about it. But I literally had people with 16 weeks of vacation pay built up. It never occurred to me.

There are 10 more things like that, or 20 more. There’s not 500, but there’s 10 or 20 other things. I just had this conversation yesterday with the FMLA. Most companies require that you take vacation pay when you’re on FMLA. Because if you don’t, they can take 12 weeks FMLA, and then they can go and take their two months of vacation. And then they tell you they decided to quit. So you’ve just spent five months—

Loren Feldman:
Wait, who has two months vacation?

Jay Goltz:
Somebody who accrued could have accrued—okay, say a month. They could have taken their accrued vacation of four weeks, plus the 12 weeks. Well, now the person has been gone for 16 weeks. So you’ve just lost four months where you could have hired somebody, and it’s not a great thing. And from what I’m told, most companies require that you take vacation time while you’re out. I would have never thought about something like that.

Dana White:
I’ve always worked with contracts that said, “You either use it or you lose it. Use it by this day, and only a little bit of it’s gonna roll over—not all of it.” So that’s how companies have saved a lot of money. We don’t offer vacation time, so it’s not where we are. Once we get more of a corporate office with administrators, and maybe for our senior staff in the salons, we’ll offer it, but we don’t right now. I just think we’re too small.

Jay Goltz:
I mean, the fact is, letting you accrue some of it certainly is reasonable, but it’s not a great thing to have people with months of accrued vacation time. There are lots of little nuances to, like, in the olden days, I think it was pretty common—correct me if I’m wrong, Dana, you might know this—I think it was pretty common practice to put in an employee manual that if you discuss your salary with other employees, that could be cause for dismissal. That was like a standard thing. Not doing that anymore. That was standard fare.

Dana White:
In the early 80’s, in the 70’s, when I’ve looked at old contracts, I’ve read that, “Your salary is yours. Discussing it could be grounds for termination or could be cause for disciplinary action.”

Loren Feldman:
Let me run a couple of things by you. I mentioned that I saw a handbook recently. It’s not directly appropriate to your companies. As I said, it’s a Silicon Valley startup, and there are cultural differences for sure. But the language struck me as really interesting in some aspects, and I’d love to get your reactions.

One is, it started with kind of a warm opening: “We know it can be a little bit overwhelming starting a new job. There’s a lot to learn. There’s a lot to figure out. This is something of a guide to help you. We want you to succeed.” And then it quickly got to a reminder: “By the way, you are an at will employee, and you can be fired at any time with or without a reason.” And I understand why that language is there, and why one would think it belongs in the handbook. But it’s kind of a bracing choice of words for somebody who’s just starting a job. What do you guys think of that?

Jay Goltz:
I would have thought that—and you know, out of context, that’s tough. But if they say that—and maybe legally, they need to say that, that’s fine—I think followed up with, “With that being said, people who get dismissed at this company are dismissed for the following reasons,” and like, pay it off a little bit instead of, “Yeah, any day, we can just walk in and fire you.” I don’t think that’s a great message to leave hanging out there. I do think it’s very important to say, “Here are some ways that you will get fired from this company.”

And then there are things like: Do you pay severance pay? Should that be in an employee manual? I don’t think so. You’re talking about arbitrary? I think severance pay is absolutely arbitrary. In some cases, I think it’s appropriate.

Loren Feldman:
You think it should be arbitrary?

Jay Goltz:
Yeah, I’m not even gonna tell anyone else what to do. In my case, I believe for me, I want it to be arbitrary, because in some cases, severance pay is extremely appropriate and the right thing to do. And in other cases, it’s absolutely not appropriate. So I don’t think I’d want to go lay out in an employee manual how we handle severance pay.

Loren Feldman:
How about the issue of what is appropriate to be discussed in a workplace setting? This handbook—

Dana White:
Oh, that’s huge.

Loren Feldman:
—was pretty aggressive about saying—I forget exactly what the words were, but the attempt was to say—“We don’t want politics discussed in the office.” What do you think, Dana?

Dana White:
In my company, in the first handbook, we just talked about politics and religion. Now, I’ve had to add so much more to it. Again, our stylists can be young, and so talking about the fun you had last night with your new boyfriend to a customer is inappropriate. Talking about your conspiracy theories on Beyonce and Jay Z’s baby? That’s inappropriate. I mean, these are things that have happened.

