Faces Human Capital Management (HCM), a leader in assisting the rapidly-evolving legal cannabis industry with its unique human resources issues, marks a double milestone this month; as it celebrates its one-year anniversary and the acquisition of its 14th client.

“We’ve been working with a pioneering group of cannabis companies, who are successfully applying our management solutions to issues like HR and payroll, as well as workers’ compensation and benefits,” says Faces HCM co-founder and managing director Caela Bintner. “It’s been exciting and rewarding to know that we’re helping make the legal marijuana industry that much more of a legitimate business sector.”

Along with its current governmental and regulatory challenges, the legal cannabis industry is coping with some garden-variety, corporate growing pains; as companies struggle to attract and retain the best employees. According to a recent survey of employees in the legal marijuana sector, 80 percent consider cannabis to be their career – but only one-third of those surveyed say they would recommend their current employee to a friend. Chris Cassese, Faces HCM’s co-founder and managing director, says cannabis business owners are often so preoccupied with crucial regulatory issues such as compliance, packaging, taxation and transportation that they forget about “the people side” of their industry. “Turnover is a real issue,” he notes, “Along with the toll on morale, it can end up costing a business owner around 40 percent of a person’s annual salary to replace some of the more specialized positions in the cannabis industry; jobs like budtenders, dry-curers and extraction technicians.”

“The industry leaders, the people with the most promising dispensaries and grow houses, they’re coming from a place of passion when it comes to cannabis,” says Bintner. “But that passion for marijuana doesn’t always translate into an in-depth understanding of business and regulatory compliance. So we’re helping them get that set up, to become successful and to avoid the pitfalls that would otherwise get them shut down.”

But that work is not a one-size-fits-all operation. The staff at Faces HCM will go over metrics such as job costs, supply chain issues and creation of work force units as part of their consultative process. “Each client has been so different when it comes to their company’s needs,” says Bintner. “So we drill down and work out the best solutions in each case.” And their clients agree. “(We’ve) been pleased with the effective and efficient process and the quality of candidates they have provided us,” says Jeanette Ward, director of data and marketing at MJ Freeway, one of the cannabis industry’s leading software and small business services companies — which has a recruiting contract with Faces HCM.

The key, adds, Cassese, is education. “We thought this industry was ready for the business tenets, the principles that other big-box, non-cannabis companies are using; that could be recreated and tailored towards the cannabis industry. And after years of research, we’ve been able to create PEO (professional employer organization) models that fit the needs of cannabis businesses.” Faces HCM is also taking their HR and management template beyond their Colorado headquarters. They’re currently working with businesses in Massachusetts and Nevada and have plans to expand into other states. “We’ve taken a fresh approach to a proven model and applied it to a new industry,” says Bintner. “This is how we ensure these unique cannabis companies can retain the mission, spirit and values of the cannabis culture, but also evolve into what mainstream America will see as legitimate, responsible businesses.”

For more information: Visit http://www.faceshcm.com/