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Episode 512: with Kelly Price
Introduction
Hey, folks, if you’re running a business, you’ve got HR issues in inevitably. And, my guest today is, is a lady who has, got a long run experience in the world of HR. But more importantly, she left corporate and started her own business. So we’re going to talk about her entrepreneurial journey along the way. Her name is Kelly Price. Kelly, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me, Doug.
From Marriott to HR Leadership: Kelly’s Corporate Journey
Yeah. Give us a little bit of the backstory on your corporate journey, and then what inspired you to branch out and start your own business?
Sure thing. So I started in corporate, hospitality. Actually, I worked for Marriott for about five years at the very beginning of my career right after college and really enjoyed that huge company, though hundreds of thousands of people working for that organization and then decided to move back home. Actually, I was living in Miami and was not close to home, and so I moved back to Kansas City, where my family was and started working in recruiting and really found that I loved working with people and helping them find a way to provide, for their families.
And, and as I got into recruiting and HR a little bit more, I really started figuring out that I loved putting the pieces of the puzzle together and figuring out this person has to do this all day long for this company to function. You don’t really think about everything that it takes to run a business, and it really was cool to get behind the curtain and understand that after several years in in recruiting, I ended up taking a position in human resources and advanced from there. So my first job out of college, I actually was a front office manager for Marriott and had about 30 people that reported to me, which was 22 with 30 employees.
They were all at least double my age in most situations. And so leadership was something that was always in my blood and in my responsibility. so getting into HR leadership just felt very natural once I got into it and just really, really love being able to partner with business leaders, managers, employees and make things that seem. Some things in HR are very obvious.
Some things are very complex, but either way, they’re challenging because they deal with people. So making them easier. And that really the concept of making things easier even started just back in Marriott because people are coming, they have some sort of a problem and they they don’t really care what the problem is or why it exists. They just want it fixed. So fix it so I can go enjoy my vacation or fix it so I can go to my business meeting. or in an HR. Fix it so I can go do my job. So that’s really been a big foundation of of what I’ve done. And and primarily I’ve worked for medium sized businesses.
Marriott was definitely the largest organization I ever worked for. And then I worked for Ferro Gas. I worked for another company that the Farrells owned, Samson Dental Practice Management, and then also worked at a bank. So anywhere between 5000 and and 200 employees has been kind of my my major space. And then when I went out on my own, I really decided that I want to work with small businesses because the impact you can make when you’re working with a founder or a CEO or a business owner is much more profound than working in a larger, larger organization.
When there’s a lot of red tape and Bureaucracy to go through.
Going Out on Her Own
Sure. Sure. Well, how long have you had your own business?
Four and a half years. I started it in February of 2022. So it’s been a really, really exciting last several years.
Interesting. And and how have you found the journey? You know, you you probably anticipated a lot of things, but, any particular surprises that you encountered along the way?
I mean, about a million, right? You think? I think this happens to everyone who starts a business as well. You go out and you’re doing the thing that you love doing, and that’s why you started that business. And then you realize to run a business, you have to be a marketer or an accountant, a CEO, a therapist, a all of the, an IT person, all of these things that you realize, oh my gosh, this is what I know. And here’s all the things you need to know to be able to run a business successfully at least.
And I feel like that was just surprising over and over again. Like, I my gosh, I have never done sales before. I don’t know how to do it. I’ve never had to do my own bookkeeping before. I have to figure out how to do this. I’ve never, you know, had to set up all of these systems before. I need to figure out how to do that. So it’s been an incredible but so fun learning learning journey over the last four years.
Yeah it does. I call that the phase of being, chief Everything officer.
That’s right, that’s right.
Yes.
CEO is is takes on a whole new meaning in his small business environment. Well, as you’ve grown over those four and a half years, if you don’t mind sharing, give us a little bit of the, you know, growth journey you have. You know, how how big is your team now?
