Speaker 1 0:00

Winnipeg is quite literally one degree of separation. You can make a phone call, and within that one phone call, you'll get an introduction to someone who you want to connect with, a piece of advice, a contact, someone that will help you. This city is remarkable and unique in the fact that we want local businesses to succeed. We're there to help one another, and I have yet to come across a business owner, a politician, who isn't there to help support and wanting you to be successful. Because the more success stories we have in Winnipeg, the more opportunity there is for all of us.

Speaker 0:38

Founders and leaders across Manitoba are building meaningful things, often quietly and without much attention. I'm Nathan Maertins. On the Building Manitoba podcast, I sit down with local founders and leaders to go beyond the surface. We talk about the values that drove them, the decisions that mattered, and the lessons they learned along the way. This podcast is for people who care about building something meaningful in Manitoba. Today on the Building Manitoba Podcast, I'm talking with Barb Gamey, co-founder of Payworks. Over the past 25 years, Payworks has grown from a Winnipeg startup into a company serving more than 45,000 businesses across Canada, all while remaining headquartered in Winnipeg and competing with some of the largest payroll providers in North America. In this conversation, Barb shares the lessons she learned before launching Payworks, how she and her co-founders built a partnership that's lasted more than 25 years, and why customer service became the foundation of the company's growth. We talk about making decisions with imperfect information, scaling a business without outside capital, and why Payworks chose to invest and grow during the 2008 financial crisis while many others pulled back. If you're building a business, leading a team, or trying to create something that lasts, there's a lot to learn from this conversation. Let's get into it. Barb, welcome to the Building Manitoba podcast. It's great to have you here.

Speaker 1 2:07

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2:09

I want to start talking about your time before Payworks, because I know you spent about 15 years in the payroll industry at a company called Comcheq and uh founded by Bill Loewen and one of Canada's first independent payroll businesses. Can you talk a little bit about that time and maybe what it taught you personally and about leadership just before you came into founding Payworks and what have you taken with you into running Payworks afterwards?

Speaker 1 2:33

So I did join Comcheq. I was there for 15 years. It was actually Bill Loewen who hired me uh into the company. I think I was a 74th employee when I started. When the company was sold to CIBC, we had probably 450 people. So there was tremendous growth in the business. And you're right, Comcheq was one of the only independently owned payroll provider in Canada, ADP as well. But all the banks had their own payroll platforms that they promoted and sold to their corporate customers. And we competed head-to-head with those banks on a day-to-day basis and grew a terrific business in Winnipeg and was ultimately uh sold to CIBC.

Speaker 3:12

And so you lived through CIBC then with the sale to CIBC, but then also Ceridian coming in as an American company and buying it. And now Payworks competes against Day force, which you know is what Ceridian became afterwards. So can you talk about what watching an independent Canadian company get absorbed kind of in that larger American, you know, corporation? What was that like to watch? And like, is there any takeaways that you took away from that period?

Speaker 1 3:39

For sure. Lots of takeaways. So yeah, we grew a very successful business in Winnipeg and ADP was growing as well. And as I said, all the banks had their platforms. We could see, however, from our vantage point in Canada that the same situation was evident in the States, but the banks were slowly selling off their payroll divisions, and that created a number of competitors in the U.S. that we didn't see in Canada. So Comcheq approached the CIBC and said, you know, maybe you should think about selling because we see that happening south of the border, wasn't met with a lot of receptivity because banks were not in the business of selling businesses at the time. They certainly are more used to it now. So that created the environment for us to be sold, and it was Ceridian who came forward. And they purchased the payroll division from CIBC, which was Comcheq, and as well the Toronto Dominion Bank's payroll system and combined the two of us together, which created Ceridian Canada. So immediately lots of customers in Canada, a big footprint, lots of business activity in Canada. And Ceridian's head office at the time was in Minneapolis. And we had hoped that there would be a little bit more independence in terms of our ability to continue to run a successful enterprise in Canada. It was pretty evident early on, though, that a lot of the decision making would be made out of, you know, the head office in the US and that some great jobs would disappear. And I really got the sense that the service aspect of how they plan to treat the Canadian market would be very different than as the VP of sales and marketing I deemed as being critically important. Not to mention the fact that they still bought two payroll systems that were, you know, rooted in technology that, you know, came to be uh in the 60s and 70s. So older technology, um, trying to be more relevant in more modern technology, as well as I think a service model that was going to be uh difficult to maintain customer levels of satisfaction.

