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HR as a Growth Engine: How Talent Strategy Drives Profit and Scale · Business Roundtable

• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast. My name is
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: David Carr, host and you're leader, founder of the podcast,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: a founder of stud of your Business while I bring
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  Speaker 1: people together to accomplish great things. And today we're going
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to have a great new guest on the podcast. And
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  Speaker 1: before we do that, I just thought i'd give you
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  Speaker 1: guys a little hook here, if you will. What are
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  Speaker 1: we actually going to talk about? Real Well, most business
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  Speaker 1: owners when they think about HR, they're thinking about payroll policies, hiring, firing,
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  Speaker 1: things of that nature. Well, I'm excited to bring to
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  Speaker 1: you a brand new guest here, Bruce Nichols, Global HR executive.
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  Speaker 1: He is really a talent and culture specialist, strategist actually,
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  Speaker 1: and I'm super excited to have here on the podcast. Bruce,
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Business Roundtable.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm really excited to have this conversation. This
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  Speaker 2: is a great topic for me and excited to dig
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  Speaker 2: into it.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, no, it's super excited. So when you and
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  Speaker 1: I met not too long ago, we were talking part
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  Speaker 1: of Success Champions Network, and what I really liked when
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  Speaker 1: you and I were talking, Bruce, and why I wanted
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  Speaker 1: to have you on the podcast, is that you said,
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  Speaker 1: you know, HR really can think of it as a
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  Speaker 1: profit multiplayer, a growth engine, and I thought, wow, a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people don't think about HR that way, and
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  Speaker 1: they didn't, and I don't think they think about it
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  Speaker 1: as strategically as you and I were talking about.
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  Speaker 3: And that's why I was really excited to have you
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  Speaker 3: come on here, Bruce.
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  Speaker 1: But before we get into the meat of it, I
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  Speaker 1: want people to understand a little bit more about your background,
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  Speaker 1: how you got to the Human Resource Consortium, and what
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  Speaker 1: you're doing today. So take us back a little bit,
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  Speaker 1: your journey as a business owner and founder of your company,
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  Speaker 1: now where you're at.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know I would say I had a long
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  Speaker 2: and storied career in HR, but I would say the
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  Speaker 2: story part is more would take us forever to get into.
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  Speaker 2: You know, really my whole career after leaving the Army
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  Speaker 2: has you know, I was in finance for a little
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  Speaker 2: while I got into human resources. I think a lot
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  Speaker 2: of people would say by a mistake. It's just sort
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  Speaker 2: of fell on my lap. I and I, as I
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  Speaker 2: was kind of growing up through my career, I made
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  Speaker 2: a few pivots thinking that, well, this is going to
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  Speaker 2: be my operational move I'm going to get into this
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  Speaker 2: call center job. I'm going to go do something different.
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to work in retail. And it never really
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  Speaker 2: worked out for me. I always got pulled back in.
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  Speaker 2: And what I finally realized as I was navigating through
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  Speaker 2: my career and when I went out on my own
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  Speaker 2: some time ago, was I think there's getting into HR
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  Speaker 2: for me was more than just you know, the hiring,
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  Speaker 2: the firing, the onboard, the recruitment, the payroll. It really
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  Speaker 2: came down to managing and leading people and helping business
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  Speaker 2: owners business leaders really make good decisions around their people,
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  Speaker 2: how they were working with them from a culture perspective,
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  Speaker 2: and putting that right person in the right space at
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  Speaker 2: that time to help grow your business. And that's to me,
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  Speaker 2: it's fascinating. That's really where the work of HR in
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  Speaker 2: the business, you know, meets.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well that that's exactly why I wanted to have
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  Speaker 1: you here on here because you know, Bruce as Stewart
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  Speaker 1: your business. I'm helping develop people, but you have to
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  Speaker 1: have I love coming and we're working folks like yourself, Bruce,
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  Speaker 1: because you have this overausting strategy and you're working with
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  Speaker 1: the team and it's so important I can. I can
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  Speaker 1: only do so much if if if there's not alignment
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  Speaker 1: with the overall strategy and how we're going to you know,
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  Speaker 1: leverage all these expertise, and particularly nowadays with technology and
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  Speaker 1: things coming in there.
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  Speaker 3: But one of the things I.
