Growing your business is exciting. Picking the wrong HR system to support that growth? Not so much.

In this special episode, Yang and Ashley bring in their HRIS and Ops expert Carla Garrison to break down everything small business owners and HR pros need to know before signing on the dotted line with a new vendor. And trust us — the demo they showed you is not the whole story.

Carla has been on both sides of the table. She's been the wide-eyed ops manager who got wine and dined into a system that didn't do half of what was promised, and she's been the consultant called in five weeks before go-live to clean up somebody else's mess. She's learned the hard way so you don't have to.

They get into the 90/10 rule — why no system will ever do 100% of what you want and why that's actually okay — what questions to ask before you ever sign a contract, why the salesperson and the implementation person need to be in the same room, and why changing vendors every time something goes wrong is like changing your clothes. It costs more than you think and leaves you starting from scratch every time.

Whether you're coming off a PEO, scaling fast, or just tired of doing everything manually — this one will save you time, money, and a whole lot of headaches.

Hurricane season is coming and if you're in Houston, you already know what that means. But weather events are just the beginning. In this episode, Yang and Ashley get into the emergency situations that nobody thinks about until they're actually happening — and by then it's too late.

From an active shooter situation at the Galleria with no plan and a building full of people, to a heart attack on the office floor that turned into a workers comp question nobody knew how to answer, to Yang's son getting second degree burns at his therapy center while Yang was literally flooded in and couldn't get to him — this one's got it all.

They break down what companies get wrong, what a real emergency plan actually looks like, and why it always seems to take an incident before anybody puts one in place.

Houston specific? Sure. But honestly this stuff applies everywhere. Have a plan before you need one.

Nobody likes firing people. But if you're in HR or managing a team, it's inevitable. The question isn't whether you'll have to do it — it's whether you're ready when it happens.

In this episode, Yang and Ashley get into the real, unfiltered side of difficult terminations. We're talking a pre-Christmas executive layoff, a guy who spit on the table and dropped every curse word in the book on his way out, and what it's like to fire a friend and then watch her face when she realizes you already knew.

They break down what actually goes into a termination before anyone sits down in that room, why you should never apologize, how PIPs are being misused, and what to do when the person being fired won't stop talking.

Real stories. Hard lessons. And yes — someone had a gun in their car.

When personal beliefs show up at work, political posters in cubicles, religious decorations at the front desk, vocal opinions around the office, things can get complicated fast. In this episode, Yang and Ashley share real stories from their HR careers about exactly these situations: a 2016 election-era standoff with an HR employee who didn't know where the line was, and a front desk hire whose religious decor led to a discrimination complaint. They break down what managers get wrong, why having the right policy in place before something happens matters more than most people think, and how to have those uncomfortable conversations without making things worse. If you've ever had to navigate beliefs in a professional setting, or you're afraid to, this one's for you.

What do you do when your employee shows up to work drunk? What if it's not so obvious? And who thought it was a good idea to invite the safety manager to do lines on an oil rig?

In this episode, Yang and Ashley kick things off with some of the wildest substance-related workplace stories from their careers — starting with a temp who showed up to her 10 AM shift with a spiked Big Gulp and ended up passed out in the bathroom. From there it only gets more interesting.

They break down what HR actually has to think through when someone appears to be under the influence — reasonable suspicion training, observation checklists, drug testing logistics, and why sending someone home in an Uber is way more complicated than it sounds. Plus they get into the liability minefield of office happy hours, company holiday parties, and what happens when an employee drives a company car home from your event and things go sideways.

Real stories, real lessons, and a reminder that if you don't have a clear policy in place — this stuff will find you.

In our first episode, we're not diving into HR stories yet. We're just telling you who we are and how we both ended up in this world — because neither of us planned to.

Yang's path started with a spectacularly bombed interview that sent him on a quest he didn't see coming. Ashley was supposed to be the next Hannah Storm on ESPN until reality (and student loans) had other plans. Somewhere along the way, both of us stumbled into HR and recruiting, worked at the same company, went our separate ways, and ended up right back here — doing this together.

This one's the get-to-know-us episode. Starting next week, we get into the real stuff.

Got a workplace story you want us to break down? Submit your story anonymously at wehiregroup.com/podcast.