Building Thrive HR: The Growth Story
Yeah. So we have about ten consultants. We’re actually going through a really fun expansion. I’ll back up a little bit to to say I was at Samson Dental for you can see this on my LinkedIn for about eight years.
I started there in a recruiting and benefits position. And quickly after they I started a bunch of our leadership left all at once with left us, which left us with me and the controller and about 11 employees in the Home office and about 200 in the field. And we were just kind of looking at each other. The CEO, the CEO and the head of HR all left within two days of each other.
So it was very much like, what do we do now? And while I look back and think, gosh, that was wild, it also set me up for really being able to just dig in the trenches and figure it out, because that’s all you can do, especially when you have hundreds of people looking at you saying, well, what now? so that was really good training, if you will, to to be able to just pick up the pieces and start putting things together and say, okay, this is going to work and this is going to work. And, you know, eight years later, I left there with we had about ten locations when I first started.
And when I left we had 33 locations. We had 800 employees. We had 75 in the Home Office. I was the VP of HR and sat on the executive team the majority of the time I was in that role. So I say that because growth that really kind of energized my excitement for building a business and really taught me a tremendous amount because you had to be I was in HR. I was nowhere close to being the CEO. But every brain in that room was, what do we do? How do we do it?
Let’s get this going, because we’re kind of in this not great situation right now. And how do we dig ourselves out of this and make this business successful? So that that was really exciting. And then I decided to move on after eight years to a bank where the head of HR called me and said, we need to rebuild this HR team. Do you want to come and do this with me? And I thought, yeah, I really do. I’m ready to do something different after eight years and take a little bit of a step back, honestly.
I just had a it was just having my first baby, so I wanted to kind of slow down a little bit, but it was really fun because we took that team from four to 2 to 8 and took the business from about 200 employees to about 500 employees. So kind of again, started really energizing my excitement and my entrepreneurial spirit to come in and be able to build programs and systems related to human resources that actually impact the business, because that’s what I had gotten to do in my last two corporate jobs, very wildly different environments. One was dental and one was a bank.
So that also and before that I worked in propane. Lots of different areas of of opportunity to learn about really different things. So that really got my blood flowing to say this is really fun and I really enjoyed the building stage, and I really enjoy figuring it out and putting the pieces together. God bless you and you’re welcome. And when it gets put together, that’s when I’m kind of like, all right, what’s next? Because you can’t keep changing things just to change them.
So someone approached me and said, have you ever thought about consulting? And then it kind of started to come together and it was post Covid and I thought, and I had a two year old and I was like, you know what? I think it’s time. I think it’s.
Time. I feel like.
The Evolution of the HR Function
When I think back on the literal now, decades that I’ve been in and around business, I’ve seen what I believe is kind of an evolution of the HR function in most businesses. And in the early days, it was very much. It. While I certainly helped with recruiting and placement and benefits and basic comp programs and things like that, it was generally painted as a compliance arm. It was it was legal. It was regulatory, and it was protection against, you know, risk, employment risk. But over the years, it has evolved. There’s still some of that, but they’ve also carved out and established really impactful talent management function. And now the popular term I think is HR business partner.
And I hear that a lot, particularly in the larger corporate settings where the HR folks are set up to, to be looked at as as much more of a partner than a, than a Pest. If you don’t mind me, say it. So. Come on.
Not at all.
On the front line. There was a day in my career you kind of hated to see the HR person calling or showing up because it wasn’t always helpful, but, that has certainly evolved. And now it’s a it’s a very valued resource, I think, and as it should have been all along, I had a longtime colleague and friend who sadly passed away a couple of years ago, but he was an HR specialist and leader, and he went on a campaign kind of a one man campaign. He said, I would like to modify the HR function to do nothing but leader development, because if we develop our leaders, we won’t have the people problems.
Yeah.
And it was an interesting take. And he actually got to exercise that in, in a little bit of a Test environment with a, with a large contingent of employees at one global company and it worked. It actually it his theory worked very well. So, it’s a, you know, interesting evolution of the function, I guess is my point.