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  Speaker 1: Really was for me, if you don't mind, Bruce, I
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  Speaker 1: thought it was a great story about where you came
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  Speaker 1: through and you said kind of the you know what
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  Speaker 1: the heck moment, like if you will, about where you
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  Speaker 1: saw people in the wrong seats and how you know,
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  Speaker 1: I love that experience, that that story that you shared
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  Speaker 1: with me, if you want to share with our listeners,
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  Speaker 1: like what you saw walking around out there in construction
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  Speaker 1: and whatnot and where you're like, oh my goodness, there's
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  Speaker 1: something wrong here.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: You know.
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  Speaker 2: So I had a great friend, I've known him for
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  Speaker 2: a long time, and he was running a you know,
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  Speaker 2: a construction company and he really was looking to go
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  Speaker 2: from that two to three five million dollar mark up
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  Speaker 2: to the ten or twelve million dollar mark and then
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  Speaker 2: on and beyond and you know, attract venture capital, maybe
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  Speaker 2: a private equity buyer, trying to really you know, grow
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  Speaker 2: his business and boost boosted to a point where he
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  Speaker 2: could sit back and operate as a CEO and then
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  Speaker 2: maybe even retire. But when we sat back and we
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  Speaker 2: looked at this, you know, we were constantly in this
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  Speaker 2: stage of crisis or priorities and nothing was working. And
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  Speaker 2: I just remember sitting out one morning in the bays
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  Speaker 2: watching him deploy trucks on different jobs and he's checking
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  Speaker 2: a manifest and he's looking at these lists and he's
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  Speaker 2: getting the crews ready and he's barking orders. And I
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  Speaker 2: said something like, you know, where the heck's your ops guy?
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  Speaker 2: I know you hired somebody. We talked about this. What
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  Speaker 2: is he doing? Why are you out here doing this
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  Speaker 2: instead of talking to that customer that had just had
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  Speaker 2: that major flood damage and needs renovation. You should be
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  Speaker 2: And the yaha moment really was for him, like I
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  Speaker 2: don't know, he's in the office doing his operation stuff,
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  Speaker 2: and like, no, he should be out here doing his
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  Speaker 2: operation stuff, barking orders, voting trucks, checking people. And I said,
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  Speaker 2: if he's not doing this, your leaders or your supervisors,
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  Speaker 2: your ship crew guys aren't going out there learning anything either.
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  Speaker 2: You don't have the right person in the right seat.
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  Speaker 2: Do not have that right thing? And what we found
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  Speaker 2: was he had to make a tough decision. He had
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  Speaker 2: to move that person out of that job, put in
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  Speaker 2: eliminate that role, and he had to bring and somebody
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  Speaker 2: that really was an operations CEO type like go out there,
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  Speaker 2: you know, crunching numbers, run the crew, check the manifest
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  Speaker 2: and then developed the supervisors that are managing each one
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  Speaker 2: of these crews and making sure that they knew, you know,
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  Speaker 2: here's the job order, here's what goes with this job,
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  Speaker 2: here's the equipment you need, here's what people assigned. They
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  Speaker 2: should be showing up with all that knowledge, and if
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  Speaker 2: you're not spending time developing them, you're wasting all this
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  Speaker 2: time and you should be growing revenue. And almost overnight,
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  Speaker 2: what ended up happening was he made those choices, He
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  Speaker 2: developed the team, he invested in some really good shift
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  Speaker 2: supervisors to get out to the job sites, and within
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  Speaker 2: just a few years, you know, his revenue almost doubled
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  Speaker 2: and he was focused on the next job and he
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  Speaker 2: didn't have to worry about that day to day.
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  Speaker 1: That's fantastic. And yeah, I love that, Bruce, because I've
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  Speaker 1: been there myself. That in that same place the company
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  Speaker 1: was previously, you know, building that team and getting to
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  Speaker 1: that place where it can it can it can you know,
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  Speaker 1: the staying itself and it's not like the business owner
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  Speaker 1: has having to put all these fires out, but finding
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  Speaker 1: the right people and coming up with a strategy. And
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  Speaker 1: like you said, you asked them the good questions, Bruce,
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  Speaker 1: which I think any good consultant you with your salt
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  Speaker 1: and you're asking the questions like why are you doing this?
