1:12

Hey guys , welcome to the Breakthrough Hiring Show . This is

1:14

James Mackey and we have Joel joining

1:16

us again on the show . Joel , thanks for being here , man , I'm looking

1:18

forward to working more with you Everyone

1:20

. Just so you know , joel's gonna be coming on twice a month

1:22

to record with us and talk about all things

1:25

. Talent acquisition .

1:26

Yeah , great to be here again , James . I'm excited

1:29

just for this series as well , Like we were

1:31

just talking right before the show show

1:33

. It's like we got two unique perspectives

1:35

business owner leadership

1:39

and then I definitely , I think , have

1:41

more of that employee lens . I'm

1:43

not an employee , I run a business , but it's a solo

1:46

business , so I'm

1:48

excited just to get into the topics that we're going

1:50

to talk about .

1:51

Yeah , and so I'm glad you brought up what's going on

1:53

with non-competes right now . So I think that'll be

1:55

a good first place to start . So we

1:57

had the Federal Trade Commission come out saying they're announcing

1:59

rule banning non-competes . I think that

2:02

there's this concept of a high level non-compete

2:04

where the very basic argument

2:06

would just be to determine if

2:09

a non-compete is reasonable

2:11

or unreasonable , just in theory

2:13

, right , is it okay for companies to

2:15

have non-competes , or should

2:18

the power just be completely from an employer

2:20

perspective or employee perspective ? But I think

2:22

what would be more valuable for our

2:24

conversation too is just really getting into the nuance

2:26

of that . The reality is that the answer

2:28

is probably somewhere in the middle . To rule out non-competes

2:30

completely seems quite ridiculous , and this

2:32

idea of a non-compete . In order to compete

2:35

, we have to maintain competitive advantage

2:37

or need to try to attempt that . So we have

2:39

to consider that . And then we also have to make

2:41

sure that we are giving folks enough

2:43

mobility within their industry and their career

2:46

to be employed and to

2:48

thrive , and I think we have to take both of those things into

2:50

consideration . You can't have a

2:52

competitive market without folks doing what they need to

2:54

do to compete . But then you also can't have

2:56

a market in which people don't have the ability to change

2:58

employers and use their skill set

3:00

. So both of those

3:02

things are important for the economy and you can arguably say

3:04

they're important from potentially like

3:06

a moral perspective as well . So I think

3:08

we could dive into this and because FTC

3:11

doesn't do a very good job outlining the primary

3:13

, like the nuance to this , maybe we could also just discuss

3:16

, okay , when it comes to these findings

3:18

, what are the top things that should be considered and

3:20

what would be a reasonable middle ground

3:22

. Or you might have different perspectives

3:25

than I do , but

3:30

we can discuss , like where is that middle ground

3:32

? What ?

3:33

does seem fair and what should be considered with a kind of a this type

3:35

of rule ruling , right , yeah , yeah . And look , there's

3:38

a couple of people on social media that I think have done a good job . There's a page on

3:40

, I think he's on tiktok and instagram , attorney

3:43

ryan I don't know if that's like the full

3:45

, his full name , but it's . He's name's

3:47

ryan and he's an attorney and that's somewhere in

3:50

in the screen name . But I know he's done a

3:52

lot of content on it and breaks it more down

3:55

, and he was a guest on

3:57

a podcast right after I was on the podcast

3:59

and they said that he did a great job breaking

4:02

things down . So I think a lot of this , too

4:04

, is who you're listening to , and obviously

4:06

I would want to defer to

4:08

attorneys and lawyers people that kind of understand

4:10

the full context . But I think

4:12

what's interesting is in our industry

4:14

, like the recruitment industry , particularly

4:17

recruitment agencies non-competes

4:20

are always it's just

4:22

a huge deal for people like moving companies

4:24

. They are definitely something

4:26

I think employers within our space

4:29

use to keep people and

4:31

sometimes not

4:33

in the right way . Right If you're billing

4:35

a lot or you're a top biller , there's

4:37

definitely been leadership in the right way . Right , if you're

4:39

billing a lot or you're a top biller , there's

4:43

definitely been leadership in the past that have kept people in environments that aren't great as

4:45

well . So I think that for our industry , it really is going to be interesting

4:48

to see how that would play out , and

4:50

it's also just interesting to see comments

4:53

from people in our industry and

4:55

I've just seen some interesting posts

4:57

on linkedin , obviously but it's

4:59

it just brings up the question of like

5:01

why people do this and , like you said

5:04

, there's the middle ground , right , and and

5:06

I think if you're somebody who's leaving a company , you

5:08

want to act ethically and you want to do the right thing

5:10

. But in the same token , it's like employers

5:13

. You know , sometimes you do have to let people go

5:15

and you don't want to like , you

5:17

don't want to make it too , don't want to be . Because I've

5:19

been threatened with non-competes before , like I remember

5:23

leaving a company one time . I'd only been at the company for

5:25

a short amount of time and I got

5:27

hit hard with like huge

5:30

email , like really aggressive

5:32

, like tone . I'm like dude . I've been there

5:34

for six months , I've got four clients

5:36

imagine

5:38

what it would be like if I had a big book of business

5:41

and I was like , wow , and ironically

5:43

I was leaving the company because they didn't have a good culture

5:45

, so it was just reinforced , and then other places

5:47

I've left . There hasn't been much

5:49

of a conversation around it , it's just been like , all right , do

5:52

the right thing and what's right . We

5:54

know what's right and I

5:57

think that's that middle ground we're talking about yeah

5:59

, there's like the middle ground .

6:00

So , like it's on some like attorney

6:02

website , I could drop the link in the position

6:05

description , but that's saying that it does not banner

6:07

other restrictions like confidentiality or

6:09

non-solicitation provisions , which is what I was going

6:11

to get at because wait a second here like there is

6:13

a middle ground . That's important and we don't want

6:15

to make it difficult for people

6:17

to be able to move , to have mobility within their

6:19

career . That's , I think , just very important

6:21

. You could argue from like an individual or

6:24

from like a moral perspective in how we treat other people , wanting

6:26

people to be able to do well in their lives . But it's also

6:29

important for the economy and

6:31

you could argue it is important for competitive . It

6:33

is important for competition , right , you want to compete

6:35

too ? No-transcript

7:04

that . And same thing here it's saying that it's

7:06

not going to ban things like non-solicitation provision

7:08

. For instance , in the instance of a recruiting agency

7:11

, it sounds like you could still have non-solicitation so

7:13

folks don't go after your

7:15

existing their customer base , and

7:17

I think it's . It would be nice to say we live in a world where it's

7:19

like all right , everyone , let's

7:26

do the right thing . But the reality is that like people just often don't People have a really

7:28

good ability to rationalize their decision-making and come up with some kind

7:30

of like moral theory , that kind of supports whatever

7:32

, like very self-centered approach that they have

7:34

or decision that they make . And employers

7:37

do that and individuals have that , and

7:39

so I honestly do think that every

7:41

company , every hiring

7:43

contract , should have something

7:46

like a confidentiality or

7:48

non-solicitation , some

7:50

variant of those terms , where

7:52

there should always be a conversation

7:54

around what is it going to look like

7:57

when we're no longer working together , like

7:59

we should be entering the relationship and knowing

8:01

what it's going to look like when we leave

8:03

the relationship . Yeah , I

8:06

think that's just like a very important thing to

8:08

do , and it should . Again , it should strike a middle

8:10

ground where you're trying to ultimately

8:12

do uncover what the right

8:14

thing is Right .