We had one case where the gentleman stylist was trying to be complimentary to a customer who had just gotten her hair done, and he said, “Mmm your hair looks so good, you’re gonna make a baby tonight.” And she burst out crying, and she said, “You know what? We’ve been trying for a really long time. I hope so.” And he was just thinking he was funny.

Loren Feldman:
So what do you saying in the handbook to—

Jay Goltz:
You say, “Don’t be an idiot.” That’s the line of, “Don’t be an idiot.” That’s not a good policy.

Dana White:
Unfortunately, no. That’s not it.

Loren Feldman:
That’s not going to do it, Jay.

Jay Goltz:
No, that’s my point. I don’t think you can put everything in a handbook of what you can say. I would never put in the handbook, “You can’t talk about politics at work.” I think that’s ridiculous. I think if it becomes a problem, deal with it.

Dana White:
Well, we’re in the service industry.

Jay Goltz:
That’s with customers. Okay, with customers, that’s fair enough. Got it.

Dana White:
We’re not doing that. We have a lot of customers who are Jewish, and our young customers, our young stylists, who have only lived in one place and only think that everybody’s religion is their religion: “I don’t understand why we’re not playing gospel music on Sunday.” Well, because not everybody who comes here on Sunday went to church today.

Jay Goltz:
I just went to a business group meeting for a national organization. They started out with the prayer, and they finished it with, “Thank you, Jesus Christ.” And I said to myself, “Wow. 2022, and someone still hasn’t clued him in that everybody’s not a Christian.” And I have to tell you, I just like, “Seriously?” So there’s some stuff like that, especially with customers. I don’t think you can write every single thing down that you shouldn’t shouldn’t say to customers, or anybody.

Dana White:
It’s not that. We wouldn’t even dare to do that. But we do have a rule that, one: It’s about the customer’s experience, not yours. So if you’re talking about your experience last night, you probably shouldn’t be talking about that.

The other thing we say is, “If you’re saying more than five or 10 words, you’re saying too much.” So, “How are you?” “I’m fine, thank you.” Keep it short. We’ve had customers try to bait our staff. We’ve gotten in trouble because a customer was talking too much. She was talking to the point where the customer and her husband solicited my staff member for a sexual favor to be performed later on that night. Why? Because she had been talking about this place she had gone with her boyfriend. Again, it’s too much.

And again, some of these things you guys don’t deal with because your industries are so much different than mine. The business acumen in your industry is so much different than mine. Can we put all that in a handbook? No, but we do say, make the customer experience about the customer. And if you’re saying more than this many words, you’re saying too much. And it works.

Jay Goltz:
That seems reasonable. But I wouldn’t go tell employees in an office, “You can’t talk about politics.” There are some people who call politics—and I’ve had this problem—where if I say to someone, “You know what? I have a lot of minorities who work here and a lot of different sexual orientations who work here, and I feel it’s important to have a safe environment.” And the person says, “I don’t talk politics in the office.”

Dana White:
I remember you telling me that, Jay, and I was like, “That’s not political,” but in her mind it was political.

Jay Goltz:
Yeah, so I think the less, the better. I don’t think you can say you’ve taken care of it. “I put it in the handbook.” I think that there’s management needed. Some things are just going to come up, and you’ve got to deal with it.

Dana White:
We also train for the conversation. So we’ll say, “How well do you know the person sitting in your chair? This is a walk-in only hair salon. How well do you know them?” And they’re like, “Well, I see them every week?” And I say, “Yep. Is their mother alive?” “Well, I don’t know.” And we ask them questions that there’s no possible way they could know the answers to. And I say, “Because you don’t know who that person is, you have to watch what you say.” And that really resonates with them. They go, “Oh.” “Did you know that her and her husband have been trying and had fertility issues?” “No, I didn’t know.” So then there are things you just shouldn’t say. And that’s how we leave it. And it works.

Loren Feldman:
Do either of you address marijuana use?

Jay Goltz:
That’s interesting that you bring that up. We’ve been doing drug testing for years. I’ve got equipment. I’ve got saw blades. I’ve got all kinds of reasons why I’ve gotta be careful. It’s getting to the point that that is an ongoing conversation, because according to some of my employees—one in particular who’s been with me for 30 years—“Jay, everybody’s getting high.” Okay, I think that’s an exaggeration, clearly, but that doesn’t mean that many people aren’t getting high. Okay, I don’t know where we’re at on that one. But we might, in fact, take that out. Because I think maybe it’s time to take that out.