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  Speaker 1: Put holding up that mirror and in a way of
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  Speaker 1: helping them move forward with their business. And that's just
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  Speaker 1: a great success story there, Bruce. Why you know, why
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  Speaker 1: do you feel enough? You know, because I don't think
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  Speaker 1: sometimes business owners don't even realize obviously he did. And
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  Speaker 1: you know they're bleeding profit because of these decisions with people.
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  Speaker 1: If you I'm gonna say there's a money gap or
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  Speaker 1: however you want to say it, but you know there's
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  Speaker 1: this this place.
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  Speaker 3: Why do you think that is? What?
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  Speaker 1: What is it about the business owner that they're just
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  Speaker 1: they didn't he didn't obviously see it, but you came
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  Speaker 1: in and you saw it right away.
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  Speaker 3: You were like you just it was like kind of
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  Speaker 3: play playing his day to you.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know it's funny. There's conversation and isn't
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  Speaker 2: unique to the entrepreneur or the small company owner or
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  Speaker 2: you know somebody running anything from an HVAC to a
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  Speaker 2: managed service provider, technology shop. It's very similar. Where they
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  Speaker 2: come up to the ranks. They're good at what they do.
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  Speaker 2: They understand the business. They can swing a hammer, they
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  Speaker 2: can they can run a server, they can write code.
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  Speaker 2: Whatever it is they're doing, they know it. And then
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  Speaker 2: at some point they have to step back and trust
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  Speaker 2: somebody to come in and do it with them or
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  Speaker 2: for them, and then they actually so building that truffling
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  Speaker 2: comf but then they actually have to learn how to
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  Speaker 2: grow and run the business and not let the business
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  Speaker 2: run them. And what a lot of times what they're
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  Speaker 2: looking for from an HR person is like, let's make
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  Speaker 2: sure they get paid, let's make sure they get benefits,
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  Speaker 2: let's make sure we're complyingt and if the Department of
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  Speaker 2: Labor comes in, we don't want to have any findings.
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  Speaker 2: Well that's all find and good, but that's important. We
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  Speaker 2: need to do that. But we also, from an HR perspective,
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  Speaker 2: we should be having that conversation up like answering all
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  Speaker 2: those wives with you. So if that conversation at the
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  Speaker 2: Fortune one hundred level was you've got a good team
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  Speaker 2: of people around you. Let's develop trust, let's develop the
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  Speaker 2: skill sets. So let's make sure that these guys can
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  Speaker 2: step into your role or they can step into the
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  Speaker 2: next level of leadership so they can run their shop. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: it's the exact same conversation you have with a with
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  Speaker 2: an entrepreneur that has you know, just started up and
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  Speaker 2: its just decided I'm going to open up this I'm
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  Speaker 2: going to do this service, and I'm going to run
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  Speaker 2: my business and because I'm good. That's that's a gap.
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  Speaker 2: We need to change it from managing the business to
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  Speaker 2: leading the business to being a CEO and leading your people.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, do you think.
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  Speaker 1: I mean this is so important again, Bruce, what you're
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  Speaker 1: talking about. What I hear is that there's there's this
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  Speaker 1: lack of strategic thinking and you're like, well, I got
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  Speaker 1: it this far, but that what got you this far
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  Speaker 1: is not going to get you the next part of
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  Speaker 1: the journey. And I see what I hear you saying, Bruce,
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  Speaker 1: is like you're somebody comes in and says, okay, looking
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  Speaker 1: at all these things, and like you're the gentleman.
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  Speaker 3: You talked about previously. He said, Hey, that I had
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  Speaker 3: this guy there, what he didn't have the right skill set.
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  Speaker 3: We had to move him around. We had to get
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  Speaker 3: some right people in the place.
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  Speaker 1: So, you know, talk to me a little bit about
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  Speaker 1: how when you come in and engage with a business
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  Speaker 1: owner and start how do you start to unravel that, Bruce?
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  Speaker 1: How do you identify the places where they're losing money,
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  Speaker 1: if you will, And it's not necessarily because of sales,
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  Speaker 1: it's because of the structure that they.
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  Speaker 3: Have or the timing and the people. How do you
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  Speaker 3: go in there and start to piece to pull that apart.
