David and Teresa Lawrence own two businesses in the personnel industry: Delta Personnel, a local staffing company, and Delta Administrative Services, which provides HR functions. Delta Personnel was founded by David’s father in 1968. The couple took over operations in 1988, when the senior Lawrence contracted Parkinson’s disease. David then founded Delta Administrative Services in 2000.
Today, the companies share office space but maintain separate staffs, which together amount to approximately 300 employees.
The workplace has changed dramatically since COVID, and staffing is a challenge for virtually every business in every field. And being a family business creates its own dynamics.
Recently, Biz New Orleans spoke with the Lawrences about what has changed, what remains constant, and what the future holds for hiring and managing employees.
How do you operate as a family business?
Teresa Lawrence: It’s a collaboration between two companies that we own, Delta Personnel and Delta Administrative Services. In May 1988 we got married, and then we took over the business in the fall of ’88. So we had very little time to be a couple, much less take on responsibilities of other people’s lives that work there. Quickly we decided who was going to do what, to avoid confusion. I was the salesperson for the company, and David was the backbone of the business, everything to do with payroll and admin and operations, hiring and firing. We quickly grew from one office to four offices. Then David opened Delta Administrative Services in 2000, and both companies started to grow.
David Lawrence: The staffing side is recruiting and placing people, and Delta Administrative Services handles HR for small- to medium-sized businesses. We do things like benefits and benefits administration, safety and risk management, and payroll and tax.
Do you have any advice for family businesses, and how to manage the benefits and challenges?
TL: Decide your roles within the companies before you have a family member come in because it’s very confusing to staff if you don’t have that definition.
Whenever David used to call a meeting, I acted as a salesperson, and he would correct me if I said something wrong, like I sold an account that we weren’t able to fulfill. And I had to take that direction, because in that position, he is the operations manager. The benefits of defining the roles are not just for you and your husband, or you and your children; defining that role is the structure that continues and sustains a company. You must have that leadership and respect each other.
DL: We found out early on that we didn’t want to bring [work] home with us. For a married couple, that’s very important so that you’re not 24/7 doing the work. You need to have a balance of home and work life.
What industries locally struggle most with staffing?
TL: Hospitality is a huge challenge. It is probably the highest turnover that you can imagine. This isn’t because of management, it’s because the grass is always greener on the other side. The staff is a very small circle and they move from one client to another client.
DL: Especially post-COVID.
TL: The second one is manufacturing and IT. Those things are in demand, but for the pool of people that we have in our community, and outside the community, that work remotely, the culture has changed. COVID was a silent war, and any culture changes after a war. Staffing now is not so much about finding, recruiting and retaining, but more can we move this whole culture back to being producers that are ambitious to get ahead in life.
DL: In addition to that, there’s not a lot of dedication to employers anymore. A job is just where you work, and if something happens, you just leave. Previously, you would never leave a job unless you had another one lined up, but now people figure they’ll just go find a job somewhere doing something else.
Are there changes in the onboarding process as result of the pandemic and remote work?
DL: Everybody adapted because you couldn’t do in-person interviews anymore, so everything became electronic. We had electronic onboarding previously, but now it has become the sole source. You go on your computer and do it online.
TL: [As someone who does staffing] I’ve always wanted to see and talk to people in person, see their mannerisms, see how they acted, how they carried themselves, how they dressed. See what impressions I got from them. Those are the things that I am collecting. I collect culture, not just skills.
Now, with the globalization of technology, the documentation, the onboarding, everything is electronic. The interviews are electronic. The conversations are over the phone. The client sometimes doesn’t even meet the person until they report to their office for the first time. That’s definitely a big change.
Source: American Staffing Association
How have benefits changed since the pandemic?
DL: They have changed drastically. They’ve been enhanced with a lot more mental anguish-type policies and making sure that there’s an employee assistance program in place. When there’s something wrong, employees have a place to get relief, to talk to a professional. A lot of benefit plans now include something that can help with all the issues that came along with COVID. So many people were trapped in their homes that it put a big burden of mental stress in the workforce and in lives in general, so the change has been to gear benefits toward the mental health side.