Speaker 5:40

So you're in that environment, and then you started Payworks with a couple of other co-founders. Is it John Loewen and Dave Johnston, I believe? Like, can you talk a little bit about how the group of you came together and kind of what pushed you to then take kind of that defining moment and then decide that, you know, going out on your own is the best step, and you're gonna work together on that?

Speaker 1 6:01

So market consolidation, which is what happened. There were seven providers in Canada, really coalescing around two large providers, ADP and Ceridian. And from the outside looking in, I had a pretty good idea of where they would go in terms of service and product and what some of their financial constraints would be. Dave and John, of course, John was the CEO of Comcheq, left when Ceridian acquired Comcheq. Dave Johnston, of course, has the Johnston group, the largest third-party administrator benefits in Canada, Chamber of Commerce plans. Dave always wanted to have a payroll product that linked to a benefit plan because he recognized years and years ago that much of the data that's resident in payroll also exists in benefits. So, gee, wouldn't it be great if we had a payroll and benefit system that could talk to one another and reduce the administrative burden for his customers as well as ours? So Dave had had a couple of conversations, you know, years before paywork started about the possibility of doing a joint venture that didn't really get traction. And then after I left Ceridian, Dave and John had been having a conversation and said maybe we need to revive that discussion. I had independently been doing research about what I thought the market opportunity might be for payroll in Canada. And Dave reached out to me and said, let's have a conversation. So the three of us really had similar but different interests in why we thought Payworks would be a great business to start.

Speaker 7:36

And the three of you have stayed partners for quite a long time. And you know, most founder partnerships don't last 25 years. Can you maybe talk a little bit about how you divided things up between the three of you and handle disagreements and just keep a partnership like that going for so long?

Speaker 1 7:51

So I was always kind of the owner-operator. I was hands-on in the business. Dave and John were from an advisory capacity. Dave, of course, just a wealth of business experience and benefits. His customer profile and what I anticipated, the Payworks customer profile, were very similar. Smaller businesses. I designed the system to be, you know, under 20 employees. And then that's very much matching the profile of his customers. John, of course, had 20 years' experience in the business. So I think we came with a lot of similar experiences. But I think first and foremost, there was, you know, we genuinely like each other and trust each other and respect each other. And that's never, never gone away. And over the last 26 years, we've certainly, uh, certainly maintained that. In terms of difficulties, we defined Payworks as a Manitoba company creating high-quality jobs, giving back generously to our community, providing great products and services to our customers. So we always had that fundamental. These are the things that we believe are important in growing the business in Payworks. And so when we came up to situations or conversations that we might have had a difference of opinion on, we tried to anchor back to some of those things. But honestly, there were times where we went to our separate corners and said, we're not in agreement. Let's think about this. Let's see if there's more information that will help us move a direction, a situation along, and then come back together. And over 26 years, there hasn't been a single time where we haven't come together and agreed on what the direction should be or could be.

Speaker 9:25

That's awesome. Yeah. And that shared mission, really, like having that anchor point or true north point that you can come back to, then that's great to have alignment on that and make sure that even when there's differences of how you get there, you can kind of anchor back to that same vision.

Speaker 1 9:38

And I think as well, you know, we created a purpose statement years ago for Payworks. And that's doing right by people. And that's our employees, our customers, our community. And I know that that's a little bit nebulous because you can define something that's right for somebody any way you want. But, you know, I think if you approach it with genuine compassion, concern, and wanting to be on the right side of a discussion, that really helps drive some of that as well.

Speaker 10:02

Can we go back to like the very start? And can you talk about like what was the first version of Payworks like? Because you're coming from, you know, fairly established companies that have a product built that, you know, it's you know, a bit legacy, I imagine, in ways, in terms of you've got older systems and now you have a chance to kind of start from scratch and you know, take a minimum viable product to market. Like, what did that look like? And what was the first version? And who were you reaching out to in terms of your first customers and kind of your first team members?