8:16

Yeah , and look , I think whether

8:18

you're in a recruitment space , whether you're in the

8:20

tech space , whatever , whatever space

8:22

you're in , that it's always smaller

8:24

than you think it is . And I think that's

8:27

where and I've just learned this over

8:30

time right , you're gonna run into

8:32

a lot of the same people

8:34

and when , and especially in the recruitment

8:36

industry , it's like a lot of people know each other and

8:39

how you treat people really it doesn't matter

8:41

. And I think I just

8:43

again I look at my situation where I

8:45

got hit with something it seemed like really

8:48

extensive the client that

8:50

one of the clients I had , who I known

8:52

, this client , this connection at this company

8:54

for years , before I even started

8:56

working at the other company , and it was like they

8:59

went and tried to get more business but I

9:01

wasn't there . And the client was like , yeah

9:03

, I wasn't really doing like business with

9:05

your brand , I was doing business with joel

9:08

, but then I didn't . I was

9:10

like you know what I'm gonna honor , because

9:13

this is something like in business again , it's like just

9:15

honoring what you say you're going to do

9:17

, being trustworthy , those

9:19

things still matter . And so I think that's where

9:21

I think

9:23

there is just a balance and I'm like , if

9:25

you're doing things right as a company , from a company

9:28

perspective , I don't think you

9:30

have much to worry about . And if you're doing things right from an individual

9:32

perspective

9:34

, I don't think it's this huge thing

9:36

that's going to have a huge shift , because you should just be doing . You're

9:39

going to know what's morally right . If I'm working at a company I'm not going to

9:41

take , go , start reaching out

9:43

to the biggest account at that company .

9:45

But the issue is that people do that . Honestly

9:48

, I've always been very flexible when it comes

9:50

to non-solicitations . I don't think we

9:53

might have . I don't even think we for a lot of the folks

9:55

that we onboarded , we didn't even really

9:57

have non-solicitations . It was more

9:59

just approaching this relationship in terms

10:01

of good faith . And the reality

10:03

is , even if you have those , there's going

10:05

to be and particularly in services companies

10:08

, there's going to be people who just

10:10

don't really see the world

10:12

that way . They're going to try

10:15

to take customers , they're

10:17

going to do these types of things . I will just

10:19

say that there have been situations

10:22

that I've seen , particularly over the last year or two , in which we

10:24

had to go through layoffs and then we find

10:26

out that , okay , we had a couple

10:29

of situations in which somebody started competing agency

10:31

and was actively

10:33

targeting active customers and people

10:36

have this way too of human

10:38

nature Any

10:40

success that anybody's had in their career , it's

10:42

all because of them . They don't look

10:44

at A lot of the times , they don't look at the folks that

10:47

helped them get to where they are , they don't look at the resources

10:49

available to them . There's no sense of

10:51

respect and I think

10:53

that there needs

10:55

to be rules in place to where

10:57

everybody again decides what's

11:00

life going to look like for everybody when we're no

11:02

longer working together , because

11:05

the reality is that it just takes one . That's the

11:08

issue . 90% of people can ask

11:10

work in an ethical way , but

11:12

then you'll get one person who will just go

11:14

for the jugular and try to take all

11:16

of your customers and have some kind of moral

11:18

entitlement to believe that they're doing the

11:20

morally right thing . They might speak to

11:23

my one and only responsibility is to my

11:25

family . Therefore , I can do whatever

11:27

I need to do in business to justify that end or

11:29

whatever kind of moral framework that they're working

11:31

under . And that's not to say

11:33

that one moral framework is right

11:36

and another one is wrong . But again

11:38

, it's important for everybody to , I think , get

11:40

clear on exactly

11:43

what we're going to do , what life should

11:45

look like when we're no longer together . And

11:47

then , yeah , on the non-compete side , yeah , I think

11:49

there's a lot of companies , particularly in staffing and recruiting

11:51

, where the non-competes are just ridiculous man Like

11:54

IT staffing , so

11:57

I can't get a job doing it recruiting

11:59

yeah , and the other company

12:01

yeah , it's nuts and

12:03

and I'm not advocating for that and you see those like

12:05

in a lot of like old school staffing

12:08

companies , the , the big staffing

12:10

companies , particularly . You see that a lot , probably

12:12

nationwide , but particularly I see that a lot in like the dc

12:15

market , which is a little bit more old school conservative

12:17

. You see a lot of these like big non-competes

12:19

and I'm definitely not advocating for those either

12:22

. Like those are incredibly

12:24

too rigid and wide in scope .

12:26

I think that those are probably the one . Those are

12:28

probably the policies that are like that

12:31

, they're targeting or that are

12:33

really at risk to be changed . Like

12:35

you said , they're just rigid and not

12:38

really . They're not helping people in their

12:40

career and it's just , it's doesn't .

12:42

But yeah it's just , it's honestly

12:45

, it's not even giving

12:47

a competitive advantage to

12:50

the organization because all of the organizations

12:53

are doing it , yeah . So

12:55

what is the from a competitive perspective

12:57

? What advantage if we just outlaw it for everyone

12:59

, then it's not going

13:02

to impact the competitiveness

13:04

of these

13:06

agencies . It's not like these agencies have intellectual

13:09

property , right , we

13:11

need to enforce non-solicitations , right

13:14

. Like the biggest assets that

13:16

services companies have are

13:18

relationships , yeah

13:20

, and so there should be something to go

13:23

in with that . But I think alongside

13:25

of that is yeah , I don't think there should

13:27

be non-competes toward people

13:29

working in their field . That's

13:31

just , it seems

13:33

dumb . And I've been in that situation where

13:35

I worked for a

13:37

company that had those all-encompassing

13:40

non-compete situations

13:43

. They're not enforceable , but the issue is that

13:46

people don't want to spend the money to

13:48

get an attorney , or they probably don't have the money

13:50

to get an attorney . So there's also this perspective

13:53

of fairness and equity and

13:55

the reality is , if you work for a billion-dollar company

13:57

that hits you with a non-compete , there's

14:00

no . And

14:03

from a fairness perspective

14:05

or a justice perspective or any

14:07

kind of moral thought

14:10

process , it doesn't seem right for

14:12

an individual to have to defend

14:14

themselves against a billion-dollar corporation

14:16

when it comes to a non-compete . That

14:19

is wrong . I think

14:21

it's morally wrong , and so

14:23

I do think that that's great If we're

14:25

ending that type of stuff . I'm

14:27

100% okay with that , as long

14:29

as intellectual property is protected

14:31

. Confidentiality and non-solicitation

14:34

, particularly for services companies incredibly important

14:36

that's like . The primary value that

14:39

a services company has is predictable cash

14:41

flows and relationships . That's

14:43

the business . So if you're

14:45

doing something to the detriment of that , then

14:48

exactly I would say arguably you're doing like the morally

14:50

wrong thing and companies need to

14:52

be legally protected from people like that .