TL: Time off, more “me” time. We have a very nice benefits package, and it is a retaining tool. It didn’t used to be, it was more salary-driven than it was benefits-driven. If you’re an employer, your benefits package supersedes sometimes the salary of that person, because they say, “I just need this coverage, and how much is that going to be for me?”
DL: Health insurance prices have gone through the roof for all small businesses, for all businesses in general. The amount that the employee has to pay as a portion of that, because it’s a big drain on their paycheck, they need to know all that.
Another thing we heard a lot about during the pandemic was DEI, Diversity Equity and Inclusion. Is that still a big concern?
TL: Yes. I didn’t think that was a concern ever since 1988, since we’ve been in this business. As the transition started to take place, however, we already had in place a huge, diverse pool. I’m a woman-owned business, a minority-owned business. I have all the checkmarks that you want, but the culture inside the office is what needs to be important.
DL: It started internally after George Floyd.
TL: I had a challenging time understanding what was happening because I really thought the culture we had was so diverse and so well-rounded, but then we realized that we have to be a part of the conversation. We now have a DEI committee that meets quarterly, and we present to the whole staff. Everybody stops for one hour. We share things that are of concern. Sometimes there are things that you don’t know, you can’t see.
DL: We have an infrastructure now that’s built into hiring and everything that we do. Everybody discusses DEI. That’s on our internal side. There are still some people that don’t want to have to deal with it, but they’re learning that it’s part of society now. It’s not just race or gender. One of our meetings was all about someone’s son, who is autistic, and how people treat autistic people, and it was wonderful because other people opened up and talked about how their kids were like that as well. There are all kinds of diversity that everybody needs to hear about.
TL: It’s something that must be worked on. It must be part of you, it cannot be something that you pick up and then put back on the shelf. It’s something you practice. It has to be part of the everyday things that you do.
What are the biggest mistakes that businesses make with staffing and HR?
TL: Lack of communication. I think people interview and they hire, and then that’s it. They think that after they hire, that person is going to be communicative and well taken care of. No! Bring them back in the office three months later and say, “Tell me again how you see yourself here?” There is no such thing as over-communicating.
I think one of the biggest mistakes is not having quality hires, because employers Band-Aid a hire. Let’s get this person in, this person is going to do what I need to do right at this moment. You have to have vision; you have to see that person grow in that position for the next three to five years. If you hire someone for one moment in time that you need something fixed, you’re not doing yourself or that person a service. You hire people with ambition to grow in the company.
DL: There are a lot of companies that hire for skills, and they give them a few days of training and then say ‘Go, you’re on.’ You have to train constantly on all types of things. You train on culture; you train on leadership skills. I always try to train so that that person is going to move up and then train the person behind them. Your company can’t grow unless your people grow. I’ve heard pushback like, ‘What if I train that person so well that they leave?’ but the opposite is, ‘What if you don’t train that person and they stay?’
What does the future of staffing and HR look like?
TL: AI.
DL: It’s a double-edged sword. I’m more on the HR side, Teresa is more on the staffing side, but we both use it. I would say that with AI, you have to be careful who writes your algorithms. If you’re using algorithms to sort people, and getting back to DEI again, you can’t just say, ‘I want this person,’ because it may twist the algorithm to only bring in young people, or only bring in a certain background. I would be very careful on AI.
TL: I think that AI changes so fast, technology changes so fast, that trying to keep up is a challenge. Let’s just say Ochsner uses Epic software. They can hire somebody and train them on Epic today, and then three months from now, a new upgrade happens, and a different training has to take place. The other thing to think about is, why are we not starting in fifth grade to motivate our children to have goals in their lives? Why can’t we start early? If a kid likes gaming, let’s gear them toward technology; let’s start cultivating our own workforce. I think we need to spend time coaching children. I don’t mean mentoring, I mean coaching. Coaching is giving them tools, mentoring is pushing them along. And the most important thing that people need is soft skills. That should be a class taught in schools.
DL: As much as AI and technology are becoming the norm, you need to be hiring for people. People run businesses, so when you’re hiring, make sure the person you choose is a fit for what you do and how you do it. People are always going to be the root of what’s going on in any business, and you need to hire the right people and put them in the right seat on the bus.
2.5 million temporary and contract employees worked for America’s staffing companies during an average week.
Source: American Staffing Association