The Three-Tier Audit: Compliance, Operational Efficiency, and Strategy
Absolutely. And that’s a huge part of my vision, is helping small businesses understand what HR is supposed to do, what they could and should do. I never ask a potential client, do you need an HR partner? Because the answer is no. I already have somebody that does my benefits in payroll, and that’s that’s often what small business owners believe or understand HR is supposed to do, especially in a small business, but have been lucky enough to see HR be able to partner with many businesses through my through my consultancy and been able to truly make a difference in the actual business. Because first we have we do have to make sure you’re compliant. So every one of our clients starts with an audit. We do a 30 to 90 day audit depending on the size of the business.
But we look at three tiers. We look at compliance, we look at operational efficiency, and then we look at strategy. So many small businesses also make decisions based on what makes sense for the business without consideration of employment law, and not because they’re not thinking about it. It’s because they don’t know about it. And they’re not saying, I don’t care about that. They literally don’t know. For example, I did an audit with a business. They were in 13 states. They were compliant and zero of them because they didn’t know the laws related to, specifically non-compete.
That was something that we had to go through and get rid of all of their employment agreements, rewrite everything, rewrite all of their non-compete. They also didn’t know that different states have different laws about when to pay people when they’re terminated. In Missouri, for example, you have to pay them on their last day in Kansas, you can pay them on the next paycheck. And then you go into municipalities. Think about New York, for example, New York state.
There’s the federal law, New York state law, and then New York City law. And they’re all different, and they get richer as you get more into the municipality, but also they’re more difficult to manage. You have to truly understand how they work or you’re not complying with them. And you can sideline your business totally unintentionally, and you could even be doing something that’s great for the employee, but it’s not compliant with how you’re supposed to be doing it.
You could get sued, you could get fined, and or you could get audited. And again, you’ve got this amazing business that’s functioning that now you have to pay attention to what’s happening over here, because you don’t have a choice in your business can suffer because of that. So we want to get that low hanging fruit, as we call it, in the compliance realm handled. And then we look at operational efficiency and we say what systems are you using? Do you have policies. Do you have procedures and how are you implementing them.
How are you on-boarding? How are you hiring? Do you know what the leave laws are? All of those types of things that’s really like your core HR function in the center to say how, but how are you doing all of these things? Because I have multiple clients right now who literally still use paper. So we’re taking them from paper to an HR system. And that’s really fun to do as well because it helps people understand that, like, this is so much easier. We’re not even touching AI at this point yet. We’re just talking about, let’s get rid of this paper and put it into a system and then have everything flow electronically.
You can do your on-boarding and your paperwork and your performance management and your benefits and all those things all in one system. And then you get to the really fun part, which is my favorite, which is strategy. And are the right people in the right seats at the right time. Where are you recruiting? How were you interviewing? How were you on-boarding, and is it setting up employees for success? And do you have employees that understand how your business makes money? And does every single person in every single seat understand how their role impacts the overall success of their team members and the business? You can’t just say the business because some people could say, I don’t really care about the business, but I do care about the people I’m sitting next to.
Hopefully you don’t have people who don’t care about your business, but my point is, they care about the work that they’re doing because they know they’re helping. They’re doing something that matters, and they’re impacting the people that are around them every single day. When you can accomplish those things, your business will be successful, period. It will it might be successful in spite of some other things. But it will. It will be successful. You still have to have revenue. You still have to have sales channels. You know, all of those other you have to be a good money manager, all of those things. But your people function will be thriving. And that’s really what our goal is to teach people. This isn’t rocket science. We can do it. It takes time, but it can absolutely be accomplished no matter how big or small your business is.
Clarity Is Kindness
Yeah, everything you said gets back to a basic premise that I encourage my clients to consider, and that is that if you have identified reasonably good people to join your team, good people want to do good work, and that’s job.