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  Speaker 2: So some people think it's like some magic sauce or
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  Speaker 2: some crazy solution to this, but really is sometimes it's
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  Speaker 2: just listening and to having the active listening skills. And
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  Speaker 2: you know, a lot of people from an HRC perspective
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  Speaker 2: need to start developing as a strong acumen financial and
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  Speaker 2: or just general business acumen so that they can have
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  Speaker 2: those conversations. You know, I spoke with a tech services
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  Speaker 2: provider a few weeks back, and it was just understanding
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  Speaker 2: what he did and how he did it, and having
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: a little bit of knowledge about cybersecurity, having a little
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  Speaker 2: bit of knowledge about what it takes to move from
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  Speaker 2: into data or and move from like a tech service provider,
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  Speaker 2: and adding in seats and adding in users, and just
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  Speaker 2: having a general conversation about where he wants his business
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  Speaker 2: to go. And for me, when I sat back and listened,
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  Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, he's got a lot of things happening.
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  Speaker 2: So the next step is this, he needs to grow.
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  Speaker 2: Growth means that you have to add people. It means
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  Speaker 2: that you have to understand some basic mechanics and basic
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: financial statements. Maybe you have to understand what the revenue
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  Speaker 2: stream is, how do they make money? And having that
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  Speaker 2: skill to just listen and ask follow up questions and
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  Speaker 2: just picking it apart from there is critical for an
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  Speaker 2: HR person now, like the roles evolving, M.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, I hear that for sure, Bruce. And I
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  Speaker 3: think you know been following enough with AI technology. How
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  Speaker 3: do we.
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  Speaker 1: Upscale our our team? We don't want to, you know,
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  Speaker 1: necessarily just let be. I mean I think this is
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  Speaker 1: a this is a meat to me perce. I love
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  Speaker 1: your perspective. I think it's a short sighted, uh move,
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  Speaker 1: just just to say, oh, we've got AI, let's just
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  Speaker 1: take out these people and let's just replace it with AI.
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  Speaker 1: I think that's a short sighted uh in front with danger.
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  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts there? I'm just curious. You know,
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  Speaker 1: you're seeing some people say, well, we don't need these
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  Speaker 1: people anymore.
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  Speaker 3: You know.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I'm a I'm a people first strategist, and
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  Speaker 2: in the age of AI, that can be a little
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  Speaker 2: bit wonky, and I think a little risky to say,
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  Speaker 2: but if you take that human centric, that people first strategy,
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  Speaker 2: I always sometimes even say keep the H and human resources,
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  Speaker 2: like keep the human in HR.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, And we.
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  Speaker 2: Were so quick to to say, like we need to
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  Speaker 2: save money, we need to get an efficiency, We're going
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  Speaker 2: to put this technology in. It doesn't necessarily just not
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: just AI, but any technology. And when it's going to
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  Speaker 2: make it more efficient, faster, it's going to make us
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  Speaker 2: slick and we're gonna save money. But the underlying process
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: has to be right. And that's where we missed the boat,
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: is that when we sit back and we look at
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: how the nuts and boats come together, and we know
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  Speaker 2: that the process is right, then the implement technology put
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  Speaker 2: the AI on top of it. And I've seen in
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: a few places where we've implemented AI, we've had, especially
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: in the coll center environment, it's so quick to just
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: like we'll have you know, the basic queries come in,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: we'll type in, you know, they'll type in these questions,
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  Speaker 2: the answer will be spit out and it'll be great,
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden we're on the back
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: end looking at it, going how come it's all wrong?
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  Speaker 2: People aren't satisfied. Customer satisfaction is not good. They don't
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: like the ux Ui experience, and it's because of the
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: underlying process wasn't right to begin with. So if you
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: really want to implement an AI, really thinking about fixing
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  Speaker 2: what your core systems are, what your core process is,
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: is the first step.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then the future.
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  Speaker 1: So one thing I wanted to ask Bruce of you with,
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  Speaker 1: since you're so strategically oriented and I appreciate this very much,
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  Speaker 1: one of the things I struggled with as a project
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  Speaker 1: manager or group manager at the time, this is previously company.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I would like to know your thoughts on this is like,
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  Speaker 1: you know, when you're talking about growth, right, like walking
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: through the business owner or those leaders of like what
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: does that mean when I'm saying I'm going to add
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: ten twenty fifty people to my team. I don't think
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: you know, they don't understand. Do you walk them through
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: like what are the ramification? There's obviously good things is
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: you can do the math and say for each person
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I bring in full time equivalent, it generates this, but
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  Speaker 1: there's also cost and time and energy as well.
