HR For Small Business I Human Resources, CFO, Corporate, Compliance, Recruiting

Brad Voorhees - HR Consultant, Business Coach
  • 5.0 (17)
  • Careers
  • Updated Weekly

Are you the one losing sleep over HR… even though it’s not supposed to be your job? Maybe your HR Generalist is doing their best—but they don’t have the experience to lead. Maybe your CFO is stuck playing Human Resources. Or maybe you’re just tired of guessing your way through compliance, hiring, and performance issues or any of the other HR problems your small business faces. That’s exactly why this podcast exists. I’m Brad Voorhees, the founder of ScaleTx HR Advisory and the host of the HR For Small Business Podcast. Since 2020, I’ve helped small business leaders solve their biggest HR challenges, elevate their HR department and mentor and develop their junior HR staff, all without the cost or commitment of a full-time HR Director. In this podcast, I’ll give you practical, real-world HR guidance to help you build a stronger team, reduce risk, create a talent experience and scale an HR department that actually works for your small business. If you’re tired of playing the role of Human Resources Director and you want to stop reacting to HR problems and start leading through them—this is for you. Let’s elevate your HR.

  1. 2d ago

    Episode 31 : The Corporate Structure Question Every CFO Avoids Asking HR

    Who does your HR person actually go to when a decision falls outside written policy? When's the last time you personally signed off on an HR call you weren't fully confident in? If your HR person disagreed with your gut read on a hard call, would she feel safe saying so? There's a question almost every CFO of a growing company avoids asking out loud — because asking it means admitting something uncomfortable. The question is simple: "Should HR still report to me?" Not "is my HR person doing a good job." Not "do I trust them." Just — structurally, on the org chart — does it still make sense for HR to sit under Finance at this size, at this stage, with this much on the line? Today I want to walk through why that one structural question matters more than almost any other decision a growing company makes about HR — and why avoiding it is quietly costing more than most CFOs realize. We'll talk about why HR generalists end up stretched thin under a well-meaning boss who isn't equipped to mentor them, why that's nobody's fault, and what it actually looks like to fix it. Let's get into it. Contact - > brad@scaletx.io Podcast -＞ https://hrforsmallbusiness.podbean.com Website - > scaletx.io LinkedIn -＞https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyvoorhees/     Next Steps: Step 1: Follow me on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyvoorhees/,  to get more Senior HR Advice without the full-time hire. Step 2: Visit scaletx.io to book a call with me to learn more about how we can support your HR team.  Step 3: Sign up for my weekly newsletter by visiting my website, scaletx.io, and sign up!

  2. 6d ago

    Episode 30 : Your Human Resources Team Isn't Failing — They're Out of Capacity

    Does your HR person's actual day-to-day workload match the job description they were originally hired against? When your HR person hits a decision they've never faced before, who do they turn to — and are they qualified to answer? Are the "performance issues" you're seeing new behavior, or the same person doing more with no additional support? If you've ever looked at your HR person and thought "something's just... off" — but you can't point to a single thing they've actually done wrong — I want you to consider a different diagnosis than the one you're probably running. It's not a talent problem. It's a capacity problem. And those two things get treated the exact same way by most business owners — which is exactly why the good ones eventually burn out or leave. Today I'm breaking down the difference between an HR person who's failing and an HR person who's simply out of runway — how to tell which one you're actually looking at, why the wrong diagnosis makes things worse, not better, and what to do instead. Because your HR generalist is probably working harder than anyone in the building already knows. This is about making sure that effort has somewhere to go. Contact - > brad@scaletx.io Podcast -＞ https://hrforsmallbusiness.podbean.com Website - > scaletx.io LinkedIn -＞https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyvoorhees/     Next Steps: Step 1: Follow me on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyvoorhees/,  to get more Senior HR Advice without the full-time hire. Step 2: Visit scaletx.io to book a call with me to learn more about how we can support your HR team.  Step 3: Sign up for my weekly newsletter by visiting my website, scaletx.io, and sign up!

  3. Sep 7

    Episode 29 : What Every CFO Should Know Before Mentoring Their HR Generalist

    When your HR generalist has a hard call, who do they actually go to — and is that person trained to answer it? If someone asked you to produce the reasoning behind your last five HR decisions, could you? In writing? Is your HR generalist getting better at HR judgment — or just better at asking you faster? If you're a CFO and you've ever found yourself giving your HR generalist advice on a comp decision, a termination, or a policy call — I want you to sit with this question for a second: where did you learn to do that? Not finance. Not the CPA exam. Not the MBA. Today I'm talking directly to CFOs and business owners who've quietly become the mentor for their HR person — without ever meaning to, and without the background to actually do it well. Here's what you'll get out of this episode: you're going to hear exactly how that setup happens without anyone deciding it should, why it puts both you and your HR generalist at risk, and three specific things to do differently starting this week — whether or not you ever bring someone like me in. Because here's the thing. Your HR generalist — sharp, capable, doing real work every day — didn't sign up to learn strategic HR by trial and error under someone who's also learning as they go. And you didn't sign up to be the answer to questions you were never trained to answer. Somewhere between the two of you, the status quo just... became this. Nobody built it on purpose. Let's talk about how to build something better. Contact - > brad@scaletx.io Podcast -＞ https://hrforsmallbusiness.podbean.com Website - > scaletx.io LinkedIn -＞https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyvoorhees/     Next Steps: Step 1: Follow me on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyvoorhees/,  to get more Senior HR Advice without the full-time hire. Step 2: Visit scaletx.io to book a call with me to learn more about how we can support your HR team.  Step 3: Sign up for my weekly newsletter by visiting my website, scaletx.io, and sign up!