One for the leader is to tell them what good work looks like, show them what a win is going to be for that team or for that business. And when you can be clear, clarity is my other buzzword and magic word secret word for that when you can be clear and clear means you’re not just speaking out there to the masses, but they are connecting with it with the message. They totally understand what you’re asking to be done. And when you when you’ve got that going on, good people are going to do good work there. They’re going to lean in to the opportunity. And you as an owner, you’ll be very happy with the outcome.
I can’t agree more. We’re having a lot of discussions right now with one specific client about clarity is kindness. That’s like the focus right now, right. And the whole concept that your culture is what is not what you do, it’s what you tolerate. Those are kind of our two taglines we’re sticking with right now in this one client. And we’re talking a lot about performance management as well.
We just did a big training on on organizing the employer brand and helping them understand what who are we and what are we trying to be because there’s the actual culture and then our desired culture. And what are we doing to to get towards that desired culture? And then how are we setting expectations and making it very clear? Because one of the things they kept saying was, you know what?
We do have these conversations, but we have them in passing and we’re realizing they’re sounding like suggestions instead of expectations. So we’re talking a lot about changing that language. It’s not unkind to say, I need you to do this, and this is when I expect it to be done. And what questions do you have? And this is this is how I lead, especially in the interview process and in the on-boarding process, setting that expectation from the beginning. Like I always tell people when they come on my team, I’m going to be really close to you for a while. Not physically necessarily, but I will be asking you tons of questions.
I want to know what you’re doing, how you’re thinking, what you’re working on, what your priorities are. I’m going to set a lot of expectations and give you a whole lot of feedback. And I’m doing that because I want you to be successful. I want you to understand what it means to work on this team and how you’re going to do your best work. And the company overarching will be more successful. And then in turn, that’s going to return back to you.
So let’s make sure that’s really, really clear. And if you feel uncomfortable, I need you to tell me, because you’re allowed to give upward feedback to I need to slow down or your feedback is a little too direct or I have more questions. All of those things are 100% acceptable and not just encouraged, but expected. Because you’re not going to hurt my feelings. If you’re telling me how to work with you better, and then we can go and both do all do both of our best work. And we don’t have to be so close all the time after that.
So, you know, the.
A Tale of Two Companies: The Card Behind the Badge
Notion of as an owner, founder, building the right culture in your business is a very ongoing effort. It’s one thing to boil it down into some words on a page. To begin the the training and the teaching and the coaching to get people to follow. But it’s wholly different to go out there. Day by day, moment by moment. And when somebody exhibits a behavior one way or another, you either say, yes, that behavior is spot on. That’s the kind of cultural activity we want to have. Or no, you miss this element of our culture.
I’ve, told this story a couple of times, but I think this is a place to tell it again. I had the opportunity a year or so ago. I was simultaneously coaching at two different companies, both of the approximate same size and magnitude, and we got into a discussion in both cases about company values and culture. And in both cases, the company had taken their statements of culture, you know, mission, vision, values and all that and put it it on, put it on a card that was able to fit behind your security badge, you know, your card key.
And both companies use card keys to get in and out of their facilities and so forth. And so every employee at both companies had these little cards that talked about the values. At one company. It was crystal clear. Everybody lived by those values, and they operated with those values to the point that people told stories of senior executives in meetings, would actually turn over their badge and look down the checklist and say, the decision we’re getting ready to make, does it match and fulfill all of these values.
And you could go go through an exercise of actually demonstrating that logic at the other company. You can imagine where I’m going here. Other company. They said it was a giant joke. Nobody. The cards were passed out, but nobody operated. Nobody at any level operated. Even giving second notion to what was written on the back of the card.
Core Values in Action
Yeah, it’s it really is important to understand why those things matter. One of the exercises that I’ve been doing with my clients lately, and it really seems to create a lot of stickiness, is creating the core values in action.
I just did this with the client last week, and it was really helpful because they said afterwards, I now know how to hold people accountable and what to say to them when they’re not meeting an expectation. So their core values were I’m just going to make them up. They were things like grow and, respect and customer service. But what do those actually mean? You know, so we would do things like we we would we excuse me would write Corvallis an action that said we are detailed in our documentation to customers.