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  Speaker 3: How do you how do you walk them through that
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: bruce of like what's involved?
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's such an interesting question because you know, the
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: one thing that I'm really starting to look at right now,
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: especially with analytics and the predictive analytics side of HR,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: is can you get a return on an investment for people?
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  Speaker 2: Or what that means is what does a revenue per
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: person look like? So if you're in you know, a
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: certain call center or a sales environment or service related
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: industry or whatever that is, and you're going to add
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: a person that automatically, that partnership of the CFO is
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: a critical because then you start thinking, Okay, I'm going
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: to bring this person in and they're going to be
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: able to provide this level of service. And what it
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  Speaker 2: looks like to me is having that conversation is I'm
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  Speaker 2: hearing thirty to fifty to one hundred people and this
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: is what we're going to look like when are you
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: going to start? What is it going to look like
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: when you start bringing these people in? What is your
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: onboarding plan? What does the development look like? You know,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: what does it look like not just on that return
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: or that revenue per person, but what does that ramp
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: up time look like prior to what's that cost of onboarding?
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: And then you start getting into some real serious numbers
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: because you might need in certain environments and certain industries,
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: ended period of time, maybe there's licensing involved. Maybe you
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: know in the medical field that for sure, where they
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: just need to come in and there's a regulatory requirement,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: they need to be onboarded, and then they start earning revenue.
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  Speaker 2: And so that's I always kind of start the conversation
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  Speaker 2: with okay, by when you know, what is the drop
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  Speaker 2: dead day? When do you want to have these thirty
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  Speaker 2: people in place? And why? And then let's start going
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: backwards from there. Let's back and then the army we
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: used to say backward planning, because we would just look
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: at the goal and say, like, what's all the steps,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: you know, when we get to that final goal, what's
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: that next first stage? Look up when we back up
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: and keep backing up, and I think a lot of
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: times you don't realize that this time next year you
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: want to have thirty person and people in place. We
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: may need to start having this conversation now what that
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: ramp up time looks like. So when we pull the
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: trigger and we start the recruiting process and then we
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: onboard and for every single person, you know, every person
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: that we're going to bring on, we're probably gonna have
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: two or three interviews. What is that? So you really
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: have to have a really deep conversation about what that
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: process is.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: And we're so quick again, we're so quick to say, well,
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: we're going to have a technology solution and some applicant
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: tracking system is going to fix all this and make
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: it easy. It's not. It's going to make it more
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: cumbersome if the process isn't.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Right right, So walking through breaking down that process, Bruce,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: because I think sometimes, yeah, I remember being that person
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: that was like, okay, we got people resumes coming in
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: and by the way, you got to squeeze in these
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: interviews with everything else going on.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: It wasn't planned. It was like, how am I going
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: to do this with everything else I've got on?
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I've also got employee reviews and other things, and I
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: don't think they thought the ramifications of wild use your
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: point Bruce too, of like there's a ramp.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: Up time too.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: This is something I had to learn of, like your
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: capacity short is decreasing the short term when you're.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: Bringing on a bunch of different people because now you're
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: mean you can minimize try to minimize it.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: But I've never found like it's not you have a
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: you have a slowdown and you've got to get everywhere
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: at the speed right and thinking about that.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, m hm, it's so important, I you know, and
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: I can't stress enough with you know, a lot of
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: times the business owners or leaders will say, well I
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: need this now, Well I need it now, Collin Bruce.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Isn't going to be helpful because I tell you, as
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: I you know, you should have called me six months
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: ago and I maybe maybe I can help you, but
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: it's not going to be now, it's going to be
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: right three to four, four tomorrow months Well talk.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's a great point too, Bruce, of
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the companies that are are being proactive in this.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: And maybe contrast a little bit more the companies that
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: are working on this.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: On a you know, month by month, you know, quarter
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: by quarter they're evaluating these things, versus the companies like
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: you're saying, Bruce, that are like, you know, not being