Speaker 1 10:30

So I had no baby or bath water. So it was really easy to start, to start fresh. And if we look back at the time, so 2000, you know, kind of a dot-com bust. Things were very, you know, shifting sands around dot-com businesses. At the time, there were lots of consumer products that were being transacted wholly over the internet, but not many business ones. So, you know, it was still there was still a lot of reluctance to have this open pipe, you know, over this magical internet that we were going to move employee data back and forth. So, in conversations with the technology groups or technology departments, CTOs and others around what comfort level they would have in using a new product, we took a slightly different approach. So we created Payworks uh 1.0. It was a piece of software that resided on the client's computer, but it was downloaded by the so connect for a very short period of time, download the software. You go about keying in your payroll information, your employee information on your local machine, then connect via the internet to Payworks. We will then crunch the gross to net, the results, and you will reconnect and receive those results. You would have the opportunity in a preview, which we call the preview format, to review your calculations, your pay stubs, your reports, make sure that everything looked okay. If it didn't run the process again, if it did, you connect and run the final. So we were able to go out to market and say, yes, we're using newer technology, yes, it's a newer platform, yes, there are lots of benefits in using our product, but you're not connected 100% of the time. And that really resonated with businesses at the time in the 2000s. So Paywork's 1.0 was in market, probably for I'll say three years. I was a 70% viable product when I went to market. Um, 70 to 75%. There were lots of things. I mean, certainly payroll was 100%, but we knew we had to have some human resource function. We knew that we had to have some time management function. So those things came along a little later. And I remember showing our product, uh, and that's the other thing. My mantra was always get out often and get lots of customer feedback. Don't fall so in love with what it is you're creating that you're in a vacuum and then you go ta-da and it's oh, you've missed the mark. So I got lots of potential customer feedback as we were creating screens and running reports and you know, how screens looked. So my first presentation was to a customer who had actually 115 employees, not designed for that size customer at all. But I remember her looking at the product and saying, gee, there's some really interesting things here. And I think, you know, you you really got something that that will be well received in the market. And then I just went out and I started selling one customer at a time, at a time, at a time. So that, and then hired, of course, some other sales folks across the country. But Payworks 1.0 was probably 70% viable. It had the technology that was acceptable at the time. And then we went fully web enabled down the road, sort of three years down the road. And there were a number of years where we supported both platforms, which I wouldn't recommend because it costs money and it takes time and it is a bit of a diversion from what it is you want to do to grow your business. But nevertheless, we did put a line in the sand and say to our software using customers, we've built all of our new feature functions into the web version. And at a certain date, it we're gonna retire the software version. So it's in your best interest to move. And I'm proud to say that I don't think we lost. If we lost a customer or two, that would have been about it. Most customers made the journey and converted to the web product.

Speaker 14:24

You talked about customer feedback and the importance of getting that early in the product development piece. I just wonder if you can dive a little deeper on that in terms of how are you going out and getting that feedback? Was it I I think sometimes people think of feedback is just like, oh, I'm gonna have a survey for a customer, but what how are you going and gathering that? And, you know, was it on the sales conversation side where you were kind of demoing and getting feedback in those, or were you doing focus groups? How were you gathering all of that feedback?

Speaker 1 14:49

I was I was doing face-to-face. So I would actually take my laptop, which back in those days weighed 80 pounds and it was in a literal suitcase, and I would set it up on a controller's desk, a general manager's desk, a business owner's desk, and I would walk through what their payroll process might look like if they were using Payworks. And I try to highlight for them the areas where I knew we had advantage, a significant advantage, and then waited for the reaction and the feedback. And so I felt that because I'd gone through kind of a simulated demo with potential users with no commitment to sign up, but I felt their feedback was well, a relevant, B genuine, and C, boy, it was illuminating for me in how we chose to continue to develop the market.