  4. Sep 3

    Episode 28 : Why Your Best HR Generalist Might Quit Without a Senior Mentor

    When was the last time your HR Generalist ran a hard decision by someone senior — and if the answer is "never," what does that tell you? Do you read your HR person's quiet competence as a good sign, or has it ever occurred to you it might be a warning sign? If your best HR person resigned tomorrow, do you actually know what the real reason would be? I want to ask you a question that most CFOs and business owners have never actually asked themselves: if your best HR person quit tomorrow, would you know why? Not the exit-interview answer. The real answer. Here's what I see over and over — the HR Generalists who leave aren't usually the weak ones. They're the strong ones. The ones who've been carrying real weight, making real calls, and getting good at the job with nobody senior in their corner to tell them they're doing it right, or catch them before they do it wrong. Today's episode is about why your best HR person is actually your highest flight risk — not despite how good they are, but because of it. If you're a business owner or CFO who's thought "she's got this, I don't need to check in," this one's for you. If you're the HR Generalist listening and quietly exhausted — this one's for you too. By the end, you'll understand exactly what a senior mentor gives an HR Generalist that a good salary and a "thank you" never will, and why the absence of that is the single most common reason strong HR people walk. Contact - > brad@scaletx.io Podcast -＞ https://hrforsmallbusiness.podbean.com Website - > scaletx.io LinkedIn -＞https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyvoorhees/ Next Steps: Step 1: Follow me on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyvoorhees/,  to get more Senior HR Advice without the full-time hire. Step 2: Visit scaletx.io to book a call with me to learn more about how we can support your HR team.  Step 3: Sign up for my weekly newsletter by visiting my website, scaletx.io, and sign up!

  5. Aug 31

    Episode 27 : The Compliance Problem That Grows Every Month You Skip an HR Mentor

    If a compliance deadline was quietly slipping right now, would anyone in your company actually know before it became a problem? Is your compliance calendar owned by a specific person — or does "HR handles that" count as your answer? Has your HR person ever flagged something as outdated or at-risk that's still sitting unaddressed? Here's a question I want you to sit with for a second: if a compliance issue was quietly building in your business right now, would anyone actually know? Not "would it eventually surface." Would anyone know today. Today's episode is about the compliance problems that don't announce themselves. They don't show up as a fire. They show up as a missed update, a policy nobody revisited, a decision that got made once and never got looked at again. And every single month that goes by without someone senior actually owning that — the risk doesn't stay flat. It compounds. If you're an HR Generalist carrying this alone, this episode is for you. If you're a CFO or owner who's never had to think about who's watching it — this is especially for you. By the end of this, you'll know exactly what "the compliance problem" actually looks like in a small business, why it grows specifically in the absence of a mentor rather than the absence of effort, and what to actually do about it starting this week. Contact - > brad@scaletx.io Podcast -＞ https://hrforsmallbusiness.podbean.com Website - > scaletx.io LinkedIn -＞https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyvoorhees/     Next Steps: Step 1: Follow me on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyvoorhees/,  to get more Senior HR Advice without the full-time hire. Step 2: Visit scaletx.io to book a call with me to learn more about how we can support your HR team.  Step 3: Sign up for my weekly newsletter by visiting my website, scaletx.io, and sign up!

  6. Aug 27

    Episode 26 : Why Your CFO Keeps Answering Corporate HR Questions They Weren't Hired For

    In the last month, has your CFO or business owner made a call on an HR issue — leave, termination, comp — that was really a judgment call outside their training? If your HR generalist hit a question above their experience level tomorrow, do they have anywhere to escalate it besides finance or leadership? Has anyone in your leadership team ever said out loud that the current HR reporting structure isn't actually working — or has it just quietly stayed the same because it always has? Somewhere in your building right now, there's a CFO answering a question they have no business answering. A leave-of-absence question. A comp question. A "can we fire this person today" question. And they're answering it not because it's their job — but because there's nobody else in the room qualified to. Today I want to talk about how that happens, why it's more common in corporate small business environments than almost anyone admits out loud, and — this is the part that matters — why it's not actually the CFO's fault, and it's not actually the HR generalist's fault either. It's a structural trap. And once you see the shape of it, you can't unsee it. Contact - > brad@scaletx.io Podcast -＞ https://hrforsmallbusiness.podbean.com Website - > scaletx.io LinkedIn -＞https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyvoorhees/     Next Steps: Step 1: Follow me on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyvoorhees/,  to get more Senior HR Advice without the full-time hire. Step 2: Visit scaletx.io to book a call with me to learn more about how we can support your HR team.  Step 3: Sign up for my weekly newsletter by visiting my website, scaletx.io, and sign up!