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: proactive in this. It comes to mind I was working
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: I was working with a company, gosh, years ago, and
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: they were about I don't know about five six thousand
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: employees and for whatever reason, I can't remember the exact story, Bruce,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: but they would always historically recruit college you know, graduates,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: and for some reason.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: They just said, oh, we don't need to do that.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: They delayed and it didn't show up for about a
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: year later. They're like they did paused on it. And
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: then they're like, oh, my goodness, we don't have stuff
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: in our pipeline. We have all this work coming in
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: and we just didn't We weren't just proactive. So it
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: took a month to get back, you know, to untangle that.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: But they didn't realize they just somebody paused it, put
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: the brake on it. They said, hey, it's not so
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: important right now. But it didn't show up immediately. It
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: took a while. There was a lag there.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, so with some organizations, what I've worked
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: with them on is flexible hiring plans and staffing, meaning
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: that you know there's probably a core group that would
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: sustain you over peak or periods or slowdowns where you
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: know work has to get done and there's going to
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: be a steady stream off eat and then when you
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: back that off, there's problem. Probably ways to think about
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: your workforce where maybe the mix is seventy thirty or
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: your sixty forty, where you probably need you know, twenty
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: thirty forty percent of your workforce to be contingent. It's
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: use in that pipeline, you know. I know a lot
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: of companies think that way, and they also like college hiring,
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: new hire programs and having a bench of new talent
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: that's just coming into the organization. A lot of large
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: companies will do that, and they started. Over the past
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: few years, I've seen a lot of companies slow down
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: in that hiring and then turn around and say, oh crap,
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: like where are we now and kind of not having
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: that two to three year view and I was planning
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: HR and planning people for two to three years out
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: is incredibly difficult. And I think that's where the evolution
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: of HR is starting to go, is like really getting
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: into the analytics of it and looking at business trends
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: and looking at the economy inward and outward, market economic pressures,
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: whatever that is, and knowing that at certain points you
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: know there are going to be upticks and downticks in
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: your business, but you need to have a SETI staffing
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: model or plan of what it looks like. And if
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: your intend is to grow, then you need to have
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: a certain percentage of people coming into your organization, not
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: just to replace those that are leaving, but to supplement
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: and to grow the business and pick up that work
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: so you can then have that internal move of talent,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: and that comes down to really being able to sit
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: down with owners and having a talent planner strategy. It's
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: beyond just succession. It's really doing that deep dive levels
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: down into the organization and saying, this is who I
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: have on my team because who has potential to move on?
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: This is who needs extra help? And do we need
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: to invest in these folks to give them the extra
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: help or not? What decision do we need to make
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: and then having that really descriptive, in depth conversation.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: That's a great I appreciate that, Bruce. I think you
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: know and there's changing things out there in the marketplace.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: So for those that are maybe more entry level hires.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Let's just say I'm here in southern California where the
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: minimum wage keeps going up, so I know, you know,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: the fast food of everything. So then, but people don't
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: realize that it affects other places because you're like, hey,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: you're somebody that could go make money in this area,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: and you're like trying to compete with the same you know,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: pool of people, if you will, or at.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Least they're comparing.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about those changing you know, economics
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: and things where they're at, about things that business owners
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: need to look at when they're looking at conversation and
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: trying to attract key people.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, compensate is so tricky, and so you know, the
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: minimum hourly wage discussion is so interesting and complex and
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: you know, so staying out of the political side of this,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: but you know, when you start getting into here's the
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: baseline and you have to pay this, you kind of
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: take away that competitive nature of marketplace a little bit.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: That being said, you know, we are confronted with an
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: increasingly expensive workforce, you know, inflationary rates, pay rates, whatever
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: you want to call it. They are going to continue
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: to rise. So thinking about that from I think where
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: you know, I spend a lot of time is just
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: trying to help businesses understand what their marketplace is locally
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: and then trying to, you know, see what their economic