14:54

Yeah it goes both ways it goes both ways

14:57

yeah , and I think uh

14:59

, I mean we were talking about it before . I think you

15:02

know , let's say , you set up a competing agency , right

15:04

, and you have the non-solicitation after

15:06

people who are in the same space , because

15:09

I remember there was one time where it was like you can't

15:11

go after any like even prospects , and

15:13

I was like , what's a prospect ? So when you email

15:15

two years ago , that's in your database as

15:17

a prospect . It doesn't make any

15:19

sense , so it's . But I think

15:21

, like we'll see and

15:31

I've been talking about this more and more I think within the recruitment space

15:33

, I think we're going to see a lot more like individuals popping up and we've already seen it

15:35

. It's just a lot more kind of fractional solo shops and I just think

15:37

, because the technology is

15:40

so cheap nowadays , because easy to

15:42

set up a business , like I think and I think some people

15:45

are aware of this , other people might not be it's like that's up a business , and I think some people

15:47

are aware of this , other people might not be it's like there's technology now

15:49

or there's technology in the near future where you can

15:51

build a website in 10 minutes

15:53

with AI and it will build you

15:55

a decent website , and obviously you're going to have to if you

15:57

want it to stand out , you're going to have to work on the copy

15:59

and get creative and all that type of stuff and

16:09

there's probably more value in that . But you know you can buy a pretty healthy

16:11

tech stack at but did under a thousand dollars now , which is just that was that would have

16:13

been unthinkable 20 years ago , and so I'm

16:16

not saying like then , oh , there's no use for them

16:18

. Like large agencies , of course there is

16:20

. It's like google if they need to hire a

16:23

thousand people or two thousand people , I'm

16:26

not going to go to a one man band for

16:28

that or a solo shop . They're going to need a team

16:30

. But I think what I've

16:32

noticed within our space is you have a lot

16:34

of agencies , particularly like contingent agencies

16:37

, that they never scale . They

16:39

never get past six to ten people

16:41

. Cultures aren't great , but

16:44

a lot of those people stay at those companies because

16:46

they've been there , they built up a book

16:48

of business and they have a non-compete and

16:50

they and , but they're worried

16:52

about leaving and again it's like a difference

16:54

between the non-solicitation and the non-compete . But

16:57

I think those are the types of agencies

16:59

and then like the huge ones , like you say , that

17:01

just don't have good cultures . I

17:04

I think more and more people

17:06

are going to and

17:08

I think it's just such an entrepreneurial space . Anyway

17:10

. I think it's going to open up some opportunity

17:12

for people , and I think the recruitment

17:15

agencies that have good cultures , that genuinely

17:17

care about their people , I think

17:19

they're going to be able to get some really great talent

17:21

as well , which is exciting for them . And those are the companies

17:24

I want to win . I love hearing about the companies that treat

17:26

people right in our space and train people

17:28

and care about the employees do

17:31

great work . And unfortunately , that's not always the case

17:33

.

17:34

It's not , and I think that's what you're saying in terms of

17:36

people feeling like they're handcuffed to a company because

17:38

their book of business or whatnot is at

17:41

that company . That's right

17:43

and again , I think there's a middle ground to be had , like

17:45

taking a step back , if you really want to think about this

17:47

, if we really want to break this down logically

17:50

and understand the fundamental arguments for things

17:52

like non-competes actually comes from something

17:54

called social contracts , which is

17:56

from Thomas Hobbes' political theory , and

17:59

basically what he's stating is that anything

18:01

is better than the state of nature , which is brutal short

18:03

. So you're trading certain

18:06

liberties in order to function

18:09

as part of a society in which

18:11

that's going to protect your life , your

18:14

property liberty

18:16

. You guys can look into it if you want , but

18:18

the point is this idea of social contract

18:20

between a government structure and an individual

18:23

so that we don't have to live in nature , which is

18:25

we'd be fighting for our lives , people would

18:27

be trying to steal our stuff , there'd be no property rights

18:29

, we'd probably be dead . We'd all die

18:31

a lot younger than we are right now , and

18:34

so it's like finding that middle ground of what now he believed

18:36

, and it didn't matter how bad a government was , you don't have the

18:38

right to overthrow it , because living

18:40

under an oppressive government is still better than living in nature

18:43

. So that's a very like absolutist

18:46

, almost like a severe way of looking at it . It's not balanced

18:48

, and so I think it's like a middle ground

18:50

is okay . We have these social contracts . There are benefits

18:52

to being employed , right , we're going to receive

18:54

a salary , we're going to receive benefits like healthcare

18:57

, we're going to receive potentially paid time

18:59

off and in return for that

19:02

, I'm going to trade some of my liberty

19:04

, some of my freedom

19:06

, to a , and what we

19:08

have to decide is what is a reasonable

19:10

extent . I don't think we should look at it

19:12

like a Thomas Hobbes perspective of like an oppressive

19:14

government is still better than no government . Therefore , so an

19:17

oppressive employer is still better than no employer . Like we should strive

19:19

to have a just and fair society

19:22

, and that's what I think the real . The conversation

19:25

here around non-competes . It's a lot bigger

19:27

. It's not just about impacting day-to-day . It's like literally

19:29

how we view structure in society

19:32

and how we think about structuring

19:34

our country right , like what are our actual values

19:36

and what's a fair mental ground . So I

19:39

think it just comes down to understanding . Whether

19:41

it's you being a member , a citizen of a country

19:44

or an employee at a company

19:46

, or part of your friend

19:49

group or part of your family group , there is

19:51

a certain level of social contract

19:53

in your intimate relationship , it doesn't matter . There's a social

19:55

contract in which you are giving up some

19:58

liberty in return for the benefits

20:00

of being part of X

20:02

group , right . And there

20:05

are some things that seem to be reasonable

20:08

in terms of giving up non-solicitations Okay

20:10

, if I'm going to have the benefits of this

20:12

W-2 salary , of the healthcare

20:14

, of the paid time off , I

20:17

am in turn willing to give up a little

20:19

bit of liberty and say , should I leave

20:21

this employer , I am not going to solicit their

20:23

customers . That to me seems very

20:25

reasonable . Or I'm not going to leak

20:27

confidential information . What doesn't

20:29

seem reasonable is a social contract in which power

20:32

is granted too much in

20:34

one direction or the other . And

20:37

I think when you start to get into these overarching non-competes

20:40

, you start to get into this what we

20:42

would consider , from a political theory perspective , oppressive

20:44

government , like you start to get into this oppressive

20:47

situation in which too much power

20:49

is yielded by the employer

20:51

to the detriment of the individuals

20:54

, and I think that's like where

20:56

we have to strike the middle ground here .