Speaker 15:36

When you're competing against really the established players, you know, backed by banks and large players. Like, how did you establish trust or how win customers were, you know, payroll data sensitive? If you're a new player in the market, I mean, you have your track record from working for others in the industry, but how did you build that trust and credibility in the industry?

Speaker 1 15:56

So I was lucky enough to have two of the original uh Comcheq folks join me early on, chief software developer and our operations vice president. So the three of us had, I think reputationally, the ability to make the phone call and be able to get in. But the other thing I said, and it's probably recorded somewhere, you know, you fake it till you make it. So once we started to have some customers, we established our banking relationship with CIBC. So that was, you know, kind of table stakes. You needed to be with one of the major banks. Deloitte were our auditors, and we audited our trust statement and provided an audited trust statement for customers that wanted so we could demonstrate that we were running the business as we would if we were 10 times bigger. And that seemed to, that seemed to answer a number of questions in terms of, you know, who are you and why would I trust you? The interesting part though is that customers necessarily don't recognize, and horrible to say, but with a pre-authorized debit, you know, three days before payday, we're debiting your bank account for the total funds of your payroll. And you're entrusting us that two days later we're going to put that money into your employees' bank accounts if they're direct deposits or issue checks in a wholly unregulated industry. So the number of times I was asked questions about holding funds or what we did with funds was I really had a hard time believing that more businesses didn't ask, how do I know the money is going to be there in three days? So our audited trust statement provided assurance that, you know, there was no commingling of funds, that the trust funds were separate from corporate funds, and that, you know, we had the the processes and the discipline in place to make sure that that's what happened.

Speaker 17:36

You mentioned that you kind of ran your 1.0 and 2.0 versions kind of overlapping and that you wouldn't do that again. I guess were there any other things that you got wrong or lessons that you took away from the early years that you'd go back and do differently if you could?

Speaker 1 17:51

Oh, that's such a good question. So I've often said, you know, I'm not built with a rearview mirror. I look straight ahead. I don't view any of the decisions that we made in the past as ones I would do differently or that I regretted. I think there were things that maybe I would have done faster or, you know, implemented. And some of it comes down to the question around scalability. You know, we were doubling every five years, and it was incredibly easy to double from five to 10 customers. A little more challenging to double from 5,000 to 10,000 and 10 to 20, we're at 45,000 customers right now. So the question of scalability was always, you know, kind of first and foremost in our thoughts. So, you know, if there was a system, a process, a piece of software that we were investing in, time, money, we always made sure that at least in five years, there was some relevance to that investment. Did we always get that right? No. But was it something we gave a lot of thought to in the early days? Of course, because no small business has money to burn. You know, you don't want to invest in a piece of software that you think is going to help you be more productive and find that, you know, it's it's not relevant in 12 months down the road.

Speaker 19:05

You grew most of the business like up until recently without outside investment or raising outside capital. Like, can you talk about like how you made that decision? Was that a deliberate decision from the start, or did it just evolve that way based on kind of how the business grew and you were able to support things internally? And maybe like were there difficult decisions you had to make in order to bootstrap and kind of make that work?

Speaker 1 19:27

I think that right from the beginning, Dave and John and I agreed that controlled growth was what we were looking for. So this business is an annuity. As long as a customer continues to run payroll and pay their employees, it's an annuity. So your controlled growth means that you can't lose as much out the bottom of the funnel as you're adding in the top. So we always made sure that we were really aware of customer sentiment. So are we on track to be 97%, you know, customer retention on preventable terminations? Are we investing in the right things in our business? Are our customers telling us that what we see from a value perspective is still resonating with them? And is our customer service experience still ranking as high as we think it should be and as high as customers value it? So I think with those kind of three thoughts, that's how we managed to grow the business and self-fund the things that we believed we needed to invest in the business in.

Speaker 20:26

I know when we talked previously that you mentioned 2008 was a year where you'd experienced some challenges. Could you unpack that a little bit around the rate changes and just the challenges that you went through in that year?