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: pressures are as they start broadening out their footprint. And
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: I'll give you an example of working with a technology
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: company in the Boston market. We were looking at software
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: engineering wages and for this company, they were competitive for
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: the national market, but they weren't competitive for the Boston market.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: And then they had a team in Seattle and they
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: were even less competitive. And when you started looking at
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: but when you looked at their payods, so they could
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: have paid that number in New Hampshire, Ohio, Texas, whatever
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: or wherever they were, and it would have been more than competitive.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: So their dynamics of hiring people. And then decide, Okay,
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: do we need to hire people Boston. Should we be
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: more remote, should we have a different strategy on hiring.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: What we started seeing is that in certain markets, people
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: were going across the street from our shop to a
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: startup or to another newer technology that was being popped up,
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: and they were getting sometimes double the salary. Wow, And
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: they were and they were young like these are you know,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: I say kids, but they were you know, two to
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: three years out of school and the wages were phenomenally high.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Two to three years later, they would call back saying, well,
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: that doesn't exist anymore. Kind of come home and we
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: you know, we sometimes you'd have to say no, not
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: for that, for what you were plus will give you
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: a bump up because you've been two more years of experience.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: What we ended up doing is really having to adjust
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: wages locally in Boston and Seattle to make them more
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: competitive in that marketplace. And I think at the time,
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: just in that Boston marketplace, you go twenty minutes outside
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: of Boston and there were fifteen twenty thousand technology jobs,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: software engineering jobs in that market. You know, obviously it's
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: declined recently and it's probably not as competitive, but the
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: wages are still there. They haven't come down. But some
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: of that is just being able to sit back with
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: these business leaders, these finance leaders in the business and say, Okay,
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: here's the impact, here's what it looks like, and here's
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: why we need to make an adjustment, and you know,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: working with the CFOs, especially the finance leaders, and saying
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: what does it look like if we take everybody in
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: this organization all, let's say twenty five and we give
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: them ten percent of a bum, what does that look
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: like over time? Should it is ten percent? In my
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: marketplace analysis, ten percent wasn't even close. It was like
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: fifteen to twenty percent. But that's the kind of work
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: from an HR perspective that I think we need to
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: get into and be able to have those conversations. And
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: again when I when I make these statements, it's these
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: aren't like large shops and this is just isn't a
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: large company problem. This is the same conversation you have
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: to be able to have all the way down to
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: the startup level of saying, understand the marketplace, understand competitive
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: wages and the conditions around that, and then dialoguing. You know,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: I won't have all those answers all the time, but
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: I will have enough knowledge to go find it and
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: bring it back to you so I can have a legitimate,
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: like sit down and say this is what I'm seeing
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: and why it's important for you to think about conversation.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, Bruce.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: I mean you brought up a couple of things that
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: trigger my in my mind, so you know, as you're
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: looking at those things you know so important as what's
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: going on in the marketplace. I work particularly with firms
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: in the professional services is architecture, engineering, environmental consulting, construction, the.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: Nature of Bruce.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: In fact, I'm going to be speaking, we're recording this
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: in October. I'm going to be speaking in November twenty
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: next month at a Federal Small Business conference for Society
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: from military engineers and a lot of these folks are
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: trying to compete in the federal marketplace. They're trying to
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: understand how can I make myself competitive? But again they
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: could be drawn from people. When you're talking about federal marketplace,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: you could be you could be working people anywhere across
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: the country, and so it could be working with suppliers.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: It could be either employees, what does that look like?
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: And like you said, the things that are changing, And
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: I've seen this at least from professional services Bruce, where
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: if they're not engaging somebody like you working with the CEO,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: the c suite, the CFO, and we're making decisions on
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: proposals and particularly sometimes I have multi year coundra three
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: five year contracts that you're locking in rates and labor
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: categories and is that truly sustainable or you know, are
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: you going to get to be able to find those
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: people at those rates or are you are you going?
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Are you kind of setting yourself up for some hard times?