20:59

Personally , yeah , yeah

21:01

, no 100 , and yeah , it's

21:03

super . It's interesting . You say , though , it's like a shift

21:05

in in , like it's bigger than the actual issue . Right , it's not . It's interesting . You say , though , it's like a shift

21:07

in in , like bigger than the actual issue . Right , it's not just

21:09

about non-competes , like we're talking

21:11

about bigger , bigger things . One of the things

21:14

I've been thinking about a lot recently , as well as

21:16

just these kind of like changes in mindset

21:18

with how people are viewing

21:20

work , and I'd be curious to get your take

21:22

as , like somebody who employs

21:25

people , you obviously are working with

21:27

clients as well , so I know your team's

21:29

maybe you're not necessarily having the recruiting

21:32

conversations , but your team is are

21:34

you starting to see like just a shift with just

21:36

even how people

21:38

are viewing work as a whole

21:40

? Have you seen shifts in mentality

21:43

? What's ? Because I think it all ties together

21:45

. Right , it's just how we're viewing these work

21:47

and employee-employer relationships

21:49

. What sort of shifts

21:51

are you seeing , or have you seen , or are

21:54

there any shifts taking place ?

21:56

I think there are , and I think some of these shifts are going

21:58

to be long-term . Right , like

22:00

we're just country culture

22:02

, we're moving in a certain direction

22:05

. Right , there's a greater shift occurring . Some

22:07

of it's going to be shorter lived . Right , it's somewhat

22:09

seasonal . Right , we're

22:12

coming . We're still in a suppressed

22:14

market where limited

22:16

jobs and layoffs these are

22:18

big problems and I think whenever

22:21

you're in a situation in which people

22:23

are going through trauma to

22:25

some extent or difficult times to some extent

22:27

, there usually is a realignment when it comes

22:29

to value systems . Right

22:32

, it's easy , like when we were seeing the growth market

22:34

in tech a few years ago let's go back

22:36

to 2021 . Or , if you want to go back to pre-COVID

22:39

times , when we had that insane growth market for close

22:41

to 10 years , when things are going really well

22:43

, a lot of the times , people start to pour

22:45

their sense of identity and bend

22:48

their values more towards who they are professionally

22:50

. They get this sense of pride

22:52

and accomplishment . Things are going really well . We

22:55

all , probably , are guilty of this

22:57

, patting ourselves a little bit too much on the back when

23:00

it comes to the outcomes that we're producing

23:02

, producing

23:08

and then what happens is when you go through winter professionally and you start to see

23:10

all those things get stripped away your job title , your identity , your income , everything

23:12

that you worked so hard to build over the past

23:14

decade is just taken from you . And

23:16

it's like when that type of stuff happens

23:18

, you start to see this value realignment where you're like

23:20

wait a second , who am I if

23:22

I'm not ? My career I thought I was this

23:24

person , but I guess I'm not . Who

23:27

am I ? What matters ? And you start thinking about okay , what

23:29

about my health ? My health is suffering right

23:31

now because of all the stress and all this type of stuff . My

23:34

relationships are suffering because of the stress . And

23:36

you start to realize , okay , the family relationships

23:38

, health . And you start to see this rebalance

23:41

. And people have just gotten burnt

23:43

out so bad over the past several years

23:45

that their mindset has

23:47

shifted to essentially

23:50

valuing these other things , which , quite honestly

23:52

, this is why sometimes , to

23:54

some extent , there's caveats to this . It's

23:56

not an absolute statement , but everybody

23:59

needs hardship in their lives

24:01

because that is what aligns

24:04

our values or helps us prioritize

24:06

and understand what really matters . So

24:08

I think some of that's happening , but I think it was

24:10

also going to happen .

24:11

It's been a long time since we've been . I just

24:13

think the last time I guess COVID

24:15

was that was just such a bizarre

24:18

. And then just seeing like the shift right after that

24:20

, so quickly it was . I just

24:22

did a post today about like recruiters and

24:24

how and I was like typing

24:26

. I was like I was looking at it . I was like , oh man

24:29

, in 2021 , they were like

24:31

more valuable than engineer not more valuable

24:33

, but it was harder to find a recruiter than an

24:35

engineer . And I'm like and I looked at the

24:37

date and I'm like we're 2024 . That was

24:39

three years ago and I'm like this is just

24:41

last four years . It's just been a complete

24:43

blur . But Last four years has just been a complete blur . But then before

24:45

that , it was like we

24:47

had a good run . It's like really like that 2008

24:50

to 2011 . And

24:53

then it was almost like a decade of just everything's

24:55

growing , everything's good , everything's stable

24:57

, everything's good , like we're at good times , and

25:08

so for a lot of people , it's like all of the things we're going through with inflation and

25:10

interest rates and global news , it's it's . It's just like a tougher time . And I 100 agree

25:12

with you though that and I will make it an absolute statement

25:14

I think the tough things in

25:16

life are difficult things in life . They teach

25:18

you more about yourself than the easy things in life

25:21

, like I just think that's a principle , right

25:23

you never know what you're made of unless you

25:25

face adversity .

25:27

Yeah , you never know what you really , what you value

25:29

. You never know how you're going to act . It's like this , you're

25:31

right , and that's a big part of it . So I

25:33

think for some people it's

25:39

going to be a permanent shift . I think for some people , when the market does start to come

25:41

back , stronger recruiters or otherwise , you're going to enter , like summer

25:43

and fall seasons and people

25:45

are going to forget that winter exists . It's

25:47

, somebody has a health issue and they're

25:49

like , oh my God , I should have called my mom more . I got

25:51

to , I got to go talk to , I got to do this , I got to do that

25:53

.

25:54

Yeah .

25:54

And then they're okay , oh shit

25:57

, I'll do that next month , like you , immediately go

25:59

back to your old way of thinking it's

26:07

that's going to happen to . I do think that and I'm referring to the people that are like our

26:09

age or maybe older than us or a little bit younger I think one of the things you talk a lot about

26:11

, like Gen Z and their approach to work . I think that's like different . I think there's

26:13

two things going on here . I think like one is very

26:16

situational , based on the economy of the past few years

26:18

, and that impacted people's values and how they view their

26:20

work . And then I think there's also one

26:22

thing that you talk a lot about is the younger generation entering

26:24

the workforce , which are also viewing

26:26

work differently too . But I do think it's nuanced

26:28

, it's different , yeah .