We are always on time. We are kind to every customer in their home. They were people that work in, in people’s homes. And it was very, very clear. So when someone does something like, for example, doesn’t clean their truck, at the end of the day, you can say that isn’t respectful or that isn’t whatever your core value is. That doesn’t create joy for the next person in the morning when they come in and have to do your work. And it really gives people very specific things to do and actions to take based on those core values.
And when you’re able to outline those, you can hire a performance manager and terminate based on those core values because you know exactly what’s expected. So we’re getting ready to roll those out in about a week to all the employees. And I’m very excited about that because people understand it. Then when you just have a word like grow, for example, it’s a great core value. But do you mean grow in my career?
Does that mean I need to get promoted, or are you just telling me to be open minded and think about what other that there are other ways to do things? Or are you telling me to take advantage of AI, or are you telling me to learn technology? All of those things could be applied to grow, but if you don’t explain it, nobody understands what that core value means. Could say, I’m just going to eat a whole bunch of pizzas and I’m going to grow a little bit, and I’ve followed the core value.
Yeah, every, every.
Opportunity I’ve had to work with client companies where they want to do some work on either redefining or reshaping a culture.
It inevitably starts with statements on a page. You know, here are our values, here’s our beliefs, here’s our principles. And that’s great. You got to have something to frame that up. But the next huge step is doing the work down through the levels in the company. To be sure, everybody is literally on the same page with the significance of those words and the meaning of those words and the ultimate outcome you’re looking for. And we’re kind of back to that clarity issue. If you can be clear on the meaning and the interpretation and everybody gets it, then you’re okay. You can’t just print up all the t shirts and the chotchkies of your new vision statement and pass it around and expect everybody to adopt it overnight. It’s not going to happen that way.
Keeping Culture Alive: Feedback Loops and Recognition
No. And I do think, too, it’s important to get the feedback from the employees as you’re doing it, especially if you have the owners or you have the executive team working on that. That’s really important. But who are you running that past? Are you in? Are you encouraging your HR team to look at that? Are you encouraging some of your key leaders? Do you have any sort of like management trainees that could say, does this even make sense? Is this tracking with anyone? Because again, you have your desired culture and then you have your actual culture.
So how are you making sure that those two things are matching up? And some of the things we’ve done in the past to implement that we’ve done quarterly awards based on the core values and the core values in action. We’ve done what we’ve called in the past, like we called it pull a tooth at the dental company because it was a dental company.
But people would write like, thank you for helping me with that project, or you really helped me out the other day, or you did a really great job dealing with this customer or patient issue, and they would put them up on the board, and then you would tie them to one of the core values, and we would literally pull a pull a tooth on a weekly basis, and someone would get recognized in our weekly huddle. we also have built on-boarding plans. We just built a performance management, review process based on the employer value statement that we created based on the core values with with another client. So there’s so many easy ways to make sure that that stays in front of them too.
Because if you say once grow is your core value and they tell you that in on-boarding, but you never talk about it ever again, it means nothing. They’re like, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t even remember that we had core values, much less what they are.
Yeah. And I think.
The Plumbing Company and the Power of Personal Vision Boards
The more you can do to to get employees encouraging one another so that it’s not a vertical, but it’s more of a horizontal chain of, activity that embraces. I think we’re better off. I, I think about a business owner I met over in Denver. He, has a plumbing company, and this guy has done some amazing things with culture and and talent management. But once a quarter, he brings the whole team together and he operates. Last I checked, something like 40 trucks in his plumbing company. That’s a good sized plumbing company. Yeah. And, but he brings everybody together quarterly for a cookout and a social half day thing. And part of the agenda. Everybody has learned how to build personal vision boards, you know, what are they thinking about? Their quality of life, their family, their their interest and focus.