Dana White:
We’ve got it in our handbook, and we’re actually going to update it. Our thing is, “If we smell it and can see it, and it affects your job performance, you will be suspended.”

Jay Goltz:
Clearly.

Dana White:
And that’s with anything: alcohol, cigarettes…

Jay Goltz:
Clearly. The question is: What if it’s just in their system?

Dana White:
We don’t know. We don’t drug test, because there’s nothing we do in the job that would inhibit—like, if we started, there are several reasons why you might be going slower. But we’re not drug testing. If you were handling heavy machinery, like in some of the labor contracts that I’ve looked at—

Jay Goltz:
My guys are driving forklifts. They’re driving forklifts around.

Dana White:
Drug tests.

Jay Goltz:
I have to tell you, that is a new discussion, as to whether we should stop that. Because, as you know, probably, marijuana stays in your system for 30 days.

Loren Feldman:
Well, it’s also evolving, because it’s newly legal in so many places. I don’t know the status in Michigan or Illinois. Tell me.

Dana White:
It’s super legal in Michigan. Super legal. [Laughter]

Jay Goltz:
I’ve got friends who work in those places. Yeah, I guess, as I’m saying this, I guess we’re probably taking that out.

Loren Feldman:
Even that Silicon Valley startup that I told you about does address the issue, along the lines of what Dana just said. It recognizes that recreational use is legal and has no interest in dealing with that. And there are no forklifts at this startup, I can assure you. But if you’re impaired during work hours, that is something you could be suspended for.

Jay Goltz:
When I do speeches to business groups, I’ll bait them. I’ll go, “So what do you do if you see someone who works for you, and they’re sleeping at their desk?” Somebody always thinks they want me to hear they’re a bad guy. “Oh, I’d fire them.” I go, “Really? What if you found out that their 13-year-old kid’s got cancer and was up all night throwing up from the chemotherapy? Really? Would you go fire them?” I mean, this isn’t black and white. Even if somebody’s had a drinking thing. You know what, people have some bad issues going on. This isn’t black and white. It’s tricky.

I had a woman walk in. It’s been years. It’s just funny. Sorry, it’s funny, but it’s tragic at the same time, of course. She comes in, she’s been there for a month, she’s a salesperson. I go to hand her the credit card for parking and stuff, and she drops it, and it’s obvious she’s like barely standing up.

So I called her in the office. I said, “Did you have a drink with lunch or anything?” “No, I’m just really tired.” So I said, “Try again.” Because there was no gray hair. She says, “Well, I just ran into my ex-fiance and he’s engaged, and my animal died.” That’s all she said, “My animal died.” Now, I don’t know if it was her giraffe, the chimpanzee. To this day, I really don’t know what it was. But she said, “My animal died.” I said, “You know what? Here’s 20 bucks. Take a cab home. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” And we found a whole bottle in the back with the cork. She drank an entire bottle of wine.

And she came in the next day, and I fired her. And I said, “I hope you go get some help. I think you need it.” And she admitted to the person who she was standing there with waiting for the cab that she was an alcoholic. And her mother drove around with her drunk when she was a kid. I was like, “I’m sorry for her. But she was there for 30 days.”

At some point, she was there for—I don’t know—three weeks or something. And then—I have to add to this because this is important—I screwed up. She gave me references, but they were her co-workers. They weren’t the managers. And I screwed up. I wanted to do a little autopsy, and I called her last [manager]. She goes, “Yes, she just disappeared one day. I never saw her again.” I screwed up. This is why I keep telling everybody, “Check references,” and don’t go off the co-worker they gave you. That was stupid of me.

Dana White:
What we’ve done is, we just have a controlled substance portion of it. Because there’s antidepressants, and there are so many things that can make you a little off your game. The one thing that we had an issue with, is we had a young lady who was coming to work constantly smelling of weed. And she said, “It’s not me, it’s the person who gives me a ride to work.” [Laughter]

Loren Feldman:
You might want to get a ride with somebody else.

Jay Goltz:
Yeah, that’s a great idea.

