John Bernatovicz

John Bernatovicz

John is a keynote speaker and presenter.

John is a husband, father, brother, entrepreneur, author, and lifelong Northeast Ohioan. Over the last 15 years, he has started or been an owner of six business ventures and is the president and founder of Willory, a staffing and consulting firm solely focused on HR and payroll.

John’s latest project, HR Like a Boss, a book releasing in 2021 and a multimedia chat series, delves into how HR professionals can become amazingly awesome and make a demonstrated impact within their role. In addition to spending time with his wife of over 20 years, Emily, and their two children, Will and Mallory, John loves to golf, coach sports, root for Cleveland sports teams (he is a die-hard), and consistently runs in the Akron Marathon relay race.

As the president and founder of Willory, John focuses on transforming organizations to meet their full potential. Through Willory, John ensures his clients have the best talent in their HR and payroll department and optimize the technology supporting companies’ number one asset: people. With over 20 years of experience within the payroll and HR niche, John is uniquely qualified to drive Willory into a leadership position within the HR and payroll staffing and consulting space.

John has focused his working career on understanding the needs of his clients, candidates, and partners. He is not satisfied until he finds what his clients and candidates are looking for. Plus, he thrives on instilling enthusiasm, growth mindsets, and accountability in the Willory team. John strives to win and build successful businesses that go above and beyond the expectations of his clients, candidates, staff members, and competitors. This sets a standard for the firm to provide a high quality of service and build exceptional relationships. Willory has achieved great results, including NorthCoast 99, Weatherhead 100, Crain’s 52, and Inc. 5000.

John was an Academic All-American in Golf at Kent State University and has played in three United States Golf Association events. He began his professional career at ADP, one of the world’s largest payroll and HR outsourcing solutions providers. During his time at ADP, John’s diligence and dedication to his clients paid off. He deservedly received seven promotions and qualified for seven President’s Clubs, a premier award for top-performing employees. Following his successful career at ADP and preceding the establishment of Willory, John joined a boutique search and consulting firm as a partner, where he expanded his expertise into successfully growing a staffing practice. John has spoken at local and regional events, including the American Payroll Association, DisruptHR, Ohio Conference for Payroll Professionals, and many others.

John is dedicated to empowering people through his presentations, business, and interactions with the community. He believes that everyone has the sincere ability to impact their organization by understanding the business, thinking differently, being different, and passionately loving people.

Keynote Speaker Topics

HR Like a Boss
During this interactive presentation, the audience is challenged to look at their HR department from the view of a CEO (aka boss). Learn about what leaders really care about and what means nothing to them. Bosses want effectiveness, results, productivity, and adding value. Recommendations and tactics in this presentation ensure HR is in the front seat of key decisions by being brutally honest, obsessing (in a good way) about your organization, truly serving the needs of your company, and adding value with key HR initiatives to yield results for your organization.

5 Simple Ways for HR to Make an Impact
In his presentation, John explains how to stand up and make an impact…..TODAY. With all that is going on in the world and at work, the need for HR has never been greater. According to Gallup, nearly 2 out of every 3 American workers are not engaged at work. Human Resources has the best chance to change the course of engagement levels for the modern workforce. During this thought-provoking presentation, participants receive specific strategies and takeaways to ensure they are making an impact on their employees, managers, executives, and organizations.

Best Advice I’ve Ever Heard
Join John Bernatovicz as he provides actionable insights based on the best answers about the career advice from his weekly podcast, HR Like a Boss. These 12 pieces of advice cover the different pathways to success, when to experiment in your career, why you should ask more questions, the importance of patience, and why company culture really is important.

How to Leverage Your HR Technology
HR technology is at the core of how HR, and often payroll departments, run effectively. Organizations that understand their people and processes are able to leverage their technology to gain efficiencies, manage compliance, improve employee engagement, and better support the needs of the business. In this presentation, John Bernatovicz covers the ten steps necessary to transform your HR technology and better empower people.