And he has everybody, you know, update and draw their their personal vision board. And then when the event is over, they put those on display all around the company headquarters there. They’re hung on the wall everywhere, you know, and and everybody gets insight into their colleagues ideas. And it it really elevates the connectivity across the group and the team. And he he when I first met him, he told me the story of one of his employees had just come to work and so was attending this event for the first time, had no idea what a vision board was. And so they kind of sat down with him and talked about it a little bit.
And all he could come up with was he wanted to buy new bicycles for his two girls. And. Yeah. And that was that was kind of his heartfelt focus. And the owner said when I heard that, he. He said in his mind, the owner, he went, oh, this guy is going to be so happy working for us because they had a lot of spot bonus incentive kind of programs.
And in less than a month, the guy had plenty of extra disposable cash to go buy the bicycles. So he was a real happy employee. You know, he he got his personal goal fulfilled and it all fit in. Now, to win some of that incentive money, he had to be executing on company values. There was a pretty prescriptive way they did things, and it included things like every driver, every tech was supposed to carry extra clothes in the truck, and if they got especially trashed out on one meal, one call, they were supposed to change clothes before they went to their next call.
So the way they win some of that spot bonus is is fulfilling and living by company values and and cultural behaviors that are, you know, directed by the owner what he wants done. So he reinforces everything in a very positive way that people are ready and willing to, you know, show up and do the work the way he wants it done so that the company builds a brand reputation. And in something like residential plumbing, your your best opportunity is word of mouth.
You know, one homeowner tells another homeowner about the great service and the great outcome. And now you’ve got a business.
Referrals, Relationships, and Knowing What Motivates Your People
So absolutely. And referrals in general, I feel like just from a marketing standpoint and from the world we’re in right now, that’s that’s how everybody gets most of their business. I mean, how many emails does a business owner everyone listening? If you own a business? How many emails do you get a day that you know are AI generated? That you don’t know if they’re spam or not? But there.
Do you need a line of credit? Do you need marketing? Do you need this? Do you need office cleaning? What else? Like delete delete delete delete delete. If I don’t know you anymore, it’s really, really questionable if we’re going to connect. And even from a hiring standpoint, if you think about how many times you’ve looked back and just randomly applied for a job and gotten it, versus what opportunities you’ve been given from a professional standpoint because you were referred or you knew a previous coworker or manager.
The that it all goes to relationships is really what it all goes back to. And even from a leadership standpoint, you’re talking about knowing what’s important to your people. It’s amazing when your coworkers understand each other and know what’s important, because you can help and focus each other on those goals. But if your manager knows again it’s you’re setting expectations and getting. But I think also during on-boarding and any performance management conversation, the manager should be understanding what’s important to the employee too.
Because if for that person, it’s clearly taking care of his family, that’s the most important thing. So you can not assume you should ask, but you should confirm that financial bonuses, cash. That’s going to be what keeps him motivated. Where another person could say, my spouse or partner works, I don’t necessarily have to work. Or this isn’t all about the money for me. I do this because I’m really passionate about whatever it is that they’re doing. I really, really love this, and what makes me excited isn’t necessarily bonus bonuses.
It’s flexibility, and it’s the opportunity to do really challenging, fun projects. And if you know that about your people, you can make them more successful, which in turn makes you and the company more successful. So we just we have to take the time to get to know each other and know what’s important to each other. And it makes life a lot more fun, too, especially when you’re with these people more than you are your own family. Right?
Checking In: The Human Side of Leadership
No, absolutely. I think building that connectivity across your your team is, is so important. And I agree with you totally. I encourage leaders I work with to really invest the time. And you know, people will tell me, well, I, you know, I spend a lot of time in my one on ones. I go, well, great, but are you really connecting or is this just kind of a status update on, you know, the current project? And, you know, life circumstances change and and situations change.