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: And I think having somebody like you, Bruce kind of
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: at least I mean, you can don't have a crystal ball,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: but at least you have trends. You can, like you said,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: find this research and give them a better understanding and
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: how to make some informed decisions here right.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know absolutely, I think you know, from from
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: a human resources perspective, you know, we're don't always have
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: all the answers, but we have we should have the
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: knowledge of the marketplace and enough acumen to be able
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: to sit down with any business leader and have a
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: conversation and make a recommendation. And some of this is
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: really based on how many times we've seen it, you know,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: because these trends don't they don't just disappear, they come
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: back and over time being able to say here's the
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: trajectory we're on and why it's important. And then you know,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: in certain fields, especially in the engineering field, where some
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: of those folks as they get more educated and more experienced,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: they get more expensive. And that's the same in industry,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: but you know, some of these specialties shops and specialty
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: fields where you know, architecture and engineering and building and such,
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: where you really need to be precise and you've got
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: to follow certain regulatory and health and safety requirements and
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: also regulations. Having groups around you that can understand that
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: and have that conversation is important. But having somebody in
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: your hip pocket that says, not only do I understand
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: the situation we're in, but I understand the dynamics of
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: the people that you're looking for and why it's important
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: to attract the right people because eventually you're going to
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: If you attract the wrong one, you're just going to
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: blow up whatever it is you're working on. It's going
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: to fall the pieces, right.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: I mean that that, Yeah, that's like a tipping time bomb,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: hiring the wrong person trying to go you know all
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the other problems that come along with that. You know,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: And for those that are listening in and leaning into
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: this conversation, I definitely want you guys doing I want
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: to encourage you guys to connect with Bruce. We're connected
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: on LinkedIn and other places. We're going to put in
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: the show notes how you can connect with Bruce. But
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: this is so important what you're doing, Bruce, because you know,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I'm so passionate about developing the people. But I love
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: coming and having you on here of this overarching strategy
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: for helping these business owners get out of their own way.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: And I know we've covered a lot of different things
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: here on the podcast today. I just you know, I'd
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: love to get your thoughts here some maybe some actionable items,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: something that the business owner can do, can reflect on
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Bruce as they're listening to this. Obviously we want them
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: to reach out message Bruce, connect with him.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: But you know, if they're kind of like, where do
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: I start, Bruce? Where do I look at this?
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: You know, how do I how can I you know,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: be a better steward if you will of what what
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: are the people that I'm interested to the organization I'm
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: taking care of?
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: Where where do I start? Based and where you're coming
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: from today?
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's what a great question. And I
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: and as you're asking the question, and I knew, I
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: knew this was coming, my mind was changing on the
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: fly and I'm like, oh wait a minute, there's a
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: great emper But I think, you know, to me, the
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: starting point is objectivity and and just being able to
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: like sit back and look in the mirror. Uh. What
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: I used to tell a lot of folks that are
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: some of the leaders I work with, is just let's
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: just sit down with somebody that is objective enough to
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: give you an honest opinion and dialogue. Let's just chat chat,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Let's just talk about what it is you're going to
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: do and why it's important. That's the part point. You know.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: I would love to say, like you should call somebody
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: like me or call me directly. Yeah, I'm not a
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: business development a sales guy. I try to pretend to
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: be one sometimes, But to me, just pick up the
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: phone or do a video chat text somebody that you
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: know you can trust. And I'll give you an example.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: I had coffee this morning with an old family friend
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: and he was a senior level guy at a construction company.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Went into a new market, new area, and we were
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: just going back and forth on you know, family friends,
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: what he wants to do, where he's going, and we
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: got into the business side of things, and we when
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: we finally got done, you know, we were mapping out
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: a plan for commercial real estate and we were mapping
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: out a plan for business development on my business. We
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: were having this great dialogue around surrounding ourselves with people
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: that we knew and trust and to me, that is
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: so important, like surround yourself with the right people that
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: are objective and trustworthy. Everything else will flow from there,
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: because if you can't do that, then there's no point.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: I love that, and I'm so I'm so glad you
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: came on here Bruce to share with us today. You
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: really I hope you guys listen and heard this. You know,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: I feel like you are a true architect of talent
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: structure and workforce planning and really helping the executives. Bruce,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: and I think for those that don't have that or
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: just is not their skill or they're not what they're
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: leaning into. Bruce is a person that you've now can
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: encountered here on the This Round Table podcast and leam Dana.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: I love and then I love working and collaborating with
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: you and developing those teams and leaders so that they
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: can execute and communicate you better.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: Bruce.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: It's just a pleasure having here on the podcast. Thanks
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: so much for joining with us today.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Thank you, it was my pleasure.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Yes, thanks, thanks for thanks for listening, following along course
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: love having you guys. Like and subscribe whatever where you
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: find us on YouTube, Spotify, Amazon, whatever the podcast platform
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: it is.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: Uh, leave any comments you have for us. We'll make
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: sure Bruce gets in as well.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Of course, share this with your audience you found this
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: a little helpful and useful and come back on our
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: next episode of the Business round Table Podcast. Thank you
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: so much everybody for being here with us. Have an
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: amazing day. We'll see you next time.