Dana White:
I said that to her. I said, “You’re gonna need to get a ride with somebody else.” “Well, who? My mom works, my dad works, the lady who’s watching my babies so I can come here.” Again, I’m painting a picture of some of the lifestyle choices of the people who work for me. And so what she did was she would put her hair in a shower cap. She would wear an outfit to get a ride to work. And when she would come to work, she would go change in the car.

But like you said, it’s not black and white. And in the letter to my staff, in the beginning, we pretty much say that, “We’re going to meet you where you are. But this handbook outlines the things you need to do to make that possible. And so you have to come to work on time. You have to come in the employee entrance. You have to bring up these concerns to this person.” And we have an org chart right in the handbook. “This is your direct report. This is who’s over them. And this is their name.”

And we cover that in our morning meeting. But when people want to do what they want to do? “Oh, I never read that. Oh, I never saw that. Oh, that was never talked to me.” Or when Dana asks them? “Oh, I never knew that.” So now we see that we have an electronic version of our handbook. We can see how far you read, what page you were on, and you have to sign and initial the bottom of each page. So we know you saw it. Done.

Jay Goltz:
See, I don’t do that. Because given that this isn’t a court of law, I don’t need to prove anything to them. “Oh no, you didn’t read it? Or you did read it?” I believe it’s important to have the rules. Listen, it’s in our company handbook. But I don’t know the purpose of making sure that you force them to read it. You know, I guess that’s probably helpful. But I don’t know. Maybe I should be doing that.

Loren Feldman:
Well, it depends on how you use the handbook. And if you write it in such a way that you are really trying to share what your culture is about, and what’s important to you, you want employees to read it, right?

Jay Goltz:
Well, but like I said, I do that in my indoctrination. I think that’s so important. I wouldn’t go leave it to a book and just hope they read it. I mean, even if they sign it, that doesn’t mean they read it. That’s too important to me.

Dana White:
But I work with creatives, and creatives can be very emotional. And so their thing is, “Well, you’re telling me this based on how you feel.” Our employee handbook is so important that it’s not about how we feel. These are the things that we’ve documented that make sure that the business runs a certain way or runs well.

Jay Goltz:
Okay, fair enough. That’s part of your training. Okay, it’s not part of my training.

Loren Feldman:
Jay, you brought up the issue of bereavement pay. The Silicon Valley startup that I’ve been referring to tells people in their handbook, “Look, it can be really tough when someone close to you dies. Take the time you need. If you need to take a week, take a week. If you need to take a month, take a month.”

Jay Goltz:
And they’re paying them?

Loren Feldman:
Yes.

Jay Goltz:
Well, when I become a software genius, and I go raise $100 million, maybe I’ll do that.

Loren Feldman:
I told you, this doesn’t necessarily apply to your companies.

Jay Goltz:
No, I got it. I’m not saying they’re wrong. Yeah, sorry, not in my world.

Loren Feldman:
Do you pay?

Jay Goltz:
Yeah, we give them a few days off. Yeah, for sure. I think given it’s a stressful time in their life, I think it’s the kind, decent thing to do. I can’t tell everyone, “Listen, you need to take a month off.” I’m in a competitive environment. I’m not in that world. I don’t have venture capital. I’m just not in that world. I’m not saying they’re wrong. For them, it’s right. For me, it’s not practical.

Dana White:
We don’t pay for it, and we’ve had people abuse it. Again, culturally, your mom and dad, you get more. Your children, you get more. Culturally, the person who raised you isn’t always your mother and father. So we’ve had people who said, “I lost my second cousin, who’s 20 years older,” and that was the person who raised them. So we stopped putting in days, because we understand that not everybody came from the structured family environment. And then, they do pass the hat for people, because they realize that it’s unpaid.

We give you however much time you need. We had one girl whose mother died, and she asked for a significant amount of time, because she said, “My brothers and sisters are completely incapable of helping me handle the business of my mother passing away. And I’ve got to do everything. So I’m going to need more than like three or four days.” And we said, “Okay, take the time you need. Check in with us.” But then we’ve had people who worked with us who, every week, they’re getting married and buried. Every week, it’s, “My cousin died!” And it’s like, “Okay, you need to work in a company that allows you enough time to attend all these funerals, to do all these things that you’re doing. You’re spending more time in funeral homes than you are at Paralee Boyd.” And so we have recommended that they go.