26:29

I just I've been . I talk a lot about this

26:32

on some of my other social channels outside

26:34

of LinkedIn , because I just think maybe

26:36

there's more of like a platform to be able to do

26:38

that . But it's even . I just think about like

26:40

how work was with

26:43

like grandparents you

26:47

don't hear a lot of like grandparents necessarily talking about the culture

26:49

and like trying to find meaning and purpose . It was like a lot of people were like clock

26:52

in , clock out and obviously it was like a lot of those

26:54

jobs were like manufacturing and they

26:56

were those types of jobs and they paid well

26:59

or they paid enough to be able

27:01

to buy a house and do these different

27:03

things . And now it's just

27:05

less history . Right , it's

27:07

just not the time we're in . But also

27:09

you have this just development of again

27:12

we just talked about it earlier Like it's just cheaper

27:14

to start a business than before . There's a lot of

27:16

tools out there that if you know

27:19

how to use them , you could do a lot Like . I

27:21

look at some of my local businesses around where I'm

27:24

at and I've talked

27:26

to people who own these businesses and

27:28

start asking them like how

27:31

are you using kind of any AI for things

27:33

? Or like what kind of technology you're using and they're not

27:35

using anything . What are you doing for

27:37

marketing ? Oh , it's word of mouth and I'm like . And

27:40

then you have this like other breed of

27:42

people who are like typically they

27:44

skew younger because it's just that they maybe just

27:46

they have more technology , they grew up with it , they're more

27:48

familiar with it , more , a little bit more

27:50

open-minded sometimes , and they're like yeah

27:53

, like I'm like . I got a cousin who just

27:55

, like on the side , learned how to do SEO and

27:57

then just start building businesses , start

27:59

building web pages for local businesses

28:02

, and just started funding following leads , and

28:04

so he'll just build a website and after six months he's

28:06

the number one ranked in the

28:08

search and he starts getting calls and just sells

28:10

those leads . And so you have

28:12

kind of people who are just thinking differently , like

28:14

that , and then it's . I

28:16

was on a podcast recently and they were

28:18

this guy's got gen z kids and he was

28:21

like just asking him about like , jobs and career

28:23

, and they're like I don't really know . And he said gigs

28:25

and they're like oh , yeah , I know gigs . And

28:27

then they were talking again and they were like

28:29

his kids are like yeah , google's for boomers and

28:32

I use chat , gpt to find out things . Yeah

28:35

, like , or I go to tiktok to find out things or I go

28:37

to youtube , but yeah , I never use

28:39

google . And you're like what

28:42

? Yeah , and I

28:44

think a lot of these changes they happen like

28:46

subtle and they happen quickly . But I

28:48

think like again , like that work relationship

28:50

, like it's just . I think people have seen

28:52

like this whole idea of like loyalty for a

28:54

long time . I just don't see that

28:56

being a thing for people coming into

28:58

the workforce . I think there's a lot more mentality of , hey

29:01

, career is a longer term , I

29:03

want to learn as many skills as I can , and I think

29:05

employers it's just learning . How do you make that symbiotic

29:08

to where you're working with people in this

29:10

type of new culture as well ?

29:13

Yeah , I don't know if it was like people talk about the concept

29:15

of loyalty so I would stay with a company for a long time

29:17

. I don't know if loyalty should

29:20

we even really be using the term loyalty

29:22

? The economy was so different back then and people didn't

29:24

jump . There

29:31

was also impressions of folks that moved around a lot more and there was a lot more I think , even probably

29:33

more so leverage on the employer side . But when it came to employment opportunities

29:35

which meant that when people got in with a good company

29:37

they really didn't want to leave there

29:39

was a lot of factors that contributed to

29:41

that . Now the employees do

29:44

actually have a little bit more power

29:46

, particularly in spaces where there's skill gaps

29:48

, which is traditionally was tech , not

29:51

so much anymore . There's a big shift happening there . I

29:53

still think that loyalty can

29:55

have a role , but a

29:57

role in a healthy relationship

30:00

in which there is shared decision-making

30:03

, shared level of influence . There

30:06

still are opportunities , loyalty or

30:08

not , in which you can make long-term

30:10

relationships work within the context

30:13

of an employer and employee . But

30:15

that really just comes down to

30:17

values and how you treat people

30:19

and the type of people you recruit , and are

30:21

you really treating them like partners and giving them

30:24

equal say when it comes to the

30:26

relationship and the reality is a lot . Equal say when it comes to the relationship and the reality is , like

30:28

, a lot of the times , that isn't the case and maybe

30:30

at some points it doesn't even make sense for that to be the case

30:32

. So that's okay . But we even like when

30:35

it comes to like shorter tenures and stuff . Steve

30:38

Cadigan , first CHRO

30:40

of LinkedIn , who's come on the show a few times

30:42

. I think one of the things he always talks about is like the

30:44

biggest tech companies in the world , like what you're talking about , like

30:46

Oracle , linkedin I'm

30:48

blanking on a few right , but with these

30:50

, a lot of these big companies , these tech companies

30:52

that are disproportionately adding the most value

30:55

in the marketplace , all of

30:57

them , when they were going through the hyper growth in

30:59

the early days and the growth stages , all

31:01

of them had employees with average tenures under

31:03

two years . All of them .

31:05

Exactly .

31:06

Like LinkedIn , when they scaled from a few hundred people to

31:08

a few thousand and ultimately became like a billion

31:10

dollar company . Average tenure of FTEs

31:12

, full-time employees nine months . So

31:16

it's like this concept . To derive

31:18

value from an employment relationship , you

31:20

need to retain folks for

31:22

two to five years . If you're not structuring

31:25

roles in such a way which you're not getting value within

31:27

the first month and you can't be

31:29

better off as a result of the employee being there in six

31:31

months , you're really not doing your

31:33

job . Now there are some enterprise account

31:35

executives with 18-month sales cycles . There

31:38

are exceptions . It's not absolute , so let's not focus

31:40

on all the little nuance . But as a general statement

31:43

, companies need to understand

31:45

how to get people ramped up

31:47

faster . Make get . Make

31:49

sure they get a return on investment , return on capital

31:51

look at it that way faster . Make

31:54

sure that they can prevent knowledge gaps so

31:56

when people leave , they can ramp up a new person faster

31:58

. Make sure they have a good talent acquisition

32:00

program in place so they can quickly plug somebody

32:02

else in like those

32:04

motions are more important now than ever

32:06

. But the idea of tenure

32:08

, it was never necessary . You see

32:10

, the most successful companies in the world didn't

32:13

have folks with good tenure and I think now

32:15

it's just . This is becoming largely due to the economy

32:18

, but then also due to , as you said , it's a generational

32:20

thing as well . I do think it's a trend

32:22

that's going to continue and , I think

32:24

, a lot of roles . It's perfectly fine

32:26

for there to be six to nine-month

32:28

engagements , I agree , and

32:31

honestly , there's more fluidity , there's a benefit from

32:33

the employer side . You don't want fixed costs on your profit

32:35

and loss . I don't want that .