Speaker 1 20:40

So our business operates on uh some interest income and about 30% of our total revenue, it depends on where interest rates sit. And of course, I've seen them at zero, I've seen them at 16%, I've seen them all over the place. But in 2008, the financial crisis hit and interest rates went effectively to zero overnight. We did have some investments in, you know, in GICs, which were one or two years. So some a little bit of buffering for rate protection, but but really we saw an erosion of of our revenue overnight. So of course we turned to, well, how, you know, where can we cut expenses? You know, have we got any long-term contracts with courier or paper products or whatever it happens to be that we can we can do a better job of? So we we did that. But the other thing that that we did was we really decided that replacing that top line in service fee revenue was a better strategy. So where we had 25 reps across the country, I had always felt that 50 was about the right number to cover the country. So we actually went out and I'm not sure we doubled the sales force, but we certainly added 10 to 12 sales individuals right from day one. And we made sure that we hit the ground running with them quickly so that we could make up that gap as quickly as possible. And it worked out. It was a huge expense, and those things don't always work out, but but but this time. And we were lucky enough to find some really great individuals to join the company, some of which I'm proud to say are still here today.

Speaker 22:07

So what gave you the conviction to kind of go against conventional wisdom? Like you're doing some of the cutting, but conventional wisdom is, you know, scale back and you know, retreat and just protect what you have. But when you're in a crisis and you go out and you spend more and you you just look at how can we take advantage and gain market share? Like what gave you that conviction or the guts to kind of go against the flow on that?

Speaker 1 22:29

I think probably the most important piece for us was our percentage of market share at the time, 3% market share of all outsourced businesses. So we knew the runway was long and we knew that our customers that we were getting were still very happy with the value that we were providing them. And I think that, you know, we looked at it and said, we've got very satisfied customers. We've got a product that's sitting in market really nicely. We've got the capacity to be able to absorb more business without a lot of uh additional costs, some service costs for sure. But I don't think it was time to take to take the gas off. Not when your MPS is sitting at 55. Like, you know, you take advantage of that and and you grow your business as fast as you can.

Speaker 23:13

Yeah, absolutely. Do you ever talk to other business owners that are in downturns and do you give them similar advice about, or I guess maybe how would you frame that? Like what's kind of your defining rule as far as when do you protect cash or when do you kind of lean into the storm and and just step on the gas more on that?

Speaker 1 23:30

For me, it's always about customer preservation. What I need to do to preserve that customer base, nobody wants a declining customer base. And no one wants to see their opportunity to attract new customers diminishing. So if you're continuing to attract new customers because your value proposition is good, if your customers are staying because they're happy, for me, that's an opportunity to invest and make sure that you're attracting more.

Speaker 23:53

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the differentiating pieces of Payworks versus some of the others now, like ADP and Dayforce being American, is that you have everything staying in Canada and as you're competing against the American players and uh internationally. Why does that matter to you? And how did you turn that into uh advantage for the company versus just kind of marketing for the company?

Speaker 1 24:15

So we only pay Canadian employees. We operate in Canada, we pay Canadian employees. So our technology, our product was created in Canada, built by Canadians, serving Canadian customers, and we're in local communities. We have got 650 people across the country from Victoria to Halifax. And so I think that local businesses appreciate the fact that you're there in their community. We're supporting their community, a lot of initiatives in community. And I think there's just a recognition that, you know, if given a choice and I can support another business down the road who is walking a mile in my shoes in my community, probably a little bit of a competitive advantage.

Speaker 24:57

Yeah, absolutely. You talked a little bit earlier about how you're shipping products when they're at like 75% of maybe where you want them to be. Like you've got the payroll piece looked after, and then you know you're adding features afterwards, but you're putting a lot of emphasis on moving quickly. Um, I'm wondering if you could speak to like how you built the culture that would, you know, allow the company to still move quickly as it grew. And then also how do you still manage risk when you're dealing with something as sensitive as payroll and still move quickly?