Jay Goltz:
The people who have this all figured out, black and white—you know what those people are called? Employees. They’re not the ones that own the business. It sounds real simple when you’re the employee. “Oh, they should pay for it!” You do what you can do. If it’s a gray area, and if you can be a little bit more flexible, and you can be a little more kind, hey, if you can afford to do that, great. If you’re running a bus company with two buses, and you’ve only got two bus drivers, giving the bus driver three weeks off? Half your business is gone.

So there’s no right or wrong. It’s what you can do. Though, there is one wrong. I mean, treating people badly is wrong. But if they can’t come to work for a while, maybe you have to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t accommodate that.” But the manual at least takes care of some of the everyday stuff that you don’t have to keep rethinking.

Dana White:
One of the hard things that we’ve had to do was pregnancy, in the employee handbook. And I’m very strict. At your seven and a half, eighth month, you are no longer able to work until after you’re postpartum, or whatever. Because this is a physically demanding job. And my staff has been upset about that because they’re like, “I need to make money. I need to make money. I need to make money.” For the health and safety of the mother and the baby, between that seven and a half week and eighth month, you’re done until after it’s time for you to come back to work. That’s our hard and fast, like no question.

Jay Goltz:
So is it written in your handbook that you cannot give delivery while you’re doing someone’s hair? That’s like a black-and-white thing with you?

Dana White:
No, what’s black and white in the handbook is, “Bring us a doctor’s note letting us know when your seven-and-a-half month and eight-month dates are. We will discuss which date works best for you. But after the eight-month date, you will be taken off the schedule until you return from maternity leave.”

Jay Goltz:
No, that seems like a reasonable thing. They’re standing there on their feet with customers. I don’t have that, but I’m not doing people’s hair. No, most of our employees, I would think, would have already taken off on their own.

Loren Feldman:
Do either of you address social media?

Dana White:
Yes.

Loren Feldman:
What do you say?

Dana White:
One, we have no phones on the floor. Two, if you want to post a picture of your work or your social media, go and ask your manager. We’ll take a picture and send it to you. Make sure we’re tagged. These are the hashtags that we want you to use.

Loren Feldman:
Is that about quality control? Or is that about making sure that Paralee Boyd is paramount in customer minds and not the individual stylist?

Dana White:
It’s about making sure Paralee Boyd is paramount, and we want to be mindful of what you’re tagging and putting us in. We’ve had a girl who felt our salon was beautiful, and she worked there, and she thought it’d be a good job to take pictures of her for her online for her evening career. So she took pictures of herself around the salon, and posted it to her personal website to promote her evening career.

Jay Goltz:
Well, do I want my employees going onto social media, saying that, “Oh, I had this crazy customer last week”? No. And frankly, you brought up an interesting—I’ve gotta look into that. We’re in the middle of redoing it. Thank you. That’s valuable to know. I need to address that because, no, I don’t want them going on there and talking about customers or whatever. And that’s a whole new… See, it always gets harder. That’s a whole new problem.

Dana White:
And as we grow, we’re going to give each of them their own Paralee Boyd social media page that they can upload pictures to a central area, and we’ll pick the ones that we think that we want to use. But we don’t want to see our salon on your personal page: “This is where I work. This is what I do.” No. Because it can go from 90 to 280. You know, “Oh, I hate this place—tag this, tag that.” Uh uh.

Loren Feldman:
All right, we’re almost out of time. Actually, we are out of time, but I’ve got one more question for each of you. Dana, you’re talking to us today, I believe from Fort Worth, Texas, where you are in the process of opening a new location. I’m just curious, Texas is a different place. There are different rules of the road there. Will your employee handbook have to be different in Texas? Are you anticipating any changes?

Dana White:
No, I’m not, because it’s not based, to me, on what Texas does. Our handbook presents who we are as employers and who you are and how you are to be and how you are to perform while you’re in Paralee Boyd. Anything outside of that, for example, any legal issues or any unfair labor practices or anything, we’ll handle that, again, with an attorney outside of that. But I think with my labor experience, knowing the tone and temperature internationally, I’m not really worried about it.