32:38

I think you got to look at the roles . Recruiting

32:40

is such a great example , right . Because

32:42

, it's like a seasonal

32:45

function , because

32:48

there's no way that company is just going to grow

32:50

at the same rate forever . It's

32:52

always going to have times of

32:55

scaling and okay

32:57

, we're hiring more and you're going to have times

32:59

where you're not hiring as much . So it's just a complicated

33:01

thing . Sales , you could argue

33:03

, is maybe one of those roles where you

33:05

can always do with more sales . But there's limits

33:07

on that too , right , because you can't always just

33:09

take on unless

33:12

you may . Obviously , tech is a lot scalable

33:15

, but depending on how scalable your business is doesn't

33:17

mean you're always going to need salespeople . So I

33:20

think it's just looking at your role and going , okay

33:22

, is my role one that's just always

33:24

going to be needed ? And then going , okay , maybe it

33:26

won't be , and I think you're always

33:28

going to have a core group of people in

33:30

an organization . I don't think that

33:32

could go away . Like you're going to have people

33:35

who are there for a long time , who are

33:37

committed . But I think it's just weird

33:39

. We just got into this place of that's every employee

33:42

then . Or it's like early career people

33:44

, like when you're

33:46

early 20s . It's just ridiculous

33:48

to think that you're like interviewing people and asking

33:50

them like , oh so where do you see yourself in five

33:52

years , early 20s ? Put yourself in that position

33:54

. Where were you in early 20s ? Were you really thinking

33:57

about five years in the future ? There's a lot that can happen

34:00

in five years , in your early 20s , and

34:02

so it's like looking at , maybe

34:04

it's okay for this short

34:06

term and for these projects and for this agreed

34:08

work . We want your loyalties

34:11

. Just

34:18

we want you to work hard and we want to be focused and we're going to pay you appropriately for that and we're going to have this . I love what you

34:20

said . I think it's more of this understanding of like partnerships , like employer

34:22

partnerships , rather than it just being like

34:25

almost hey , I'm just going to be committed

34:27

, no matter what . I think I think for employees

34:29

like if you can understand this and go all right

34:32

, obviously we've got things like ai and

34:34

technology's moving really fast , so

34:36

does it even make sense for us to even

34:38

look long-term , because we don't even know where our business is going to

34:40

be long-term . So it's almost like being

34:42

able to have those conversations more openly

34:45

and all I've been thinking about recently

34:47

is just even interview processes and how people

34:49

interview people . It's just not

34:51

working Like . Employee

34:53

engagement is low , turnover

34:57

is really high , trust in companies . So I'm like or even interview process

34:59

and employer branding and how recruiters are

35:01

selling organizations . I just think there needs

35:03

to be a shift of a mindset and somehow

35:05

there's got to be transparency and

35:07

just more open conversations rather

35:10

than everybody just going we'll commit you long-term

35:12

. We have a great culture and we we had . We're a perfect

35:14

place and you're a perfect candidate . So

35:17

how do we add in some like authenticity

35:19

in there in a right way that's

35:22

actually productive rather than ? I

35:25

think the point we're at it's get job seekers all the time . How

35:27

should I answer this question ? I'm like would you want

35:29

like a form ? This isn't a video game . I

35:31

don't want to give you like the double click

35:33

a , b , c to get the job . Answer

35:36

it honestly is that crazy

35:38

? But but then when people do answer honestly

35:40

, they don't get through . So it's just a weird . It's

35:42

a weird dichotomy . Yeah

35:44

, there's this . Yeah , that could be challenging . Definitely

35:47

, I feel like we're gonna have a lot to talk about in these episodes

35:49

yeah for sure , and we could keep going and going

35:51

.

35:51

I I think just the one thing , though , is keep in mind

35:53

is like employers do need to be mindful of the fact

35:55

that there's a younger generation out there

35:57

that might be looking at things more in terms of gig

36:00

economy , but let's not forget also that

36:02

to some extent , we

36:04

have to consider people's ages and their

36:06

responsibilities in life . Short-term contracts

36:08

sound really great , probably in your early 20s , before

36:10

you have a mortgage , married kids , these types

36:12

of things . A lot of the folks that

36:15

I speak to , they want a

36:17

position where they're going to hopefully be there a few years

36:19

. There is a generational thing in terms of

36:21

shifts in terms of mindset , but they're

36:23

also like we need to balance that out with the fact that there's

36:25

also okay . We're talking about folks that are

36:27

in their early twenties here , so their values are

36:30

probably going to shift as

36:32

they get older as well , so there's more to it that we have to

36:34

shift as they get older as well , so there's more to it that we had to unpack

36:36

as well and you're 100 right then is you

36:38

can't treat .

36:39

I think it's figuring out what actually matters

36:41

to you . Is it stability , is it learning

36:44

new skills ? Is it ? And it

36:46

can be a combination of all things , but

36:49

I think to your point . It's like not

36:51

treating everybody the same , which I mean , but that's . It was like

36:53

we're trying to treat everybody the same , but it I mean , but that's . It was like we're trying

36:55

to treat everybody the same , but it doesn't even make sense logically . Well , no , you

36:57

can treat everybody , you can be fair in it , it'd be fair

36:59

.

36:59

Exactly so . We strive for fairness , but not treating

37:02

people the same . It's like there's that's so great

37:04

A difference , right . Like

37:15

you , you want to . You should our values . What do we need

37:17

and how do we align ourselves with the people that If

37:19

somebody who values a gig economy isn't the right fit for

37:21

your business , then you have to one figure

37:23

out can I actually get people that don't have that

37:25

mindset for what I need ? And

37:27

so that's where it's okay ? I need people that can work

37:29

at this price point . I need flexibility

37:31

in my budget to not have

37:33

a fixed cost , so I have a low

37:36

price point . I need flexibility in my budget , but

37:38

I want somebody who's going to stay with me for

37:40

years . The reality is that those things

37:42

might not be compatible . You might need

37:44

to figure out okay , how

37:52

can I change my product offering or my pricing or whatever else so that I can get folks or whatever

37:54

that align with more of a long-term mission ? Or what do I need to do to shift so that I can make

37:56

my business model work with people that are more in

37:58

the gig economy ? There's sometimes there's a mismatch

38:01

between what a company wants and what they're able to , what

38:04

profile they're attracting .

38:05

So there's some things there to consider as well and

38:08

I think that's where I kept talking about this again a

38:10

lot where it's obviously I do a lot on social media

38:12

and I get a wide net

38:14

of things . But the more I look at

38:16

like I've just been doing research

38:18

on like maybe it's companies that have

38:20

gotten heat for maybe

38:23

layoffs they've made Just companies that are like

38:25

trending and it's not like a witch hunt and

38:29

I'm not going to name names , but I think I look sometimes at company

38:31

pages and then basically

38:33

you see , see , let's say , a layoff reaches the

38:35

news and then you hear like the ceo's

38:37

remarks okay

38:39

, great . But then you go to the website

38:42

and the career page . It's every career pages

38:44

. We're a great place for everybody , we want everybody

38:46

, and I'm like this is where

38:48

the transparency is . Let's just not , let's

38:50

not just say things , because that's

38:52

how we sell people on things . How

38:55

do we bring transparency ? And again , it's I'm not

38:57

saying you put your dirty laundry out there

38:59

. I don't know what I'm saying , but there's a difference

39:01

between some of it .