Speaker 1 25:29

So I guess I've said often enough that any decision made too late is a bad decision. So everyone around the table, particularly in the early years that were responsible for getting to market and closing some of those gaps as quickly as we could, kind of understood that, you know, you can sit back and fall in love with what you've created. That's a death trap. You need to continue to be innovating and continuing to deliver more for customers because, you know, that value will start to diminish over time. So the culture of, you know, let's get to market as quickly as we can, satisfy the needs of the customer and continue to add feature function as we go was probably in the DNA of the first handful of employees. And I know that I intentionally hired folks in the early days that were probably more like me, could make decisions with imperfect information, didn't have necessarily a rearview mirror that they were going to look in a lot. We're going forward, we're we're we're moving forward, we're making decisions. I think I said very recently it's those million little decisions that you make as opposed to the big ones that I think moves the needle probably more. However, I did recognize after about the 12th employee that were very much like me, that I was exhausting and I needed people around me that were different, different lived experience, you know, different decision-making processes, um different ways to communicate so that we could get better. And I think that's grown over time for sure. But the culture of within Payworks I think today still is we do what we can to satisfy our customers and we want to hear where we're deficient from the customer's perspective, so that we're always focused on that customer roadmap. How do we deliver to the customer maximum value as they as they need it?

Speaker 27:12

As you were growing the company, I guess, how did you find that that impacted your leadership skills? Did you find that you were having to grow yourself as a leader as well? And were there any things that you had to kind of unlearn as a leader of a large company versus small, scrappy startup?

Speaker 1 27:27

For sure. Some really valuable lessons. I didn't realize how I came to work in a day affected people. So in a small company, the business owner, you know, we're always looking at bottom line, we're always looking at funding. You know, I was under scrutiny for, you know, what kind of mood is is Barb in today? Are things looking good? You know, did that sale come through? How are things going? So I really did have to, you know, put myself out there. One of the things that I really had to work on, not everything goes right in a startup and small business. So there's bad news that that happens from time to time, you know, let's be real. And I remember uh one of my service leads coming to me saying, you know, no one likes to bring you bad news, Barb, because you don't react very well to it. Ooh, that called me out on that one. So I had a conversation about it, and and it wasn't so much that my reaction impeded them from doing the right thing because they didn't want to necessarily upset or get a negative reaction. So I've over the years I've worked really hard at, oh, tell me more about that. You know, how did that happen? Um, how how we mitigated? Who else have we talked to? Do we think we've got a good solution? Um, so less reactionary on the negative side, things happen, bad things happen, but let's work through, you know, how we rectify.

Speaker 28:45

Yeah, no, that's so true. That I'm just picturing some moments from other interactions I've had too, where when you're monitoring the person at the top and how their attitude is, and it that can affect everyone else around them in such a big way. For sure. In recent years, you've brought in more professional leadership and just oversight for the company. And just wonder as well, too, like as you're stepping back from the hands-on piece of it, you know, is that a hard transition, or what have you had to learn through that transition? And how did you know the team was ready for you to bring in someone else and step back more?

Speaker 1 29:20

Well, I haven't been the smartest person in the room for years, and thank goodness. So we've hired, you know, really talented people. Our senior leadership team is, you know, second to none. And they work together really well. There's a harmony and a cohesion. I think that they respect one another, they have each other's back. And as I sit back and listen to them debate, you know, situations in the business or decisions that they've made, I honestly feel like they've looked at all alternatives. They've talked through those alternatives, I think, in a really creative way, in a productive way. And the decisions that they've made, I fully support. And that's been happening, you know, it's been evolving over a number of years. But, you know, it's it's hiring really great people who are, again, really smart. And you can step back and recognize that you don't have to have the answers, or certainly not all the answers. Yeah.

Speaker 30:16

And you've spent, you know, 25 years now staying independent and turning down outside capital. And I know recently you've partnered with HG and brought them as a partner. Can you talk a little bit about what that was like and what led you to that step, why now was the right time and why HG was the right partner to bring in?

