Helping People Succeed

Heidi Ponds O2 Employment Services is her to Help Your Business…

Employment laws have gotten more complicated (especially in California) over the last 20 years, and knowing how to navigate human resources – no matter if you’re a big or small business – can determine whether it succeeds or not. O2 Employment Services CEO Heidi Pond has dedicated her life to helping businesses understand these complexities and helped them boost bottom lines and the Northern California economy along the way.

Pond grew up in Washington and moved to Redding in 1993 to attend Simpson College. While getting her education, Pond worked a stint at a recruitment agency, doing human resources and helping small to medium-sized companies find employees. She found her niche in that because she “loves helping people succeed,” and it came at the time when employer organization outsourcing technology was coming out.

“We started Teamwork HR in 2001 to help employers understand employee laws and stay up on changes regarding payroll, workman’s comp, benefits, compliance and more,” Pond says. They opened their first office on Bechelli Lane in Redding and immediately “walked up and down the road knocking door-to-door to get clients,” Pond recalls. In 2009, Teamwork HR formed a sister company called O2 Staffing to focus on recruitment; together they are now called O2 Employment Services. “It was extremely hard getting the business going, but also extremely rewarding,” Pond remembers of those early days.

And now that California businesses have so much more to worry about two decades later (it’s widely regarded as not the most employer-friendly state), it’s hard to know how any business makes it work without hiring an outside human resources company. “The biggest challenge in the beginning was navigating workman’s compensation, but now it’s evolved – there’s hundreds of laws now,” Pond says.

She often sees people go into business because they are really good at something, but not so good at knowing employee laws. “It was a lot easier in 2001, but harder to stay compliant now. It’s difficult to know what you can and can’t do with the new laws,” adds Pond. Now there’s the Affordable Care Act; changing sick leave rules and regulations; commission agreements; the workplace violence program; how leaves of absences are handled – “I could go on and on,” Pond says. “That’s what we’re dealing with now. It didn’t used to be a lot, but now it is.”

Her own O2 Employment Services team is 31 employees deep, almost all women.

“The majority of our employees are the primary breadwinners of their family. A few of them are single moms. We hire likeminded people. All of us exude the ITEST values – Integrity, Think in a way of teamwork, Empathy, wanting to provide Service, and Trustworthy

“These are strong women; we’re all similar in personality, hardworking, and we genuinely like each other,” Pond says. “Empowering women creates stronger families, communities and workplaces. I get enjoyment seeing someone come to our organization and give them opportunities that they may not have had otherwise. I like to help keep people moving forward. Our goal is going into a business and asking, ‘What keeps you up at night?’ and figuring out how to help. Because there’s that saying, ‘You don’t know what you don’t know’.”

A human resources company like O2 Employment Services can help put together all the pieces for the business so its owners can focus on doing what they love without getting bogged down with the employment side of things. “It makes so much more sense to outsource human resources. Really understanding these laws is imperative to business success,” Pond says.

O2 Employment Services collaborates with clients all over the United States, but Pond likes to concentrate her client base in California because its where the employment laws are some of the most intense. When starting O2 Employment Services, “I really wanted to work in a community that wants to give back. Businesses here want to take care of their employees, but they also have to stay in business,” Pond says.

Along with being involved with a number of advisory boards and organizations across Shasta County, O2 Employment Services also started the Give Redding Holiday Drive initiative 12 years ago. “It’s one of the largest holiday drives in the state,” Pond says. Working with other businesses, they collect food, clothing, toys, etc., to donate back to nonprofits such as the Good News Rescue Mission, One SAFE Place and others. Over the past decade, the campaign has collected more than 10,000 toys, more than 5,500 turkeys, nearly 20,000 pounds of food and has had 2,500 volunteers.

“This is all from the business community. Everyone shows up that day. The media comes out, we have a DJ that plays, and stickers that say, ‘I Gave’ like the ‘I Voted’ stickers,” Pond says. “Our community is one of the most giving communities I’ve ever been a part of.”•

O2 Employment Services
www.o2employmentservices.com