39:03

I think it's , I don't know . It's the same thing with , like , personal

39:06

relationships . If you've ever

39:08

met a person that you want to be friends with more like , we've all

39:10

met this person , that like comes

39:12

across as like maybe a little puts

39:15

up this facade of being great in all

39:17

these types of ways where , even if you walk away

39:19

from the conversation oh that's a really seems like a really

39:21

impressive person that's not necessarily

39:24

the person you're gonna hit up . Hey , you want to hang out because

39:26

if somebody feels unattainable , first of all you're

39:28

not gonna make a connection . Second of all , it

39:30

can sound conceited and and arrogant

39:32

to just talk about how great you

39:35

are and and you're not going to want to be friends with that type

39:37

of person either . The type of person that

39:39

you want to be friends with probably is somebody

39:41

who is outgoing , probably

39:44

nonjudgmental , somebody

39:46

that's in the this is generalizations , right , of

39:48

course . Like people like to be type of people . I'm just saying

39:50

like somebody who's they have a lot of positive attributes

39:52

, whatever that means to you , but they're

39:54

also like real , like you're like oh , like you

39:56

also can relate on , like some

39:58

of the harder shit , like some of the challenges , right

40:00

yeah , it's vulnerability like that yeah

40:02

, like that whole like vulnerability type of thing , where

40:04

it's like it feels it's a lot more like real and you're actually getting

40:07

a pulse for someone who somebody really is . That's

40:09

going to build a lot more trust . Yeah

40:11

, I've always said like one way to articulate this

40:13

, or to live by this principle and the

40:15

interview process , is companies should be spending

40:17

a lot more time talking about their problems , their

40:20

challenges not just like selling hey , like

40:22

we're doing all this cool stuff , we're working with this awesome tech

40:24

. You're gonna be working on this project .

40:26

We got nap pods .

40:27

Here's a couple of the biggest challenges we're facing

40:29

right . Like we have

40:32

, we want to develop this product , but

40:34

we have this massive technical constraint , or

40:36

we have this thing happening on the competitive

40:39

side , or whatever it might be , and

40:41

the goal is to find people that are passionate about solving

40:44

for that challenge . Yeah , it's not just

40:46

about people that are passionate about your how amazing

40:48

you are when it gets to like the things that you're not

40:50

good at , that you currently suck at

40:52

. Can you find people that see that

40:54

as a challenge and be you know what ? I have the right stuff

40:56

to make that better . To me , that's how you build a great

40:58

company I .

41:00

I actually think it's easier for agencies

41:02

to be able to partner

41:04

with companies like this , because I think I

41:07

used to see this all the time . I partner with a company

41:09

and it's like the classic

41:11

tell me about your culture . Oh , it's really great . We

41:14

promote people from within . We've got really

41:17

work hard , play hard culture . You

41:19

just hear a lot of the same things . And

41:21

then you start going out

41:23

into the market . You send out

41:25

whatever some emails . You send out some emails

41:28

, start talking to people and they're like nope

41:31

, not interested . Why aren't you interested ? Yeah

41:34

, I just heard bad things , bad things . Would you hear bad things ? We had three employees from that

41:36

company that joined our company and they told us

41:38

blah , blah , blah . And then you go back to the company

41:40

. You're like hey , look , I've just done some initial research

41:42

and it looks like we've got a couple issues . What do you know

41:44

about this ? And most companies are aware

41:47

of what's going on . They're like

41:49

yeah , we know this is an issue . And then you

41:51

just start getting in that conversation okay , so what ? So what

41:53

are some of the things that you're doing to change this ? And then

41:55

you start to approach it from what you just said , which is

41:57

can you find people who are motivated by

41:59

that challenge .

42:00

There's people out there that want to take it upon themselves

42:02

to make their employer better .

42:04

Exactly .

42:05

Maybe it's within their role to do it

42:07

or not , but you can turn a

42:09

negative into a selling point

42:12

.

42:16

Exactly , and I think that's the piece right . I just think of what should happen in . There's a level

42:18

of it in employer branding , there's a level of it

42:20

in recruitment marketing and

42:22

then there's a level of it in your actual recruitment

42:24

process and I think , like

42:27

you said , you want to have an environment that's inclusive

42:29

, but you also want to be honest about

42:31

the environment that people are going

42:34

into , and I think the fear is we've

42:36

just created these kpis of like huge

42:38

funnels and the more applicants

42:40

the better , and you hear it all the time in agency

42:42

, right , yeah , just send me as many applicants as you can , it's

42:44

what ? Who else is out there ? All

42:46

of those cliches . Instead

42:48

of just focusing on what's the quality , I'd rather

42:51

have 10 quality people that are aware

42:53

of what they're getting into , for better or for

42:55

it . And again , work-life balance I think is a great

42:57

one , cause it was like suddenly every company's got a great

42:59

work-life balance . And then you talk

43:01

to people that are like nah , actually you work like

43:04

whatever 60 to 80 hours

43:06

, and I'm like , why just say

43:08

that ? Because , yeah , a bunch of people are going to go

43:10

. Ooh , I don't like that environment .

43:12

Awesome , we

43:15

just saved a bunch of time , but there's people out there that see their identity

43:18

as their work , they're

43:20

going to thrive better anyway . They're going to produce better results

43:22

. I agree with you and if you can't be transparent

43:25

and attract the right people , then you

43:27

got to change your culture . But

43:30

you can look at it from a hyper-rational perspective

43:32

as well . You don't have to say I'm changing culture

43:34

because I value work-life

43:36

balance , even if you're an employer . You could say from

43:39

a hyper rational perspective . You could say I'm going to change

43:41

my culture because I need people that

43:43

fit xyz criteria so that I can hit

43:45

my financial metrics like . The

43:48

concept of culture doesn't have to be this like warm

43:51

and fuzzy emotional base but that , but

43:53

that that has what it has .

43:55

That's what it's become and I don't know

43:58

. I don't know , do you because you've ? I've

44:00

been in recruitment for a decade and it feels like it's always

44:02

been like that , do you ? What are your thoughts

44:04

on ? Like that tipping point when , like culture

44:07

became that ? Is that just like

44:09

evolution ?

44:10

it's . I think , from a people perspective , an individual

44:12

perspective . Culture essentially has

44:14

always leaned

44:16

on the sides of like feeling and emotion and caring

44:18

about each other and empathy . And from an employer

44:21

perspective , I think

44:23

it's seen as more of a means to an end .

44:26

And .

44:26

I think actually like neither are the right answer

44:28

.

44:28

It's like a necessary evil . It's a necessary

44:30

.