And if you as a leader or not keeping up with that across your team, you might be unpleasantly surprised. One day you walk out and you go, gee, Georgia’s Sally, they’re there. They’re not. They don’t seem themselves. I wonder what’s wrong. Well guess what? Go ask them. Yeah. Ask them if there’s anything on their mind that they would like to talk about. And it’s okay to point out, gee, you don’t seem like yourself today. Are you okay? And and and have that level of empathy to at least acknowledge something is going on. And if they might say, oh, I, you know, we don’t need to worry about it right now, okay. Respect that. And and move on. But at least let them know you do care. And that’s, that’s a huge part of knowing what you can and should do with your teams.
I agree, I think a lot of people right now are also. Maybe this is overstated, maybe not paralyzed with fear to say the wrong thing, and it is really impeding people’s opportunity and ability to build good relationships.
But if you have a top performer who is no longer performing at their top level, you either have a culture issue or if they have a personal issue because something has happened that is going on that’s keeping them from doing their best work. So if you’re not on top of that, they’re going to leave or they’re just going to become very disengaged, which can then make the rest of your team unengaged and create much larger, larger issues. There’s also, I think there’s a fear in a lot of conversations that I have that I don’t want to know what’s going on in this person’s personal life, because I feel like that’s not appropriate or I don’t know what to do it, or I’m so afraid they’re going to tell me something that I don’t know what to do with. That’s also where if you have a really good HR partner, they can jump in for you because you do want to be able to, as a manager to say, hey, what’s going on? And maybe they say something like really hard.
My husband has is sick, you know, he has cancer or I think I have an alcohol problem. You know, those are the scary things that you’re like, oh crap, what do I do now? I don’t know what to do with this. And having an HR partner, someone that you can call and say, how do I deal with this? And then let us not take it over because you still have to be our partner in the whole situation. But let us help you and let us guide you through how to deal with those situations, because in the world that we’re in right now, especially post-Covid and anybody that worked in HR during Covid, we dealt with a whole lot of stuff we had never dealt with before, and it was so hard and so emotional and so stressful. but there everybody’s just trying to do the best they can. I genuinely believe people come to work with the intention to do a good job every day, and if something happens that they didn’t. Very, very rarely is it somebody that just flat doesn’t care.
There’s something going on that they need help with. And it is our job as leaders and as HR to help them through that and get them to the other side. And sometimes they’re going to choose not to, and that’s okay. But we have to help them or at least try to help them get there.
Closing Thoughts and How to Connect with Kelly Price
Absolutely. Well, Kelly, this has been great. I think we’re about up on time for today. Tell people the best way to get hold of you if they’re interested in learning more.
Yeah. Thank you. So I am on LinkedIn Kelly Price I am. My email is Kelly at Thrive and the company is thrive HR and Thrive Leadership Partners for our two businesses.
Wonderful. Well folks, as always we’re going to have those links in the show notes for you. So feel free to jump down and hit the button and you’ll be able to get hold of Kelly. And with that one last time. Kelly. Thank you. This has been great. I really appreciate it.
Thanks for having me, Doug.
Well, folks, this is also the part of the show I’d like to remind you. We have a video version of this show over on YouTube channel by the same name. Leadership powered by common sense. Hop over there, check out our archives, give us a comment. Join the channel if you will. That helps. Pay the bills and let us know what you might have in mind for a new topic or a new speaker that we haven’t heard yet, but would love to hear from you. For now, I’m going to say goodbye. Go out there and make it a great day.
Meet Our Guest
Introducing Kelly Price, founder of ThriveHR, a dynamic leader passionate about helping people succeed. A Kansas State University graduate in Hospitality Management, she began her career at Marriott International, where she developed a strong foundation in creating meaningful experiences.
Transitioning into HR, Kelly started as a recruiter and advanced to roles including Benefits Manager, Director of HR, and VP of HR. She helped organizations reduce turnover, improve employee satisfaction, and strengthen HR strategies.
Now a small business owner, Kelly uses her expertise to help companies thrive through smart people decisions, bringing energy and positivity to every client interaction.
Links:
Website: www.thrivehrkc.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellypricethrivehr/
Connect with Doug Thorpe
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougthorpe/
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