How we treat people, having strong leadership, I’m not worried about. Well, we’re in Texas, we might have to modify this. Now, we may take some things out as far as, for example, the controlled substances clause, because it’s legal in Michigan. But even still, it’s controlled substances, even though it’s not legal here, people still do it in Texas. As long as it doesn’t affect your ability to perform your job, we don’t care what it is.

Loren Feldman:
Jay, you said at the beginning—I think if I heard you right—that you’ve been working on updating your handbook for a couple of years. Has this conversation encouraged you to—

Jay Goltz:
No, you absolutely gave me a couple of new things to think about that are critical, so that was good. I just had this meeting yesterday. We shouldn’t have been dragging our feet before today. We should have gotten this done. I’m not making any excuses. We should have gotten it done.

Frankly, part of the problem with the pandemic, my HR person has just been overwhelmed. I mean, it’s just an ongoing, everyday thing. So we let it slide. Not a good thing. But that social media thing, I’m going to absolutely make sure that that’s addressed in there. Because I will tell you, I’ve had a couple of people do stuff that you just say to yourself, “Really?”

Loren Feldman:
And things that you think can be addressed in an employee handbook?

Jay Goltz:
Yeah, absolutely. Like, if we give you a notebook to keep track of business notes, it’s not your personal journal. Don’t start personally journaling and then leaving it on the desk. Very personal journal. You wouldn’t have thought you’d have to tell someone that but apparently you do.

Loren Feldman:
Did that become a problem?

Jay Goltz:
Could have, yeah. Just think about that. Someone’s taking the company notebook that’s sitting on the counter that everyone uses, that’s supposed to be used for taking notes about business procedures, and they start writing some extremely personal things in there about themselves and they leave it sitting out there. Yeah, that can be a problem.

Dana White:
You have an amazing social media presence, Jay. Like, amazing. You have thousands of followers. You don’t want the wrong person to come in and put something offensive on a couch at Jayson Home, right? You don’t want somebody to come in and sneak a picture of a confederate flag on an end table and say, “Oh, I see what type of place this is.”

Jay Goltz:
Doesn’t mean I can control it, but I certainly should try.

Dana White:
Here’s the thing about the service industry. We’ve also dealt with people who don’t feel that they’re beautiful. So we’ve said, “Oh my God, you have so much thick, beautiful hair.” And we’ve gotten a call or an email saying, “You know, I don’t really appreciate you telling me how thick and beautiful my hair was.”

We’ve dealt with a lot of colorism, where you know, white is right, and white is beautiful. And so we’ve had daughters who just want their hair straight. That’s like the trend. And we’ve had mothers call us screaming, “My daughter is not white! You were supposed to put curls in her hair.” Yeah, but you left her, you left your 13-year-old daughter. And when it came time to ask what she wanted, we asked her, because there was nobody else there to tell us.

Jay Goltz:
You know what, good for you. Because I’ve gotta tell you, I have to get my hair cut. They should take signals. Like, after you ask me a couple of times, “How are you?” I really don’t want to hear your whole life’s story. And all I’m thinking is, “Could you just shut up?” I don’t know. So I think some people do want to talk, some don’t. But good for you that you’re coaching them how to do it, because I just say to myself, “Have you not noticed that I haven’t said a word to you in the last five minutes?”

Dana White:
Yep. We can even read you at the shampoo bowl. Like, if their eyes are closed, look at their forehead, look at their eyebrows, and look at their eyes. That’s how you know how well you’re shampooing. If their eyes are open, staring up at the ceiling, they’re figuring out what you’re doing. So you need to get them to close or shut their eyes a little bit. And that’s just human. Someone’s massaging your head, you’re not gonna stare intentionally at one spot in the ceiling. You’re gonna relax.

Jay Goltz:
Wow, this is so much more complicated than I knew. Really, good for you. That’s interesting, because I’m relating to that, because I did just get a good shampoo. And she was massaging my head, and I’m just thinking as you’re talking, “You’re right.” No, you’re right. Wow, I’m coming to you to get my hair blow dried. That’s what I gotta do.

Dana White:
When it comes to conversations, we’re teaching our staff how to read them. Not everybody wants to talk. And then the ones who do, let the customer lead the conversation. You are to be reactive. And if that customer knows more about you than you know about them, then our customer service standard has not been met.

Loren Feldman:
And we are out of time. My thanks to Jay Goltz and Dana White. As always, really appreciate your sharing.