44:31

I think it's in the middle . As a company

44:33

, you should never just see people as a means

44:36

to an end . So , even if you have

44:38

a good culture , still doing it

44:40

from the perspective of a means to an end probably

44:42

isn't the type of leaders

44:45

that people want to work for . They don't want to feel

44:47

like the company is only doing

44:49

this because they have to . They

44:52

want to work for leaders that there is a level of empathy

44:54

and care in terms of how they interact with the employees . From

44:56

the other perspective , employees should

44:59

not expect companies to do things sheerly

45:01

out of empathy and care . There

45:03

needs to be an understanding that to some extent

45:05

, culture is driven by

45:07

producing an environment that is

45:09

going to cultivate the outcomes that the company

45:12

is going after . So it's like this combination

45:14

, like a healthy culture , should be both

45:17

of those things . There is this like emotional care aspect

45:19

, but it's not just that . It's

45:21

not just about it has to be also

45:24

aligned with what are the North Star metrics

45:26

that the company needs to achieve

45:28

, and it's that balancing act . A lot of the times when companies

45:30

can't find the right folks or there's friction

45:33

between people getting frustrated when they're hired , have

45:35

you truly found the right balance between those

45:38

things . If you can't be transparent and get

45:40

the right people , then something's

45:42

probably out of center

45:44

with this equation of means to

45:46

an end pure empathy , care

45:49

. Where do we meet in the middle ? And if you're finding that

45:51

right middle ground , you should be able to set realistic

45:53

expectations with people and

45:55

then you should be able to get the right

45:57

people . If you make sure you have a

45:59

little bit of care , you have care , compassion , but

46:02

you're also doing what's right for the business . It's

46:04

finding that middle ground . You find that middle ground , you can find

46:06

great people and you can get people that are

46:08

going to work harder do what you need to do within

46:10

reason .

46:11

Yeah , it's super . I don't know . I've got like a million

46:13

thoughts in my head going on , but no , I just

46:15

. I was actually just at a conference yesterday

46:17

up in Milwaukee and

46:20

one of the speakers was just

46:22

talking about this whole idea of like sustainability

46:24

and that automatically people

46:26

think environmental sustainability

46:29

. But he's basically talking about creating cultures

46:31

where people are

46:33

paid well right , because if someone's not paid

46:35

well , they're not in a good place there

46:37

. It's very hard for them to be as productive

46:39

but then creating environments where people can do

46:41

like creative work

46:44

and just looking at it If you look at

46:46

your business , how long

46:48

, if nothing else changed , could people actually

46:50

keep doing the job without getting burned out

46:53

and all this other stuff . But it just really made

46:55

me think about what you're saying and it's like

46:57

finding that middle ground

46:59

. I think we have to have more of these conversations

47:01

because I on

47:04

a literally every time I talk to somebody

47:06

and you know who's hiring

47:08

they all repeat

47:10

very similar things when it comes to

47:13

culture and I think it's like leadership

47:16

has to drive those honest conversations and

47:18

create a space for people to actually

47:20

I'm not saying like vent

47:22

, even vent about things

47:24

, because I think there are certain times where , as an employee . You

47:26

just have to understand like there

47:28

are going to be things that are frustrating and

47:30

you don't need to , you don't ? You

47:33

don't have to like vent that out every single

47:35

time , and then there's even a bet . There's a balance

47:37

, right , if you work for a company , being

47:39

a part of the culture I talk about this

47:41

a lot of my content , probably more from a cynical point

47:43

of view , but part of being a part of a culture

47:45

is like going

47:48

along with things and like supporting the company

47:50

culture and being positive . Those

47:52

are all things which people don't really talk about . But

48:02

when people hire you , part of your pay is like representing the

48:04

brand well , like being a good , being excited about the work that you're doing . But

48:06

I think there's a room for an honest conversations

48:08

about challenges and I think that it's

48:10

just . I don't think people feel

48:12

comfortable airing out

48:15

those things because there can be that sense

48:17

then like all right , you're just not a fit . And I've

48:19

seen it a couple times where particularly people who just

48:21

join companies people

48:23

have been at the company for a really long time oh , they're not

48:26

going to be a fit . I remember one instance

48:28

where I was mentoring somebody

48:30

and it was like a lot of leaders were like , yeah

48:32

, I just don't think the person's a great fit . I was like , dude

48:34

, been here for six weeks , you

48:37

gotta give up a chance . They're feeling this pressure

48:39

and then it's three years on

48:41

, they're like a great performer

48:44

and a top performer . And I'm like , again

48:46

, it's like when you bring people into an organization

48:49

I've experienced and I probably experienced

48:51

it's more like smaller companies but

48:53

there can be that like we've

48:55

got this culture and no one can come into

48:57

it and it's this weird thing that can happen

49:00

. And oftentimes it's like those

49:02

companies are the ones that , on the face

49:04

of it , everything's exciting , and then there's

49:06

this underbelly where people are actually experiencing

49:09

things but they don't feel comfortable bringing them up

49:11

. I think it's like as leadership , it's's again

49:14

, like you said , finding that middle ground of like how

49:16

do we have these conversations to where people feel

49:18

safe ? How do we do it in

49:21

a way that's realistic ? But I again

49:23

, I think that's starts with recruitment

49:25

and onboarding and like bringing people into a

49:27

realistic environment , cause I think

49:30

some people will know some

49:32

of the culture stuff and , like the culture video

49:34

, some people will know there's just an element of BS in there

49:36

anyway , and obviously not everybody's happy

49:38

about everything , but not everybody . There

49:40

will be people who genuinely think this is the perfect

49:42

place . I will work here for the rest

49:44

of my life , and then it's six months later . They're like confused

49:47

, and so I'm like how do you bridge that

49:49

gap ?

49:49

Yeah , yeah , we're definitely gonna

49:52

have to continue this conversation . Yeah , we're definitely gonna have to

49:54

continue this conversation . It's been , uh , it's been excited , for

49:56

sure , for sure .

49:58

I'd love to hear from people too . Obviously you have both

50:00

of our profiles . If you're listening out there and you

50:02

have like thoughts on this or like questions

50:04

, or even just you're like , yeah

50:06

, here's what we've done

50:08

, I'd love to just hear from people on this as well , because I just

50:11

think I don't know anyone that's figured it out

50:13

. And yeah , obviously we work with

50:15

just lots of different companies , so you get to see

50:17

lots of different angles and similarities and

50:19

trends and all that type of stuff

50:21

.

50:22

Yeah , for sure , everybody tuning in , feel free to reach

50:24

out to us on LinkedIn . All right , I know Joel's

50:26

on pretty much every relevant

50:28

social platform LinkedIn's good for this . Okay

50:31

, cool , cool . All

50:33

right , joel , hey , man , this was a lot of fun . I'm looking forward

50:35

to recording again in a couple of weeks

50:37

. Here Again , everyone , we're going to be Joel

50:39

and I are going to be recording an episode every couple of weeks

50:42

, so it's going to be a fun of ongoing segment

50:44

of the show and , joel , thanks for partnering with me on

50:46

this . Man , I'm really pumped about it .

50:47

Yeah , thanks for having me . We'll talk soon , excited

50:50

for the next couple of months there as .