Speaker 1 30:34

I'm not sure that you ever know that it's the perfect time, but you know, as Dave, John, and I looked at the growth of the business, you know, we have 45,000 customers, 650 employees. The business is in great shape, for sure. We started looking at the things that the business had articulated as being strategic priorities. So we now have some regulation in the business. So there's a regulatory component in the business, which will layer in some costs and complexity in the business. That's kind of separate and aside. How AI is going to affect the business in terms of both employment and deployment of AI throughout our software, uh, our customer experience, and our customers, we were talking through those investments in AI, as well as the speed to market, the velocity that speed to market was happening with our competitors and new entrants. AI is creating an opportunity for a fully uh angentic payroll offering or HCM offering. And so we had some strategic priorities off to the side that we were, you know, looking at investing in the businesses working through. Um, HG came to us unsolicited and wanted to do a presentation on some of their findings about the business. Now, HG have a number of HCM companies globally that they either own partially or completely. So they have a track record and breadth of experience that we as the independent in Winnipeg operating in Canada, you know, certainly didn't have necessarily. And so they came forward and said, you know, here are the things that we think are going to be opportunities for Payworks in the next three to five years, challenges for payward based on what we see globally for Payworks. And we think that we're the right partner for you to move you along to the next, um, to the next level of to level up the company. And so their list and our list matched exactly, you know, not uncanny, but but interesting. And I and I think that, you know, sort of how they approached it, which was an investment in the company, we viewed them as a strategic investment in the company. Dave John and I still have ownership in the company, and that they would help to assure the relevance and the growth and the potential for Payworks and its employees and its customers. So, you know, Dave John and I had, you know, some non-negotiables in terms of what we wanted to maintain for Payworks. And HG were very combinating of those non-negotiables. And it just seemed like the right thing to do at the right time. Were we looking? No. Did I think that this would happen to Payworks after 26 years? No. But sometimes the right opportunity just presents itself, and you can see that, you know, the matching of how you see the business evolving and growing is just they see it the same way.

Speaker 33:18

Yeah, it sounds like a lot of alignment there, which is awesome to see. And they have like that software and AI expertise that they're bringing in too. Is that kind of the piece? Or what's the piece that you're most excited about, kind of leaning on their expertise for?

Speaker 1 33:31

A couple of things. For sure, their experience in AI, we've had lots of workshops to gain some experience and to be involved in workshops. And so that I think that's accelerating our ability to get to that level, which is great. The other is security. We're in a business where, as you point out, we have very valuable data and where we do an excellent job of making sure that that data is protected and that bad actors don't have an opportunity to exploit it. Um, they have a different lens, they've got other experiences with other HCM companies. And so there's hardening of some of those processes and applications that we're able to use. So I think, you know, kind of cybersecurity, AI, those are the things that, and I would have to say the velocity of getting to customers with announcements.

Speaker 34:16

That's awesome. If there's a founder who is thinking about kind of eventually facing their own version of this, whether it's a sale, a transition, bringing in capital, what's kind of your advice on what they should be thinking about, you know, long before they get there.

Speaker 1 34:30

Ooh, that's a great question. I would say I was able to articulate the non-negotiables very quickly with HG. Jobs in Winnipeg, number one, no offshoring of jobs. I wanted decision making continuing in Manitoba. I've seen too many companies purchase, and those decision-making jobs are stripped and they go elsewhere, Toronto, Vancouver, where it happens to be. So decision-making capacity and capability in Winnipeg, jobs in Winnipeg, no offshoring unless is absolutely necessary. That investment in a community was hugely important to me. Payworks invests way above our weight in terms of what is expected of us. We we give way more. And so that was important to us. So I would say think about the things that are non-negotiable for you if you do get a knock on the door. And also think about um, you know, someone says, Well, if somebody backed up Brink's truck, what would it have to be? You know, you have to give some thought to that realistically, um, because it's not about money, but sometimes it becomes about money.

Speaker 35:33

Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned community, and I know you've been deeply involved in the community, both as a company for Payworks and also personally, with, you know, whether it's involvement with the United Way or the bombers and U of W. I won't ask you to list it all, but what pulled you towards that kind of involvement in the community in the first place and making that such a priority for Payworks?