  7. Aug 24

    Episode 25 : Why Your CEO Doesn't See Human Resources As Essential — A Fix For CFOs

    If your CEO asked your HR function for its roadmap for the next twelve months, could you hand them one page — or would you be improvising an answer? When was the last time HR presented something to leadership in terms of business risk or growth capacity, rather than policy or process? Is your HR person spending nearly all of their time reacting to what's already broken, with no protected time to build what would prevent the next one? If your CEO doesn't see HR as essential, I want to tell you something that might sting a little: your CEO might be right. Not about HR — about your HR. About the version of HR that exists in your building right now. Here's what I mean. In almost twenty years of doing this work, I have never once met a CEO who woke up and decided HR didn't matter. Not one. What I've met, over and over, is CEOs who've never actually seen HR do anything except react. Handle a complaint. Process a leave request. Put out a fire. And if that's all HR has ever done in front of them, then of course they don't see it as essential — they see it as administrative. Necessary, sure. Like the copier. Not strategic. Today I want to walk you through why that perception exists, what it actually costs your company when it's true, and exactly what a CFO — because let's be honest, most of you listening are the ones actually managing this relationship — can do to change it. Not with a pitch. With infrastructure. Contact - > brad@scaletx.io Podcast -＞ https://hrforsmallbusiness.podbean.com Website - > scaletx.io LinkedIn -＞https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyvoorhees/     Next Steps: Step 1: Follow me on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyvoorhees/,  to get more Senior HR Advice without the full-time hire. Step 2: Visit scaletx.io to book a call with me to learn more about how we can support your HR team.  Step 3: Sign up for my weekly newsletter by visiting my website, scaletx.io, and sign up!

  8. Aug 20

    Episode 24 : Why CEOs Are Losing Confidence in Their HR Departments (And How to Win It Back)

    Is your HR person brought into strategic conversations while decisions are still being shaped, or only after the decision is made, to handle compliance? If your CEO were asked today whether HR adds strategic value or just process oversight, which answer would they give honestly? Has your HR person ever had a senior mentor walk them through a real strategic decision, or have they only ever had access to compliance training? At SHRM's national conference this year, Johnny Taylor — the CEO of SHRM — told the room that in his personal conversations with Fortune 500 CEOs, roughly thirty percent of them told him they see little value in their HR function. Let that land. These are HR departments with real budgets, real headcount, real seats at the leadership table — and a third of the CEOs running those companies still aren't convinced HR is pulling its weight. Now if that confidence gap exists at that level, I promise you it exists in small businesses too — it just doesn't get said out loud in a keynote. It gets said quietly, in a CFO meeting, when someone asks why HR needs another tool, or why a project is taking so long, or why the HR generalist wasn't consulted on a decision that clearly involved people. Today I want to talk directly to the business owners and CFOs listening, and to the HR generalists too, because this cuts both ways. I want to talk about why that confidence erodes in the first place, and exactly what it takes to rebuild it — not through more meetings or more reporting, but through something HR in small businesses almost never has: senior mentorship. Contact - > brad@scaletx.io Podcast -＞ https://hrforsmallbusiness.podbean.com Website - > scaletx.io LinkedIn -＞https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyvoorhees/     Next Steps: Step 1: Follow me on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyvoorhees/,  to get more Senior HR Advice without the full-time hire. Step 2: Visit scaletx.io to book a call with me to learn more about how we can support your HR team.  Step 3: Sign up for my weekly newsletter by visiting my website, scaletx.io, and sign up!

See All (32)

Trailer

5
out of 5
17 Ratings

About

Are you the one losing sleep over HR… even though it’s not supposed to be your job? Maybe your HR Generalist is doing their best—but they don’t have the experience to lead. Maybe your CFO is stuck playing Human Resources. Or maybe you’re just tired of guessing your way through compliance, hiring, and performance issues or any of the other HR problems your small business faces. That’s exactly why this podcast exists. I’m Brad Voorhees, the founder of ScaleTx HR Advisory and the host of the HR For Small Business Podcast. Since 2020, I’ve helped small business leaders solve their biggest HR challenges, elevate their HR department and mentor and develop their junior HR staff, all without the cost or commitment of a full-time HR Director. In this podcast, I’ll give you practical, real-world HR guidance to help you build a stronger team, reduce risk, create a talent experience and scale an HR department that actually works for your small business. If you’re tired of playing the role of Human Resources Director and you want to stop reacting to HR problems and start leading through them—this is for you. Let’s elevate your HR.

Information

You Might Also Like