Speaker 1 35:56

Well, fortunately, Dave John and I both believe in the supportive community. So it was really easy for the three of us to articulate that as a priority for the business. Um, I got, I'll I'll just literally say, you know, mandated to support United Way. So I started working at Comcheq. I didn't really know a lot about United Way. Bill Loewen walked by my desk and dropped a payroll pledge form on my desk and said, you will participate. Okay. Uh and so I filled out my payroll deduction form. I started giving. I was 26 years old, I think, and I've never looked back. And over the years, Bill always said, you'll learn more about the work that the United Way does over time in the community. And I invite you to visit some agencies, go on some tours, do a day of caring, because once you get a sense of what happens in the community as a result of your contribution, you'll just continue to give more. So that was kind of my first introduction. It didn't come from home, it didn't come from, you know, peer pressure, it just was business. So so I did. So that was sort of my first um introduction. And in doing that, I recognized, you know, our employees, 650 of them across the country, but those in Winnipeg, are part of the community. We exist as part of the community. And I also know that our employees from time to time may need access to the services provided within the community. And so whatever we can do to make that social safety net as strong as we can, I know that our employees will be benefactors of that. That's on that front. There's also, of course, you know, making sure that Winnipeg has lots of interesting things. So whether it's supporting, you know, sports or arts and culture, I think a vibrant community that has support for services when we need it is aspirationally what we'd all like to have. And so that's always been a priority for me.

Speaker 37:46

I I think for a lot of people who are giving too, like the decision to give is kind of the first part, but then also looking at how do you make an impact with that beyond just the dollars as well. Can you maybe talk about kind of your philosophy behind that? Or how do you, you know, think about making a difference beyond just the dollars or making sure that the dollars make a difference in the community?

Speaker 1 38:05

For sure. You know, I always talk about money, time, and talent, dollars, time and talent. And so I've been fortunate enough to be asked over the years to join different organizations to try to move the needle in an area. And I always walk away from those opportunities, getting more than I've given. I've learned something more about, you know, Winnipeg and the complexity of our city. I've met fabulous people. You know, there's been a success or an outcome that you can be proud of. So for me, it's it's once you have the time to be able to give some time and become familiar with the things that are happening around you, you look at the city and the world a little bit differently. For me, it was personal involvement and making sure that there was alignment in the things that I found interesting.

Speaker 38:51

It changes your perspective. And like you said, you're you're getting almost as much out of it as you're putting into it, or sometimes more.

Speaker 1 38:57

Always more.

Speaker 38:58

Yeah. Just in closing, looking back kind of across the last 25 years or so, what's the lesson you'd most want another local founder to take from your story? And and what's next for you kind of in the chapter ahead?

Speaker 1 39:12

So just uh on a philosophical level, this too will pass. This is this has become my over 26 years of growing the business and the you know, the left turns at Albuquerque and the successes and failures and challenges, this too will pass. We think sometimes that it won't, but it will. But in terms of being local to here, Winnipeg is quite literally one degree of separation. You can make a phone call, and within that one phone call, you'll get an introduction to someone who you want to connect with, a piece of advice, a contact, someone that will help you. This city, in my mind, is remarkable and unique in the fact that we want local businesses to succeed. We're there to help one another. And I have yet to come across a business owner, a politician who isn't there to help support and wanting you to be successful. Because the more success stories we have in Winnipeg, the more opportunity there is for all of us. So I say take advantage of that. And I've seen that in our offices across the country, Vancouver and Toronto. That just it doesn't happen. That kind of connectedness uh doesn't exist. So, you know, don't lose sight of it and take advantage of it. You know, I think we're reluctant sometimes to reach out to someone to say, hey, you know, I've seen that you're advertising on the rink boards at True North. Tell me how that came to be. And, you know, is it a good thing for you and why did you do it? I'm happy to talk about it. Just like, you know, other business owners are happy to talk about the things that, you know, that you admire, things that that you've identified in their businesses as being successful. So Winnipeg is a unique place. Recognize it, take advantage of it. And um, you know, I I think you'll be better for it.

Speaker 40:51

Awesome. No, that's a great message. Well, Barb, thanks for coming on the Building Manitoba podcast. I've really enjoyed our conversation here.

Speaker 1 40:58

Thanks, Nathan. I appreciate it.

Speaker 41:00

Thanks for listening to the Building Manitoba podcast, and thanks to everyone who's been sharing the show. If something here stuck with you, send this episode to one person who'd want to hear it too. See you next time.